Harold Bloom on Why Contemporary Poetry Sucks (Full) Hint: Modern Poems Are Bad Due to Cultural ...

[@davidnovakreadspoetry]

“The mock poetry of resentment”? Was that ever a thing? 🤔

[@Tom-rg2ex]

If I'm not mistaken, it's for similar sentiments that Bloom didn't consider Edgar Allen Poe a good poet, which is honestly kind of harsh in my opinion, but maybe I just like Poe for cheesy Halloweeny reasons.

[@GOATPoets]

@@Tom-rg2ex Poe was a better writer than poet. Didn't Emerson call Poe, "that great 'jingle-jangle' man"? (Or something along those lines?) He certainly solidified the Gothic in American conscious (along with Bronte and Puritan witch hunts among so much else). Poe could be cloyingly sweet, and yet at the same time capable of hitting you with prose like this: "Not long ago, about the closing in of an evening in autumn, I sat at the large bow window of the D-- Coffee-House in London. For some months I had been ill in health, but was now convalescent, and, with returning strength, found myself in one of those happy moods which are so precisely the converse of ennui - moods of the keenest appetency, when the film from the mental vision departs - the αχλυς ος πριν επηεν - and the intellect, electrified, surpasses as greatly its every-day condition, as does the vivid yet candid reason of Combe, the mad and flimsy rhetoric of Gorgias. Merely to breathe was enjoyment; and I derived positive pleasure even from many of the legitimate sources of pain. I felt a calm but inquisitive interest in every thing. With a cigar in my mouth and a newspaper in my lap, I had been amusing myself for the greater part of the afternoon, now in poring over advertisements, now in observing the promiscuous company in the room, and now in peering through the smoky panes into the street."

[@sb5421]

Excellent reading! In particular, the reading of “Mariana” (22:04) caused me to pause. Incredible. That poem is a favorite. I was not expecting the second stanza, and when it was read, I was deeply moved.

[@GOATPoets]

Hey! Thanks so much. Mariana is indeed a great piece :) "The blue fly sung on the window pane" Is quite a line ... I have more poetry on my channel, so check it out!

[@dogen522]

A wonderful summation of the final whimper of 20th Century culture and it’s gasping rebirth into the 21st. This essay describes the ideological final solution executed by Academia upon Literary works despite best intentions. Anticipates the sufferings of male Millennials in college; and the grotesque reaction in the rebirth of fascist fantasy idealism by its handmaids, opportunism and technology. I thank the reader for his talented and generous contribution.

[@GOATPoets]

Thank you - I could never have summarized like that ... My only answer in response to Academia trying to eat America's youth is this: I am going to keep writing. I hope to use what little power I gain in my life to champion the TRULY voiceless poets/writers. I am considering opening a poetry competition on this channel too. Thank you for your brilliant words

[@JWlloski-d8r]

But all these struggles are one. In the 90s, the sharks prowled at different bays, the waters consumed with blood looking like fire, thrashing as more humanity voids in the maw I can be specific, as a humane leader I want to PACE

[@JWlloski-d8r]

You think there is male knights on MTG Magic cards, the baseball of nerds and thinkers? Well i did, and they did, pre 09 upon my return to wield the undead. Elbereth Githoniel? Are these squat knights so dainty? The brute bricks, mothers now? Demand this of RR martin

[@GOATPoets]

@@JWlloski-d8r "waters consumed with blood looking like fire" ... very good ... :)

[@ecyranot]

Bloom was prescient about our universities and its obsession with race, gender--identity basically as a condition of worthiness of study. But I find a lot of his criticism to be beyond my understanding. I've listened to his recorded lectures at Yale as well as many KZbin videos and find him to speak from a high perch where I cannot join him because I don't have the scaffolding to appreciate or even understand his points. This video, a recitation of a Bloom publication, is an example of that, though not as inaccessible as some other of his strictly literary material.

[@GOATPoets]

Bloom's strength was in his teaching. The first four chapters of his Visionary Company (on the Romantic Poets), however, reads quite lucidly. Prescient, yes!

[@johnhastings462]

[@SM-mx1it]

"I ardently wish I were being hyperbolical." Congratulations, Professor - you were being hyperbolical - you just didn't realize it at the time!

[@GOATPoets]

Interesting. Do you think Bloom's belief in American cultural decline is exaggerated? Genuinely curious to hear your opinion :)

[@Phatdude1337]

⁠@@GOATPoets oh no I don’t think he was exaggerating at all. I think he was a man ahead of his time, and was 100% correct about the concept of the ‘school of resentment’.

[@GOATPoets]

@@Phatdude1337 AGREED.

[@johnhastings462]

In many ways . A fair assessment . But Ashbery ?! That poster child of chill , autumnal oddment , vespering forth as a single sigh in the boom box of the doom machine . A poet ?! Say it is not so ...

[@GOATPoets]

Mr Hastings! "chill , autumnal oddment , vespering forth as a single sigh in the boom box of the doom machine" You sir, ARE a poet!

[@SerWhiskeyfeet]

Yeah I don’t know anything about Ashbery but I read a few of his poems in between listening to this and they seemed like watered down Eliot. Just a first impression though like I said I don’t know him.

[@johnhastings462]

@@GOATPoets A very humble thank you I send your way !

[@GOATPoets]

@@SerWhiskeyfeet Thoughts? The Young Prince and the Young Princess (Ashberry) The grass cuts our feet as we wend our way Across the meadow - you, a child of thirteen In a man's business suit far too big for you: A symbol of how long we have been together. I pick the berries for us to eat ... Into a tin can ... and set it on a stump - Soon or late, lateness comes. Crows come up out of the west. I want you to examine this solid block of darkness In which we are imprisoned. But you say, "No." You are tired. You turn over and sleep; And I sleep, but in my sleep I hear ... horses ... carrying you away. When the breeze is finished it is morning Again. Wake up! It is time to start walking Into the heavenly wilderness. This morning, strangers Come down to the road to feed us. They are afraid to have us ... come so far. Night comes, but this time it is a different one. Your feet scarcely seem to touch the grass As you walk; you have confidence in me; Moths bump my incandescent head ... And I hear the wind ... and so it goes. Some day We will wake up, having fallen in the night From a high cliff into the white, precious sky. You will say, 'That is how we lived, you and I."

[@GOATPoets]

Hi friends! If interested, check out Bloom's interviews on KZbin. Let me know in the comments below if you'd like more literary criticism from Bloom and his ilk. Thanks!

[@guestguest7543]

Keep it up. Bloom is needed now more than ever

[@GOATPoets]

@@guestguest7543 I agree. Thanks for listening!