Dance of the Poets

Of late Chicago has been deluged with poetry events and it is fun to watch these events especially the dance of the poets. With this I mean most poetry readings are filled with other poets, who are trying to gain favor with the readers because this favor will lead to future successes. So like dervishes whirling poets edge up the the readers, try to see if the reader knows their names and then see if they can make a connection. This a phenomenon more prevalent in New York but it has entered Chicago now and so needs to be commented upon. There are some realities of poetry- since Poetry has little money value, prizes, magazine publications and chapbooks are the key to being taken seriously.

There are some things however which are disturbing about the trend. it was said once that all the serious poets in the world would fit inside of a small baseball park, say Fenway Park in Boston. This is prob. true
and as a result we don't do the kind of marketing of our work that Fiction Writers must do to sell their work and hence we are not known by the non poet public. I think that marketing is the key here everyone read Kerouac because he marketed himself well. But today Poets do not do this and as a result poetry flounders in a ghetto.

The truth is however that poetry is the only literary artform, fiction and non-fiction are fine crafts but they do not exist to 'make it new' they only exist to generate formulaic books that make money, the difference between poetry and prose and non fiction is like the difference between meals, Gourmet (poetry) Diner (prose) and Protein Shake (Non Fiction) but Poets do a lousy job of convincing people of this fact.