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current Monday
Report below!
This week's report by Andy Best
"Stephen Fry Batters Modern Poetic Style"
Intro:
Modern Verse… And Worse and Worse
from The Observer, Oct 16, 2005
The actor and writer Stephen Fry has turned his considerable firepower on
contemporary poetry. Now in his own 'how-to' guide he calls for a return to the
traditional world of stanza and metre. David Smith reports:
Stephen Fry has launched a scathing attack on the 'arse-dribble' of modern poets
and revealed a private passion for writing his own verse.
In his new book, The Ode Less Travelled, a guide to writing poetry, Fry argues in
favour of traditional form and metre.
He expresses admiration for WH Auden, Robert Browning and other dead poets, but
condemns 'the condition of English-language poetics' today as 'tattered and tired'.
He goes on: 'Add a feeble-minded political correctness to the mix and it is a
wonder that any considerable poetry at all has been written over the last 50 years.
It is as if we have all been encouraged to believe that form is a kind of fascism,
and that to acquire knowledge is to drive a jackboot into the face of those poor
souls who are too incurious, dull-witted or idle to find out what poetry can be.'
These candid comments come in the month that National Poetry Day failed to capture
the public imagination and prompted calls for 'an ambassador' to help give poets
the same star status as leading novelists.
Fry, who starred in the films Wilde and Gosford Park and directed Bright Young
Things, describes the 'free-form meanderings' of modern poets as 'emotional
masturbation' and illustrates the point by writing his own example:
cigaretted and drinked
loaded against yourself
you seem so yes bold
irreducible
but nuded and afterloved
you are not so strong
are you
after all
He then analyses the sample: 'The above is precisely the kind of worthless arse-
dribble I am forced to read whenever I agree to judge a poetry competition. It took
me under a minute and a half to write, and while I dare say you can see what utter
wank it is, there are many who would accept it as poetry ...
'Like so much of what passes for poetry today it is also listless, utterly drained
of energy and drive - a common problem with much contemporary art, but an especial
problem with poetry that chooses to close itself off from all metrical pattern and
form. It is like music without beat or shape or harmony: not music at all, in fact.'
Launching the book at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Fry insisted that he was
not a 'hidebound old dinosaur' who loathed free verse.
'You can set yourself new rules or you can write with no structure for a
particular poem and it can be very wonderful; I just think it's so much harder and
so much less fun than using existing forms,' he said.
'In the same way if you want to go to the guitar and make a noise without using
the chord structure, you're welcome to, but don't ask me to be in the room with
you. The chances are that it will be horrible unless you happen to have
extraordinary natural human gifts.'
He believes that a lot of 'modern poetry can be listless and, perhaps more
unforgivably than anything, just simply lazy. It's not that it's naive or formless,
just: "Go back and work harder at it before you show it to the public, it's not
ready." It's not worth time. Poems are not like novels or speeches or emails or
texts.'
...(click here to read the entire Observer article)...
Kitchen Villanelle
Extract of a poem by Stephen Fry in his new book, The Ode Less Travelled.
How rare it is when things go right
When days go by without a slip
And don't go wrong, as well they might.
The smallest triumphs cause delight -
The kitchen's clean, the taps don't drip,
How rare it is when things go right.
Your ice cream freezes overnight,
Your jellies set, your pancakes flip
And don't go wrong, as well they might ...
----------------------
And the ULA-esque Reply:
by Andy Best of www.twoboysandtheiregos.com
Fry says that most ‘free-form’ poetry is “utter wank”. Actually, saying “utter
wank” in an Observer article is his best use of language for ages. But the
biggest insult is that he suggests that people who use free form poetry are
lazy and basically just don’t know traditional forms at all. He also throws in a
cryptic comment that modern poetry is held back by political correctness.
To use another poetic turn of phrase:, “Dude, What the fuck!?”
So, I have written him a poem in six-line stanza traditional Ballad form. Just
like Wilde used for The Ballad of Reading Gaol...
"Tattered and Tired?" (written in a few hasty minutes for S. Fry)
"The Ode Less Travelled" be the name.
Stephen Fry's edition.
Never heard, such terrible pun:
Bad cliched tradition.
And yet he makes the case to thank
Such tired "utter wank".
He thinks that Oscar Wilde's the man,
Against "arse-dribble" rails.
Read "The Ballad of Reading Gaol".
Power of truth can't fail.
And that's the point above the form;
Context, content prevail.
"Taps don't drip" in his perfect day,
He doesn't have to worry
Of car-sized "daisy-cutter" bombs;
That's another story.
"Feeble minded" P.C. thinking's
Killing poet's glory?
He surely loves Wordsworth's best verse,
As lonely as a cloud.
The perfect match of heart and form
A joy to hear aloud.
"Emotional masturbation"
O! Look! He's found it now.
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Andy Best is co-editor of the literary site,
Two Boys, Their Egos, and Somebody Else's Work.
Born in Liverpool, he now lives in Shanghai.
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