Michelangelo, the great Renaissance artist, does not belong to the English-speaking poetry canon.
Michelangelo’s success in this year’s Scarriet March Madness perhaps proves nothing—after all, this tournament features excerpted lines, not entire poems.
The experiment has nonetheless proved interesting. First, Michelangelo is an interesting discovery. His poetry is good. Even in the English translations available.
And secondly, with the assertion that “a long poem does not exist,” Edgar Poe, in the mid-19th century, ushered in a new criterion. It is really very simple, and Scarriet has followed Poe’s insight to its logical conclusion: poetry is poetry in as much as it pleases immediately, and in its smallest parts: prose can be unremarkable as it builds; poetry we define as that which is remarkable right away: it is poetry as much as it makes an impression right away—in one line, or a few.
Therefore, let’s be frank: the modern prose poem, which takes time to unfold and make its “poetic” impression on the reader, hasn’t got a chance in this tournament.
And let’s be even more frank: what is the advantage of writing poetry which is not poetry?
Or, to put it another way: is there anything wrong with the type of writing which makes a strong impression immediately?
We cannot think of any reason—touching on pleasure, usefulness, or pedagogy—why this type of writing does not deserve the highest acclaim, should not be considered an expression of the highest virtue.
And yet—who writes like this anymore:
Fate is a wind and red leaves fly before it Far apart, far away in the gusty time of year—Seldom we meet now, but when I hear you speaking, I know your secret, my dear, my dear.
Which poet today produces work like the above—to critical acclaim?
None.
And yet here is that type of writing which deserves notice—which moves, entertains, pleases on its own and also demonstrates what language itself can do.
And poetry—which is the very best at doing the most important human activity at all: expression—chooses another path, the same path which prose treads.
We find this whole state of affairs—and we love prose—just a little disconcerting.
So let us throw, a little sadly, rose petals at Sarah Teasdale, and congratulate her, with the rest.
Of course, Tennyson, won. Is the following old, or good? We say it may be old, but it is also very, very good—whatever else we call it.
My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed; my dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red.
Tennyson probably asked for tea in the way any person would—and when writing poetry such as this, he was practicing to make poetry of the highest order—which it is.
It seems a little ridiculous to condemn verse such as this as “old-fashioned.”
This would be like calling the work which graces the Sistine Chapel “old-fashioned.”
The label “old-fashioned,” applied to Tennyson, and to great verse, should make a person of good taste wince, and cringe.
Here’s the Sweet Sixteen from Brackets one and two:
Michelangelo (d. Marlowe)
Teasdale (d. Dowson)
Eliot (d. Arnold)
Wordsworth (d. Merwin)
Coleridge (d. Wylie)
Poe (d. Frost)
Keats (d. Khayyam)
Tennyson (d. Marvell)
