Eccentric Flower:199902/vicious circle of metrical feats

three february (early)

vicious circle of metrical feats

I feel like I'm stepping on my own punchlines, posting this card so soon after the last one. Do make sure, all you morning readers, that you read the Cruise linked in the previous postcard. It's good.

At least it is now Wednesday by about fifteen minutes, otherwise I would have broken the Three-Postcard Limit, and I think that violates a law of physics or something.

Anyway. The only reason I'm posting this tonight is because I thought of it while having a bath and wanted to write it before I forgot it. Think of it, morning readers, as a bonus.

- - -

I've noticed that online journallers tend to be either a Mrs. Parker or a Mr. Benchley.

That doesn't refer to the gender of the journaller in any way; it is purely a matter of outlook.

Mr. Benchleys see the entire world as a big joke. They don't necessarily try to write funny - if they did, it might not work - but they're usually funny anyway, simply because they have a natural instinct for seeing the humor in everything.

For Mrs. Parkers, life may be a big joke, but not a very nice one. Mrs. Parkers see the irony in everything, not the humor. They don't set out to be harsh or critical, but often are, simply because they see and cannot avoid pointing out the little contradictions and nastinesses the rest of us overlook or ignore.

Neither the Mr. Benchley or the Mrs. Parker outlook is wrong. The world is full of both irony and humor. In fact, the two outlooks often work well when they collaborate.

Mrs. Parkers are not necessarily depressed or mean-spirited people in real life; they just write that way, and so people tend to think they're more grim than they really are - they make even the cheeriest situation have a hard edge.

Conversely, people tend to assume that everything is jollity in the life of a Mr. Benchley, which is also not necessarily so. Even when a Mr. Benchley's car has been towed, his dog has been shot, his lover has left him ... he can write about these things and it all sounds like the funniest story you ever heard. He can't help it.

I'm not sure where I fall into this picture, but I suspect I'm a lot closer to a Mrs. Parker than a Mr. Benchley. I have some ideas about some other journallers I read a lot, but you draw your own conclusions.

- - -

I was actually thinking about this because of a correspondence with Dorothy Rothschild about poetry and Parker, in roughly equal proportions. Most of the poetry I like to read and write is poetry of the Parker or Benchley school. But there are others.

There is the school of the pure sensory image (that'd probably be a Mr. Wordsworth), of the mellifluous word used just for its sound (Mr. Hopkins, among others), and the school of the single surprising idea, surprising either for its very nature or because of the odd way it's expressed (Miss Dickinson runs that). Mr. Frost can't decide which school he wants to teach in. Nor can Mr. Eliot.

I know I have at least one, and probably more, readers who avow a complete and utter dislike for poetry. I hear that and I admit that I don't quite understand it. My usual idea is that they've been exposed to too many of Mr. Wordsworth's or Mr. Hopkins' students, and not enough of Mrs. Parker's or Mr. Benchley's. Sensory scansion is all well and good, but sometimes you need short, pithy, ironic poems that sting like a wasp, or poems that make you laugh out loud.

So why is it both of those types of poetry often get short shrift in the anthologies? Why is a blowsy fop of a poem like "Daffodils" considered High Art and "One Perfect Rose" is not?

If more of the sensory or Romantic poets were like Whitman, it might be all right. Whitman is so unassuming and direct that you can't help but like him. But if I were forced to read nothing but the likes of Byron and Shelley and Keats (as the refrain of Mrs. Parker's poem goes) then I would find myself going slightly batty.

It's hard to teach someone to love poetry.

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