Engler: American Poetry in the Age of Trump 26 Art is what those who have the social power say it American Poetry in the is. In this regards, social power lies in the galleries, auction houses and art schools, along with the critical Age of Trump apparatus that supports these institutions. This being the contemporary case for poetry and art, it is logical Robert Klein Engler to ask where are the centers of poetry located and what are the characteristics of their social power. Welcome then, O world made new in my eyes, O world now one and whole! These days, poetry’s social power is located O full Credo of things visible and invisible, in college and university writing programs, in I accept you with a Catholic heart departments of English, in the big and small presses Arthur Rimbaud and journals, and in workshops scattered throughout Spiritus, ubi vult… the country. For the most part, these centers of power John: 4 are on the east and west coasts of the United States, although regional locations like Chicago and Iowa A discussion of poetry in general may begin with play a role. Most of these poetry institutions most a reference to Augustine’s statement about time. We likely follow a progressive politics and are funded by all know what time is, Augustine said, until we are progressive foundations. called upon to defne it. So it is that many say they The election of Donald Trump as president of know what poetry is, until they are asked to defne it. the United States sent shock waves through the If they can get over this hurdle with a metaphysical progressive, poetry community. The unexpected had leap, then a higher hurdle presents itself: What is happened. How could such a reversal occur? There American poetry? are many explanations for what happened, but the Throughout Western Civilization there have one that may have the most implications for poetry is been many attempts to defne poetry by both poets the one that focuses on the resentment and revolt of and philosophers. In our time, defnitions of poetry white working-class males. have been infuenced by Marxist social and economic The so-called deplorables, itself a poetic term, theory. In that vein, we will defne poetry in this essay were instrumental in Trump’s election. To understand as whatever those who have social power say poetry that social phenomena even more, let’s consider three is. A literary work is a poem because those who have aspects often found in poetry power centers. To do social power say it is a poem. so is to point out the contemporary union of poetry In an essay of this length, it is not possible, and progressive politics in our time, and why the no matter how desirable, to present examples of deplorable reject that politics. In so doing, it follows individual poems that ft the theory advanced here. that changes in politics and power will affect changes And why bother, the cynic may ask? It’s all the same. in poetry. Pick up any contemporary book of poems and start There are three characteristics that most to read. The poems all seem to be written by the same contemporary poems share. First, although female author, the progressive spirit of the times. It contemporary American poems have their roots is enough to say that the question about the future of in English and US geography, these poems aspire poetry in the age of Trump is not a question of theory, to be international and multicultural. Second, but a question of practice and the location of social contemporary poems are often grounded in power. When we locate the focus of social power to progressive political myths. Finally, today’s poems defne poetry, we will be able to understand why and poets often claim to be the voice of the minority, some writings are called poems and others are not. the voice of the victim and the voice of the so- Furthermore, we may be able with some degree of called marginalized, especially women and sexual certainty, to predict the future of American poetry. minorities. The situation with contemporary poetry may People used to judge the worth of a poem by the be analogous to the situation in contemporary art. rules of rhyme and meter. Now, poems are judged When a farmer in Nebraska scratches his head and by their politics. When we exhume the body of T. ask what is contemporary art, we could answer S. Eliot we see that time has taken its toll. Tradition him with the same answer we use to defne poetry. and individual talent has decayed into an absence of Published by Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange, 2018 1 Oakwood, Vol. 4 [2018], Iss. 8, Art. 15 27 tradition and no talent at all. describe poor Bruce as a transgendered victim. Poems The fact that university faculties are staffed by will no longer be what sociology used to be, a way progressives is well known. Many will choke on the to “explore larger social phenomena that are often words, conservative poet. The election of Trump silenced, overlooked, and/or distorted.” points out that many outside of university faculties We do not know if the Trump presidency will have become weary of marginal voices. Readers no last for eight years. If it does, we may expect to see longer care about an art that is built upon the back a few things happening that affect American poetry, of another’s suffering, if they ever did. Because slowly but surely. First and foremost will be a drying victimhood no longer inspires or motivates, let along up of government grants and money for the arts and encourages a reader to spend his money to buy a poetry. Government money for the arts has always book, we can expect that poetry will eventually been political. Why give money to support an art that undergo a transformation in the age of Trump, or does not support your politics? In short, he who pays simply become irrelevant as an art form. the piper calls the tune. Progressive poets will no The dominant metaphor that informed poetry for longer be paid to pipe a tune. In the long run because the last ffty years, the metaphor of civil rights and of a lack of funding few poems will be published and victimhood is exhausted. This exhaustion happened few students will study creative writing. They may in spite of Trump’s election, yet with that election it become tofu chefs and water-ski instructors. Instead may die sooner than later. It is too early to say what of hawking chapbooks they may sell chapstick. new metaphors will take the place of what is dying, Then there may be a change of taste. This change but it may simply be a return to standards as the of taste could be accomplished by a rise of formalism present generation of progressive university faculty and traditional poetic forms. Poems that begin with retires, and a new generation of conservative teachers the pronoun “I” will become few and far between. ignore the university classroom for the Internet. The new formalism will not just reproduce the forms Ironically, the Marxist avant-garde has always been of the past, but may even create new ones. This ffty years behind the times, even though they claim means there will be a renewed trust in language. The to be on the right side of history. marriage that William Carlos Williams made between As the death of the prevailing civil rights poetry and advertising will end in a divorce. metaphor gives way to a new metaphor, so will Likewise, it is not form we argue about, but the voice of American poetry change. If the rise of content. Because poetry in our time had already the white working class continues, then we may assumed the form of advertising, the content of expect US poetry to retreat from its international and poetry is reduced to nothing more than advertising multicultural interests and become more rooted in the for the moribund, progressive state. No amount local and the ideals of American exceptionalism. This of turning to the Chinese will save the progressive rise of the white working class may eventually give poem. rise to a uniquely American poetry, a poetry that does At its highest, Chinese poetry and painting not look to Europe or the dead world of a Classical uses landscape to avoid the personal. Like the fat past. The New American poetry may be something characters of a cartoon, much Chinese art is devoid like Walt Whitman writing that he has converted of tragedy because it is devoid of a self. The self has from Hinduism to the God of Israel. always been at the heart of Western poetry, from the These changes in American poetry may happen, ancient Greeks to the present. But not so in China. but not without resistance from the universities and How else can we account for a whole nation accepting the centers of publishing power. Their resistance will what the Judeo-Christian West has rejected, namely be to double down on what is already dead. There Marxism. will be more zombie poets writing the dull academic As American poets retreat from multiculturalism, poem that is in rigor mortis. These poets will wander we may see again the creation of masterpieces. the campus or haunt the faculty lounges looking for No masterpiece is ever created from diversity and the brains of fresh sophomores to devour.