Hearts and Minds: Poetic Response vs. ‘Review’

Poetry examines feeling. There are other ways to do this of course, the objective/empathetic practice of the therapist immediately coming to mind. Drama, in common with the novel, ensnares its characters in plot; audiences register the feeling that ensues. Music, dance and the visual arts all represent feeling.

A crude summary, which ignores the arts as documentary, as means to the understanding of history, and indeed as entertainment. Or even edutainment. My argument is that a response rooted in poetry, no matter the media, is the most immediate ‘take’ and then ‘act-upon’ to an artistic work. Experiencing, and then being moved to expression  –  spontaneity at the core.

If artistic production results from an inner prompt, then should not what is read prompt in the same way? And therefore some form of ordered expression legitimately be part of that exchange? Related to the original work and (to be hoped) useful to those who seek deeper insight into the work, who will attempt it in the future. But standing alone, as a statement and expression of feeling. Such development is not dissimilar to academic writing: for the detached reader, the work is a phenomenon to be considered in context of the artist’s political stance, the surrounding history and society that might provide source, and equally the artistic milieu (tradition, gainful pre-occupation) in which the artefact is made. Of course the scholar does much more. Academic enquiry is the articulation of the multiplicity of meaning that works may convey.

The universities are also called upon to judge. As a bookseller I have seen stock plummet in value. An example would be Laurence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet. Fifty years ago part of the canon of modern literature, Laurence, brother of amateur zoologist Gerald (author of televised costume-drama My Family and Other Animals) set his exploration of viewpoint in the postwar Mediterranean city of Alexandria, with its thriving Greek and Jewish ‘quarters’, prior to Arab nationalism. Laurence’s reputation then plummeted. Very recently, the Quartet has been seen as an attempt to depict the workings of the mind beneath the ego, of sexuality and the merging of personalities, and of the post-colonial world. My set of first-editions stood at £140 sixteen years ago. In the end I sold them for barely a fifth of that.

If universities are to assign cultural value to a work, at least they do so in a structured, argued way. Their writers belong to a critical world in which their judgements are similarly subject to critical view, to scrutiny by peers. I have the impression this is not so with newspapers, still less so with online (Amazon!) reviewers, who have free-reign. The star-rating is the most reductive form of valuation.

Recommendation can be useful. Guiding consumer-choice is not the function of writing that aims to be poetic response. Here, the listener (I am not going to say ‘audience’, still less ‘market’) attempts to describe the experience of reading the work in a way that is unique and personal. Saturdaybooks.co.uk has a small but steadily growing Books section. It should not contain reviews of the kind outlined above. With luck it will draw readers, and writers, to this website. What it will not do is judge. If it simply inspires further thought, that is good enough. The book, the original production, has then done its work. If you, the reader of this blog piece, feel you can write poetic response to what you read, then please get in touch.