Poetry and Beauty in a Fallen World

"When you write poetry, you write for God."

Dana Gioia spoke last week at the University Club on poetry. I'd always wanted to see the University Club (nothing special) and Dana Gioia is my hero, more or less--I forgot how crazy I am about him. The speech was in question and answer format (oh how I would have loved to be the questioner!), and he punctuated the Q & A with little poetry recitations. He's an excellent speaker, although he made far too many jokes for my taste (what he was saying was so fascinating and well-presented that he certainly didn't need to say funny things to make people listen).

I found Gioia's definition of poetry to be far too vague--"a special way of speaking that rewards a special way of listening." "Poetry uses words evocatively, in the fullness of their meaning, ... to discover the hidden secrets of words, their friends" [words that go well together]. Gioia talked about poetry as something that is unified, speaking to you spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, physically (through sound), etc., all at once.

In addition to its role as a unifier, Gioia talked about other aspects of art that are important to us as humans--imagination helps us realize that others have complex inner lives and, as a result, helps us develop our own inner life. Imagination shows us that life has a multiplicity of plot twists--this knowledge helps us weather those twists (which prevents us from succumbing to depression).

Gioia repeatedly critiqued the tendency (which he attributed to New Criticism, which he claims made poetry all about interpretation) to intellectualize poetry. For one thing, Gioia emphasized the mystery of the poem as something that's crucial to it--some things can only be told in stories; some things can only be told in riddles. In response to the intellectualization of poetry, Gioia advocates reading poetry out loud and encouraging people to memorize and perform it. When asked if there's any poetry in rock music, Gioia said that historically song and poetry were one art, and that in a healthy culture, they'll never entirely separate.I found this to be an intriguing part of his talk--it seems to me that very often contemporary poetry isn't written to be performed, but rather to be read off of the page of a book. I wonder how this changes poetry from it's exclusively oral incarnation.

When asked if there was one correct interpretation that the author intended or whether the interpretation rests with the reader, Gioia offered a great via media: he said that while there are wrong interpretations, there may be multiple correct interpretations.

Also: he said that a big problem with contemporary poems is that they're too long. I whole-heartedly agree--I love short poems. Of course, I also love the Four Quartets.


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