We've come a long way since 1962. Read what Edwin Honig says about the role of the poet, and ask yourself if anyone (other than a poet or an English major) could say it with a straight face now.
It is not the poet's job to speak merely of what he sees, but rather of that through which he sees and most realizes his consciousness as a man. . . . With nothing more or less than himself at stake, the poet is intricately engaged to the society of his time, which he serves as the voice that transcends impersonal authority—the self-possessed voice of one man speaking for every man. No larger voice can break the spell of the abstract, televised, antihuman, institutionalized, big-brother, mass-man voice that is built into us all, inhibiting the grave, silent, multifarious birth of the individual self. One may assume that this has always been the poet's role, at least among the greatest poets, where it is most consciously and consistently adhered to. . . . If the tragic meaning of this event [WWII and the Nazi movement] were fully understood, it would become clear that the poet's voice is needed now more than ever before—that voice which celebrates the difficult, joyous, imaginative process by which the individual man discovers and enacts his selfhood.
-Edwin Honig, introduction to The Mentor Book of Major American Poets
First of all, the unapologetic use of the inclusive he in the service of liberated selfhood strikes one as, well, retrograde. Second, I think it's safe to say that very few people care deeply about poetry anymore. I hate to say it, but “the self-possessed voice of one man speaking for every man” describes the role of Bob Dylan in the 60s, Bruce Springsteen in the 80s, or even Garth Brooks in the 90s much better than it does Billy Collins. Of course, pop and rock are so stratified that to call any one artist universal would be a big stretch.
(Wednesday poem returns next week.)
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