Sherry Chandler

Emily Lloyd at Poesy Galore has something to say about accessible poetry:

I am still get tweaked every time I see Kooser or Gioia opining that poets and poetry should be more “accessible.” Note that the audience they love to say they write for–the readers put forth as Those For Whom Responsible and Non-Elitist Poets Write–seems to be made up almost entirely of straight, romantically-blue-collar white men. O girder, O great pails of lunch! Somewhere, Kooser answers an interviewer’s question about accessibility with what I think of as The Anecdote of the Shambling Man: he speaks of a man “shambling”–seriously, he says shambling–up to him after a reading and stammering thanks for the mighty accessible poems. Why does Kooser’s cheerily and often offered portrayal of this shambler seem far more condescending than, well, an “inaccessible” poem? Kooser has also stated that in selecting work for his American Life in Poetry project, he looks for poems with “a certain charm.” Ay, me…how is it he’s sure that Shambling Man’s heart, ‘neath that authentically dirt-caked Dickies workshirt, aches for charming poems? And whose idea of “charm”? I’m sure Richard Siken’s Crush meets Kooser’s accessibility requirement… It often seems that when there’s a call for more “accessible poetry” what is really desired is more “accessible and charming [pleasantly palatable, etc.] poetry.”

Read the rest then tell me what you think, especially about her plan to get rid of the Poetry-B-Gon shields we all put up in high school upon encountering Keats.

WOMAN! when I behold thee flippant, vain,
  Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies;
  Without that modest softening that enhances
The downcast eye, repentant of the pain
That its mild light creates to heal again:         5
  E’en then, elate, my spirit leaps, and prances,
  E’en then my soul with exultation dances
For that to love, so long, I’ve dormant lain:
But when I see thee meek, and kind, and tender,
  Heavens! how desperately do I adore         10
Thy winning graces;—to be thy defender
  I hotly burn—to be a Calidore—
A very Red Cross Knight—a stout Leander—
  Might I be loved by thee like these of yore.

This is pretty much what I see when I look out my bedroom window. The branches are not always snow-laden but they’re always just about this impenetrable.