"Blogs aren't Literature." (Doug Rosson)

In response to an essay by Gioia ("Can Poetry Matter") as well as an essay that entreats writers who have hit a dry spell to take up poetic criticism, my head has been swimming with all sorts of questions. What makes a great writer? Was Robert Frost really all that good--or was he simply just popular? What technically qualifies as literature? Why has poetry become simply something done purely for the poets subculture? And, on those lines, has theatre become a similar entity? Are our audiences comprised of actors, actors to be, playwrights, directors, and a few "die hard fans"? (Gioia). Where is the general public? For theatre? For poetry? If they're gone, can we get them back?

These are obviously not new questions. But the ultimate question should be the last: when will poets and theatre artists and other artists stop writing about the "fall of art" and leave their desks/stage/computers/pianos and go do something about it? We could theorize and hypothesize all day, couldn't we? I know I could. In fact, I am. Right now.

Bottom line:

Poetry is dead. I will go so far as to say that. But before every free verse writing creative writing minor jumps to bite my head off, let me say first of all, I am a poet, so I am certainly not saying that poetry, the art, is dead. It is alive in everyone who commits their thoughts, feelings, and observations to paper by way of poetry. But poetry as an artistic movement--as a way of entertaining, reaching, teaching, moving the mass public is dead. The amount of people who buy poetry or read it on a regular basis is absurdly small. And most of these people are poets themselves. Even poets themselves don't read poetry all that often--I am guilty of this Therefore, I believe that yes, poetry is a lost art, and I equate lost, in this instance, with dead because we are not looking hard enough to find it. We have given up, much like detectives or police officers on a missing child they've searched for for too long and cannot continue looking for. Like these detectives, we are sad, and we express true dismay-- "We are very sorry for your loss," but at the end of the day, the case is closed. But this hypothetical child can be found--but we need to believe that first. Like fairies--if you stop believing in them, they die (according to J. M. Barry). If more and more people believe in poetry, perhaps tinkerbell, in this instance, can surivive. Because I do not believe poetry's death is a permanent death, if you will. Like Lazarus, I believe that the right movement or the right dedication or person can raise poetry from the dead--and not as a brain eating zombie. So, where is poetry's Messiah? And must it be one person only?

Theatre, on the other hand, is not dead...yet. But it's certainly getting there. I do believe that playwrights like Tracy Letts of Chicago, who is getting worldwide acclaim (August: Osage County played in London as well as areas of the Netherlands) is producing work that our generation is getting excited about. Another example would be the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and their productions--under Barbara Gaines direction, their renovations of Shakespearean plays are wild and wonderful and affective and they work. Their work is fresh--but then again, I am biased. I am a "theatre student." And most of those excited about the new and exciting work going on are theatre students, practioners, or affectionados. But the majority of the world, (well, really, America) would prefer to watch Greys Anatomy--which I'm not knocking, but it's clear certain television shows, movies, music, even books (fiction/prose-Twilight, Harry Potter) have something we (poets, theatre artists) don't. Even the visual arts seem to be more accessible, or at least, sought after, than poetry or theatre. Museums are popular--not as popular as football, sure, but I'd bet most "non-artistically affiliated" people would go to an art museum rather than to a play they've never heard of, even if it had won the Pulitzer. It's lost it's weight. The only theatre in the public eye (predominantly) is the big book commercial musical, which is fine in and amongst itself, but these musicals--cult phenomenons like Wicked, Phantom... are slowly and surely singularly taking over the whole definition of "great theatre" and the true greats-Shakespeare, Miller, O'Neil, Williams, Beckett, Churchill, etc and modern playwrights-Letts, Rebeck, Macleod, Hare, Auburn, etc--are struggling to keep from fading into oblivion.

So what are we missing?

Accessibility.

Broadway in New York has reached record high prices, and when we compare the 200 some dollars asked for prize seats to say, Thurgood on Broadway to say, the Shakespearean "penny" for standing room "back in the day" for Macbeth... Look, I'm not saying we should charge a penny. And clearly the "ground floor" wasn't where you wanted to be at The Globe. But the point is that no one working a blue collar job supporting three children as a single parent today is going to spend the 40 bucks to see a show at The Goodman! Hell, we're lucky if they'll shell out 10-15 for a play at Peoria Players or Eastlight.

It's a lot easier to watch something on cable, or cough up 3 bucks for a movie rental. You don't have to schedule that in--you just turn it on, push a button or two. No putting aside one night, driving to the theatre, finding a babysitter, calling ahead for the tickets... no, the most popular form of entertainment and escape is a click away.

We can't compete with entertainment that can be had anytime for a reasonable price. For only 40ish dollars a month, (give or take) you can see multiple shows... on television, as opposed to ONE show for that price at a professional theatre that only lasts two hours.

We can't compete. So we must stop competing--stand alone as valuable by ourselves, without the necessity of comparison. Example--people love music, but they love movies. Both of these things are well loved and aren't conflicting. Theatre and movies and television don't have to conflict. Poetry and prose don't have to fight for shelf space. If poetry and theatre are strong enough to stand on their own, there is no need to condemn or cluck at the other forms of entertainment--and we're not there yet. We're not standing on our own, we're treading water.

I believe we have to make theatre more accessible; the same applies to oetry.

Cast away elitism! The intelligensia is all well and good (I'm a fan, clearly, I just used the word "intelligensia,") but we've got a reputation for being pretentious "clique-y" assholes, and that reputation won't get us any readers or audience members. Theatres like Redmoon, in Chicago, are taking their work to the people. Along those same lines, street theatre could really help in this aspect if we got away from just doing solo perfomances--why not ensemble pieces in the parks as well as the solo mime? And hey, where's The Group Theatre of the 21st Century? We're in need of a group of people at that level of revolutionary committment and innovative creation--and we need them in the public eye, whatever that may mean. I'm not saying there isn't a place for the age old proscenium standard stage theatre or in the case of poetry, lyric written down verse, but we need the people who will want to sit through or read it in the first place, and we have to inspire them first with something they can tangibly appreciate in THEIR world before we entice them to join in and relish OURS.

The times they are a-changin', and as the nation goes, so must we.

The question now is the same question every artsy hack who attempts artistic criticism (me) reaches at the end of her or his declamation...

how?