Why Poetry Sucks

Despite a reputation for dead seriousness, poetry has a long relationship with humour, from Catullus’ complaints to Chaucer’s ribald tales to Kenneth Goldsmith’s appearance on The Colbert Report. Focusing on our contemporary moment, Why Poetry Sucks scrutinizes Canada’s poetic avant-gardes for signs of humorous life. Moving deftly between entertainment, attack, and critique, this poetry makes us laugh while making us wonder why we’re laughing at all. The authors in Why Poetry Sucks draw from deep traditions in both poetry and comedy, often challenging the rigid literary and political impasses they encounter. In our current social and cultural game of Blockado (the game of barricades), humour can act as an important sledge, taking a swing at the institutions and ideologies we might wish changed — all the while acknowledging, with bitter laughter and tongue in cheek, our apparent inability to change them.