ENG 2653: Poetry vs. Prose

Much of the literature we've read in this course (and much of what is read in ENG 2543) is poetry rather than prose.  When I studied American Literature, it started with poetry but that trend ebbed and gave birth to prose earlier than it did in England.  For example, the American Romantics (save Whitman) are famous for their essays and non-fiction, not for their poetry.  Blake, Wordsworth, and Keats wrote essays, but we still read their poetry first.

As a modern-day writer of both poetry and prose, and as someone who wants to make a career out of teaching English (and coaching poets), I am concerned by students' lack of enthusiasm - and sometimes outright disdain - for poetry.  I wonder if students' attitude toward the genre in correlative to the lessened frequency of it today.  The most famous living poets I can think of: Ted Kuzer, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Mary Oliver are names that only poets know while prose writers Stephen King, Dan Brown, Jodi Piccoult, and Nicholas Sparks are much more common names.

Was the shift from poetry to prose purposeful or coincidental?
Wiki defines Poetry as is "a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning."  Might this indicate that poetry went out of style with Romanticism and the rise of Realism, where people wanted "apparent meaning" and reality? They were look away from emotion to reason.
I'm sure another reason poetry waned was because the modern novel was born.  Narratives have always been more readily understood than symbolic language and metaphor.  Prose tend to be narrative and when they are not, they are moreso written in "plain" language that the ambiguity that often characterizes poetry. 

Excuse me for a moment while I organize my thoughts on life

I was in Ethnic American Literature today, after reading Philip Roth’s “Defender of the Faith” (and taking exuberant notes). I was vaguely aware of my smolderingly hot professor just over my right shoulder, but much more aware of the pure pieces of heaven coming at me through a teaching video on the projector.  The video discussed Roth, along with Ralph Ellison and N. Scott Momaday, and their views of Americanism and literature.  The initial part I loved was the discussion of the literary tactics each author chose to use in concurrence with this theme.  But then one of the main critics, Pancho Savery, turned literature into politics and my mind and attention became fully erect.  I adore the interconnectivity of arts and culture. Art imitates life.

That situation has occurred several times in that particular class. Props to my hot professor. Lol.

And when it happens, after my artistic appetite is whetted, my intellectual appetite is reminded of its shortcomings. I want to go to the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. But I am not scholarly enough to focus long enough to write well enough to get in. I want to study literature on a deeper level – maybe graduate school – but I am not disciplined enough to finish my readings.

My mind is always hungry for more knowledge and yet I lack follow-through. So am I scholarly?

In 20^th Century American Women’s Autobiography we talk about ideologies. Kim Chernin’s mother Rose defines herself as a Communist organizer. Our professor posed the question: Can we define ourselves by our ideologies? The conclusion we came to is that ideals are popularized by people, but a person with no life, with no humanistic traits, only their ideals, is not one after whom people would model. So we cannot define ourselves by our ideals, we must define ourselves by our realities.

My ideal is intellectualism at the point where it intersects art, more specifically Socratic intellectualism: learning through rhetoric (reading, writing, debate).  But my reality is a busy schedule, diversified interests, and middle socioeconomic status. So I cannot, as the Wellesley girls say, “dedicate my life to knowledge.”

I guess, based on the point made in my class today and based on what Marsha (my former academic advisor) has said to me, the point is: I must live my life. I must live through the shifts at Chili’s and the long drives back and forth to Edmond. I must live through multitasking and split-attentiveness. I must live through these realities in order to be who I am.

And to flip that on its ear, regardless of what my ideologies are, I must live my life in order to be who I want to be.

Because deep down I know that who I want to be and who I am are the same person.