Happiness, and the Case for Verse

 Here is Dick Davis pondering happiness again, in a poem titled 'Can We?' –

Can we convincingly pretend,
And not to others but ourselves,
That we are happy? And if we could,
Would that mean that we were, pro tem,
Uncomplicatedly, just that,
Happy? And what would that be like?
The mind runs through its obvious
Loved carnal candidates... Well, maybe,
But probably it would resemble

Less some celestial debauch
With someone quite phenomenal
Than being in a symphony
By Haydn: having all of it – 
It doesn't matter much which one –
The whole ebullient edifice,
Just there, available and real,
Impossibly to hand, forever.

And here he is on poetry: 

Preferences

    To my surprise
I've come to realise
I don't like poetry

    (Dear, drunkly woozy,
Accommodating floozy
That she's obliged to be,

    Poor girl, these days).
No, what I love and praise
Is not damp poetry
    But her pert, terse,
Accomplished sibling: verse.
She's the right girl for me.

The opening of that one recalls Marianne Moore's famous poem, 'Poetry', which begins 'I, too, dislike it', but Davis's message is simpler: he prefers verse to 'poetry', as it is now understood. And it's hard no to agree: 'poetry', in an age that values self-expression and attitudinising over form and (yes) beauty,  has become such a sprawling mess, so 'damp' and shapeless, whereas verse demands some rigour, some tightness, some adherence to form, even some attention to attracting readers from outside the charmed (and charmless) circle of fellow practitioners. In fact, it might be useful to talk of the best contemporary poets (a dwindling band) as writers of verse rather than poetry. It could even come to be seen as a badge of honour...