Lynn Levin, adjunct associate professor of English at Drexel University, has been quoted in John Timpane’s Philadelphia Inquirer article about the forthcoming US postage stamp series honoring American poets. Among other things, Professor Levin comments on the inclusion of Plath in the series.
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No comments on the article in the Inquirer? Where are all you poets who will agree and affirm that creating postage stamps with the likenesses of modern poets on them shows “The importance of poetry in American life,” that “poetry is a necessary part of our culture,” and that poetry “helps us to live our lives”? Or not. Come on, I need to be convinced, because when I read such statements, I think, “Really?”
Such statments sound pretty silly to me, actually, especially these days. I mean, not too many people in America are going to know the poets in the first place, so I don’t know how important poetry is in American life. And if so, in what way is it important? Unless we’re talking about song lyrics here, too. And do we include the lyrics that comprise, say, Christmas songs? Because I think every Christmas song can be wiped from the face of the earth, every song by Britney Spears, every rap thing (I don’t know what to call the stuff), every Sinatra, every Bruce Springsteen, every Cole Porter or Elvis and I’d be just fine, and so would a lot of other people. Throw in all those Shakespeare sonnets while you’re at it.
Poetry as a “necessary part of our culture?” I don’t think so. Knowing where Idaho is on the map is more necessary. Knowing what to do so as to keep free from a sexually transmitted disease is necessary. How to fry an egg is necessary. Poetry is not necessary, I’m sorry. As for it helping “us to live our lives”–that’s a joke, right? Being kind to people is a help in that department, not “A Supermarket in California.”
I don’t want to sound like I dislike poetry. Well, to tell the truth, I don’t like much of it. It just doesn’t do much for me. I do like the work of some poets. Valerie Fox, for example, and Don Riggs, but I could not tell you why I like their work except that it is somehow pleasing. It’s not “necessary” to me and it’s not helping me to live my life.
Poetry occupies a very thin slice of the cultural pie, and to make it sound as though it is any greater is just silly. In fact, it seems fitting to me that the likenesses of poets will go on a mode of communication–the handwritten letter–that is itself rapidly vanishing and will become a curiosity, like poetry itself.