{"id":1780,"date":"2011-10-12T19:45:16","date_gmt":"2011-10-12T19:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/?p=1780"},"modified":"2011-10-12T21:09:33","modified_gmt":"2011-10-12T21:09:33","slug":"can-poetry-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/2011\/10\/can-poetry-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Poetry Matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/secure.palmcoastd.com\/ows-img\/The_Atlantic\/896249\/1-banner.png\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"588\" height=\"86\" \/><\/a>As I have said in earlier blogs, I always knew I wanted to be a writer. (And I feel fortunate that my path seemed so clear for me.) One article that helped me to think about being a writer, a poet in particular, was <strong><a title=\"Dana Gioa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.danagioia.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dana Gioa\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> \u201cCan Poetry Matter?\u201d which first ran way back in May 1991 in <strong><em><a title=\"The Atlantic Monthly--Can Poetry Matter?\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/past\/docs\/unbound\/poetry\/gioia\/gioia.htm\" target=\"_blank\">The\u00a0Atlantic Monthly<\/a><a title=\"The Atlantic Magazine \" href=\"http:http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/past\/docs\/unbound\/poetry\/gioia\/gioia.htm\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The essays begins: &#8220;American Poetry now belongs to a subculture. No longer part of the mainstream of artistic and intellectual life, it has become the specialized occupation of a relatively small and isolated group.&#8221; \u00a0As you can guess, the article is not about writing poetry, it is about being a poet, and how to be a poet who is devoted to the art of poetry as well as to self-expression.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t always agree with Dana Gioa\u2019s criticism and I must admit I not all that familiar with his poetry.\u00a0 I know more about him (he&#8217;s a former corporate guy who was head of the NEA) than I do about his work (three books of poetry and three books of criticism plus translations, anthologies, and even librettos).\u00a0 I do know that this article is essential reading for any poet. \u00a0It was subsequently published in Dana Gioa&#8217;s book of the same name <em>Can Poetry Matter Essays on Poetry and American Culture <\/em>published by <a title=\"Graywolf Press Can Poetry Matter\" href=\"http:\/\/https:\/\/www.graywolfpress.org\/component\/page,shop.flypage\/product_id,25\/category_id,b21ff00eb415f4704816023d830a0f9c\/option,com_phpshop\/\" target=\"_blank\">Graywolf<\/a>. \u00a0Also, &#8220;Can Poetry Matter?&#8221; is said to have a launched a thousand essays and a follow-up article, &#8220;Hearing From Poetry&#8217;s Audience&#8221; by Dana Gioa which was published in <em><a title=\"The Atlantic Hearing from Poetry's Audience\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/past\/docs\/unbound\/poetry\/gioia\/poetaud.htm\" target=\"_blank\">The Atlantic<\/a><\/em> in 1992.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.danagioia.net\/books\/criticism\/cpm.htm\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" longdesc=\"http:\/\/www.danagioia.net\/books\/criticism\/cpm.htm\" src=\"http:\/\/www.danagioia.net\/assets\/images\/covers\/cpm160w.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Can Poetry Matter\" width=\"160\" height=\"259\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I have said in earlier blogs, I always knew I wanted to be a writer. (And I feel fortunate that my path seemed so clear for me.) One article that helped me to think about being a writer, a poet in particular, was Dana Gioa\u2019s \u201cCan Poetry Matter?\u201d which first ran way back in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,598,594,127,593,12,13,596,20,597,7,16,22,595,599,32],"class_list":{"0":"post-1780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-anthology","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-can-poetry-matter","10":"tag-contributors-2","11":"tag-dana-gioa","12":"tag-ellen-wade-beals","13":"tag-poetry","14":"tag-poets","15":"tag-publication","16":"tag-self-expression","17":"tag-solace","18":"tag-solace-in-so-many-words","19":"tag-thanks","20":"tag-the-atlantic-monthly","21":"tag-vital-art","22":"tag-weighed-words","23":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1780"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1861,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions\/1861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}