Constraint, pleasure and genre in contemporary poetics

Abstract

Jeffery Wainright writes that the central paradox of poetry results from two conflicting desires: the desire to 'say something meaningful and memorable' and the desire to say nothing and simply delight in the nature of language itself (203). The contradiction is as old as the art, however, the question still remains: how can a poet engage with the two poles in a meaningful way? What strategies and tools can a poet use to achieve this? Often the tension between form and content is provisionally mitigated by poetry that gives too much weight to what is being expressed, rather than the form of its expression. As a result the intensity of the content stands in for the crafting of the linguistic material, which should contribute to the readers response. There are many contemporary writers who engage with these topics in poetics, however, I have chosen to use a small selection of poems by Matthew Welton as a case study because they provide useful technical lessons on navigating the impasses of the conventional lyric. The relationship between form and content is at the heart of nearly every art form and fundamental questions arise from it: what is being said? How do the materials construct what is being said? What value do the writer and the reader place on these components? The issues are simple to state in general terms but difficult to resolve in relation to particular poems due to their subjective nature.

Date of Award	2017
Original language	English