The problem with poetry

[milo]

I was having a bit of a rant but yes, the weariness is not new, it dates back to the late nineteenth century. The search for freshness that drove Gauguin to Tahiti (apart from the freedom to have multiple wives) was born of the same sense that there’s nothing new to say.

That’s why literature from the late nineteenth onwards reads so fresh still. Maybe even the mid. But pre French Revolution, the britches are over starched.

For sure it puts a burden on modern poets - you cannot just write about pretty birds and trees or love loss and death. It is almost enough to make you want to mine the avant garde if they weren’t so dreadfully dull