“The poet in our current time is complacent, maintaining an air of respectability or is the creator of outrageous manifestos — in either case is benign. In times past poets were leaders and creators of reality; they were respected and entrusted with the keeping of cultural inheritance. Somehow this has changed, and poets now are non-entities for the most part; sure, they are politely applauded by small audiences, they sell a few volumes; they put their private lives on display to make others feel human. But this is all ‘culture’, a word which now seems to mean, not the whole of society, but entertainment for the few — dividends received for living in a ‘civilized’ society. Furthermore, poets generally believe that they are effective, believe they make an impact on society; and who is responsible for this misconception is a great mystery — some influence outside the poetic community, or worse yet, the poets themselves — an important question that will not be answered here. This, for us, is the important fact: the poet has somehow been marginalized, and there is no sense that our society would die without the presence of poetry or poets. Perhaps this is the gravest sign of cultural coma.”
– Brad N. Haas
Hi Red:
That’s a really good quote about poets not having the impact they once did. It seems to me that art in general used to “lead” society – it was a vehicle to get people to look at themselves. That doesn’t seem to be so much the case any more. It may be a matter of the homogenizing influence of mass media – it’s hard for art to get noticed in the cacaphony of bad popular media. But I don’t know that that’s the whole problem.
It reminds me of James Dickey – who was the Poet Laureate of South Carolina. He once said he wasn’t doing his job if he didn’t piss somebody off every day. (He might have been talking about teaching English when he said it, though :) James Dickey was just cool. He replaced Archibald Rutledge, another poet who had serious social impact. Dickey was replaced by Bennie Lee Sinclair, who is a very nice lady and a very good poet, but have you heard of her? Can you say off the top of your head how Bennie Lee has changed the public consciousness?
James Dickey was amazing.
And I have never heard of Bennie Lee Sinclair in my life.