Wednesday, October 9, 1996
UCLA students and professors find themselves wrapped up in a new
fascination with the age old art of poetryBy Cheryl Klein
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Back in Beowulf’s time, the need for poetry seemed obvious
 it was the evening news and the family photo album, a way of
passing down cultural history to generations of eager listeners
around the campfire.
In Shakespeare’s plays, the aristocracy conversed in eloquent
blank verse. Anyone who spoke in prose was a peasant or insane. In
the ’60s, beat poets adorned themselves in dark colors and lurked
behind coffeehouse mics to espouse their deepest emotions in poetic
form.
Today the viking fires have burned out, the rich and powerful
speak in halting slang and black berets are considered passe. So
where does poetry stand?
The ’90s have witnessed a rebirth of popular interest in poetry
as the young and hip flock to coffeehouses for evenings of
cappuccino and lyrical entertainment.
"It’s a kind of populist movement," says Stephen Yenser, head of
the creative writing branch of the English department at UCLA. But
he is at a loss for the specific cause of this movement. "Why it
should be poetry though, instead of, say, music. I cannot tell
you."
Meanwhile, a more academic form of poetry has thrived alongside
this trend, albeit more subtly in terms of impact and content.
Yenser and two other patrons of the poetic world offer their
thoughts on where poetry is headed, what it means to today’s
society and how it fits into UCLA’s campus.
As any proud owner of the "Norton Anthology of English
Literature" knows, poetry is a large part of the language. It’s not
surprising then that English class syllabi around campus emphasize
poetry over other forms of literature.
"Poetry is an older literary form than fiction," Yenser
explains. "There is more poetry in literature than there is fiction
or other kinds of prose."
In spite of a language saturated with rich poetic writings, the
United States boasts few career poets.
"Nobody makes money writing poetry, not our best poets," Yenser
says. "Unlike fiction writers or screenwriters, who can make a
living doing what they like to do best, poets can’t … Teaching is
probably the most common profession for poets to follow."
This is true of Rosanna Warren, one of several poets
commissioned by Yenser to write for a series of readings in
conjunction with the Rene Magritte exhibit at the Armand Hammer
Museum. "Like most of us, I teach," Warren says. "Not just because
I have to but because I like it."
Warren is a professor at Boston University and seems more
concerned with the art of poetry than the logistics. "Actually,"
she says, "I think the financial aspect is the most boring side of
poetry. I don’t think I would want to write poetry full time. It’s
a very intense activity. You couldn’t do it every day and stay
sane. It would burn the brain and soul."
Whether or not students yearn to be career poets, many want to
examine their own souls and share their own inner fires with
others. Alex Papanicolopoulos, poetry director for the Cultural
Affairs Commission, was surprised to see that, as recently as last
year, there were no campus groups that provided a forum for such
interactions.
"My response to this was to march all over campus looking for a
way to start a reading here because, as a first-year student, I was
coming from the poetry scene that has been emerging in the past few
years in L.A. It’s a scene that’s always been there but it’s
beginning to explode right now as different forms of poetry are
emerging," Papanicolopoulos says.
He quickly accomplished his mission, proving just how strong
student interest was. The Kerckhoff readings gather crowds ranging
from 20 to 60 and feature both student and outside poets selected
by Papanicolopoulos.
"I just run into people that are great writers but are afraid to
read in front of different people because they’ve never done it
before and they figure it’s something so personal they’d rather
not," he says.
He generally looks for the same qualities in readers that Yenser
seeks for in students.
"You look for an interest in the words," Yenser says. "You look
for a person who’s thinking about what he or she is writing and
revising what he or she is writing. So there’s a good deal of
intellectual, analytical ability involved with it.
"But then of course you look for what you look for in life …
You also look for nitty gritty details, experience, acquaintance
with life. So it’s the same thing in a way that you would look for
in a fiction writer or maybe even in a friend."
In describing poetry and those who create it, Yenser continually
stresses the poet’s relation with language. The poet, he says,
works closely with words  their meanings, textures, histories
and sounds.
This image contrasts sharply with the picture of a coffeehouse
poet. The poets behind this trend often read dramatically, confront
the audience with powerful emotions and push a political
message.
"(Their poetry) is slam, bang, right in your face, but still
with creativity, with passion, with talent too," Papanicolopoulos
says. He cites homelessness, government and sexual politics as some
of the issues his readers have touched on.
While poems on these subjects usually have a specific target
audience, academic writers usually compose for themselves or for a
less tangible audience.
"I write for a lot of my favorite dead poets," Warren says.
"Like Sappho, a great Greek poet, Marvell and Yeats, who are
English and Catulius and Horace, who were two famous Latin poets. A
lot of humility and pride go into it because these are people I’ve
always admired."
Poets look to other poets for inspiration, abut they are also
enthralled with other art forms. The Hammer readings delve into
this theory and ask poets to explicate what they see in Magritte’s
work.
"There’s a long tradition behind (writing poetry about art),"
Yenser says. "It goes way, way back, again, as far as Homer.
There’s a wonderful description in ‘The Iliad’ of the shield that
(one character) makes for Achilles. And it’s a work of art, this
shield."
"The surface of Magritte’s paintings are very uninteresting and
neutral. It’s very conceptual  the surface doesn’t distract
you from the idea of the work," Warren says. "Usually my poetry is
very sensuous and dramatic. I focus on things like human
relationships, family relationships and death. But with this I had
to teach myself to write from a more philosophical standpoint."
Yet Warren is still fond of the personal tones that typically
flow through her work. She also enjoys seeing how poetry reaches
the hearts of others, a phenomenon she often witnesses in prison,
of all places.
"I teach in a prison where people are trying to get their
degrees and they’re seriously interested in recording their lives
through poetry, in changing their lives for the better. It’s great
to see how poetry affects non-literary people."
Yenser agrees that, while coffeehouse popularity is nice to see,
it’s the more personal angle that makes poetry so important and
such a time honored art form.
"Poetry survives on its own. It always has, it always will. It’s
almost dangerous to think of poetry having some more
institutionalized place in the culture," Yenser asserts. "Poetry is
partly what it is because of margins."
POETRY: The "Hammer Readings" series opens tomorrow with a
reading by Rosanna Warren and continues on Thursdays at 7 p.m.
through Nov. 21. Admission is free. For more info call 443-7020.
For more info on the Kerckhoff Art Gallery readings, call
825-6564.