Where Have All the Poets Gone?

With National Poetry Month looming large over the calendar, it seemed like an appropriate time to pick up a couple of my old favorite books. It's been a while since I've really dabbled in poetry - at least six months since I actually WROTE anything. Returning to the art felt... refreshing, in a way, and nearly spiritual.

When I look at the state of contemporary poetry in the United States, I tend to get a bit sad. From my perspective, the art form is suffering from a terminal illness - there just don't seem to be as many people involved in poetry anymore. My perception's definitely been influence by my (now lapsed) membership in the Utah State Poetry Society, where I was the only straight male under the age of 40. Poets - at least, those individuals that write short verse with a strong, sincere respect towards the power their language has - seem to be a dying breed.

The most popular peddlers of verse seem to be hack songwriters crowding up the radio, who seem to have forgotten how to REVERENCE something with language. For example, anyone who tuned in to this year's Superbowl halftime show almost definitely got an earful of Usher's "OMG," which includes this jaw-droppingly tasteless couplet:

"Honey got a booty like pow, pow, pow
Honey got some boobies like wow, oh wow"

Seriously, what happened to artistry? What happened to good taste? Heck, even the Elizabethans knew how to treat women with respect. I mean, here's a verse from one of my favorite old English poets, Edward Spenser:

"Her goodly bosome lyke a Strawberry bed,
her neck lyke to a bounch of Cullambynes;
her brest lyke lillyes, ere theyr leaves be shed,
her nipples lyke yong blossom'd Jessemynes..."

...

Umm... That was more... explicit... than I remember it being.

Sorry about that. It's been a while since I really dabbled in poetry this old. I forgot about the "blazon poem," which categorically analyzes and idealizes every single part of a woman's body. It was... pretty popular back then.

But back to Usher: the man has a serious problem with control. In another of his recent hits, "Love in this Club," Usher expresses to the woman of his attention (I almost said affection, but that didn't feel right) that he really wants to have sex with her RIGHT NOW, modesty be damned.

Romantic sentiment used to be more RESTRAINED. Contrast Usher's music with, say, another prominent English poet: Andrew Marvell. Here's one of Marvell's most famous pieces, "To His Coy Mistress":

"Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run."

Wait, that poem... is basically saying the exact same thing.

Okay folks, you heard it here first:


Usher Raymond is, in fact, the current Master of Poetry, building his songwriting empire on a foundation of centuries of poetic precedent.