Poetry in Trek
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Poetry in Trek |
| Creator: | Crystal Ann Taylor |
| Date(s): | July 1981 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Star Trek: TOS |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Poetry in Trek is a 1981 essay by Crystal Ann Taylor.
It was printed in Stylus #2.
Some Topics Discussed
- formal education teaches us to be too rigid about poetry
- poetry is very personal, but it should also be something others can relate to
- fans have a lot of stated reasons why they don't like poetry, or they don't comment on poetry
From the Essay
All good poetry should have an immediate impact on its audience. Yet,too often there's a hesitancy in fandom to make any judgments on the subject, even the most simplistic one of 'I like/don't like it,' and a disinterest in the medium itself because it's 'too personal in nature.'
For example, how many times have you heard the statement: "I don't LOC poems because they mean something different to each person and I don't know what to say about them..."? While true to a degree, this disclaimer is often used to hide the fact that the reader just did not relate to the poem— that it didn't move her or it really said nothing.
This complaint is easily understood when a reader stumbles onto a poem from a completely different culture or lifestyle, where attitudes and behavior maybe unfamiliar. In that case, the imagery might be incomprehensible to him, outside his individual experience. Consequently, the ideas or emotions conveyed by that imagery could very well be meaningless to him, leaving him with a poem that can say nothing to him personally.
This is not the case with us in Star Trek fandom, for here we share a set language and culture in a universe we all know and love. It is true that each individual has her own personal view of it, but the foundations on which all stories and poems are built are recognizable to everyone. Thus, an author is not working in an unknown environment but is merely asking us to visualize those foundations in a new perspective - to share in her personal discovery or extrapolation, to see what we may have neglected or forgotten to see.
Unfortunately, most of the things we have been taught about poetry in school is of no help in analysing Trek poetry, for rarely are traditional forms used. This is the century of free verse, yet the free verse in Trek is considerably different than that nurtured in the classroom. For in Trek, the poets are interested primarily in the subject matter, not the austerity, richness, weight, economy, or vitality they might inject into or extract from the words themselves. They are not interested in the heights the art might attain or the depths that might be plumbed, but merely in the sharing of a special love.
Trek poetry would be classified as a cultural artform, that is, poetry created to explain or portray a particular culture, and it is precisely this branch of modern poetry that causes the most controversy. Because it can't be pigeon-holed into what experts consider good tight poetry, yet is poetry in its own right and in audience response, it engenders debate over what exactly is poetry.
So where does that leave the reader/writer of Trek poetry? Actually, right down at basics - that poetry is participation between the poet and his audience. The poet has a vision or a concept that he wishes to impart to others, and his first and primary goal is to reach them. To do this, he must remember that art is his bridge: if they do not understand, they will cease to listen. He must be able to recreate his own passion in his reader, to convey his experience in a manner that causes reaction and interaction between his poem and reader.
The first prerequisite is to have something interesting to say. The Enterprise might be sleek steel and the stars bright against the velvety blackness of space, but that isn't ultimately why we read about Star Trek. What does it feel like to travel between the stars? To glory in motion? To command such power? What drives men like Kirk and Spock to risk such unknowns? Imagination need not be bound by the physical objects around it, but should explore the human connection to them - the daring of flight, the hunger for knowledge, the endeavor to become more than we are. It is the beauty, the terror, and the power that interweaves the physical environment with the processes of life that have something to say to us.
Each of us has our own idea what "Jim, I love you," means, and the poet would have a hard time convincing us that her interpretation is more valid than our own. If, instead of stating that Spock loves Kirk, she lets the words of the poem show us that love, then her careful selection of imagery limits our responses and leads us inescapably toward her perception.
...there's a wealth of action in aired Trek that can be mined to elicit emotions or to prove a point. For example, the number of times and the ways Spock saves Kirk says something quite specific about his feelings for the man. The way each responds to the other conveys an attitude more powerful than the mere stating of the emotion and can be used to illustrate a variety of themes.
As an art of imagery and emotion, poetry is one of the most gut-wrenching and potent media of communication we have. It has the power to go beyond itself, to haunt the recipient with its beauty, and to prevent the reader from off-handedly denying its underlying meaning or truth. It can state the obvious in an unforgettable manner or reveal an idea that was totally unknown before.
However, as in any other medium of communication, the bottom line is to communicate. No matter what a poem might attempt to say, if it fails to reach its audience, it communicates nothing. It becomes meaningless chatter.