Severin,
I wasn't aware I'd been trumped. Indeed I'm complacent I hold all the cards.
"Our society distributes itself into Barbarians,
Philistines, and the populace; and America is just
Ourselves, with the Barbarians quite left out,
and the populace nearly" (Arnold)
We're all philistines now. I don't accuse us of elitism, just indifference and superficiality.

"Indifference and superficiality"

Is that what you think of us all?

Thank you for the edification - I will keep your attitude in mind when next I read a contribution from you.

NO! Dammit!

You have contributed much thought of far more value than the Houellebecqs of OLO.

If you believe that a thread about poetry is, from the ribald to the sublime as epitomised here; mere self-indulgent middle-class play - well you are entitled to your opinion.

However, you can keep it with your pigeon.

:(

As I wrote earlier, poetry like so many
things is subjective. That's not to say
that all poetry is good poetry, but it
is a question of taste, and what moves
us I guess (or not). This is not to say
that poetry should contain only lofty,
so called 'high poetry,' as distinct
from popular or light verse. One doesn't
expect the insight and transformation of
lyric poetry in a light-hearted jingle,
which has its own, quite different, value
in humour, drama, and musical fun.

Several important things have emerged from
this discussion so far. The first is that
poetry is a universal art form and spreads its
appeal across the whole spectrum of humanity.
Secondly, it comes in many forms, each having
prominence in its own right. Thirdly, to most
of us, poetry has an important place in our
lives. It recreates the world and gives us a
new vision of reality which in turn enriches
and guides us in our living.

"...I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space.
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air:
Moon came and went - and came, and brough no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread of
this their desolation..."
(Lord Byron, 1816).

Although this is only a small part of Byron's poem,
it gives us a very vivid visual picture of what a
nuclear winter could be like. I guess this vision is
part of what art can sustain.

Even the simple art of poetry cannot be protected from ideology and class politics.

Hang on I have to go "that will be Nigel with the Brie".

(acknowledgement: (Movie) Ten Things I Hate About You')

I've been off watching my boys play the 'beautiful' game, and thus dragged from the field rather than vanquished.

Severin,
apologies for offending you, clearly you dislike having your complacency shaken.
Anyway take heart, I don't say our superficiality isn't sophisticated; I doubt we've begun to plumb the depth of our shallowness.

Foxy.
<Several important things have emerged from
this discussion so far.>

Yes, but you neglect to mention politics, which 'I' invoked; clearly not an 'important thing'?
Severin's never heard of it, but there's such a 'thing' as Culturalism, which long since trumped elitist aesthetics. We live in the age of the anti-aesthetic, wherein poetry is just discourse distilled--a powerful 'anaesthetic' for all that! After several decades of formalism and 'New Criticism', the mysterious aesthetic was found to be will-o-the-wisp, its effects little more than naive affectation. Poetry, like any cultural artefact, is edifying for what it tells us about ourselves; it offers a critical self-reflexive perspective that, given humanity's monumental hubris, is naturally invisible to us. And then, what 'texts' reveal about us is seldom flattering, and difficult to embrace. The Modern era has amounted to one 'Copernican revolution' after another.
Of course the bourgeoisie (consumer society), with all the substance of a souffle, is utterly oblivious (ignorant or dismissive) of such 'fashionable nonsense', continuing on with all the swagger of new money and homespun provincial pieties in verse.
Thus, people like Severin lash out when anyone threatens to puncture that supercilious pillow of air they laboured so long to prepare.
I really do apologise for opening the oven, but I contend that such considerations as I've raised are far more salubrious than suffle.

Dear Squeers,

I didn't mention a lot of things.
I didn't feel that it was necessary
to do that.
I was certain that we're all aware
of the variety of themes that are covered
by poets from traditional love poems, to
race, religion, politics, sex and sexuality,
death, family affections, friends and lovers,
private fates, reflections, images, elegies,
callings, dreams and questions, the list goes on.
It's a vast menu to choose from. I did say however -
or rather Samuel Taylor Coleridge did,
in the quote I gave, "...Poetry is the
blossom and the fragrance of all human
knowledge, human thoughts, human passions,
emotions, language ..."

You seem to want an argument of some sort.
I don't. To me, the importance of a rich
poetic experience is vital to effective language
development, particularly at the early stages
when the rate of language growth is at its highest
in children. If we see reading and learning to
read as fused with other aspects of using language,
poetry with its rich concentration of the right words
in the right order can be effectively used to make
the important link with listening, speaking and
writing.

I shan't give you a dissertation on the subject.
Instead, I'll Thank You for your input into this
one - and hopefully I will see you soon on another
thread.

I'd like to take this opportunity to Thank everyone
who contributed to my thread. It has exceeded my
expectations.