love made / her wild
June 13, 2017 9:40 PM   Subscribe

 
guys, listen, young people are enjoying something incorrectly and I think we need to pay a lot of attention to this new and troubling development
posted by Countess Elena at 9:51 PM on June 13, 2017 [81 favorites]


guys, listen, young people are enjoying something incorrectly and I think we need to pay a lot of attention to this new and troubling development

yes
but also
yes
posted by Going To Maine at 9:57 PM on June 13, 2017 [16 favorites]


my name is thom
and when online
i read pomes
that aren’t fine

i don’t want
to prod or poke
(well, a little)
so i make some posts
posted by Going To Maine at 9:58 PM on June 13, 2017 [8 favorites]


I think the younger generation is mostly interested in ‘fidget-spinner’ poetry.

Oh c'mon dude this is one of the oldest old man complaints in the fucking book. Fuck.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:02 PM on June 13, 2017 [55 favorites]


For some reason, I am reminded of the plot line on Train 48 where the struggling young lesbian singer songwriter actually picks up some Christian folk fans who misinterpret one of her songs as being about Jesus, and since she's not getting any traction anywhere else, she kind of goes with it. Before long, she lets it go to her head and then she blows up the whole thing when she decides they'll be cool with her orientation and tries to pick up one of her new admirers who is horrified to discover she's gay.
posted by Naberius at 10:07 PM on June 13, 2017 [3 favorites]


my name is thom,
and on ingram,
love mayde
her wilde,
i posted that
the harts were crayzed –
they ate fried steaks.

i lik the beard.
posted by unliteral at 10:08 PM on June 13, 2017 [3 favorites]


Oh c'mon dude this is one of the oldest old man complaints in the fucking book.

When I was young, we didn't even have books! We had to come up with our own brand-new complaints!! Which was the style at the time.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:10 PM on June 13, 2017 [10 favorites]


See also: A Softer World
posted by fredludd at 10:12 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]


If he had said, "The moon is her lawyer," I could buy in.

Little black dress
Stuck to his skin
An unhappy place
More fore than aft
Her waft was greater
Than what was left
Of her weft.
Oh hotdog, oh
I love love,
with mustard.
Clean up on
Isle 7.
Swipe it
Swipe it,
Left.
posted by Oyéah at 10:18 PM on June 13, 2017 [3 favorites]


Wait, wait
When I was young we didn't have nooks, only crannies.
posted by Oyéah at 10:19 PM on June 13, 2017 [11 favorites]


DeRE ThoM- yer reeel poemmMmMs ain t awl that.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 10:20 PM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]


Huh. Apparently "A Little Black Dress Called Madness" is the serious poetry, not the parody poetry.

When was the last time there was a significant audience for good poetry in the US? The '50s, maybe? This is not really something you can blame on the youth, I don't think. The olds are more likely to read Hallmark cards and inspirational wallhangings than award-reading poetry.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:29 PM on June 13, 2017 [13 favorites]


also heh, serious poems dude is digging at a
feminized poetics, how shocking

somebody on tumblr does weird mashups of alice notley and other such stuff and that is good internet poetics i like
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 12:20 AM on June 14, 2017 [11 favorites]


If that thing about the gills is an example of his "real" poetry, I'd rather stick with "love made / her wild", thanks.

Also, intentional brevity is a significant force in internet writing -- flash fiction, 6 word stories, twitter poetry, etc, etc. The ability to express an interesting idea in a really tiny number of words has a legitimate place in modern literature whether old dudes like it or not. In that tradition, "love made / her wild" is actually interesting, because of what it says and what it doesn't say. It's a complete thought, but it also leaves a lot to the reader -- wild in what way? Is she wild in bed? Gone violent and crazy with jealousy? Mama-bear protective of her children? Is she doing crazy things to attract her love because he too is wild?

I'd much rather think about that than whatever the fuck I'm supposed to understand about the gill person.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:35 AM on June 14, 2017 [18 favorites]


What a condescending asshole. It this is an example of how he treats students, no wonder he has a hard time getting them to read.
posted by happyroach at 12:35 AM on June 14, 2017 [10 favorites]


Apropos of kids these days and their crazy reading habits, chat fiction apps.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:54 AM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


All the subjects of his poems are women. Well, as far as I can tell, girls.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 1:25 AM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


But, like, women "observed"
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 1:26 AM on June 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


He seems insufferable in that article, even though he's got a reply all ready for people who think he's condescending: "To those who might say the experiment is condescending, Young says that’s not his goal. He does not want to criticize those who write or like pop poetry, he said, but instead hopes it leads younger people to think more about what they read (in addition to being a poet, Young is also a high school English teacher)."

Oh you don't say. Pardon me while I retrieve my eyeballs; all that rolling seems to have made them pop out onto the floor.

"He also sometimes points his followers to what he sees as better poetry – including his own." Okay, I'm pretty sure I know exactly what the author of the PBS article thinks of him. Well played, Elizabeth Flock. Well played. I wonder if he reminds her of that guy in your MFA too.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:43 AM on June 14, 2017 [14 favorites]


Any sufficiently advanced poetry is indistinguishable from doggerel.
posted by chavenet at 1:49 AM on June 14, 2017 [14 favorites]


christ / what an asshole
posted by kyrademon at 2:26 AM on June 14, 2017 [26 favorites]


christ.
what?
an asshole!
posted by jacquilynne at 2:44 AM on June 14, 2017 [8 favorites]


she lost
her wild-

ebeest (also
called gnu).

if found
please phone

her (real keeper,
the zoo).
posted by pracowity at 2:53 AM on June 14, 2017 [24 favorites]


poems made
him mild.
posted by belarius at 3:37 AM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Thom Young,
courtesy of
Thom Young
posted by parm at 3:49 AM on June 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


Too much pretense has really hurt the art of poetry, I think. It should be something whimsical and joyful and accessible to everybody, like telling jokes or singing or writing love letters. It's become such a loaded mode of expression, with so much cultural baggage, it's hard to see the fun and love in a lot of it anymore, but poetry should be more like a form of play, to me, a way of engaging with words and ideas that's open and feels nonthreatening and isn't used to make people feel bad. I kind of like the idea of erasing the distinction between good poetry and bad poetry and just looking at all of it as a playful mode of using language that anyone should be allowed and encouraged to incorporate into their lives as a practice. A lot of poets I've admired, like Frank O'Hara, often wrote for specific audiences of friends and lovers not so much as high literature but as intimate communication, as nothing more pretentious and ambitious than telling a friend a personal story or writing a letter in an engaging way, only with more emphasis on ambiguity and feeling and the strange beauty of the misfit between language and strict meaning. I guess what I'm trying to say is I think poetry might be more popular if it didn't have so much cultural baggage and were just something everyone felt like they were allowed to play with and incorporate into their lives without all the cultural pretenses about the art of it being some arcane form of magic. Anyone who's ever written a love letter or a thank you note should feel like more poetic modes of expression are available to them if for no better reason than life needs playfulness and romance from time to time or its all just economics and engineering.

So what if anyone writes doggerel? So what if everyone writes doggerel? I love poetry. But it's mostly an art of the moment and it's rare that any particular poem has any enduring long term significance and resonance beyond its specific audience and that's great, because it means you don't have to think of it as serious work for it to be valuable and useful and life enriching. Some of the most beautiful poems I've ever read were little more than scribbles on napkins passed to me by a friend. Why should it matter if those words wouldn't necessarily resonate with anyone else or make it into the pages of some future literary anthology? People make jokes all the time without having to be pigeonholed as comedians with all the baggage those ambitions imply. Poetry should be no different, just one more in a wide range of ways humans have to express themselves and try to achieve the almost impossible goal of communicating and connecting with other human beings deeply on an intuitive, emotional level.
posted by saulgoodman at 4:10 AM on June 14, 2017 [34 favorites]


that special feeling of dread when I see that my friend has new verses to read out loud
posted by thelonius at 4:26 AM on June 14, 2017 [8 favorites]


If something touches you, makes you feel something, and from that you get inspired or enlightened or "woke" or whatever it is the kids call it these days, it does not matter where that spark came from, whether it's poetry, fake poetry, music, or anything.

Sorry dude, if your intent was to spout doggerel and subsequently mock those who somehow still managed to get something out if it- unpossible. The transaction has left your hands. Doggerel, like inspiration, is wholly in the eye and mind of the beholder. The joke's on you. You're outed as the petty, passive-aggressive attention-seeker you likely always were.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:32 AM on June 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


why didn't all the people who came to this picture-posting site to look at pictures of each other enjoy my long poems that weren't actually pictures
posted by mittens at 4:36 AM on June 14, 2017 [15 favorites]


[...]

| Rubik's | I think | the older |
| generation | is mostly | inter |
| ested in | Cube | poetry |

| generation | I think | the older |
| ested in | is mostly | inter |
| Rubik's | Cube | poetry |

| I think | the older | generation |
| is mostly | inter | ested in |
| Rubik's | Cube | poetry |
posted by pracowity at 5:28 AM on June 14, 2017 [8 favorites]


pracowity: "| I think | the older | generation |
| is mostly | inter | ested in |
| Rubik's | Cube | poetry |
"

It's hip to be cube!
posted by chavenet at 5:50 AM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


Poetry is something you should probably only do for yourself and your muse these days, I should think. Mine is rarely in the mood.
posted by walrus at 6:28 AM on June 14, 2017


I agree intensely with Saulgoodman. To add to the point, I feel like one of the reasons that rap is more accessible and enjoyable than "regular poetry" is that the conventions of the form give more credit to lyrics that are funny or just clever, and funny and clever are the things that poetry is best suited too. Nothing is worse than the poet who produces ~deep~ poetry solely because poetry is supposed to be deep and then tries to read it to you.
posted by bracems at 6:28 AM on June 14, 2017 [9 favorites]


So how exactly would this work? Your hypothetical SERIOUS POETRY convert goes on IG, finds a poem that speaks to them, clicks on the account to see more by that person, and then finds out it's a prank devised to make them feel stupid in order to shame them into liking "better" poetry?

That's like the Chick Track method of conversion.
posted by codacorolla at 6:37 AM on June 14, 2017 [6 favorites]


Poetry is something you should probably only do for yourself and your muse these days, I should think.

And you should wash your hands afterwards.

i see what he's after
but alakazam!
would hugh prather
been nafter
with instagram?
posted by octobersurprise at 6:48 AM on June 14, 2017


burma-shave!
posted by octobersurprise at 6:49 AM on June 14, 2017


That's like the Chick Track method of conversion.

I don't want to be Sylvia Plath anymore!
posted by stevis23 at 7:03 AM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


Paging Ogden Nash.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:20 AM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


When was the last time there was a significant audience for good poetry in the US? The '50s, maybe?

Despite a lifetime spent as an avid reader, and occasionally even a reader of very (ugh) "highbrow" literature, I'm not at all well versed in academic approaches to literature. So this might be an ignorant statement that I'm about to make, but I'll make it anyway.

I'm increasingly unable to formulate any plausible argument that the staggering world wide success of hip-hop doesn't constitute a resurrection of poetry as a popular art form. I suspect that it doesn't get much recognition as such, either in academia or public discussions, mainly because it wasn't a bunch of white guys who pioneered the movement.
posted by Ipsifendus at 7:40 AM on June 14, 2017 [23 favorites]


I second Ipsifendus' post and have felt the same way since the early 90s, when I simultaneously started delving into the works of literary poets and the slam poetry scene while also hiding a deep and abiding love for West Coast rap (my tastes are broader now, 25+ years on. I like East Coast rap too. And Anne Carson). Missy Elliott dropped a new single two days after I got a hardcover Gwendolyn Brooks collection and it was exactly like poetry nerd paradise.
posted by annathea at 7:49 AM on June 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


The “fidget spinner” is the “selfie stick” of 2017, right?
posted by acb at 7:52 AM on June 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


I guess you could make the argument that, being set to music, hip-hop is formally different, but I think that the general idea that verse is alive and well in that genre is a good one.

Inspirational poetry, joke poetry, and even things like memes and more artisitic uses of Twitter (fitting into a constrained and specific form) might be thought of as mainstream, and incredibly popular, types of poetry.

It seems like what's really being deprecated is a specific type of poetry - and even then, I feel like slam poetry and other more youthful versions of the form have a pretty dedicated following.

So really, perhaps the complaint here is about the undervaluation of a specific genre, and a specific canon, and not the form itself.
posted by codacorolla at 8:02 AM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


fidget spinner fidget spinner fidget spinner fidget spinner
Bridget's inner fit Brent Spiner
fitbit winner chicken dinner
fidget spinner
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:04 AM on June 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


So really, perhaps the complaint here is about the undervaluation of a specific genre, and a specific canon, and not the form itself.

Same as it ever was. One time way back in high school, I was having a conversation, in the hallway between class periods, with a favorite English teacher of mine, a really amazing woman, and I was showing her something I was reading that meant a lot to me, probably a Gene Wolfe novel. One of her colleagues, an old guy, walks up and takes the book out her hand. "Science fiction? Who reads this junk?"

I guess he and I both could've complained about the undervaluation of a specific genre, and a specific canon. But I'm pretty sure he was being an asshole that day, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't.
posted by Ipsifendus at 8:09 AM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


Oh, and I should've added: not unlike Young, on the one hand, and the young people he's attempting to shame on Instagram on the other. One of those parties is being an asshole, and for much the same reason.
posted by Ipsifendus at 8:11 AM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


this
is
bad
poem
posted by ob at 8:20 AM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


I feel like one of the reasons that rap is more accessible and enjoyable than "regular poetry"

What if I told you...that poetry set to music has always been a genre of poetry.

Don't call it a comeback
Sappho's been here for years
Rocking her peers
Puttin' suckers in fear

The past few decades have been a golden age of American poetry. Lots of hip hop is terrible, but lots of everything is terrible. The best of the best is outstanding, poetry worthy of its worldwide popularity.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 8:21 AM on June 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


We can only hope that this trend encourages more poetically-minded middle-aged white men to enter the field of hip-hop.
posted by mittens at 8:24 AM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


What if I told you...that poetry set to music has always been a genre of poetry

I don't know if that was meant as condescendingly as it came across but yes I am aware of that fact and although I didn't state it explicitly I feel like my comment was pretty clearly identifying rap as a category of poetry.
posted by bracems at 8:45 AM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


So many serious poets in the past few decades have been writing for an audience that consists almost entirely of other people who write poetry -- the rest of them being students, critics, scholars, and supportive family members of the poet. I don't mean to sound anti-intellectual. It's just that this is not a way to sustain a living art.

I think the tide may be turning with the recent prominence of works like Citizen, but that is just a guess. Instagram poetry may not be deep or challenging (I am not widely familiar with the genre) but it's poetry, and it's thriving, and young people are engaging with it without having to be told.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:48 AM on June 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


bracems, I think that justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow was responding to a different comment.
posted by Ipsifendus at 8:49 AM on June 14, 2017


I too am aware of the fact that a lot of poetry through the ages was set to music. I was presenting an argument that could be made, but not necessarily making it myself. Poetry, at least as it's readily conceptualized through mainstream humanity's education by way of primary school English classes, tends to be formally different than verse set to song.
posted by codacorolla at 8:53 AM on June 14, 2017


So for the last couple Aprils for National Poetry Month I put out two displays: a selection of highlights from our collection's poetry section, and a velcro "magnetic poetry" wall where people can compose their own work.*

People checked out the books ok, but they go absolutely bananas for the composition wall.

Some favorites:

Klamath winter breaks/whisper upon red grass/visit wild mountain forest

kissed him in college/strange country computer boy/thought he forgot us

neighbor drove whole summer from village to beach to town/surprised life be as usual back at her apartment

she was a garden/her attention light itself/easy smile like the summer sun

I wish your figure knew reason

a plastic rock / plated gold / can fall as a star

brown skin bright person

dust tore the distance / wake the morning moon

grandfather safe & warm / always strong / calms the storm

I'll soon belong beside dad / we prepare our gentle bones / sigh / here I must rest

And I should emphasize: my library serves a mostly-rural spread of towns in southern Oregon and northern California. We're not what you call your typical poetry readers (or writers – this is almost certainly the kind of work this elitist douchebro would turn his nose up at). But folks go at that board with an enthusiasm that honest to god gets me through the rest of my year.

If you want, you can check out the 2016 and 2017 facebook albums. I made it a mission to check the board for new entries every day, before older works were cannibalized for parts.

*I made the velcro word tiles myself – printed out a thousand common words (based on xkcd's Thing Explainer wordlist, plus a few dozen copies prepositions and pronouns and such). The little bastards took forever to make but I'm so pleased with the results.
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 8:56 AM on June 14, 2017 [36 favorites]


(with all apologies to TS Eliot)

I grow old...i grow old
I shall post to instagram: "you have been trolled"

Where else to post my vapid poems? Do I dare to make a tumblr?
I shall write upon the Facebook walls, and let all know I am a grumblr
I have heard the kids fidget-spinning, each to each

I do not think they will spin with me
posted by nubs at 9:20 AM on June 14, 2017 [14 favorites]


"Now would you hear a good lay trolled?
Then hearken, you mates of mine,
And I'll sing you what Hurlstone's lords befell,
In their hunt of the Saxon swine."
— W. C. Bennett, "The Hunt of the Saxon swine."
posted by octobersurprise at 9:43 AM on June 14, 2017


the more of this thread I read, the more I like this guy
-
posted by thelonius at 10:14 AM on June 14, 2017


thanks for sharing, The demon that lives in the air, that makes me really happy to read, and it's a cool idea!
posted by Gymnopedist at 10:27 AM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


Don't tell me what the poets are doing
Don't tell me that they're talking tough
Don't tell me that they're anti-social
Somehow not anti-social enough, all right
posted by nubs at 12:20 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


fidget spinners
in the hands of children
manufactured in pop-up fad factories
driving late capitalist economies
bearing the spin of aging instagram poets
will someday like likes
be forgotten
posted by defenestration at 12:32 PM on June 14, 2017


Like they’re just scrolling on their devices, to read something instantly, while the libraries are empty.

It was then I saw
No visits to libraries
Were made by this man
posted by daybeforetheday at 1:37 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


So, for context, "Instagram poets" are BIG right now, and it's been building for a while.

2015 NY Times article
Mr. Gregson’s first poetry book, “Chasers of the Light,” became a national best seller and has more than 120,000 copies in print. (To put that figure in perspective, Louise Glück’s collection “Faithful and Virtuous Night,” which won the National Book Award for poetry last year, has sold about 20,000 copies.)

2017 Guardian profile of Rapi Kaur
Kaur, 24, came from nowhere to sell 1.4 million copies of her first book, Milk and Honey. That is almost unheard of for a first-time writer, let alone a first-time poet. First self-published in 2014 and then by a publishing house the following year, the poetry collection became a New York Times bestseller.

These are writers who have created a noticeable uptick in the sales numbers for the poetry sections of bookstores, but for most of the lit people I talk to, this is the poetry equivalent of Twilight or 50 Shades of Gray: a completely dismissable phenomenon that will boost the section for a while and then fade away.

Instagram poetry is similar to those trends in that it's accessible and popular with young women. Unlike Twilight and 50 Shades, though, these authors are a diverse group, and much of their messaging is trying to tap into themes of self-care, or learning and growing as a person, or working on improving relationships .

From a 2017 New Yorker profile of r.H. Sin , another big name in the scene.

That relationship continues to fuel his writing, which encourages women to dump lesser men, avoid jerks, and stand up for what they want.While he’s estranged from his mother and no longer keeps contact with his ex, he draws from their struggles with men. “My words are what I would say to my sister, my mother, or the women I want to protect,” he told me. “Even after being hurt by a woman in the past, I understood where it came from and why she was the way she was as soon as I met her father, the man who had broken her heart long before she’d even known me.” As Poe might have said, sorrow sells.

So maybe it's a fad, but as far as fads go, I'm okay with it. Let different poems mean different things to different people. Let some poems meet people where they are: on Instagram, sneaking a second or two from their day to look at something lovely and think about a few words.

Take the time to stop and "like" the roses.
posted by redsparkler at 2:12 PM on June 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


There once was a poet on instagram
Who said the kids today, they don't give a damn
He twaddled in verse
To fill his own purse
His real work considerably more bland
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 2:18 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


redsparkler, that (the "punching down" of it) is one thing that makes me particularly uncomfortable with this sort of fun poking, especially when I think of how difficult it has been historically (and presently) for writers from marginalized groups to get published through traditional channels. Thanks for the links!
posted by Gymnopedist at 2:46 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: lots of everything is terrible.
posted by twsf at 2:47 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


instagram poetry
is preferable to
the silence of shame
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:10 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Like they’re just scrolling on their devices, to read something instantly, while the libraries are empty.

It was then I saw
No visits to libraries
Were made by this man


This struck me too. Everywhere I've lived the last ten years or so (5 different cities), the libraries have been bustling. I myself have a long list of library books I'm on the waiting list for.
posted by lunasol at 7:56 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


The “fidget spinner” is the “selfie stick” of 2017, right?

i am old
and easily made
nauseous
by motion blur
posted by flabdablet at 8:07 PM on June 14, 2017


Huh, a Metafilter poetry post.

Now I want plums.
posted by Reverend John at 8:34 PM on June 14, 2017


I have thrown out
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for next year

Forgive me
they were repulsive
so gleet
and so mold
posted by flabdablet at 8:45 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


so much depends
upon

a poem on
Instagram

intentionally
banal

Christ, what an
asshole.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:28 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


I am just disappointed that his name is not actually "And so Young" as I had been led to believe by the post title.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 9:33 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


Young thinks he's getting attention because the thing he intended as satire works as satire but in fact all that's happened is he adapated his poetics to the constraints of a new technology (Instagram posts vs codex books) and is finding success after said adapatation. Which, that shift in technology and its effects on poetics is waaaaay more interesting than "these kids today have no attention span." Poetics has been affected also by YouTube, such that so-called "spoken word" poets have used that medium to great success resulting in poets who got their start in the poetry slam are now winning major awards and running literary magazines. I expect Insta-poets to be joining them soon.
posted by eustacescrubb at 9:00 AM on June 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


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