Dana Gioia, "Can Poetry Matter?" 에서

Dana Gioia, "Can Poetry Matter?: Essays

on Poetry and American Culture" (1992)

 

 

The Example of Elizabeth Bishop

 

Bishop was a poet who existed publicly only in her

work. Yet how clearly one saw her values in the poetry.

It reflected a modest woman who prized honesty,

clarity, and exactitude. (p. 238)

 

One usually came across her work by accident ... by seeing her

name mentioned in print by admirer like Lowell or Jarrell. Her

work did not make a dramatic first impression, but it stuck with

one in the odd way true poetry does --not in the themes or

archetypes but in the specipic images or situations

memorably expressed. A line or two would

become fixed in one's ear for good.:

Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?

(p. 239-240)

 

Her childhood reminiscence "First Death in Nova Scotia"

worked all te more powerfully by being restrained. Her short

narrative poem "House Guest" explored the subtle psycology

of class relations more convincingly by being so insistently

personal. She explored moral dilemmas without having a

predetermined destination. Despite its familiar feel, her

poetry almost always surprized one.... She made the ordinary

seem exotic and the foreign turn familiar. (p. 242)

 

Ultimately Bishop reminded one of the poet's duty to be

true to his or her own sensibility and experience ...

In a confusing time she affirmed poetry's freedom

to move in delight and discovery. (p. 243)

 

 

Business and Poetry

 

But most important, working in nonliterary careers taught

them[Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot, James Dickey, A. R.

Ammons] a lesson too few American writers learn -- that

poetry is only one part of life, that there are some things

more important than writing poetry. (p. 138)

 

 

Can Poetry Matter?

 

Poets who compile anthologies -- or even reading lists --

should be scrupulously honest in including ony poems

they genuinely admire. (p. 23)