Frieda Hughes every Monday in The Times writes a short piece on a poem or poems she has chosen; this week she chose three short poems by Robert Burns. Here's one of them:
On a Hen-pecked Country Squire:
As father Adam first was fooled
(A case that's still too common)
Here lies a man a woman ruled -
The devil ruled the woman.
It isn't a great poem by any stretch but it is one you can quote and laugh about or be annoyed at if you see it as anti-feminine. It is a poem that is easy to understand and one that rhymes, which is more than can be said for a great deal of modern poetry.
Modern poetry, modern music, modern art all seem to have turned in on themselves, so to speak, so that they tend to appeal to "insiders" only, those who are able, so they maintain, to understand and appreciate what the artist is saying and doing.
As Dana Gioia, the American poet, says: "Like subsidised farming that grows food no one wants, a poetry has been created to serve the interests of the producers and not the consumers. And in the process the integrity of the art has been betrayed. Of course, no poet is allowed to admit this in public. The cultural credibilty of the professional poetry establishment depends on maintaining a polite hypocrisy."
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