About two years ago, I was at a San Fernando Valley poetry venue when I ran into DN, a poet/translator who used to be a part of the scene when I was a bright-eyed newcomer in 1998.
I said hello to DN. He responded with something like: ARE YOU STILL HERE?
I took DN's comment and tone-of-voice to mean that I should have disappeared from Los Angeles poetry by 2006 and found an avocation more suitable to my limited intelligence and stunted grasp of real art and "craft."
For twenty years, I've lived in the Los Angeles area. I've been actively reading and writing poetry for ten years. I even hosted two readings: one from my townhouse and a "real" one at a coffeehouse which closed in December.
And I've been around the "poetry community" long enough to see it change from roughly 55% elitist 45% egalitarian in 1998 to 90% elitist 10% egalitarian now.
In my opinion, the change began around 2003 when an elitist poet started a thread called "Straight Talk About Poetry" on a Yahoogroups listserve. Not everyone agreed with the elitist poet's exact vision of high standards erasing mediocrity (slam poetry came in for some rather stereotypical abuse), but, like a whistle only dogs can hear, the elitist struck a chord among those poets who loved the notion that they were "special" and didn't need to be shoulder-to-shoulder with their artistic inferiors.
In the late winter of 2008, some local venues that believe in the idea of poetry being a "popular" art form are drawing small audiences. And even those who try to appeal to both the elite and the populists aren't doing much better.
Awhile back, I was heavily criticized for advocating that elites should get out of their comfort zones and appear more often at "populist" (or "community") venues.
In a few cases, that did happen (certainly not because of me). But, for the most part, they only appear when asked to feature and tend to avoid being part of open-mike readings.
At this point, I feel horribly embarrassed by the behavior of some local poets. Shunning venues because they might hear "bad" poets during open-mikes (or disliking the host/hosts for personal reasons) and even turning their backs on making an effort to attract larger audiences (yes, even civilian nonpoets) are accepted ways of getting along in the "community."
So the elite crave "specialness" and, instead of practicing notions of community like The Golden Rule, they (to use a phrase from the final scenes of THERE WILL BE BLOOD) drink each other's milkshakes and step hard on the gas pedal to make sure that audiences are limited and oh-so-insular and the inferior practitioners of verse are killed immediately.
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