`A Thousand Tons of Jam'

Straight talk and plain dealing are always in short supply, particularly in the arts, and even more particularly among poets, so it’s refreshing when one of them drops all the happy talk about the joys of language and describes with unvarnished realism the horrors of life as a poet. I’m speaking, of course, of Franz Wright, whose Walking to Martha’s Vineyard was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for 2004. In an interview last fall at Poetry Daily, Wright refused to spare the delicate sensibilities of readers:

“My self-esteem is so low that getting the Pulitzer Prize just made me break even. It made me feel that hey, I have a right to exist . . . My in-laws like me better than they did before. I've got more money. It doesn't change anything about the writing process. It's as great a mystery and as a great a source of anguish and uncertainty and despair as it ever was.”

Such honesty, though admirable, is painful to behold. Is poetry, a few splendid lines, worth the cost in human suffering? I draw a line and say, “No, never again!” I’ve found an unexpected ally in Myles na gCopaleen, an Irish journalist who’ll have no more of this madness. He writes, in a selection of his work titled The Best Of Myles:

“Having considered the matter in – of course – all its aspects, I have decided that there is no excuse for poetry. Poetry gives no adequate return in money, is expensive to print by reason of the waste of space occasioned by its form, and nearly always promulgates illusory concepts of life. But a better case for the banning of all poetry is the simple fact that most of it is bad. Nobody is going to manufacture a thousand tons of jam in the expectation that five tons may be eatable. Futhermore, poetry has the effect on the negligible handful who read it of stimulating them to write poetry themselves. One poem, if widely disseminated, will breed perhaps a thousand inferior copies.”

Rest easy, Mr. Wright. Put away your pen. Your in-laws and the rest of us will be grateful.