THE NECESSITY OF PRETENSION:
Poetry as Icon in the Human Imagination
Consequently, any poetic that does not attempt to rival contemporary music has no relevance to my project. My aim is nothing short of creating a poetic as vital and as powerful in our culture and popular music and film. The basic claims of poetry remain unchanged. Poetry is ground zero of a nation's cultural wisdom and treasure. I do not neglect this claim and the GLP project operates under no other dynamic. The poet exists as the supreme master of the transition from the natural to the supernatural; from the soul in matter to the soul that is infinite and unmovable. It is the image and representation of our metaphysical condition, superior in merit and power to all other art forms in Western Culture. That poetry is not a force to be reckoned with in today's cultural landscape is due to failure of human personality; and it will return to vitality with human personality - as symbol and icon in the human imagination. It requires, in fact, some pretension.
There is a long tradition for the pretentious pose in American letters. I am in good company. Other poets, such as Whitman and Pound, tasked themselves with the pose of cultural prophets in our history. Walt Whitman (the first Ziggy) was simply a wonderful man; he felt wonderful about himself and achieved remarkable results with a very minor stock of creativity. Though his voice was new and modern, I introduce the argument that his pose was his principle contribution. But then I esteem the well-performed pose as high art, as much as Oscar Wild and Charles Baudelaire made their life a form of their art. I am certain that when Whitman self- published Leaves of Grass he had in mind a project similar to mine - he too was a greatest living poet (small caps). His only anxiety was that he knew this before anyone else did.
Ezra Pound assumed a wonderful pose early in the 20th century. His project was purposeful and forthright - to prop up at any cost (and quickly) the confidence of American Letters still in its infancy. If you can get over some name-dropping and obscure erudition, most of us are grateful even at this remove of time for his mature American voice. Such a clean voice cleared away the kitsch of eminent Victorians. But the pose of prophet is a dangerous strain on the nervous system - and you can be persuaded do get involved in the most outrageous events and public displays. Whitman and Pound were brave men - both large with pretension. And pretension is the role of a poet. The sub argument to my thesis is the immediate necessity in American Literature for writers of pretension and brave expansive hearts. We need more poets of pretension, loud American poets declaring a piercing and echoing inheritance. I do not think that there are many rock stars that did not start out thinking they were a generation's gift to music. Lets hope for a greater poetic confidence in American poetry and American poets with large, but sustainable, pretensions. That's my third point.
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