Ars Poeticas Quotes

“I first protested to them not about poetry but about the structural condition of poets, the required courting of institutional authority, the lucky with their listings of grants and prizes won, the resentments of those less lucky fighting for attention on facebook or twitter. The troubles that define the moment: #somanypoems and #sofewreaders and #whatreadersexistareallpoetstoo plus #suchalongtradition. One thought I had as we talked was love the poem but hate being the poet, hate this frayed cloth called poetry community. I mean, there have always been poets and always poets writing a terrible sociality into someone's inbox, but there is so much going to the inbox right now. But what I said to them was something much more mundane. They write rengas to Obama, I said. As if that was something so obviously onerous that I didnt' even have to explain it. They laughed, shrugged as if to say that clearly there are so many worse things one can do with one's time, and show up with sticks to fight at the Berkely all-organic farmers market is one of them. But what they actually said was it has never not been a terrible nation, and there have always been poets too, always poets willingly writing the terrible nation into existence; there is nothing new to this moment.”
― Juliana Spahr, Ars Poeticas