Anastasia Hayes: “Poetry and Prose”

Much of this course has revolved around considerations of art and artists and how they shook America in the 1960s, working across their various genres. Diane Arbus turned her camera on all that was ugly, asking us to reconsider the grotesque. Bob Dylan put poems to music that inspired the nation to reexamine its conscience. When we talk about these figures now, they are already well-mythologized. It is hard to get a sense of them at their inception, their lives painted as if they always led in a straight line. What I appreciated about the article on Mr. Fagiani is that it illuminated the life of an author in search for a genre. His taking up poetry after prose failed to move the masses was so interesting to consider, especially given the fact that he is committed to reaching the people with his work. It prompts a reconsideration of the artist’s journey, and the aims of art. Though it so often seems divisive, like to separate those in-the-know from the uninitiated, art can speak powerfully across boundaries, apparently even in a form that is oft-considered inaccessible like poetry.