Modern Poetry

So, I love poetry.  It's awesome.  I had forgotten how much I love it.  Not having read much of it since I got sucked into the monochromatic, boring, borderline psychotic world of college engineering courses.  Yucky.


Anyway, I'm in Italian 443 - Romantic Era Italian Literature.  It's awesome.  And we're reading some really awesome poetry, and I am absolutely loving it.  It's really sweet.


I've been thinking about modern poetry and how it's not really a major part of our culture anymore.  I mean...how often do you (Rosemary excluded) sit down with a really good book of contemporary poetry?  How many contemporary poets can any of us name besides Shel Silverstein?  It's kind of depressing.


And then I realized....there is poetry all around us.  Yeah, the older form isn't very mainstream anymore.  Now, I know that my English major friends are going to scream and gnash their teeth and stuff, but it's true.  Poetry isn't cool anymore.  We really don't care about it.  Except that we do.


You see, most of the poetry that's being consumed by the masses now comes neatly packaged in the form of music.  In the past, music really was either instrumental, was an opera, or was a Mass/Requiem.  Now, we have words with everything.  And it's kind of cool, especially when someone churns out a really good poem and then adds screaming guitars and the clatter of drums.


Take, for example, Bob Dylan's amazing work, All Along the Watchtower.  Just read the lyrics...they're amazing, and read just like a poem.

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth”

“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late”

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl

Seriously.  If you didn't read that out loud to yourself, go back and read it.  Now!  I'll wait for you.

Okay.  I'm done waiting.  I'm just going to talk again.

Seriously!  These lyrics are very poetic.  The song follows a basic AABB rhyme scheme.  Sure, it's simple.  But it's still pretty.  I like it.  In fact, I love it.

I've actually really fallen in love with a new cover of it.  Yes, Dylan's and Hendrix' versions are amazing, and I would love to hear U2's version.  Dave Matthews' version is...interesting.

Anyway, it's Bear McCreary's version from Battlestar Galactica.  Yes, I am now a Battlestar addict.  It's good!  Shut up.  Don't mock me!  You already know that I'm a nerd!

So, basically, they build the entire second half of the third season finale around this song.  They even worked a bunch of lines from it into the script, inserting snippets throughout the entire episode.  The intro to the song kept playing during the episode.  In fact, the song was a key plot element.  Then, during the final scene, as everything descends into chaos, they play the whole song, complete with lyrics.  It's amazing.

Yeah.  Awesome, Huh?  And I have a theory about how two of the characters could be viewed as the joker and the thief.

I really like song lyrics.  It's really cool when you find a song that has great music and lyrics that blow you away.

And...of course, I can't think of any other amazing song lyrics right now.  It's been a long week.

Anyway, I hope nobody hates me for kind of bashing on contemporary poetry, but it's true!  There are very few people running around quoting contemporary poetry these days, but there are tons who know all of the lyrics to every song ever written.  I think that it's going to be our music lyrics that really define the poetry of our time period.