Poems, not books
The unit of measurement for poetry is the poem, not the book.
This should be obvious, but it bears repeating. Unfortunately, decades of poetry MFA’s, anthologies, and an avalanche of meaningless literary awards (for books, of course) have conditioned us to think otherwise.
This is, admittedly, far from the whole story. The novel’s slow, then seemingly sudden, usurpation of poetry as the primary literary means of influencing culture lended itself to thinking of literature and books as synonymous.
Which isn’t to say a poem can’t be a book. See Dante or Milton or contemporary poets like Jason Guriel, who write verse novels.
Still, aside from such noble contemporary efforts, the lyrical poem, short by nature, is how most “normie” readers think of and encounter poetry.
This is fine.
Poetry remains the art par excellence for expressing the true and the good through beautiful phrases. These phrases can be communicated orally across days like Homer, or, in contrast to the time it takes to engage with a book or a movie, in a few minutes like Keats.
There is plenty to bemoan concerning our shrinking capacity to pay attention in the digital age, but the lyrical poet should rejoice. Lyrical poems can be read quickly and have the power to influence popular culture.
THEY NAMED AN NFL TEAM AFTER SUCH A POEM.
Substack & Poetry
I recently threatened to write a Substack Poetry Manifesto. And I will. This is just a teaser.
I’ve said that Substack is the first platform that excites me as a poet.
Substack doesn’t even have a poetry section. They will; it’s a matter of time.
X (formerly Twitter) touted itself as a text-based platform, but that has never been true. It’s a visual platform; take away the memes and X is dead.
Substack, by contrast, is much more text-based while encouraging visuals more as an adornment to the text, like a medieval manuscript, but crucially also allows for easily embedding audio.
I love books of poetry and they are not going away by any means, but oral poetry is and will continue to take off as Gen Z hits the scene. See celia on TikTok (oh the lengths I go to to find poems). Substack is uniquely poised to allow poems in print and audio form and could transition into a publishing powerhouse if they play their cards right.
Also, unlike WordPress, there is a network effect that the blogosphere never quite nailed and a writer has a direct line to their audience. Plus, there are no required ads, which for a poet would be like mixing oil and orange juice.
Let me know what you think.
The novel has indeed taken the place of printed poems, but don't discount the enormous effect the recorded song has had on poetry. Lyrical poems are alive and well, and never died; they just moved from the printed page to the 45rpm single. Of course, music's properties of mood enhancing or altering have meant that lyrical poetry has become more feeling- and emotion-driven than ever before. This caveat applies mostly to rock-adjacent genres; in hip hop we still find the lyric poem as propositional content.
I'm also excited to see the substack-centered poetry renaissance. Fascinating times!
I’m with you on the promise of the lyrical poem, but I won’t say it suits our attention-span dilemma. Even short poems welcome rereading, something that the distracted mind doesn’t even think to do.