Ruth Lilly and Popular Poetry

February 14, 2007

The question being asked by Dana Goodyear (and many, many others) remains: is Ruth Lilly’s 200 million dollar bequest to Poetry good for poetry? Depending on how you look at it this could mean the same thing as asking whether it will make poetry more popular. It might have to do with having the effect of higher quality (better) poems. Both of these could well be in opposition to each other.

What I do know is the gift was generous and quixotic, which I admire, and financially horribly unsound, which is almost inexplicable were it not that these three attributes so often come together. I’m glad Poetry is recognizing Jack Prelutsky– though it should first honor Shel Silverstein, the giant upon whose shoulders Prelutsky wobbles– because his unabashedly childish poems were instrumental in my daughter developing an affinity for poetry. His book A Pizza the Size of the Sun was a nightly read-out-loud for a good span between Good Night, Moon and Silverstein’s books, which eventually led to Emily Dickinson and many other “adult” poets.

But will Poetry expand to put some much needed light on the Post-Avant crew? The flarfists? The New Brutalists? Will it start supporting the truly vital small, micro, and individual press efforts? Not co-opting, but supporting and recognizing them? Many movements are borne of– and necessitate– the conflict of being opposite and other, and that will remain so. But the other beautiful aspect of turning on the light is that shallow and highly temporal movements will also be revealed for what they are. Some will see their 15 minutes end as they rightly should, some will morph into new movements and styles, others will simply dry up and disappear, left in memory as strange entities that were much more interesting and attractive as ideas than in their execution…

Tags: poetry, Publishing