Art vs Laundry

Our next Poetry Café session at Bank Street Arts is on the 4^th July (all the usual arrangements, bring poems, 12pm start, etc), and to celebrate, or more precisely, by coincidence, we’re reading an American, Elizabeth Bishop. 

We discussed narrowing the reading a little, perhaps just to North and South, from The Complete Poems, but then what about “The Moose”, “Sestina”, etc … So let’s say we’ll read North and South, but then we can throw in any favourites on the day.

Here’s a link to her Poetry Archive and Poets.org pages.

While I was looking around for articles about Bishop, I found this one by Stephen Burt, called "Art vs Laundry", on the Poetry Foundation website, and thought it was interesting.

'More and more, this year—especially since our second child was born—I’ve come to feel that poetry just can’t be as important as most people who write about it now make it seem: that, as Elizabeth Bishop put it in another connection, “Art just isn’t worth that much.”' 


What do you think?