Ben Lerner argues that the universal dislike of poetry is built into the medium itself. He uses the framework of Allen Grossman to explain that poets aim for a transcendent, divine ideal that language is physically incapable of reaching. By examining the "bad" verse of William McGonagall and the canonical works of Marianne Moore and Walt Whitman, Lerner demonstrates that every poem is a record of its own failure. The gap between the infinite potential of the poetic impulse and the finite reality of words on a page creates a frustration that the public interprets as hatred.
Contemporary writers, literature students, and skeptics of the arts read this essay to understand why a niche medium provokes such intense hostility. The text provides a defense of the craft based on its insufficiency rather than its success. Readers finish the book with a lens for viewing artistic disappointment as a structural necessity. Instead of demanding perfection, they learn to see the poem as a tangible signal of human aspiration that remains vital precisely because it can never fully succeed.
- Published
- 2016
- Language
- EN
