Barbaric Poetry? The Challenges of Contemporary Civilization (A Comparative Polish-Belgian Study)
Barbaric Poetry? The Challenges of Contemporary Civilization (A Comparative Polish-Belgian Study)

Summary/Abstract: The Polish poet Szczepan Kopyt and the French-speaking Belgian poet Vincent Tholomé craftily take part in the poetical discourse on the contemporary world (the barbaric and the civilized) as well as literature (high and low). They experiment with the printed word and the new formulas of hip-hop and rap in their modifiability and potentiality, which is also expressed in the constantly changing locus poeticus. Yet the barbarity of the formula never equals the barbarity of the author. Finally, truly barbaric poetry, as long as it is authentic, does not exist, in contrast with the depicted barbarity. Thus barbarity is civilized by poets in many ways, sometimes funny, at other times iconoclastic, and the poetical formula, even when it seems to be vulgar, pared down, anti-lyrical and apparently unsuitable for the serious message about emotions and thoughts, is ennobled.

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