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• Roger Conner Jr // Sep 12, 2009 //

  Drew Logan acknowledges by way of his remarks an important aesthetic position that while seemingly self evident to those of us described by our age grouping as “boomers” i.e., born post WWII, it has not always been accepted as fact: The best popular music of our time is in fact poetry. In my young student years, I recall the more conservative (some would say reactionary) English literature teachers argue otherwise, and still remember vividly my shock at the question posed in a literature textbook of the 1960’s: “Can popular music be poetry?”

  In fact before the creative force of Bob Dylan, very little popular music could be described as poetic in the deepest sense, resembling poetry only by virtue of the aesthetic literary device of rhyme.
  Folk music was an exception so of course the poetic imagination of performing poets such as Bob Dylan were drawn instantly to that form, and immediately began to push the boundaries, to expand the horizons of what had once been known as the folk song, leading finally to the cultural and aesthetic break point when Dylan “went electric”. It is hard now to imagine (if you are not old enough) or to remember (if you are) the cultural storm created by this event, and only serves now to make us long for a time when the poetic/musical voice of the nation meant so much to so many.

  The influence of Dylan has since expanded in ever increasing circles, and echoed back into the more venerable literary forms of poem and novel as well as the performing and visual arts, earning the ultimate compliment of being used as an easily comprehended descriptive based on the name of an individual, the “Dylanish” novel, poem, movie, etc, used in the way one would use ‘Platonic” or “Faustian”, thus becoming an aesthetic based on one man.

  While Bob Dylan has had incredible influence on all artists in almost every medium, we are only now beginning to hear the full influence of his poetic sensitivity and depth expressed in the sound and the poetic expression of our female songwriters and singers. Bob Dylan’s willingness to delve into the emotional states of joy, eroticism, romantic longing, loneliness, alienation and feelings of cultural isolation (among others) are now being explored in ever more meaningful ways in the work of Tracey Chapman, Patti Griffin, K.T. Tunstall, Mindy Smith, Brandi Carlile, Dar Williams and Vienna Teng (among so many others). These women, traveling in the artistic light provided by Dylan and his female contemporaries (Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and Janis Ian among others) are bringing to popular music a level of poetic artistry and emotional and even spiritual reach only dreamed of by the rare mystical talents a few years ago. After Dylan and his artistic progeny, no one now dares to ask if popular music can be poetry without seeming reactionary indeed.

  More should be written in description and appreciation of the magnificent lyric language now being created by our female songwriters, for it can be contended that we are in a great golden age of poetry by way of our current generation of female songwriters. I have contended as much, and will, if allowed, undertake more in the way of critical analysis of their work here on Public Republic at a later date. For now, I join Drew Logan in my respect for the great poetic voice of Bob Dylan, who has been such a gift to furthering the development of a truly poetic language using the raw material provided by American English.

  Roger Conner Jr.

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