Speculative poetry is the work of the present. It imagines what most of us will get wrong, a future more complicated and snaking, slow or quick, and wholly terrifying than what we will dream. Maybe this poem is about bees and maybe it isn’t; I won’t know until it’s too late for it to be anything else. – Tracy McCusker
In her latest Playtime post (seriously, the woman is a dynamo!), Tracy delivers a rejoinder to Alan DeNiro’s manifesto, Notes on Speculative Poetry. Appropriately, it is in the form of a prose poem. I had to read it twice: once for comprehension, again for pleasure. A few more times, I expect, for the accrual of wisdom. If I had the energy or wit, I’d compare Tracy’s thoughts to Ursula K. LeGuin’s as laid out in Language of the Night, which strikes me as a potentially fruitful exercise. Instead, I’ll just throw that comparison out there and let you lot work it out, if it so pleases you. I really enjoyed “Towards Speculative Poetry,” though. It’s a great piece. Let me know what you all think. ☕
January 9th, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Nice, quick read. No surprise, Ms Tracy McCusker’s a star!
Modern poetry I’d imagine is flourishing more than ever; look at the lyrics to our favorite rock songs. Many of us can chant along through some of them, feel the same emotions and, afterwards, linger in common fellowship for it. How aren’t they poems?
Rob B
January 15th, 2013 at 3:28 pm
Most lyrics are certainly poems in form, though I would draw a distinction between “flourishing” and “proliferating.” :D
Not to mention that most song lyrics are constructed with the music; to separate the music from the words is akin to singling out a single frame from a film. There may certainly be beauty, craft, and art present, but without the entire artistic context, it’s often skeletal at best.