I think we all know what's going to happen next...There's a line in the 1946 classic film Gilda where Rita Hayworth tells Glenn Ford that she hates him so much that she would destroy herself to take him down with her. To me, that's nasty but there's also something beautiful about the sentiment. And just a tad hot, too.
Poetry is my Johnny Farrell. (Do yourself a truly big favor and see the movie.) I hate poetry so much that I would gladly, openly and willingly destroy myself to take it down with me. Not really, but I can and have hated it for a long, long time. Anyone that knows me agrees that I'll gripe about a good many things. Most things I can't stand or (validly) claim to loathe generally don't get that much of an outward reaction from me. I might rant about something or someone on my own personal shitlist for a minute or two, but more often than not I just get a facial expression that's the equivalent of a forced, moist fart. Then I let out a delayed groan, internalize my disdain for said object and let it kill a very small part of me. And that's usually the extent of it.
In poetry's case maybe it's poets themselves. Everyone I've ever known that's written poetry has been so into it and out there about it. That air of pretention, the whole I'm a poet thing, its like they think they're a walking $20 you found in your pocket. Like you should be so fucking honored to know them. Oh, you're a poet? Lavish me with your incoherent and unintelligable prose...! Please, please please!!!
I hate the rhythm of poetry too, whether it rhymes or not. Hearing poetry is like reading a Dr. Seuss book that doesn't have the excuse of being written for kids and is kind of devised to help them to learn how to read. During President Obama's inaguration I listened to Elizabeth Alexander's poem, cringed and waited for the whole goddamned thing to be over. Great for her, but I fought to keep the gagging from giving way to puking. I get embarrassed listening to people recite poetry.
I think that part of it goes back to high school. Every once in a while I'd date a girl who'd be into poetry and really, really identified with Sylvia Plath. (Lucky me.) My write me one and every once in a while (or in some cases all the time) she'd want me to read it right there. Put me on the spot, great. Just fucking great. So I'm reading it and either not getting it or not caring. And I don't know what to say. I have no idea what the hell to say. Usually it was bad. Actually it was always bad. Or just really gay, I didn't get it or I didn't really care to get it. So to appease this gift of grammatical... um, outpouring I'd just usually start making out with her to get out of having to answer the question of what I thought about it. And worse, do I feel the same way?
One of the more recent instances of the on the spot brand of poetry (not that it makes the variety of poetry any different--I just really can't stand being bum rushed by it. I hate when someone is all excited and wants me to read some emotionally constipated poem they wrote in a spasm of inspiration) was a few years ago when one of my nameless neighbors wanted me to read a poem he (yes, he) wrote. He's a nurse and was into writing about terminal cancer patients he was working with back then. So with my inability to dodge bullets such as these at the time, I'd often find myself reading them off his computer screen because his printer was out of commission. Eventually he got the picture with my barely audible grunts and eventual and innocuous s'not bad comments then left me alone. Whenever someone wants to bear their soul to me and let me read their poetry, I always think of the one Family Guy episode where Stewie complains that everyone always comes out of the closet to him.
I don't even like song lyrics. That's how much I can't stand poetry. When I'm listening to music I pay very little attention to the vocals and lyrics. Pick any one of my favorite albums ever and I can't recite any of the lyrics. Because I don't care. If someone's a decent to great singer that's fine. They can be singing the recipe for a pineapple upside-down cake for all I care but I couldn't give a damn what they're singing about. With one notable exception.
Bob Dylan. I love Dylan's lyrics from the '61-'66 era. I really like the imagery he scares up ("Cinderella, she seems so easy, "It takes one to know one," she smiles, And puts her hands in her back pockets, Bette Davis style") and the occasional zingers ("The sun's not yellow it's chicken.") I used to relish in the lyrics of Morrissey but once I shed my self-importance in my late-20s I realized he's just a really repressed homosexual. It's hard to be that supposedly witty and be straight. And if your audience has grown up but you haven't, well, you've got bigger problems than wearing gold lame shirts.
And as for hip hop? I'm good with hip hop. I won't listen to it for the sake of listening to it. If the beats aren't there then neither am I. I'm down with clever or even fun rhymes like MF Doom's. Wu-Tang's first album, Tribe Called Quest, stuff like that. That Top 40 shit can eat a dick.
But ironically it was poetry itself that inspired me to write this blog. I did a decent job of avoiding it up until a couple days ago. My wife recorded some classical poetry show off HBO Family. All the show basically came down to was a bunch of actors reading well-known poems with moving paintings acting them out. And the supposed zest with which Gwyneth Paltrow read a Shakespeare poem made me want to shit myself to death. I will give the Hoagy Carmichael part respect though. I actually had to leave the room this thing was driving me nuts. All I can hope from here on in is that my wife doesn't encourage my daughter with this crap and that this was a one-shot special.
I think we all know what's going to happen next...
No comments:
Post a Comment