Poets are often times the under glorified artists of modern culture. While spoken-word poetry is, to the delight of wordsmiths everywhere, making a bit of a viral comeback, the same cannot be said for poetry published in written form. Could you imagine a world where poets are treated with same reverence and recognition of our contemporary lyricists, performers and producers? Often time the niches filled by these varying types of artists are remarkably similar, though one comes with great monetary success and pop culture recognition, and the other is a field in which it is suspected there is no money to ever be made. I ask you to look past my evident bias in this matter, as a student of creative writing, most specifically poetry, and to consider the art form in which most others are rooted.
Among the many artists of the poetic form I have gleaned an adoration for, I have most recently become consumed by the work of Anne Carson, after reading selections of her versified novels, “Autobiography of Red” and “The Beauty of the Husband” for a college class featuring the work of modern women poets. I digress, but for what it’s worth, more schools ought to feature such classes, as it empowers both an underappreciated art form as well as an uncommonly heard voice in literature. Immediately I was enthralled with Carson’s strength in communicating emotional vibes and both awareness of oneself and unawareness of the truth lying behind the emotional vibes. Her capturing of the human experience, especially in states of heartbreak and confusion of one’s identity, was, at the very least, relatable, and at the very most, painstakingly accurate. She seemed to tackle things that words could hardly do justice to, but did just enough to make it all work out powerfully as the described emotions themselves.
During the course of the aforementioned class, we were asked to re-translate a favorite piece of the semester, staying loyal to certain aspects of the poem and poet’s style, in favor over others. I made the grim mistake of selecting one of Carson’s featured tangos in “The Beauty of the Husband,” and gave the project plenty of time, as I was fully aware that any change I would make would alter the sheer strength of Carson’s language. If it had been an option, I would not have changed a single thing.
The second translation experience spurned a question I have yet to fully sort out. Because of my own unshakable resonance with Carson’s work, which seemed to be shared by a good measure of my peers, it caused me to wonder what ever happened to the glorification of poetry in its written form. Why do we hail radio-bound ballads to a higher esteem? It seems to me that something can be even more emotionally validating when shared only privately with oneself, which seems much more easily attainable through the digestion of the written word as opposed to the auditory one.
