Classical Poets Live with Andrew Benson Brown and Adam Sedia
In the cacophony of modern literary celebrity, silence is often the safest route. When Amanda Gorman took the podium at the presidential inauguration, the world applauded a young, vibrant figure. Yet, in the quiet corners where meter and rhyme are still held as sacred laws, a dissenting whisper grew into a roar. Adam Sedia, in conversation with Andrew Benson Brown for Classical Poets Live, does not shy away from the controversy. He dismantles the pedestal.
The critique leveled here is not personal; it is technical. Sedia argues that what the public consumed was not poetry, but political rhetoric chopped into lines.
The Distinction Between Rhetoric and Verse
Poetry requires an engine. For the classical formalist, that engine is meter-the heartbeat of stress and unstressed syllables that drives a line forward. Without it, language goes limp. Sedia’s examination of Gorman’s work, specifically “The Hill We Climb,” posits that the work relies entirely on the speaker’s identity and the political moment rather than the intrinsic craft of the language.
It acts as prose. It moves like a speech. When you strip away the stage, the hand gestures, and the historical gravity of the inauguration, the text itself refuses to sing. It walks. This distinction matters because the definition of poetry itself is at stake. If everything is poetry, then nothing is. The erosion of standards leads to a landscape where merit is replaced by optics.
The Cost of Dissent
Speaking this truth triggers a predictable avalanche. Sedia recalls the “tsunami of comments” that followed his initial written critique-vitriol that had little to do with scansion and everything to do with protecting a cultural icon. The reaction proves the point. When art becomes a sacred cow, criticism becomes blasphemy.
The interview highlights a disturbing trend: the inability of modern audiences to separate the art from the artist’s demographic checklist. Sedia and Brown discuss how the defense of Gorman rarely cites the cleverness of a rhyme or the deftness of a metaphor. Instead, defenders point to who she is. This, they argue, is the death knell of serious criticism.
Building a Renaissance
Critique is only half the battle. The second half of the discussion pivots to construction. You cannot merely tear down the idols of free verse; you must offer a temple in their place. This is the concept of “Artistic Secession.”
The goal is not to infiltrate the mainstream institutions that have abandoned form, but to build new ones. A renaissance requires architects, not just arsonists. By returning to the rigors of classical composition, poets can create work that stands on its own structural integrity, independent of the author’s politics or background. The interview serves as a rallying cry for those exhausted by the “solipsism of contemporary verse.” It is a call to pick up the tools of the trade-meter, form, discipline-and build something that lasts longer than a news cycle.
Classical Poets Live with Andrew Benson Brown and Adam Sedia
