Poet
Schjeldahl’s poetry falls in line with many of the characteristic themes and styles of the New York School. As a contemporary postmodern poet, Schjeldahl believed that poetry should be enjoyed and understood by all readers. In an interview with the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Blackbird Schjeldahl commented on how “there are no rewards in being obscure or abstruse or overbearing” (Wolgamott).
His poetry succeeds without a great deal of complexity in language usage or style while maintaining seriousness and poignancy. Schjeldahl’s poetry often addresses common experiences or familiar events. In his poem “My Generation” he opens: “Vietnam/ Drugs/ Civil Rights/ Rock/ Watergate/ (in that order?)/ Are the blows of history/ That have left my generation/ Its peculiar battered silhouette.” Schjeldahl fuels his poetry with historical and biographical context, allowing audiences to relate more intimately to his subject.
In an interview with Blackbird Schjeldahl stated writing things that people want to read is my bread and butter (Wolgamott).
Read more about this topic: Peter Schjeldahl
Famous quotes containing the word poet:
“A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities of his imagination.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Flash’d from his bed the electric tidings came,
He is no better, he is much the same.”
—Anonymous.
Parody of the style of poet laureate Alfred Austin (1835-1913)