Apr 15, 2005 03:00 PM

Poetry country

by James Panero

Following this note from John Jackson on the PSA, I just received another interesting letter on the subject:

Given your apt comments at New Criterion’s blog re the current poetry scene --hermetic, yes, but with no transcendent payoff -- I wanted to alert you to the chapter on art and letters in Robert Conquest’s latest, The Dragons of Expectation. In it he makes a point others have made, that if one wants attention to rhyme and meter one will do better sampling country music than anything the university/poetry combine disgorges. Poet, essayist, and NEA Chairman Dana Gioia makes much the same point, even going so far as to analyze rap/hip-hop (whatever). (Links to Gioia available here, in an article I wrote in Catholic Exchange about Gioia, when he first took charge of the NEA, at Catholic Exchange).

For myself, I’ve always enjoyed Leonard Cohen’s poetic lyrics, a good deal of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, and anybody else who manages to communicate existential poignancy without falling into that vast, shallow pool of angst that encompasses so much of pop culture.

Best,
Robert