the place of poetry among discourses

[Leanne]

"Poets" (always with an audibly capitalised P) these days seem to think that they're either "writing for themselves" or "writing for everyone". This dread of being disliked (even when writing patently dislikable stuff, e.g the "dirty pretty" movement) leads to generic, surface-level mush and lack of the controversy that makes poetry valid as an art.

One of today's great poets, John Kinsella, has this to say:

Well, poetry has never been about the masses, I'd argue. I do think poets should be excluded from stinking Platonic republics or any other hierarchical power structure. They can make use of them, suck their finances dry, but never be part of them. Shelley's 'unacknowledged legislators' is right in one sense, but it is also a sop to the neglected poet's ego. If poets legislate, then we need to be worried. That suggests something set in stone. They can express a desire for change (the revolutionary poetry of the Sandinistas is a fascinating recent example), but if the poem sets precedents and is used as authority then it undoes, to my mind, its own purpose in existing -- that is, to undo the givens, to upset the status quo.

Read the full interview.