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| "I'm high as fuck on L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, man!" |
Now that the Duke University study on how Cannabis use affects the developing brain has proven that the stuff is inherently "toxic" and messes with intelligence, permanently, I wonder if this just might be the reason why all the really "bad" poetry arose out of a single 60s New American Poetry era. I've always suspected that this rather sudden turn for the wildly experimental was a matter of brain receptor overload.
I've always thought the Cannabis-creativity link made by the 60s poet hippies was consequently both meretricious and absurdly self-serving: and in the end just another excuse for lack of talent. Nothing feeds the imagination more vitally than the plain simple realities that filter in daily through the senses. This unglamorous and plodding life will always give our truest & deepest insights.
I can't help but see just that same aversion to reality in most contemporary poetry. It's for this reason that the worst poetries also always seem to spring from the campuses, always high on theory, always prone to 'guru' worship: the very 60s qualities that have taken on particularly virulent and destructive urges in our own age (I think of people like Kenneth Goldsmith, for instance, and his poetry of wilful plagiarism). A return to 'sobriety' may just cure what's been ailing poetry since the Donald Allen anthology.
It's true, after all: pot makes you stupid and nowhere is this more evident than in all the bad poetry still flourishing out there. The connection is no longer fanciful. The drug culture is so pervasive still that even if poets are not as chemically dependent as their 60s forebears, they do continue to write as if they were. The damage done.
25 comments:
a drug by any name is yet a drug
not so easy dropping habits ... the good ones or the bad ones...
"I read this
"I read that
"I was here
"I was there
"I know him
"I know her
"I got my degree
"I got another degree
" I published 47 books of mine
" I published 1,327 others' 'stuff'
" I've become what I pretended to be
" Now i can't even blow the smoke out-my-arse
"I got laid in 1959
"I didn't get laid in 2012
(I emailed Her eight months ago.
She replied yesterday
anybody
wanna ball an old poet ?
anybody?
one of the things that suaded me to drop out in 1975
was exactly the trend that you speak to... and
now since I dropped back in in 1998 I see that there is yet
more and more of more and more
seems like we've been in the shit so long
we
can no longer smell the stink !
and
all that we are left with are the 10,000 prescribed Views of Reality
that surround our (literary) egos...
Ed,
I'm convinced some pot gene's been handed down already through DNA or something: how else to explain (as you say)the "10 000 Prescribed Views"? I couldn't be more serious: drugs have messed with poetry and creativity.
not to mention the drugs/poisons that permeate everything..
our food supply is drugged to death..
what we put on our corn/wheat crops washes down and contaminates everything that comes out of water...
every fucking piece of meat every chicken is LOADED with drugs
our biggest drug? GREED, ANGER and an
"I WANT to fuck your brains out"
attitude.
just don't get pregnant ... with OR without meaning....it's ON YOU !
But but but ... your theory doesn't explain all the bad poetry that came BEFORE the prevalence of weed ...
All those poets drank milk, too, y'know. And probably ate meat.
But I know you're just tongue in cheek.
Johnny B!
nice to hear from you. I thought you and I had parted company for good at OOOI theory (or was it 1000 or 0010?)
And don't get me started on red meat!
Luckily, I have no dog in this fight, never having used any drug aside from alcohol, and that moderately. But I'm skeptical of the study, and I think you've oversimplified its conclusions to make a rhetorical point. But you've left a gap there, too: you say cannabis accounts for the bad poetry in the Allen anthology and after, but leave aside the question of whether the good poetry in it was written under the influence. And what about the mediocre poems? Ah, would that it were that easy to explain bad poetry! But I think it has more to do with vitiated culture on every level...
Joseph,
of course, there are gaping holes in the argument and I'm also playing for rhetorical effect (to some degree): but of the existence of a drug-induced aesthetics I'm pretty convinced. Given that the Duke study is true (and it was a 40-year study), and that an almost entire generation of poets/poetries grew out of it, well, let's just say the theory I'm proposing has explanatory value (at least).
I recall how particularly bad the 'pot smoking' was among teens in the 90s: there was so much of it in the schools my wife could smell it in my hair. I've seen enough of the empty gazes,idiotic stammering and almost tragic lethargy among teens to see the stuff's toxic and will leave permanent damage. I'm never going to glorify the self-induced 'high' as a condition of creativity: ever. It's another of those vacuous truisms we've inherited from San Francisco.
Human love & tragedy, socio-economic evils, historical destructions and an inscrutable divinity, and even a glass of Barolo wine--these will furnish enough (and much better) stimulants for poetry.
Hell
I just might toke to these abstractions:
"Human love & tragedy, socio-economic evils, historical destruct ions and an inscrutable divinity"
...especially that "inscrutable divinity"
but I won't inhale !
around here eighth graders are selling dope, drinking booze and
trading sex for both the booze and the dope... and a new pair of designer jeans
they even peddle guns and include the bullets
seems to me a little UN-adulterated grass just might "make wise-men" of us all...
well, pass the peace-pipe and the cured peyote
and then .... send me into battle.
"stimulants for poetry" ????
there is predominantly ... only one:
and that "one" ain't about theory or
what's politically, religiously, socially or economically correct
Ed,
if people are 'high', they won't feel the unbearableness of kids selling their bodies for jeans--
that's where poetry begins
what's so "unbearable" about it ?
a marketable commodity is a marketable commodity (the democratic, entrepornairial way) and
who am I or you or anybody else
to judge...
our present Universal Culture is one of
pimping and whoring
and things much worse that that...
don't confuse poetry with dogma or commercial jingles...
although, I grant you, they're both/all
"grist for the mill"
besides
she sure does look cute in her skin-tight Levi's walking down the street...
or her white hot pants and high-heeled stiletto boots...
there's "poetry" in that image...
or at least, a commercial for the newest version of that Ford Mustang...
red with rolled and pleated white leather seats
Ed,
is it as bad as all that: viz. whether 'high' or clear-eyed, it's "pimping and whoring" wholesale? I share with, of course, you the monster Capital image--what I see all too much of myself. I'd just like to reserve a little "sacred place" left in poetry.
I guess I'd rather stay 'sober' throughout it all and feel the ugly sordidness. What doesn't kill you will always start the first line...
Hi, Conrad, just because we didn't agree didn't mean (on my end) that we 'parted ways' - god knows I have no illusion that what I think is right or that it's important to agree with me.
As far as this goes, I will confess to many years of drug and alcohol use and probably abuse. But since I haven't touched anything except what the doctor prescribes in 10 years, and expect to stay sober for the rest of my life, I actually have no horse in this race either.
But I can speak from experience as a former drug user, and can assure you that the way contemporary poetry is constructed and the experience of being high on weed have very little to do with each other. I think that you could make a better case were you to substitute speed, or cocaine. And certainly alcohol, which has always always always been the poet's drug of choice.
More importantly, I think that what's really going on here is a correlation, not a cause and effect. We could have a long talk about that, and we'd eventually ... disagree, probably. But still, I think there's something about post ww2 life ...
John,
the issue, of course, is a whole lot more complex than I've presented it. Your points are all appreciated. I would just add that (in my view)speed, cocaine and weed can now be all considered bona fide members of a class of drugs that cause permanent damage. Add alcohol to that mix (if taken in excess) I have too much respect for human physiology to ever dare make a case for the legitimacy of any sort of creativity that isn't purely 'natural'.
I do display a 'puritanical'streak at times and perhaps a tendency to unfairly characterize literary works 'under the influence' as tainted or ungenuine. Sort of like testing positive for performance enhancing drugs at the Olympics.Or maybe I should rethink that last analogy.
when I was doing triathlons and running races (especially marathons) I used to "pop" two or three
antihistamines (or was they decongestionants?).
Little red pills (Coriseedent -D). They had/have
pseudoephedrine in them) NOW pseuodophedrine is one of the banned "drug enhancing performance"
substances ! Acause 400,000 of these little pills (that helped me breath through sucking in all of that polluted air when racing
can be turned into (somehow) Crystal Meth !
they keep changing the rules ... pretty soon they will ban Gatoraide because of the drug that is its base element... sugar
as I've just lost my point due to my continueing use of MY drug of choice ... coffee ... black with no sugar OR cream I'll move this discussion right along
into its natural concluding course...
it's ALL NATURAL ! if "it" is... it s natural ... especially when She and I are Oh Natural
down to our gray pubic hairs and laughing?
well, maybe not laughing... with a blank stair gazing
at
whatever happens to be in our line of sight... then gone...
them damn "drugs" sure did affect-effectmy spelling and punkshewation...to say NOTHING of my "poetry"
and my (as I recall) erected "love life" which I now continually re-claim as something that is (or was) real and natural ?
et ceters ad infinight-um ?
Feel the pain, bro, feel the pain...
Hi, Conrad. Re your: "I do display a 'puritanical' streak at times and perhaps a tendency to unfairly characterize literary works 'under the influence' as tainted or ungenuine."
I would just note that I (and I don't mean to generalize, I'm just talking about me), I would not want to do without De Quincey, Coleridge, Baudelaire, Michaux, Benjamin, Sexton, etc. I consider these all genuine writers.
As for athletes who dope, it's getting harder and harder to find any who don't. So I advocate two classes of Olympic competitions: the clean category, and the "open" category, in which athletes could do anything, and it wouldn't be cheating.
John,
I've been saying the same about two classes of sports events, too: real events and the manufactured 'on steroids' variety. I'm glad Lance Armstrong's been exposed for the cheat and sham that he is: a good object lesson for young athletes. If they're not positive role models for kids, let the kids at least see what 'cheating' really amounts to in the end.
As for De Quincey, Coleridge, Sexton et al.: as tood as they were 'high', imagine how much better they'd have been lucid. I don't buy the drug/creativity correlation, all 60s hocus pocus.
Conrad, without De Quincey's highs, we wouldn't have that English Mail Coach essay, without Coleridge's we wouldn't have that imaginary person from Porlock, etc, we wuldnt have Michaux's Miserable Miracle, that's all I was saying. Not that the dope made them better. I was just responding to your "tendency to unfairly characterize literary works 'under the influence' as tainted or ungenuine." By saying that we do have some "genuine" drug-influenced literature. And thatsome of it is dear to me.
Hi, Conrad, just ran across this while randomly skimming the web. It kind of complicates things (NOT in terms of creativity, but in terms of choosing whether one is willing to keep on living, even at the risk of a weakened mind):
Mounting evidence shows ‘cannabinoids’ in marijuana slow cancer growth, inhibit formation of new blood cells that feed a tumor, and help manage pain, fatigue, nausea, and other side effects. [This] offers hope of a non-toxic therapy that could treat aggressive forms of cancer without any of the painful side effects of chemotherapy.
Cristina Sanchez, a young biologist at Complutense University in Madrid, was studying cell metabolism when she noticed something peculiar. She had been screening brain cancer cells [and realized] the cancer cells died each time they were exposed to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive ingredient of marijuana.
Sanchez had stumbled upon the anti-cancer properties of THC. Subsequent peer-reviewed studies in several countries would show that THC and other marijuana-derived compounds, known as “cannabinoids,” are effective not only for cancer-symptom management (nausea, pain, loss of appetite, fatigue), they also confer a direct antitumoral effect.
Around the same time, Harvard University scientists reported that THC slows tumor growth in common lung cancer and “significantly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread.” What’s more, like a heat-seeking missile, THC selectively targets and destroys tumor cells while leaving healthy cells unscathed. Conventional chemotherapy drugs, by contrast, are highly toxic; they indiscriminately damage the brain and body.
The article is here: it includes links: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/06/marijuana-fights-cancer-and-helps-manage-side-effects-researchers-find.html
Hi John,
of course, there are proven medical benefits of 'cannabinoids': marijuana is a real godsend to cancer patients, in particular. I don't doubt any of this. So it's a question of weighing the advantages against the disadvantages.
Marijuana is never to creativity what it is to cancer, glaucoma, etc.It's almost as if we're talking about two different things entirely.
Dear Doctors:
this frickin ragweed is driving my
antiboddhis UP THE WALL! and it has gotten to the point where my creative juice has been re:duced to it s pure, sugary essence.... and I'm tired of it ! Should I take 120 mgs Pseudoephedrine HCL or 25 mgs of Diphenhydramine HCL ? or, is the "L" attached to the "HC" the wrong molecule for the job?
last time I heard, marajuana was
&$600 a lid (ounce)... my medicare won't cover any of the above...
What (unconditionally) SHOULD I DO?
as this stuffy-ear, sinus crap is interfering with my ability to get on with the newest autobiographical fictions AND the newest fictional autobiography that I need a damn
clear head to "do "em in" ".
In other words: is it just 'all about the economy'? or is it the politic's (brainwashing's) of THEM who control where I put the mark to signify The Possessive Tense ?
HELP
what ? There IS illegal dope out-and-about ? Who'd uve thunk it our trusty-dusty government no matter who is "driving the bus" can't punch their way out of a paper
#2 bag of pot ! try this from the L.A. Times:
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/06/local/la-me-pot-delivery-20120907
next thing you'll see is pot in Manhattan ! and Chicago! and D.C. and Peoria! and New Orleans ! and Phillie! and in Salt Lake City ! FDR had "it" bass awards: he shld have said: "some pot in every chicken" it s more healthy than the antibiotics in the chickens now.
I suspect that in the long run, medicine will find that pot has some unpleasant side-effects when used over long periods, especially be younger subjects--just as alcohol has proven to be.
Any substance which has no direct nourishing effect on the body, but is simply taken for its stimulative effects, is probably going to have unintended consequences. Is there some environmental value in naturally occurring substances having this effect on animals (i.e., people)? You could construct a religion of sorts around that, and some ancient peoples have.
Huxley foretold a world in which drugs formed the central focus of our imaginative lives. Putting people's curiosity and drives to sleep.
I disagree with your broad assertions regarding the effect of drugs on the countercultural artists. Some of them didn't use it, or very sparingly.
You have to be careful about such generalizations. The primary inspirations for the New American Poetry were Williams, Zukofsky, Pound, Whitman. None of them were druggies.
Olson, on the other hand, and Ginsberg and Kerouac and so on, were, so it's useful to discuss its influence on them.
Thanks for your comments, Curtis
"Huxley foretold a world in which drugs formed the central focus of our imaginative lives. Putting people's curiosity and drives to sleep."
He was so right; we're living that world. And no aspect of our lives can escape it. I think the pharmaceuticals get that and are making billions.
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