This class taught me about how the structure of poetry was often indicative and evocative of the art world surrounding it at the time. As the focus of art shifted, ebbed, and flowed, so too did the way people formed their poems on paper or how they arranged images to create a ‘text’ to present their message.
What I took away from the course the most, however, was a sense of personal release. A majority of my work this semester, while it had certainly started as personal, eventually felt like it had been taken away; the connection I once had with my pieces was no longer present, instead removed by outside influence or axed by critique. While this is certainly a good thing for visual works, I felt I was being dishonest with myself and catering towards others to service a grade rather than express something I wanted to because of the basic need to emote.
This didn’t apply to this class. My poems were innately personal, and the message was intimately tied to the composition and wording of each one that it would fundamentally change the piece as a whole to remove or edit them. Slight things could change, yes, but the meaning was always there, and it was often unapologetic. I wrote many of these works out of desperation, looking back on the experiences in my past for inspiration, and I wanted to voice things I couldn’t in my other art.
This relationship I had with poetry is what I think the ultimate lesson of the course is. To leave a message, immutable, open, and with dignity, and to let others see and have it challenge them.
That being said, the goal of most art today is seemingly impersonal. Many people come to this school in particular to get hired; art is a commodity, it’s commercial, and it’s everywhere. There hasn’t been too much of a spotlight on art as an overarching narrative or media like there has been in the past, but that’s because our lives are so busy and intertwined with so much that we don’t necessarily see what’s around us.
The job of the artist today is based more in the realm of what is practical for them to compete and survive in today’s society, which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just not the typical narrative many would expect. People provide for the world around them, they create, inspire, and build, but they do so with motivation to also support themselves. I think that the romanticism of being an artist is the only thing that’s really changed overall; there will always be more creative and inventive people, but now there’s a strong industry and commercialization for them to enter into like most other fields.
Art can still be challenging, there’s still cartoons and satire, and commentary being made and that will stay consistent as well; art is just ‘no longer naked,’ there’s a uniformity and practicality to it now. It’s being channeled into new paths and directions so that it has more of a global impact, and it’s recorded far more accurately and in real time so that it’s chronicled more effectively as well.
Artists today may be workers, but they still have the same purpose they always have: say something. Make others notice. Leave your own monolith.
