A Quote by Mark Strand
I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.
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Many other cultures value poetry more than we do. In Ireland, poetry is a top cultural pursuit, the art to end all arts.
There are still many tribal cultures where poetry and song, there is just one word for them. There are other cultures with literacy where poetry and song are distinguished. But poetry always remembers that it has its origins in music.
It’s never going to be very mainstream. One reason is that poetry requires concentration, both on the part of the writer and the reader. But it’s kind of unkillable, poetry. It’s our most ancient artform and I think it’s more relevant today than ever, because it’s one person saying what they really believe.
I think there is a mainstream media. CNN is mainstream media, and the main, ABC, CBS, NBC are mainstream media. And I think it's just essentially to make the point that we are largely in the center without particular axes to grind, without ideologies which are represented in our daily coverage, at least certainly not on purpose.
Whether you speak English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, everybody can speak wrestling and it's really cool to go to different cultures and societies and see how the littlest things we do as performers influence the biggest things.
There's always going to be a fight between mainstream and underground because the mainstream is a very small bubble, and the underground scene is a very small bubble, and they both see themselves as secret societies.
I think that America is an ideal place for the privileged homeless, who are used to different cultures. It's easiest and most accommodating because it is a country of exiles and immigrants and newcomers. There are no walls, in that sense. There is always the sense that traditions are being made as we speak. So you can slot yourself in. If you are living at a distance in society, this is one of the most congenial societies to live in.
In a cross-cultural study of 173 societies (by Herbert Barry and L. M. Paxson of the University of Pittsburgh) 76 societies typically had mother and infant sharing a bed; in 42 societies they shared a room but not a bed; and in the remaining 55 societies they shared a room with a bed unspecified. There were no societies in which infants routinely slept in a separate room.
When I speak about 'we,' it gets very complex very quickly. Having grown up in the United States, but also being very much a member of Nigerian societies and also different parts of Nigerian societies, I understand that we construct particular 'we's.'
My goals as an artist have nothing to do with speaking to an audience. I love to have a good time, but when it comes to poetry I'm not really interested in writing poetry that seeks to entertain or operate safely within the mainstream and, to be clear, I'm not disparaging the really phenomenal work that does - it's just not my interest as a poet.
There's always going to be a fight between mainstream and underground because the mainstream is a very small bubble, and the underground scene is a very small bubble, and they both see themselves as secret societies. But I never saw it that way. I always thought music was open to all things.
After 9/11, there was so much distress in America that it led to an inter-cultural breakdown. Some of our communities were targeted. Many of our adults shut themselves off from other cultures. I tried to bring children of Indian and other cultures together in my literature.
When we are understood, we always speak well, and then all your fine diction serves no purpose.
[Democrats] have lost the capacity to speak to the vast middle of America, an America that is, in large part, white, very religious and not highly educated.
In the humanist ideal, the mainstream is where interesting debate, the generating of new ideas and creativity take place. In rational society this mainstream is considered uncontrollable and is therefore made marginal. The centre ground is occupied instead by structures and courtiers.
We usually forget that apart from making a living on this earth, human beings live in societies and these societies have cultures. It is only through having cultures that mankind on this earth has an ordered and meaningful life. Music and drama are two of the many important manifestation of a culture. They are important because they represent the expressions emanating from the power of human artistic creativity
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