"The Pound reference is mine, not hers, race of course being a social construct."
You had me there, sir. Fine irony.
"By trying to be "relevant" to the chaos of the postmodern age by adapting their form to it, poets and modern artists are not transgressing the status quo - they are reinforcing it."
This might be one of the smartest things I have ever heard (read) anyone say about modern artists.
As well, your recognition of the negative effect on the masses being forced to support such attempts at relevancy through taxation also seems to hammer in a strong point that modern artists all too often discount.
Doomed though he was, I still have a soft spot for Mayakovsky. Just look at Left March:
"Fall in and prepare to march,
No time now to talk or trifle,
Silence, you orators!
The word is with you, Comrade Rifle!"
Aside from Henry V, there's not much else that inspires a man to try and storm something.
I think the problem is that no poets attempt to be relevant to their own times anymore. The "experimental" poets strive to be baffling, and most of the rest just yearn for the old dead greats.
The young poets of my generation then must be the puberty-stricken whores on Livejournal, which is why I am so afraid of how my generation will be remembered. We had the Lost generation already, now we have the self-absorbed.
I do like Mayakovsky. I emphasize with failed utopians like him because I can understand what drives them. The difference between a transgressive poet of the early 20th century versus one of the 21st however, is that we now have historical proof of how much worse the alternatives to the status quo can be. This should not be an excuse for blindly supporting the status quo, but it should cause one to think twice before throwing one's lot in with the architects of labour camps.
Commenting by HaloScan
