Dana Gioia and his sort-of-curse on some Los Angeles poetry.

About a decade ago in the LA WEEKLY, Brendan Bernhard wrote an article about whether poetry still mattered. Bernhard got a quote from now-former NEA head and Northern California literary poetry icon Dana Gioia; Gioia moaned about how "you can't have great poetry without great standards" and accused Los Angeles poetry of being deficient on both counts.

Perhaps Gioia was espousing an occaisional Northern California prejudice about how Southern Californians are too superficial and not intellectually rigorous enough.

But the damage was done in Los Angeles. Varied poetry circles complained about Bernhard's article and Gioia's comments--mostly that they ignored the vast majority of L.A. poetry. Within a couple of years after the quality bomb dropped, one then-prominent Los Angeles male poet/powerful venue host pretty much abandoned his "folk music" approach and made an effort to become Academia-friendly before his departure from the city.

In the year 2009, a lot of Los Angeles poetry is Gioia-friendly--conservative in form, aesthetics and subject matter. Like other parts of the USA, it matters A LOT in L.A. literary circles about who you've studied with, whether you received your MFA, what workshops you've participated in, what Prominent Poet gave you a rhapsodic rave to use on the back of your book/in your press kit, whether you've been Published, whether you've been published by someone with Prestige, etc. etc. And some venues and local critic/tastemakers seem to value poetry control over even mild abandon (i.e. "diversity").

This can have some disastrous effects--I can think of at least one local poet who started out writing relatively accessible, thoughtful material before becoming more contorted and pretentious.

To me, Los Angeles' poet literati need to stop their self-imposed, rather constipated campaign to "improve" local poetry through homogenization and become more appreicative of multiple artistic voices/points of view--and not be filled with tasteful people who long to tamp their artistic visions down to achieve what may well be tenuous and temporary acceptance at best.

That's how it rolls in literary poetry L.A.

I'm going to run through a few red lights with this post. Here goes.....

Earlier tonight, I sat through a featured reading by an overly pretentious, forgettable literary poet (who, to be fair, had one tolerable poem referencing Edward Hopper paintings) at a L.A.-area venue. The literary poet has some cachet in this region because he edits a literary magazine (or should I say, "journal") and has a new book published by an L.A.-based prestige small press named after a barnyard animal.

The reading itself, like about three other readings in the LA/OC area, is now modeled after a long-dead but still influential poetry series that was named after a certain kind of flower.

What can I say about literary poetry when it exists more to ooh-ah-awe and attract looking-for-Pushcart-Prize-consideration players in the "community" than to edify or satisfy poets/civilians who may not be breathlessly fascinated by the poet's self-proclaimed academic brilliance and/or his publication/website?

[Sidebar: An article by Brendan Bernhard about poetry in L.A. in the LA WEEKLY a decade ago--besides offending certain community majordomos upset about not being Recognized by Bernhard--had a priceless quote from someone (perhaps a bookseller) that described literary poets as "people in academia writing for each other."]

At this point, I realize I'm going to attract potential criticism for criticizing a poet (something I'd be tut-tutted about--and then forbidden to do--on at least one local poetry listserve) after having been chastised recently for not being "ambitious" enough.

Sorry, but there's also a danger to the health of poetry as a whole when poets and hosts bend over backwards to fawn over too-self-satisfied, please-my-professor-at-university, deadly-dull-but-au-courant verse that's drier than the deodorizer I put inside my cats' litter boxes three times a week.

I'll end this with a cautionary anecdote: Emily Dickinson showed her work to a Major Publisher of her day. She was considered "not good enough" and her poetry didn't really surface en masse until after her death.

It's safe to say Emily Dickinson will be read for a few centuries more than the Influential Poet/Editor I was bored, irritated and deeply depressed by tonight.