Friday, January 17, 2014

An absence of trippers and askers

This week I've taught poems by Walt Whitman in two different classes and in both students have complained that they don't have any idea what Whitman is talking about. A few said that they just don't get poetry, which I understand: poetry-phobia is a nearly universal condition among college students, even among English majors. But come on, we're not talking about Louis Zukofsky here! This is Whitman, our old pal Walt, who celebrates himself and sings himself while claiming to speak for all of us in the voice of Everyman, who begs us to put "creeds and schools in abeyance" and "go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked."

But even this simple statement befuddles my students, who (a) don't know what "abeyance" means and can't be troubled to look it up, and (b) fear that there may be some secret hidden meaning behind the most forthright statement. He can't really be suggesting that we should close our books and go for a roll in the hay with a lover, can he? That must be code language for something abstract and ethereal, far beyond the understanding of the common reader.

Poor Walt: his contemporaries were shocked by his frankness, but today's college students find him old-fashioned, incomprehensible, obscure. "To elaborate is no avail," he says in Song of Myself, and I fear that he's correct. The "Trippers and askers" who surrounded him have been transformed into poetry-phobic students who remain attached to their electronic devices and are comfortable only with answers that arrive easily on tiny screens unsuited for rolling around in the woods. How can they hear Whitman's voice through the tinny sounds constantly flowing into their ears?

If poor old Walt is rolling in his grave, I hope he's got some company.

No comments: