The Poet as Ex-Pat
C. Dale Young posted his frustration with the cynicism and bitterness rampant in the world of poetry these days. I can't help but thing that both stem, perhaps indirectly, from the 21st century American poet's relation to mass culture.
On that subject, I'd like to meander through a portion of Czeslaw Milosz's essay "Notes on Exile" from his book To Begin Where I Am. I think it might be possible to draw some analogies between a poet in exile from his homeland, and one who is alienated from the dominant culture of his or her time and place.
Censorship may be tolerant of various avant-garde antics, since they keep writers busy and make literature an innocent pastime for a very restricted elite.
What is poetry in contemporary America but an innocent pastime for a very restricted elite? Today's poets are hardly Shelley's "unacknowledged legislators of the world" (if, in fact, that was ever an appropriate designation).
But as soon as a writer shows signs of being attentive to reality, censorship clamps down.
I'm not sure how or if this applies in our case. There are certainly vast differences between our culture and that of Soviet-era eastern Europe. On the other hand, I don't know that anyone has ever made a proper study of the question of censorship in modern America. There have been a few high-profile instances of artists losing government grants upon being deemed "offensive" by the powers that be, but can one make an intellectually honest argument for their being unusually "attentive to reality" as compared to other artists? I think the answer is probably no.
In any case, the federal government is only a minor player in the funding and dissemination of the arts, as are most local government agencies. The real power is concentrated in the private sector, which is not constitutionally (or some would say even ethically) bound to respect free speech. So, publishing houses are free to print and promote whichever books they choose. Newspaper owners are free to disseminate whatever they deem newsworthy. The only constraint imposed on corporate television and radio networks is the stockholders' demand for profit.
So perhaps government censorship has simply become unnecessary. What threat could the dissenting artist possibly pose to the status quo when he is so easily drowned out by consenting voices with the megaphones of financial support at their mouths.
Perhaps our artists begin in exile, and are only brought into the fold when and if they can prove they are not a risk.
If that sounds overblown, consider whether you've ever seen a penis on television or in a Hollywood film. Is it simply the case that no director has ever wanted to film one? no actor reveal one? no audience see one? Surely not.
If, as a result of banishment or his own decision, he finds himself in exile, he blurts out his dammed-up feelings of anger, his observations and reflections, considering this as his duty and mission.
Back to the case of the poet, isn't this exactly what he or she does. Though the anger has fallen quite out of fashion, the observing and reflecting has not. Neither has the subversion, though that subversion has been labeled "literary" and thus been neatly quarantined from reality. How many writers, for instance, tow the line by day and only dream by night--no matter how fervently they believe in their dreams?
Yet that which in his country is regarded with seriousness as a matter of life or death is nobody's concern abroad or provokes interest for incidental reasons.
That which our contemporary poets regard with great seriousness is, I think most will agree, of little interest to the general population. Where poetry reinforces the status quo and/or can be packaged as entertainment--for instance, Maya Angelou, Def Poetry Jam, all those little theme anthologies, books written by celebrity musicians--it sells. Otherwise, poets are mostly talking to other poets.
Thus a writer notices that he is unable to address those who care and is able to address only those who do not care. In our case I would amend this to: Thus a poet notices that he is only able to address those who are as voiceless as himself in relation to the dominant culture.
He himself gradually becomes used to the society in which he lives, and his knowledge of everyday life in the country of his origin changes from tangible to theoretical. If he continues to deal with the same problems as before, his work will lose the directness of captured experience. Therefore he must either condemn himself to sterility or undergo a total transformation.
And so poets become "literary." They regard current events and the majority culture as something distant, something outside the scope of their lives as poets. They are no longer generalists in the realm of human affairs, but specialists in the world of poetry.
Those are my initial thoughts on the essay, and I imagine they will become more refined with time and additional grappling.
