The Hatred of Poetry
Novelist and poet Ben Lerner argues that our hatred of poetry is ultimately a sign of its continued relevance.
Poetry. Perhaps Marianne Moore said it best: "I, too, dislike it." What other art takes its marginality as a given, and is so widely bemoaned even by its practitioners? Ben Lerner writes, "Many more people agree they hate poetry than can agree what poetry is. I, too, dislike it and have largely organized my life around it and do not experience that as a contradiction because poetry and the hatred of poetry are inextricable in ways it is my purpose to explore."
In this inventive and plain-spoken essay, Lerner takes the hatred of poetry as the starting point of his defence of the…
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June 7, 2016BEN LERNER was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1979. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed novels Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04, three books of poetry (The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw, and Mean Free Path), and the monograph The Hatred of Poetry, as well as several collaborations with artists. Lerner has been a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry and has received fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations, among many other honors. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College.