GET OFF THAT PEDESTAL, ARTIE
Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky puts on his Allan Bloom hat and kicks around some straw men in Slate. I was along for the ride until this last exchange:

9. Well, I like poetry that is amusing, that maybe makes me chuckle a little. I'd rather read something reassuring and light than something complicated or gloomy. Is that bad? Does that mean I am a jerk?

Our laureate's reply?

"Yes."

Now, this raises both my suspicions and my hackles. Are we to believe that poetry is supposed to mean something and be good for you in order to be deemed poetry at all? Big fat finger to that. That's not an educated point of view: that's an indoctrinated point of view. It sounds too much like the predictable, pedantic dullard who insists that every piece of music should be "challenging"--as if "complicated and gloomy" wasn't itself a predictable trope!

Real depth and complexity has to include the simple, the reassuring, and the light. The idea that writing an Ogden Nash poem or the perfect pop song is easy is a pretty big assumption, and a false one at that. Much of the best art made over the last century that has had a lasting cultural influence wasn't even considered art at the time of its inception. It was a part of daily life. It was entertainment.

We westerners are often so heavy and clumsy in our allegiances: we really expect far too much from our Gods and our Art. It wasn't always so, but that lightness, fluidity, and vitality has become very elusive. The more ardently we chase our Muses, the further away they flee. Pan cares nothing for "the proper channels"!

There's something to be said for turning your back on the baggage that comes with big "A" Art and instead applying that creative energy to your everyday life, like the Ancients did. It requires letting go of our egos a bit, and refraining from trying to hit some Promethean height all the time. Does this open the floodgates of mediocrity? Not really: aspirations have little to do with artistic accomplishment. Art worth its salt isn't conquered, but coaxed. The arts, in order to reclaim their old vigor, should be reintegrated into our lives. People would get over themselves and jot little ditties on napkins over after-dinner drinks--and maybe once every fifty years, someone pens something for the ages. Seems a more sane, nourishing model.

~W