Consider: Sterilizing Poetry from Hip-Hop

Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, apparently doesn’t like Snoop Dogg being put in the same analytical breath as Shakespeare. This article by John Lundberg of the Huffington Post, at one point (quoted below), begins to irritate me, especially when he seems to imply an issue with most teenagers likely naming rappers as their favorite poets. The author’s thinking on the matter, in that regard, strikes me as retrograde, fearful, uninformed.

And Motion’s purist attitude of wanting to keep the hallowed halls of poetry sterile from anything that won’t inch its way into the good graces of his poetic definition is indicative of a problem that will continue to deepen the schism between people and poetry.

Again, you can read the article here.

So now here is the argument: Sometimes, you can steep too low when trying to make poetry appealing to teenagers. Apparently, hip-hop music, while being the closest rendering of poetry at its roots and staying true to the art’s most formal, original forms, is still, somehow, the lowest pier for teaching poetry.

I’m not afraid to say that, again, those who stick up their noses at hip-hop have never listened to a hip-hop album in their lives. It’s the idea that that man, with the sunglasses and pigtails can, no, should, actually write something that can demand our analysis in the same way the rosy-cheeked guy can, that sickens many of our beloved elitist superpoets. Any time you start separating art, suggesting that you can’t look at exhibit A to learn an appreciation for exhibit B and, in turn, learn about their familial ties though unique in their individual elements, you push the stake harder through the heart of that art.

Rap and poetry are akin to me, anyway. So, my issue with Motion and this John Lundberg of the Huffington Post: How is excluding Snoop from poetry lessons maintaining the integrity of poetic study? Rap, to state the obvious, is pure, formal poetry – spoken, metered, rhyming.

So says Lungberg:

“But Motion is right that artists like Eminem, and even Angelou, only scratch the surface of poetry’s power.”

Look, I agree that Angelou isn’t the best American poetry has to offer (as a matter of fact, I don’t care for her work at all), but Eminem is a very worthy writer to study. I did a presentation on one of his songs in a Meter & Rhythm class, and realized what a great lyrical composer he is. No one writes like him. I’ve studied his rhymes, like, sat there and not only broke down the unaccented/accented nuances of his songs, but also broke down his rhyme schemes and the musicality of how he writes with the words, alone.

This article by Lundberg is afraid of what poetry is. (And don’t ask me what it is!) So, what Motion and Lundberg are telling us to do is vociferously rehash the same old voices and keep seeing where they take us, because it is only through their voices we will understand all stories.

Frankly, I love Poe, but I’m all for introducing Jay Z, B.I.G, Aceyalone, Eminem and Diamond D into our poetry classes. Teenagers need to know that poetry doesn’t have to be up there, somewhere far in the distance of the clouds where they need a pedagogical ladder to climb to be able to touch the bottom of the words. Let’s start with what’s right now; stop harking to an eighteenth and nineteenth century poetic past and demanding its relevance at every twist and turn, insisting on making it unconditionally important to minds that may be more interested in the poetry of the culture that appeals to them, the poetry of their generation that they feel coincide with their voices in these times in their language.

Why must we always say, “Well, let’s try to show how Shakespeare’s sonnets can be compared to rap”? I mean, that’s fine and all, but why can’t we start with here? Why can’t the bar be those of this poetic present? Hip-hop is a starting point – more teenagers have taken in poetry from listening to hip-hop than from choking up Shakespeare. The fact that, to me, more teenagers can “bust a rhyme” by their favorite emcee than “bust a sonnet” by Shakespeare reveals, to me, that folks like Snoop, Fabolous, Joe Budden, Cam’Ron, represent the bar by which this generation finds its poetry. Why can’t these little literary cults wrap their minds around the fact that, yes, Shakespearean poems and Snoopian lyrics have plenty in common, and that either can be the stepping stone for engaging in each others’ works?

Why must the poets of this generation be pushed over because of a dire insistence to listen to the voices form the graves from which all living poetry must be measured, from which all of today’s experiences must find validation?

Photo Citations: http://www.nlcphs.org (Shakespeare); http://www.babble.com/ (Snoop)

Consider: Poetry Rising

The Denver Post has a nice article that speaks on the rising popularity of poetry, here.

Some thoughts:

I ardently support the effort of people to stand as their own means of publicity as poets, be their own means for publishing or binding their work, and use platforms available to them to disseminate their voices across their community and world. And in that effort, I’m a fan of using, to the greatest extent conceivable, unlikely or new resources as podiums for sharing one’s poetry and creative expression with others.

I make it a task to go on Lulu to find books by “unknown” writers who only have themselves, or online self-publishing services, to reveal their gifts to the world. The experience of sifting through these quiet surprises is exciting.

The Internet has, in my estimation, been the most significant reason for poetry experiencing a revival in our materialistic culture. I wrote a blog post some time ago entitled “Does the Internet a poet make?” in reference to an interview on NPR between Scott Simon and Jackson Musker regarding the impact of the Internet on poetry:

Simon asks Musker the following, which I ask you, the reader:

“Have poets migrated to the Web, or has the Web actually made some people poets? ”

Interview: Innervisions: The Ego, Soul and Paradoxes of Black Vision

“Oftentimes I ask people, ‘What came first, the truth or a lie?’ The answer is the truth, because a lie is the distortion or omission of the truth. Lies cannot exist without the truth, whereas the truth fundamentally exists on its own.”

These are the analytical meditations of Kevin Bishop, aka Black Vision, poet, thinker, myth maker, visionary, father and son hailing from Kings County, Brooklyn, New York.

Such measures of inquiry and contemplation are at the essence of his debut collection of poems, “The Paradoxical Effects of Black Vision,” released in 2008 through Lulu Publishing after five years of development. 

The title of the book, though seemingly obscure, possesses a very apparent meaning to Bishop, explaining it expresses the idea that awareness and perception are results of a unified experience that doesn’t exclude physical sensibilities, but, more so, emphasizes spiritual possibility. As he says, the title “conceptualizes the ability to see from an undifferentiated point of view.”

Bishop further explains that, though such a point of view is undivided, it is actually composed of distinct aspects – the spiritual and the physical.

“Even though the two sides are different vibrational degrees, they are inherently the same,” the poet, who is also a father of two, explains. “I feel the best description is placing an ice cube in water. The solid ice represents the physical body and the liquid represents the spiritual state. They exist on different vibrational levels, but share [the] same essence which is water.”

In realizing a foundation from which all perception and consciousness emerges, Bishop has found a more complete universal perspective.

“Through my experiences I have learned how opposites are more complimentary than they are adversarial.”

The Paradoxical Effects of Black Vision, or PEBV, is informed by these conceptual dynamics. Parables, fables, and myths from all parts of the world have been a source of inspiration and meditation for Bishop since he was a child. These childhood imaginings have provided the seeds for poems in his collection such as I.S.P. (Inner Sensory Perception), in which he analyzes the differing roles between the soul and the ego.

Bishop, who composed PEBV “after going through terrifying experiences dealing [with] acrimonious occult practices,” believes that the ego is responsible for extreme and harmful human desires. The senses, he says, are utilized by the ego in order to fulfill carnal inclinations. Because of its spiritual void, the ego creates conflict within the individual.

“The priority is the battle for control of self, which ties into the mind,” Bishop explains.