Mac Modernist
All mortal works are destined to decline,
And in this fall, doth poetry align,
As all inheritance is thrown away,
And our dear art is subject to decay.
As Flecknoe’s kingdom, ancient and forlorn;
Revived by petty princes full of scorn,
Is made the lesser through the loss of rhyme,
And metre locked away, as if by crime.
I read their words and find I’m at a loss,
As I am overcome with utter dross!
The dullness of old age has been replaced,
As nonsense rules an art form long debased.
There are no kings to which we may appeal,
And rid ourselves of all this cliched spiel,
That tells us that without constraints we’re free,
To write without concern for melody;
They tell the world of all their churlish deeds,
Without regard for what the conscience needs,
A plague upon the cherished written word,
A malady to purge through passion stirred.
And so I hope in this I shall succeed,
That through reciting this—the verse is freed,
From all the degradations of this age,
That puts our poor creations in a cage,
And tells them that their chains are but a mist,
Then mocks the words that desperately resist,
As they are thrown about in disarray,
And end up having nothing left to say.
These princes prey on modern man’s appeal,
As they uphold the fashionable ideal,
And hate the older ways they seek to kill,
For they illuminate their lack of skill.
What shall we do about this great depression?
Thus fostered by modernity’s aggression,
By opening the doors to those unskilled,
They’ve robbed them of foundations they could build;
Directing them to spew their first instinct,
Becoming one of many indistinct,
Ignoring great endowments they were blessed,
Thus guided by a reprobate’s request;
To keep tradition locked within a book,
And hang their hats upon a chancer’s hook,
Who sneers at earnest striving with disdain,
For princes have positions to maintain.
But hear me now! Dear poets of the day!
Not all is lost! Not all are led astray;
We still rejoice at rhythms heard by ear,
We still have cause to celebrate and cheer.
So long as men hold beauty by their heart,
We shall retain a course that we may chart;
Abolishing the tyrants’ evil writ,
Exposing all the princes’ simple wit.
But how can we achieve this great concession?
And overturn the princes’ state repression?
For there are many princelings in our midst,
Their names are marked upon a lengthy list,
And one day I shall explicate their crimes:
How many treasons typed? How many times?
Today is not the hour to explain,
And shower you with explanations vain;
For we endeavour to unseat the crooks,
Those caring less for words than surface looks,
And those who’ve published countless failing books—
What can you do about this curse but write?
And hope the wrongs of past are put aright.
Joshua Thomas is a poet originally from North Wales who currently resides in Sweden.
“Mac Flecknoe” is one of my favorite poems and works of satire. I was excited to see you draw inspiration from it. You set a fine poetic essay to heroic couplets. I encourage you to develop this further with a narrative like Dryden’s. You could have great fun with that (and I think it would be great fun to read).
A wonderful, and difficult piece to pen, Joshua – and to verify I couldn’t agree more –
Eluded by the ‘Why’
Today it actually seems as though most anything at all
is deemed a poem if but comprised of words,
And that it matters not if rhyme is absent from the piece,
or even if the message that it girds
Leaves the average reader – for its esoteric terms –
in… often times… a convoluted state!
This is why the readership for poetry has declined!
‘Modernism’ sealed the poets’ fate!
After quizzing tons of readers for their point of view –
the answer I kept getting every time
Told of their resentment for what “modernists” have done,
claiming that their work – devoid of rhyme –
Gradually killed the love they had for ‘Verse’ as time went by.
And now that most who publish are astray…
Well-connected poets can submit their garbled tripe
and garner praise like ‘masterpiece’ today!
I feel ‘Academics’ are the proper ones to blame
for how the great demand for poetry fell.
They advocate rejection of what millions long to read…
and tout the styles of prose that rarely sell!
“No one is so blind as he who simply will not see” —
and those who are perplexed have turned their head!
They’ve closed their ears to rhyming, and – eluded by the ‘why’ –
the genre’s barely breathing — nearly dead!
Writing rhyme today, my friend, then courting expectations
that what we pen will wind up on the shelves
In major bookstores everywhere… garnering rave reviews…
we but dispute the truth and fool ourselves!
Asked if recent books of verse that mimic those of old –
for which their fans would search and freely pay,
Ever will be recognized — acclaimed by those who rule —
I really have my doubts, I’m sad to say!
A person whose taste is not yet obliterated can hardly help smiling at your apt exposure of poetic modernism. It is not just the badness of the dominant style that frustrates us but the overall lack of standards in the culture. Who, indeed, is going to condemn the pretentiousness of modernism when it is so much easier to go along with what is shamelessly held up as innovative and liberated? Your denunciation is amusing and effective; it furnishes plenty of ridicule; but it is also serious, because the fashion lies like a destructive weight upon art. If almost everybody is producing tuneless verse and vacuous self-expression, a young writer might be excused for thinking that this is the way to accomplishment and its rewards. It seems there are few authorities who will speak up unapologetically for tradition. Poets must, if they are to escape mediocrity and worse, consult tradition, notice what actually brings joy to a reader, hold to sound principles, and write with conviction. Those who are only slightly aware of the banality of modernism will, let us hope, respond eagerly when they find a brave contrast at last. So I will agree with your final prescription. One who intends to improve the situation must write. Time will tell, but in any case we will have the music now. Thanks for your energetic and encouraging poem.
Very nice, Joshua. It’s ironic that we feel the need to ‘free’ ourselves from ‘free verse,’ which has no rules, no pleasant meter, no rhyme scheme. “Lack of skill” is an apt phrase.
This is a wonderful refashioning of Dryden’s canonical satiric poem into an occasion for lambasting the stupidities of modernism. The aesthetic crowning of Shadwell here gives birth to a solid smacking of everything that makes our contemporary po-biz scene such a drag. It is a bow to tradition, but one that is very relevant to today’s poetic garbage.
Very well wrought and impossible for any reasoned person to disagree with. As is typical, I had to look a few things up. My education continues thanks to works like yours.
Joshua, thanks for a skillful poem; the meter carries readers well but not too brisk. The points you make are apt, and the overworked cliché in the world of poetry is “quaint,” thoughtlessly blurted about meter and rhyme. One imagines the dismal, empty conversations within the denizenry of fin de siècle free verse. They try very hard to deflectively criticize, to avoid facing their cultural apocalypse.
Joshua, your excellently rhymed rendition of the verbal crimes committed by modernist prose purveyors in the name of poetry is a great indictment that those who commit these verbal crimes should be forced to read. In fact, prose is too high of an accolade. Pose and poser would be more apropos words to describe their lack of talent and diligence in writing a higher form of communication. And yet, their appeal to plebian tastes with indiscernible nonsense that somehow are accepted by modern idiots as publishable and are passed off as intellectual achievement, when they are nothing but tripe, seem to have permeated our culture like lies overcoming truth.