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The late Trappist monk, in his last book of poems, offers his apprehensions of the Kentucky woods and views of his mystical insights. Basically, however, he is a modern antipoet. Sense and nonsense are mixed, but out of the confusion comes a curious lucidity. In his parody of a newscast, he finds that:
In New Delhi a fatal sport parade I nvolving long mauves and delicate slanders Was apprehended and constrained at three P.M.
By witnesses with evening gestures In a menacing place where ten were prohibited Many others were found missing in colossal purples And numerous raided halls. Martian Doctors recommend a low-cost global enema To divert the hot civet wave now tending To swamp nine thousand acres of Mozambique.
Wit is the order of the day; anger against the misuse of language and life is the primary emotion, and bizarre revelation is most often the final effect.
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While poets are finding fresh and forceful ways to address their times, and an increasing number of literary journals are devoting themselves to poetry, the folk-rock singers and lyricists have pre-empted a sizable share of the primary poetic audience—the young. It may be that youth finds it easier to grapple with the social commentary found in Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson" or in the political-protest songs of Bob Dylan than with the more complicated work of poets like Berryman. Or it may be that the poem as ballad is simply coming back into its own. In any case, the music world is experimenting with a revolutionary surrealism, and contemporary songwriters and poets are apparently enriching one another's work. Many folk-rock lyrics stand up as poems, and some poets—Michael Benedikt and Canada's Leonard Cohen among them—are devoting part of their energy to writing songs. Meanwhile, a modern music has entered into and enlivened the poem, giving Faulkner's demon-driven creatures new voices for their poetic torments.