From jpl3 Thu Nov 1 09:32:24 2001 From: jpl3 (Joe Lucia) Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2001 09:32:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Collins & O'Hara References: <200111010330.WAA23643@dept.english.upenn.edu> Message-ID: <3BE15CF8.555B70@lehigh.edu> I gotta chime in with a "yes" to Michael's comments, because O'Hara has a _range_ that the short anthology chestnuts don't embody in any way. "In My memory of My Feelings" is just one example. "Biotherm" and "Second Avenue" are others. They are works with sprawling ambitiousness that risk more (and perhaps fail in larger ways?) than Collins witty and rather tidy poetry. I don't by any means dislike Collins, but I go back to O'Hara's stuff in a way that I don't suspect I ever will with Collins. Just one more opinion. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: jpl3.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 342 bytes Desc: Card for Joe Lucia URL: From halvard Thu Nov 1 12:30:15 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 12:30:15 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Collins & O'Hara In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20011031154106.007d66a0@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: > Auden, to a fellow during a Q&A who asked for a rating of > favorite poets in order of quality, importance, depth, etc.: > > "Young Man, it is not a horse race." > > B. And that's wonderfully reminiscent of Stein's words to Adler. Hal "I can see that you are the kind of young man who is accustomed to winning arguments." --Gertrude Stein to Mortimer Adler Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From antrobin Thu Nov 1 18:47:09 2001 From: antrobin (Anthony Robinson) Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 15:47:09 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] u.s. navy lore References: Message-ID: <01d701c1632f$87676ec0$18aeefd8@0021936706> Hey All (apologies for cross-posting), I'm doing a research project on Naval Folklore, specifically stories, legends, practices that involve prankery, jokes, punishments, and so forth that take place/have taken place in the U.S. Navy. I'm interested in hearing from Navy veterans from any era, and will be collecting other Naval folklore as well, but this time around I'm primarily interested in common practices, punishments, hazings, etc. that are not officially sanctioned by the USN, but that commonly take place. If you'd like to share, please send your story along with your dates and places of service, and please let me know if I have permission to use your name in the final article. I'm NOT really looking for books/articles, but if you know of some that may be helpful, I'd be grateful. I'm primarily interested in first-hand accounts. Send to: antrobin at clipper.net Thanks in advance, Tony __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger From Ralph.Wessman Thu Nov 1 20:18:13 2001 From: Ralph.Wessman (Ralph Wessman) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 11:18:13 +1000 Subject: [New-Poetry] u.s. navy lore Message-ID: Hi Anthony, On another tack, have you tried US sites for navy vets? Must be a few. I know there's a good Australian site (queries, anecdotes) with a few US visitors at www.gunplot.net/ Best, Ralph >>> "Anthony Robinson" 02/11/2001 9:47:09 am >>> Hey All (apologies for cross-posting), I'm doing a research project on Naval Folklore, specifically stories, legends, practices that involve prankery, jokes, punishments, and so forth that take place/have taken place in the U.S. Navy. I'm interested in hearing from Navy veterans from any era, and will be collecting other Naval folklore as well, but this time around I'm primarily interested in common practices, punishments, hazings, etc. that are not officially sanctioned by the USN, but that commonly take place. If you'd like to share, please send your story along with your dates and places of service, and please let me know if I have permission to use your name in the final article. I'm NOT really looking for books/articles, but if you know of some that may be helpful, I'd be grateful. I'm primarily interested in first-hand accounts. Send to: antrobin at clipper.net Thanks in advance, Tony __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 2 09:11:55 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 09:11:55 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Clewell, usurper In-Reply-To: <3BE06C9B.81B6CAA7@lehigh.edu> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011031155907.00a97a50@postoffice.brown.edu> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011102090426.00aa29a0@postoffice.brown.edu> re "Nadsonism" : ". . . the mastery of the artist does not control; it escapes, provoking the listener into pursuit rather than controlled obedience. The poet Nadson, in contrast, meets his reader face to face, and through his absolute control initiates. . . the urge to conform, but the voice of the poet does not survive this total union with the reader's consciousness. Thus it is no longer possible to discern Nadson's voice: 'Do not laugh at Nadsonism, it is the enigma of Russian culture and the essentially incomprehensible sound of it, for we do not understand and hear as they understood and heard.' Nadson's voice has been grasped and encompassed and consumed. This, for Mandelshtam, is the fate of a very lucky but inferior poet." Glazov-Corrigan, "Mandelshtam's Poetics" I don't really want to start a debate over the merits of Collins. As I said, the issue with these very accessible poets has more to do with the needs of readers than the originality of the poets. I'm more interested in this concept of a poetry that eludes a readership to some extent. Henry From grahamd Fri Nov 2 10:30:52 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 09:30:52 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins Message-ID: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> This from Henry Gould is helpful, I think. I'm also not highly interested in a debate on the merits of Collins, though I like his work more than many do. He's definitely got limitations (who doesn't?), but what he does I think he does very well, very often. I'm also happy to concede that Frank O'Hara, whose work I also like, is a poet of greater range. (I can't help noting that that range includes reams of pretty frivolous or tedious stuff as well as some intriguing experiments , in my view. And it seems pointless to deny that O'Hara's range includes a great many Collins-esque bagatelles, as any leaf-through of the collected poems soon shows.) What seems particularly intriguing to me is the fire and brimstone that Collins attracts from many quarters--he's equally reviled by staunch traditionalists like Adam Kirsch and by those interested in more progressive poetics. This seems a different phenomenon somehow from the reaction many have had, say, to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, another highly accessible poet who was quite popular once upon a time (*Coney Island of the Mind* was for many years the best selling poetry book--maybe still is?). Ferlinghetti is certainly a "real" poet, not a hack like McKuen or Leonard Nimoy, even if few would prize his work above that of such peers as Lowell, O'Hara, Levertov, Kunitz, or Your Name Here. I'd certainly put Collins *at least* in Ferlinghetti's rank (to my mind he's far more interesting). So why such passionate dislike? I don't think it's *merely* that he's so popular, especially with middlebrow readership. For popularity often provokes mere indifference or a sigh over the perpetual stupidity of popular taste. No, it probably has something to do with the fact that some certifiable eggheads (the estimable Barry Spacks, for example) seem to like Collins a lot. Blurbs on Collins's books by John Updike, William Matthews, Richard Howard, X. J. Kennedy, Stephen Dunn, Annie Proulx, and Gerald Stern indicate something of the interesting profile of his readership. The question of readership seems key, just as Henry G. suggests. And it's probably fair to put Collins in the camp (along with Ferlinghetti and thousands of others) of poets who are not particularly interested in "eluding a readership," that now-ancient modernist goal. But to my mind this still doesn't quite explain the ire that Collins attracts. David Graham _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: Henry Gould >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] RE: Clewell, usurper >Date: Fri, Nov 2, 2001, 8:11 AM > >re "Nadsonism" : > >". . . the mastery of the artist does not control; it escapes, provoking >the listener into pursuit rather >than controlled obedience. The poet Nadson, in contrast, meets his reader >face to face, and through his >absolute control initiates. . . the urge to conform, but the voice of the >poet does not survive this total >union with the reader's consciousness. Thus it is no longer possible to >discern Nadson's voice: >'Do not laugh at Nadsonism, it is the enigma of Russian culture and the >essentially incomprehensible >sound of it, for we do not understand and hear as they understood and >heard.' Nadson's voice has >been grasped and encompassed and consumed. This, for Mandelshtam, is the >fate of a very lucky but >inferior poet." Glazov-Corrigan, "Mandelshtam's Poetics" > >I don't really want to start a debate over the merits of Collins. As I >said, the issue with these very >accessible poets has more to do with the needs of readers than the >originality of the poets. I'm >more interested in this concept of a poetry that eludes a readership to >some extent. > >Henry > > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 2 10:41:02 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 10:41:02 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Nadsonism Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011102102450.00aa25c0@postoffice.brown.edu> The general assumption about poetry is that it is a Communication, produced by masters of immediacy, binding the reader through identification, using a kind of rhetorical superglue. Kind of a one-way message from Poet to Reader + World. An alternate view is that the poet is also the reader. What the poet "reads" is a current of energy that transforms into an imaginative, form-shaping, analogical activity. The source(s) of this creative energy may be as much a mystery to the poet as to anyone else. The effort is not so much to communicate as to grasp, formulate, echo, celebrate this basically trans-verbal impulse. Thus poetry is not a form of rhetorical control, and the poem stands somewhat independently, apart from its maker. This is perhaps a kind of (internal) test of authenticity (I mean a poet's self-test). Needless to say, people can ready themselves to be receptive & responsive to this process, but it follows an internal necessity that cannot be taught or learned in any methodical way. Henry ******************************************************** HG afloat: www.nedgemagazine.com * www.xlibris.com/HenryGould.html www.spuytenduyvil.net * www.jacket.zip.com.au * www.unf.edu/mudlark "Read it back to me, quietly, quietly." - O. Mandelstam From Rsgwynn1 Fri Nov 2 10:44:45 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 10:44:45 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins Message-ID: <12f.6e9155d.2914196d@cs.com> In a message dated 11/2/01 9:32:15 AM Central Standard Time, grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: > But to my mind > this still doesn't quite explain the ire that Collins attracts. > > David Graham > > Me either. I had no idea I'd provoke such a passionate thread by simply comparing him to O'Hara (favorably). I'll report on his reading next week. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paul.lake Thu Nov 1 23:43:16 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2001 22:43:16 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins In-Reply-To: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: on 11/2/01 9:30 AM, David Graham at grahamd at mail.ripon.edu wrote: > This from Henry Gould is helpful, I think. I'm also not highly interested > in a debate on the merits of Collins, though I like his work more than many > do. He's definitely got limitations (who doesn't?), but what he does I > think he does very well, very often. I'm also happy to concede that Frank > O'Hara, whose work I also like, is a poet of greater range. > > (I can't help noting that that range includes reams of pretty frivolous or > tedious stuff as well as some intriguing experiments , in my view. And it > seems pointless to deny that O'Hara's range includes a great many > Collins-esque bagatelles, as any leaf-through of the collected poems soon > shows.) > > What seems particularly intriguing to me is the fire and brimstone that > Collins attracts from many quarters--he's equally reviled by staunch > traditionalists like Adam Kirsch and by those interested in more progressive > poetics. > > This seems a different phenomenon somehow from the reaction many have had, > say, to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, another highly accessible poet who was quite > popular once upon a time (*Coney Island of the Mind* was for many years the > best selling poetry book--maybe still is?). Ferlinghetti is certainly a > "real" poet, not a hack like McKuen or Leonard Nimoy, even if few would > prize his work above that of such peers as Lowell, O'Hara, Levertov, Kunitz, > or Your Name Here. > > I'd certainly put Collins *at least* in Ferlinghetti's rank (to my mind he's > far more interesting). > > So why such passionate dislike? I don't think it's *merely* that he's so > popular, especially with middlebrow readership. For popularity often > provokes mere indifference or a sigh over the perpetual stupidity of popular > taste. No, it probably has something to do with the fact that some > certifiable eggheads (the estimable Barry Spacks, for example) seem to like > Collins a lot. Blurbs on Collins's books by John Updike, William Matthews, > Richard Howard, X. J. Kennedy, Stephen Dunn, Annie Proulx, and Gerald Stern > indicate something of the interesting profile of his readership. > > The question of readership seems key, just as Henry G. suggests. And it's > probably fair to put Collins in the camp (along with Ferlinghetti and > thousands of others) of poets who are not particularly interested in > "eluding a readership," that now-ancient modernist goal. But to my mind > this still doesn't quite explain the ire that Collins attracts. > > David Graham > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > > ---------- >> From: Henry Gould >> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] RE: Clewell, usurper >> Date: Fri, Nov 2, 2001, 8:11 AM >> > >> re "Nadsonism" : >> >> ". . . the mastery of the artist does not control; it escapes, provoking >> the listener into pursuit rather >> than controlled obedience. The poet Nadson, in contrast, meets his reader >> face to face, and through his >> absolute control initiates. . . the urge to conform, but the voice of the >> poet does not survive this total >> union with the reader's consciousness. Thus it is no longer possible to >> discern Nadson's voice: >> 'Do not laugh at Nadsonism, it is the enigma of Russian culture and the >> essentially incomprehensible >> sound of it, for we do not understand and hear as they understood and >> heard.' Nadson's voice has >> been grasped and encompassed and consumed. This, for Mandelshtam, is the >> fate of a very lucky but >> inferior poet." Glazov-Corrigan, "Mandelshtam's Poetics" >> >> I don't really want to start a debate over the merits of Collins. As I >> said, the issue with these very >> accessible poets has more to do with the needs of readers than the >> originality of the poets. I'm >> more interested in this concept of a poetry that eludes a readership to >> some extent. >> >> Henry >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> New-Poetry mailing list >> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > You've analyzed the problem well, David. I don't know Collins' work well, but what little I've read seems a bit facile. I guess we're all content to let mediocrity have the small audience and rewards it deserves, but when accolades and the perks of wealth and fame are bestowed on mediocrity, it makes the whole game seem a cheat. Why strive for excellence, why set high standards, when the laurels go not to the swift, but the suburban jogger? Paul Lake From lcrespi Fri Nov 2 13:15:12 2001 From: lcrespi (Linda Crespi) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 10:15:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] I'm in Snakeskin In-Reply-To: <01d701c1632f$87676ec0$18aeefd8@0021936706> Message-ID: <20011102181512.14863.qmail@web13904.mail.yahoo.com> November Snakeskin has a special section about "OUR TROBLED TIMES" including my own "War Poem" It's at www.snakeskin.org.uk Linda The Crespi Page is at: http://snakeskin.org.uk/crespi.htm New work appears usually in Snakeskin Webzine: http://snakeskin.org.uk --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume on Yahoo! Careers. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JackKerouac25 Fri Nov 2 13:39:09 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 13:39:09 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins Message-ID: <159.36b81d8.2914424d@aol.com> http://www.n2hos.com/acm/ There's a rather interesting and poorly-written review of Collins' _Sailing Alone around the Room_ at Expansive Poetry and Music online. Apparently, whoever this cat Robert Darling is, really missed the boat on Collins' work. I cannot believe his read of the pardaelle. As far as I know, it's _not_ a real form--that's the point. Besides, the word "paradelle" is very close to "parody." This guy takes Collins to task for being too simplistic; yet his review is quite simplistic. His take on "Introduction to Poetry" in the final paragraph of the review sums up his views. Darling seems to be the kind of guy who would want to "tie a poem to a chair and torture a confession out of it." If Billy Collins is telling a joke, then Robert Darling is the punchline. Jeff N. Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 From Thom424 Fri Nov 2 14:58:22 2001 From: Thom424 (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 14:58:22 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins Message-ID: <79.1d7a1428.291454de@aol.com> See the most recent issue of THE PARIS REVIEW for an interview ("The Art of Poetry LXXXIII") with Billy Collins and his discussion of the paradelle (p. 208). Thom Tammarp moorhead, MN From DICK Fri Nov 2 15:22:43 2001 From: DICK (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 01 15:22:43 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] E=N=V=Y Message-ID: <200111022024.fA2KOsM78722@sp1n189at0.watson.ibm.com> Paul Lake has explained why Collins inspires such hostility in some quarters. IT'S THE MONEY. Nobody (in po' biz, anyway) paid much attention to Billy Collins until the highly publicized dispute between Random House and U. of Pittsburgh press made the news. BIG BUCKS were in the air. And then, Collins has the effrontery to be appointed Poet Laureate. All the while, he can't be dismissed as another Rod McKuen! So he's tarred with "facile" and "mediocre" and "accessible" as a pejorative. What currently living poet's reputation could survive such a 1-2? Richard From alphavil Fri Nov 2 15:24:14 2001 From: alphavil (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 15:24:14 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Fun with Billy References: <159.36b81d8.2914424d@aol.com> Message-ID: <3BE300EE.1EBEA36D@ix.netcom.com> Billy Collins' poetry may be readily 'accessible', but Billy Collins the poet prefers not to be. The "self-contentment" of the sated diner in his poem is a set-up for, what Billy thinks, is a resonating ridicule of poetry as the "sanctuary of hunger and deprivation." Collins himself states he is only thinking of him-"self" here, the implication being that, therefore, concerns about hunger in American poetry must all be based on a false altruism because how could the plump, "self"-conscious practioners of American verse know anything about hunger even when morphed to a trope of the spirit. In other words, such themes as "hunger and deprivation" should be eliminated on the grounds that given the present circumstances of 'plenty', they are inauthentic. I know this sounds like a harsh indictment of Billy, but that's what I hear. Billy's at best a disingenuous 'craftsman'-a charlatan. Sorry, Darling. At worst, he's envious of 'something' which he can't or won't articulate cause I'm sure as hell its not the sonnet form that fuels the discontentment of this "self-contented" malcontent. What's really bothering you, Billy? Further, as one who has done elaborate studies analyzing the average caloric intake of American poets and its effect on the thematic development of contemporary American poetry (see. my Trouble With Mediocrity and Who Hired Bill Moyers To Destroy American Poetry), I, indeed, have found the lacuna in genuine pathos that Billy implies. In fact, taken historically, as the per capita caloric intake of the average American poet rose dramatically after World War II, the subject matter, generally, took on an air of "contentment", self-absorption and domesticity, virtually reversing all of the existential gains that poets like Wallace Stevens and Rainer Maria Rilke had made toward the 'other.' Even when conflict occurred it was purely chauvinistic, unconsciously couched as a food fight at the Norman Rockwell cafe like Billy's inchoate lugey at an Edward Hopper-like spiritual "hunger and deprivation." The path of Billy's "self-contentment" runs the high-ground of a surging river of blood. American poets like their fellow citizens have, even in resistance, largely been beneficiaries of this red channeling of the world's resources. Poet's don't need the smugness of a Billy Collins to remind them of this dilemma. They need something authentic. Like a consistently high caloric intake, the post of poet laureate itself is 'designed' to satiate American poetry away from such authenticity. I would insist that these gross generalizations and unsubstantiated assumptions have, at least, as much efficacy as Billy's, if not the same level of popular appeal. CP JackKerouac25 at aol.com wrote: > http://www.n2hos.com/acm/ > > There's a rather interesting and poorly-written review of Collins' _Sailing > Alone around the Room_ at Expansive Poetry and Music online. > > Apparently, whoever this cat Robert Darling is, really missed the boat on > Collins' work. I cannot believe his read of the pardaelle. As far as I > know, it's _not_ a real form--that's the point. Besides, the word > "paradelle" is very close to "parody." This guy takes Collins to task for > being too simplistic; yet his review is quite simplistic. His take on > "Introduction to Poetry" in the final paragraph of the review sums up his > views. Darling seems to be the kind of guy who would want to "tie a poem to > a chair and torture a confession out of it." > > If Billy Collins is telling a joke, then Robert Darling is the punchline. > > Jeff N. > > Jeffrey L. Newberry > Adjunct Instructor > Department of English and Foreign Languages > University of West Florida > 11000 University Parkway > Pensacola, FL 32514 > 850.474.2923 > 850.473.7330 > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From CobbCoStudioArts Fri Nov 2 15:33:07 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 12:33:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] I'm in Snakeskin Message-ID: <20011102203307.6B63836F9@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From grahamd Fri Nov 2 16:00:10 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 15:00:10 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Collins poem Message-ID: <200111022059.fA2KxjL54467@mx10.mx.voyager.net> It's futile to argue taste, I know, but that's maybe not precisely the same thing as discussing it. And it strikes me that in all the recent discussion of Collins's work, we haven't actually looked at much if any of the work specificially. And a number of folks who have weighed in on his popularity, accessibility, and so forth have admitted to being relatively unfamiliar with his poems. So for what it's worth, here's a sample poem. From *Picnic, Lightning* originally, and reprinted in the new selected edition. I'd say it's a fair enough example of a Collins poem: clear, simple in diction and premise, and quite firmly "managed," rhetorically. It's also probably a good enough sample of Collins at his best; Collins apparently thought so when choosing it for his selected poems, anyway. Like many of his poems, it's also a bit stranger as well as darker than he's sometimes assumed to be--reading "Some Days" I feel as I often feel reading Marianne Moore, struck by the oddness of the imagination that would have conceived to say such a thing at all. Still, as with Moore, there's no real opacity or slipperyness of syntax, etc. I guess I'm talking about tone--in the Paris Review interview Collins asserts that tone is central to his conception of what makes a poem a poem. Anyway, here's the poem. Some Days Some days I put the people in their places at the table, bend their legs at the knees, if they come with that feature, and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs. All afternoon they face one another, the man in the brown suit, the woman in the blue dress, perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved. But other days, I am the one who is lifted up by the ribs, then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse to sit with the others at the long table. Very funny, but how would you like it if you never knew from one day to the next if you were going to spend it striding around like a vivid god, your shoulders in the clouds, or sitting there amidst the wallpaper, staring straight ahead with your little plastic face? _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ From alphavil Sat Nov 3 05:06:37 2001 From: alphavil (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 05:06:37 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Barking dog. Berkowitz and poetry References: <200111022059.fA2KxjL54467@mx10.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3BE3C1AD.C7F982FF@ix.netcom.com> Funny, I get off the business computer and go up to my study to write and my own barking dog to yards down cranks it up. Actually, he doesn't bark so much as whimper. I call him the "whiney, muley dog." I have thought of writing a poem, actually an ode, to his canine neuroses, but the notion soon gives way to more genuine imagintative concerns which is what happens to me as regards a Billy Collins. I like to laugh, and I enjoy structured quirkiness, but I don't take Billy Collins too seriously. now a few light fragments from The Millenary's Centos If reflective of the Natural World, why this deficit with Nature? The whole Time the Kid Was primping before a chemical compound. There?s luxury condos for seventy trillion angels between quantum states. In the course of a day, a Rome plow ?plants? a thousand folk remedies. Why do ?alien? abductions play out in an operating theater? Or that movies set in an apocalyptic future are shot on location? Is technology returning earth to its flatness? The Admiral In his Profecias Predicted the millennium In 1650 Justifying the conquest As 'a great herding Of souls.' ?Willfulness conjures a potent alchemy...? Kadir The Indians were liberated from their gold For the body sold Ensured that the spirit In mutual enslavement Would be free of temptation, spared The object of the other?s sin; A damnation the Admiral eagerly chartered, So that a native hermeneutics, ?a system of logic?, set in. The Indians slaked the Spaniards? thirst with molten ore Not to alloy tribute to torture, Nor to border gilt with guilt, But to Perfect the conquistador. Homage to the alchemy of the immortal soul That Europe disposes in a statue. Pierre d?Ailly, ?medieval mythos and Kadir Scientific ethos.? Priests, tributaries, chemists fed Ochre?s mutable red. The sun forfeiting permanence By occupying the core. ?Logic is the lowest form of magic,? Cecil Taylor said. And ?Logic is the money of the mind,? Marx observed. Half the Church?s crew arrived in El Dorado II, dead With pouches and saddle bags corpulent with gold. Ammon?s mind was a kind of plasmic consomme Cooling on a galactic steam tray. But consider Kissinger in light of Cioran?s, ?The mind is the only claw a man has.? A small rodent terrified At any other?s strategy for homeostasis. The primitive sizing of praxis and punishment Reaches the sublime. Breeding meteors, a mimesis That launched a melodrama of an end-time. ?Mentalist statements, thoughts and feelings, hopes and fears,...? Bought and sold here at the arcane Board game Of the mind/body problem. Tokens, Tiny busts, of Descartes and Hume Replaced with Turing slugs ?How do I ever know you are conscious?? asserted Christof Koch. Depends on who dictates ?knowing.? As Britain discovered, Everybody?s born-again When the king won?t confess. Only an imperfect mind can desire a ?perfect sphere.? Cybernetics, complexity, chaos, Non-linear systems, genetic engineering A.I., A.L. computer modelling... The demon?s in the remake of Dante?s Hell Will have the unmistakable features of Arthur Nobel. And the epiphenomenalism of Purgatory persists Because Paradise drafted the armistice. Were the last centuries 223,000,000 killed born too late To carbon date? And if the carnage at the normal rate consumed their elect Wouldn?t the sciences be more circumspect? ?Don?t feel bad about celestial [G]arbage:... [IT] is so far the highest evidence Of our existence here.? Ammon?s Wasteland Is a fuming Heimat, But no Shell game this time. Just the money they will defend Until the bitter end. Knowing geneticists can clean A ?meat machine? Even if the ?wet ware? manages swerve to Avoid the eviscerating Logic of the Bell Curve, The courts vent the blowback From Operation RANCH HAND, the Gulf War, Bhopal, Deposing the dead looking for Epitaphs that are strictly empirical. The Caucasus are mere headstones. And the World Trade Center and the Pyramids? The wolves know That 60 years of Red Dawns Style any institution a target. And that though they bob on bombast, The sheep are armed With an Ovidian charm And more than a trace of Pythagoras. The currency was repression When staged in the mind of Nichols and McVeigh, From one of Reason?s bogeys? A ?paradiso terrestre.? An Eden of canals and furrows. So that Herman Con, Thermonuclear Whore, Seemed the odd arrival, With his brown wing tips, Operations Research, And Parable of Survival. Finding his constituency in the Knights of Columbus, The Masons and the Rotary Club. Those pillars of the community Who like Lot?s wife Aroused by the novelty of the pikadon Froze in the apocalypse of Herman Kahn. And paved with the fool?s gold of victory, The Jerusalems of Tulsa & Albany Beheld a Sodom and Gomorrah In Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From jdavis Fri Nov 2 17:04:25 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 17:04:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] 1-2 In-Reply-To: <200111022024.fA2KOsM78722@sp1n189at0.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: I don't even know if it's envy! as much as the distilled suspicion of every living practitioner of verse for all writers outside one's immediate cohort. Q. What do you think about X? A. She's all right, but it's hard to ignore the y, z, and a in her work, isn't it? Some people emphasize the "she's all right" part, others lean on the "isn't it". And there are alwayz qualities y, z, and a, because we're all still in different places. It might seem like envy because now that Collins is on the radio every other week, people who don't know what to say to us poets about poetry can try the line, "What do you think of that Billy Collins, there. Pretty good, isn't he?" Really, if he hadn't been compared to O'Hara, I would have found many pleasant things to say about him - might have even put him up with Pauls Violi and Muldoon as a capable genial weirdo, though he's no Ron Padgett, to be sure. Now that looks sexist! I wonder if there are women one might compare with Collins. Deb Garrison? Jordan Davis From halvard Fri Nov 2 17:08:57 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 17:08:57 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees Message-ID: Crime Club No butler, no second maid, no blood upon the stair. No eccentric aunt, no gardener, no family friend Smiling among the bric-a-brac and murder. Only a suburban house with the front door open And a dog barking at a squirrel, and the cars Passing. The corpse quite dead. The wife in Florida. Consider the clues: the potato masher in a vase, The torn photograph of a Wesleyan basketball team, Scattered with check stubs in the hall; The unsent fan letter to Shirley Temple, The Hoover button on the lapel of the deceased, The note: "To be killed this way is quite all right with me." Small wonder that the case remains unsolved, Or that the sleuth, Le Roux, is now incurably insane, And sits alone in a white room in a white gown, Screaming that all the world is mad, that clues Lead nowhere, or to walls so high their tops cannot be seen; Screaming all day of war, screaming that nothing can be solved. --Weldon Kees Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From spacks Fri Nov 2 17:22:56 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 14:22:56 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] E=N=V=Y In-Reply-To: <200111022024.fA2KOsM78722@sp1n189at0.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011102142256.007fe520@snowcrest.net> At 03:22 PM 11/2/01 EST, Richard wrote: >And then, Collins has the effrontery to be appointed >Poet Laureate. Yes, the poetry-wars are always with us, but ah when the attacks miss ironies & jokes, when spittle foams at the mouth of dunces Dunciad-ing, there's always a temptation to slink off and hang oneself in Afghanistan. With such rage what beauty holds a plea? Unpacking the Collins-Question we're on the brink of a subject too immense for posts of a seemly length, but at the center of many intersecting threads regarding "who then is worthy" I find most telling the distinction offered between the poet as his own reader (experimenting language-questor) and poetry understood to serve an immensely important public purpose. In this second category I confess I'm offended by fundamentalist-warriors who take up a kill or be killed stance. In Poetry's Mansion are many rooms, some passionately disarrayed to an effect of power (or incoherence), some (forgive them) gracefully decorated, some harmfully filled with Kitsch (which comes in 57 varieties, remember, from marmoreal to O'Hara-haired). Much is at stake in keeping up the gold-standard, granted, but little's to be gained from a Gott Mit Uns approach. We have our McKeons & Jewels & Edgar A. Guests to cast to the wolves of ardor, as to the rest of us I can only second St. Rodney: can't we get along? Would many, if not all, grant that the risk of obscurity does not guarantee profundity nor the risk of clarity -- even, praise god, entertainment! -- rule out depth and worth? Of course we could always really simplify and fall back on Gavin Ewart's immortal line: "The bad poets hate the good poets." Apologies for a lengthy post & for incidental (though provoked) barbs along the way; & may the Muse be with you each and every one, Barry "What's so funny about peace love and punctuation?" -- Sally Russell From TerryP17 Fri Nov 2 18:23:16 2001 From: TerryP17 (TerryP17 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 18:23:16 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Darling Message-ID: <28.1d100443.291484e5@aol.com> Jeff, FYI, Robert Darling is a Formalist poet who has taught English for many years as a professor in remote Keuka College somewhere in the uncharted wilds of New York. He's rather a decent fellow and a good friend of mine. We published a crown of sonnets by him some time ago in ECR. I confess to not having read his Collins piece on EP&M online, so I can't offer an opinion, but just thought you might like an association. Meanwhile, I agree with Paul Lake. The best way to earn a controversial rep as a poet is to make a few bucks at it! --Terry From cstroffo Fri Nov 2 19:25:15 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 16:25:15 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> Interesting Collins-Ferlinghetti comparison For me, I guess most of Collins is, er, better, than most of Ferlinghetti--- but I don't think any Collins is as good as "I Am Waiting" as a political/personal poem, and in terms of having the effect of opening poetry up--- there is a historical significance to Ferlinghetti that I used to dismiss, like "YEAH, I agree,or even a little wow, but is it as good as POETRY?" but a lot of the things he's waiting for as AT LEAST as sorely lacking in contemporary U.S. culture today as they were in 1950s, and while one may get pleasure from Collins (or O'Hara) for that matter, things are just a little lopsided that way.... Maybe we should talk about Brett Ralph's review of the new Jeffers Selected that will be in Rain Taxi....(it's not out yet; this is a teaser....if not a firecat?) Chris David Graham wrote: > This from Henry Gould is helpful, I think. I'm also not highly interested > in a debate on the merits of Collins, though I like his work more than many > do. He's definitely got limitations (who doesn't?), but what he does I > think he does very well, very often. I'm also happy to concede that Frank > O'Hara, whose work I also like, is a poet of greater range. > > (I can't help noting that that range includes reams of pretty frivolous or > tedious stuff as well as some intriguing experiments , in my view. And it > seems pointless to deny that O'Hara's range includes a great many > Collins-esque bagatelles, as any leaf-through of the collected poems soon > shows.) > > What seems particularly intriguing to me is the fire and brimstone that > Collins attracts from many quarters--he's equally reviled by staunch > traditionalists like Adam Kirsch and by those interested in more progressive > poetics. > > This seems a different phenomenon somehow from the reaction many have had, > say, to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, another highly accessible poet who was quite > popular once upon a time (*Coney Island of the Mind* was for many years the > best selling poetry book--maybe still is?). Ferlinghetti is certainly a > "real" poet, not a hack like McKuen or Leonard Nimoy, even if few would > prize his work above that of such peers as Lowell, O'Hara, Levertov, Kunitz, > or Your Name Here. > > I'd certainly put Collins *at least* in Ferlinghetti's rank (to my mind he's > far more interesting). > > So why such passionate dislike? I don't think it's *merely* that he's so > popular, especially with middlebrow readership. For popularity often > provokes mere indifference or a sigh over the perpetual stupidity of popular > taste. No, it probably has something to do with the fact that some > certifiable eggheads (the estimable Barry Spacks, for example) seem to like > Collins a lot. Blurbs on Collins's books by John Updike, William Matthews, > Richard Howard, X. J. Kennedy, Stephen Dunn, Annie Proulx, and Gerald Stern > indicate something of the interesting profile of his readership. > > The question of readership seems key, just as Henry G. suggests. And it's > probably fair to put Collins in the camp (along with Ferlinghetti and > thousands of others) of poets who are not particularly interested in > "eluding a readership," that now-ancient modernist goal. But to my mind > this still doesn't quite explain the ire that Collins attracts. > > David Graham > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > > ---------- > >From: Henry Gould > >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] RE: Clewell, usurper > >Date: Fri, Nov 2, 2001, 8:11 AM > > > > >re "Nadsonism" : > > > >". . . the mastery of the artist does not control; it escapes, provoking > >the listener into pursuit rather > >than controlled obedience. The poet Nadson, in contrast, meets his reader > >face to face, and through his > >absolute control initiates. . . the urge to conform, but the voice of the > >poet does not survive this total > >union with the reader's consciousness. Thus it is no longer possible to > >discern Nadson's voice: > >'Do not laugh at Nadsonism, it is the enigma of Russian culture and the > >essentially incomprehensible > >sound of it, for we do not understand and hear as they understood and > >heard.' Nadson's voice has > >been grasped and encompassed and consumed. This, for Mandelshtam, is the > >fate of a very lucky but > >inferior poet." Glazov-Corrigan, "Mandelshtam's Poetics" > > > >I don't really want to start a debate over the merits of Collins. As I > >said, the issue with these very > >accessible poets has more to do with the needs of readers than the > >originality of the poets. I'm > >more interested in this concept of a poetry that eludes a readership to > >some extent. > > > >Henry > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > >New-Poetry mailing list > >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From duemer Fri Nov 2 19:36:52 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 19:36:52 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <003801c163ff$a2c7d4e0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> What bothers _me_ about Collins' poetry is that it seems to merely present a thought already arrived at. All the marks of struggle--if there were any--have been erased. Like a nicely performed magic trick. The mystery a result of technical manipulation not . . . what? The illusive quality of meaning. The difficulty of making sense. And the awareness that the world extends beyond the edge of one's front lawn. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 ====================== From spacks Fri Nov 2 20:18:08 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 17:18:08 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins In-Reply-To: <003801c163ff$a2c7d4e0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011102171808.007f4100@snowcrest.net> At 07:36 PM 11/2/01 -0500, you wrote: >All the marks of struggle--if there were >any--have been erased. This once was called "the art that conceals art," a badge of care, but now, I gather, an indication of insincerity? By such logic anything "artful" falls to a demand for...what? raw experience? a DNA-sample guaranteeing quest and suffering besplottered on the page? I hear people confessing, in effect, "Me, I'm vital and large-spirited enough to prefer the Real Thing, namely that which resists the tell-tale mark of frivolity, *polish*." Could it be that the worthily "raw" poet (to use Lowell's useful contrast between raw and cooked poetry) might traffic in "the art that conceals the-art-that-conceals-art"? Oh puritans, where are the cavaliers, now we need them?! B. From duemer Fri Nov 2 20:26:11 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 20:26:11 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> <3.0.5.32.20011102171808.007f4100@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <003d01c16406$85d38da0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> The raw / cooked distinction goes back to the French anthropologist Levi-Straus. Sure there's the art-that-conceals-art & then there's facile art. In painting, look at the elegant record of struggle in the work of Richard Diebenkorn; in poetry, look at Mandelstam--or Lowell, for that matter. Or Blake or Wordsworth or Whitman or Dickinson. Or Stephen Dobyns or Susan Howe or Franz Wright. The Real Deal, jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 http://web.northnet.org/duemer/ http://rw.blogspot.com ====================== From BobGrumman Fri Nov 2 20:37:07 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 20:37:07 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3BE34A43.7F5A@nut-n-but.net> David, you keep asking why Collins is reviled. I keep telling you: he's a reasonably good poet but he's never taken an aesthetic chance in his life (as far as I know). In contrast to Ferlinghetti, in his prime, Collins has never used a poetic device not in wide use fifty or more years before he used it. Nothing wrong with that, but it annoys the many intellectuals who value newer kinds of poetry that poets like Collins become Poet Laureates and win the big grants, etc., while they and their kind mostly get nothing (until, perhaps, they are seventy or older). He's also a touch Norman Rockwellish at times, which doesn't bother me but bothers some. --Bob G. From spacks Sat Nov 3 00:46:31 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 21:46:31 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins In-Reply-To: <003801c163ff$a2c7d4e0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011102214631.007fd290@snowcrest.net> Joseph Duemer wrote: >What bothers _me_ about Collins' poetry is that it seems to merely present a thought already arrived at. All the marks of struggle--if there were any--have been erased. Like a nicely performed magic trick. The mystery a result of technical manipulation not . . . what? The illusive quality of meaning. The difficulty of making sense. And the awareness that the world >extends beyond the edge of one's front lawn. ***************** Brooding on the Collins- (let's call it) 'Diminishment' in several recent posts by various listmates, am I right to sense that we're still (or again) stuck with that old snob-Modernist high/low split? Poor Billy! The Mills of the Gods grind fine, and he's too popular even to make it up to second-class grist. (And here I thought that "The illusive quality of meaning" was his constant, various & inventive theme: go-know!). I'll be quiet now (gotta cook), B. From JackKerouac25 Sat Nov 3 02:05:23 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 02:05:23 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Darling Message-ID: <8d.ecf6ef8.2914f133@aol.com> In a message dated 11/2/01 5:24:00 PM Central Standard Time, TerryP17 at aol.com writes: > Jeff, > > FYI, Robert Darling is a Formalist poet who has taught English for many > years as a professor in remote Keuka College somewhere in the uncharted > wilds of New York. He's rather a decent fellow and a good friend of mine. > We published a crown of sonnets by him some time ago in ECR. I confess to > not having read his Collins piece on EP&M online, so I can't offer an > opinion, but just thought you might like an association. > > Meanwhile, I agree with Paul Lake. The best way to earn a controversial rep > as a poet is to make a few bucks at it! > > --Terry > Terry, Thanks for the info. I wrote that post when I was rather upset; Collins and I have a mutual friend, and I know that Billy works hard at what he does, despite what others think. I may be wrong about the paradelle thing, but I'm quite sure that he's making fun of something... Well, it's late. Cheers, Jeff Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jdavis Sat Nov 3 11:00:53 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 11:00:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] high immediacy? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20011102214631.007fd290@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: > old snob-Modernist high/low split? Only if you want to Reaganize your way out of a discussion. I thought we had a rather less explored split - experience v. understanding. And given that human beings still keep on being fallible, I'll go for fallible representations of experience over fallible demonstrations of understanding (pace any hardcore Lockeans out there) every time. Jordan Davis From spacks Sat Nov 3 11:14:32 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 08:14:32 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Darling (a great subject word) In-Reply-To: <8d.ecf6ef8.2914f133@aol.com> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011103081432.007f5780@snowcrest.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 831 bytes Desc: not available URL: From alphavil Sat Nov 3 12:13:20 2001 From: alphavil (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 12:13:20 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Keats is not referring to 'taste', but scientific 'fact' References: <3.0.5.32.20011103081432.007f5780@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <3BE425B0.394B44AB@ix.netcom.com> Keats is not referring to "tastes" but 'facts' in a historical/scientific atmosphere rhetorically rife with the possibility of soon presenting the world with one set of final causes based on the mathematical/experimental method. Keats was not a modern. Such labeling is absurd. But he was certainly cognizant of his times. In this all important regard, Mary Shelley did the most relevant and most culturally enduring work. If we are to be cognizant of our own times, we must realize that Keats' "sense of beauty" has little coinage in our current literature. Nor should it. After all, in his own time, it was an Ideal and a buoy for Keats himself against the onslaught of scientific Reason. Even our notion of the 'timelessness of beauty' has been changed by notions which lie outside of literature and perhaps might be addressed by poets with the intelligence and energy to do so. I'm not saying that we can't draw from Keats' almost hermetic notion, because the concept itself temporarily rescues poetry from the negligible position it has fallen into. But its obvious that Keats certainly didn't intend Negative Capability as an excuse for ignorance or triviality. His poetry is testament to that. CP I had not a dispute but a disquisition, with Dilke on various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason-Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration. Barry Spacks wrote: > At 02:05 AM 11/3/01 EST, Jeff L. Newberry wrote: > > I may be wrong about the paradelle thing, but I'm quite sure that he's making fun of something... > > yes; his initial paradelle is an hilarious example of > an insanely demanding set-form in the hands of > all 3 stooges (in effect). But the form can be used > with gravitas as well (I have one in the forthcoming > anthology called "A Zen Paradelle"). The Laureate > is mocking, with urbane lightness, the very > slickness of performance his critics bemoan, > following Ginsberg's riff on Keats' "negative > capability," that it's a life-giving power to function > in terms of contradictory notions (read here "tastes") > "without freaking out." The alternative, as all > surely remember, is "the irritable reaching after > fact and reason." > > respectfully, y'all, > > B. > > _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From cstroffo Sat Nov 3 13:25:34 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 10:25:34 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Negative Capability-- References: <3.0.5.32.20011103081432.007f5780@snowcrest.net> <3BE425B0.394B44AB@ix.netcom.com> Message-ID: <3BE4369D.C40D8511@earthlink.net> Ah, N.C., But when it's discussed in reference to Shakespeare, it's a little different than when it's discussed in reference to Keats---Or, to put it another way the idea of "Neagative Capability" has taken on a "life of its own" quite apart from its specific reference to Keats' rather limited (though he was getting better just before he died) poetic achievement (yeah, who isn't limited?)---so I'm more interested in that N.C. idea, which is actually several different ideas, at least as it circulates---Often it is combined with his statement ion the impersonal artist who delights as much in Iago as in Imogen (I have to find that exact quote---but hopefully you'll know what I mean), the artist who is "everything and nothing" (which Borges, among others, wrote about quite brilliantly and somewhat sardonically)... Whether or not Keats is "almost hermetic" (a self-contradictory statement if ever there was one---for what's the difference between "almost hermetic" and "hardly hermetic" in such a context?), ---and yes I too think the "Grecian Urn" poem would be better if the Urn had said, "You Must Change Your Life" for instance---, is less the question than R. Gancie/C Parelli's attempt to historicize timelessness in a way that it would be therefore invalid to consider it as possible or valid in the face of the onslaught of today's version of "progress" or "technology".... Anyway, it would be interesting to continue this discussion of N.C..... as a concept or attitude or stance, ethical, or aesthetic, regardless of Keats' per se... Chris "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" wrote: > Keats is not referring to "tastes" but 'facts' in a historical/scientific atmosphere rhetorically rife with the possibility of soon presenting the world > with one set of final causes based on the mathematical/experimental method. Keats was not a modern. Such labeling is absurd. But he was certainly > cognizant of his times. In this all important regard, Mary Shelley did the most relevant and most culturally enduring work. > > If we are to be cognizant of our own times, we must realize that Keats' "sense of beauty" has little coinage in our current literature. Nor should it. > After all, in his own time, it was an Ideal and a buoy for Keats himself against the onslaught of scientific Reason. Even our notion of the 'timelessness > of beauty' has been changed by notions which lie outside of literature and perhaps might be addressed by poets with the intelligence and energy to do > so. > > I'm not saying that we can't draw from Keats' almost hermetic notion, because the concept itself temporarily rescues poetry from the negligible position > it has fallen into. But its obvious that Keats certainly didn't intend Negative Capability as an excuse for ignorance or triviality. His poetry is > testament to that. CP > > I had not a dispute but a > disquisition, with Dilke on various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my > mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of > Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so > enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of > being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after > fact and reason-Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated > verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of > remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would > perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty > overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration. > > Barry Spacks wrote: > > > At 02:05 AM 11/3/01 EST, Jeff L. Newberry wrote: > > > > I may be wrong about the paradelle thing, but I'm quite sure that he's making fun of something... > > > > yes; his initial paradelle is an hilarious example of > > an insanely demanding set-form in the hands of > > all 3 stooges (in effect). But the form can be used > > with gravitas as well (I have one in the forthcoming > > anthology called "A Zen Paradelle"). The Laureate > > is mocking, with urbane lightness, the very > > slickness of performance his critics bemoan, > > following Ginsberg's riff on Keats' "negative > > capability," that it's a life-giving power to function > > in terms of contradictory notions (read here "tastes") > > "without freaking out." The alternative, as all > > surely remember, is "the irritable reaching after > > fact and reason." > > > > respectfully, y'all, > > > > B. > > > > _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From mmagee Sat Nov 3 13:31:35 2001 From: mmagee (Michael Magee) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 13:31:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Collins poem In-Reply-To: <200111022059.fA2KxjL54467@mx10.mx.voyager.net> from "David Graham" at Nov 2, 2001 03:00:10 pm Message-ID: <200111031831.NAA07809@dept.english.upenn.edu> David, I've got no objection to your explanation of what's to like about Collins' poetry, but, as with the O'Hara comparison which we've been entertaining, I can't agree with you in the least when you say, "as with Moore, there's no real opacity or slipperyness of syntax, etc." I mean, would Collins go anywhere near lines such as "A kind of monkey or pine lemur / not of interest to the monkey, / in a kind of Flaubert's Carthage, it defies one"??? Or, "that the piano is a free field for etching; that his 'charming / tadpole notes' / belong to the past when one had time to play them"? Thinking of today, this gestures toward the syntactical layering not of Collins but of, say, Stroffolino. I think these attempts to say "Collins is like so-and-so great poet of the past" are symptomatic of the way we've repressed the real difficulty of said poetry. Take a poem like "The Jerboa" or "Those Various Scalpels" - who, among those who put wind in Collins' laureate sails has really come to terms with their difficulty - and more than their mere difficulty, with how *different* Collins and Moore are in their intentions. Likewise, as I've said with O'Hara. They may both be interested in a day's trivia, but their motivations for such interest differ greatly, it seems to me. The poem you quoted, "Some Days" is funny, in a James Tate-lite sort of way (and I should say that I find Tate quite wonderful) but it uses the notion of the "average day" in a way not like O'Hara at all. First of all, this poem involves a predetermined conceit: the human-as-mannequin or, conversely, player with dolls in a life of domestic humdrum routine -- as a "god" one transcends that (mildly like what WC Williams does in "Danse Russe," but, jeez, much more boringly and without quite the same ironic punch); the ending wants to lend philosophical depth to the conceit. The use of trivia here (principally the setting of a table, the dinner party, and domestic space generally) is contrived: Collins doesn't seem to care about these things he just needs them to execute his idea. In contrast, O'Hara's trivia is about what happens spontaneously and any item, any *thing* he comes into contact with will potentially redirect the poem and, indeed, shape the identity of the poet. Here's what Robert Duncan said about O'Hara's "triviality" (as told by Creeley): 'Speaking of Frank O'Hara, [Duncan] noted that extraordinary poet's attempt "to keep the *demand* on the language as *operative*, so that something was at issue all the time, and, at the same time, to make it almost like chatter on the telephone that nobody was going to pay attention to before...that the language gain what was assumed before to be its *trivial* uses...So I think one can build a picture, that in all the arts, especially in America, they are *operative*. We think of art as *doing something*, taking hold of it as a *process*..." At Black Mountain these preoccupations were insistent."' So, I would agree with Duncan and suggest that there's a philosophical and aesthetic depth to what O'Hara's doing (related to the pragmatism of Williams James and John Dewey) that's just absent in Collins. Since we're trying to focus on specifics, here's part of a reading of O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died" (which in turn is part of an article coming out soon in Contemporary Literature on O'Hara, race and jazz - I'm leaving out all the stuff on Billie Holliday and the Five Spot here cause its too many pages, so nobody take this is the whole of my argument re that poem puhlleez): [The first four stanzas of O?Hara?s poem are built on a series of the most plain, present tense declarative statements: "I go...I walk...I go...I get...I do think...I stick with...I just stroll...I go." The sense of rapid movement is enhanced by his use of specific times (12:20, 4:19, 7:15) and the whole passage is a model of what James called "reactive spontaneity." "I don't know the people who will feed me," O?Hara insists, and each encounter is an entanglement in externality, a literal modification in his discursive self, the complexity of which is registered in his vernacular expressions. He buys "an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets in Ghana are doing these days," as if reading across boundaries of race and culture were as casual and egalitarian as knocking on your neighbor?s door or calling her on the telephone, and in that way the antithesis of the romantic act of "discovery" (in which the operative question is not "what are you doing?" but "who are you, what do you represent?"). Lastly, he turns around: in describing that turning, he reveals just how actively the social text is mediating the poetic text: "then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue." This is of course a joke on the racist question, "Why don?t you go back where you came from?" and O?Hara?s answer renders the question absurd - where he came from isn?t Africa or Missississippi, Massachusetts or China, Mexico or Ireland; it?s "6th Avenue." Just as "the only truth is face to face," O?Hara measures origins in blocks. The joke is a gesture in the direction of his vision of New York as a multiethnic radical democracy. Notice that with more than eighty percent of the poem gone, Holliday hasn?t even been mentioned. And yet we can read O'Hara's Personism-style games as prelude to the final stanza, or, as a return to where the games "came from."] The point of this I guess, at least in the context of our conversation, is that things-external are the motor for O'Hara's selfhood as they are for his poetry, and that O'Hara doesn't make any distinction between things and words-which-are-things - - and things, whether words or packs of cigarettes or people are always in *dynamic* relation with one another: hence nothing is actually trivial because the trivial is always in contact with and *im*pacting the "deep" and vice versa. Collins's approaches couldn't be more different as far as I can tell. -m. According to David Graham: > > It's futile to argue taste, I know, but that's maybe not precisely the same > thing as discussing it. And it strikes me that in all the recent discussion > of Collins's work, we haven't actually looked at much if any of the work > specificially. And a number of folks who have weighed in on his popularity, > accessibility, and so forth have admitted to being relatively unfamiliar > with his poems. > > So for what it's worth, here's a sample poem. From *Picnic, Lightning* > originally, and reprinted in the new selected edition. I'd say it's a fair > enough example of a Collins poem: clear, simple in diction and premise, and > quite firmly "managed," rhetorically. It's also probably a good enough > sample of Collins at his best; Collins apparently thought so when choosing > it for his selected poems, anyway. > > Like many of his poems, it's also a bit stranger as well as darker than he's > sometimes assumed to be--reading "Some Days" I feel as I often feel reading > Marianne Moore, struck by the oddness of the imagination that would have > conceived to say such a thing at all. Still, as with Moore, there's no real > opacity or slipperyness of syntax, etc. I guess I'm talking about tone--in > the Paris Review interview Collins asserts that tone is central to his > conception of what makes a poem a poem. > > Anyway, here's the poem. > > > Some Days > > Some days I put the people in their places at the table, > bend their legs at the knees, > if they come with that feature, > and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs. > > All afternoon they face one another, > the man in the brown suit, > the woman in the blue dress, > perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved. > > But other days, I am the one > who is lifted up by the ribs, > then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse > to sit with the others at the long table. > > Very funny, > but how would you like it > if you never knew from one day to the next > if you were going to spend it > > striding around like a vivid god, > your shoulders in the clouds, > or sitting there amidst the wallpaper, > staring straight ahead with your little plastic face? > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From duemer Sat Nov 3 14:37:26 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 14:37:26 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> <3.0.5.32.20011102214631.007fd290@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <001c01c1649e$f80d0de0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> <> I ain't stuck. Lines of the week, for me this week, by Townes Van Zandt, may he rest in peace: I have seen the David Seen the Mona Lisa too And I have heard Doc Watson Play "Columbus Stockade Blues." jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From grahamd Sat Nov 3 15:35:37 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 14:35:37 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Accessible Collins Message-ID: <200111032035.fA3KZNQ28278@mx6.mx.voyager.net> I love those lines, too. But as it happens they're not by the late great Townes Van Zandt, but the luckily-still-with-us Guy Clark. From his album *Dublin Blues*. _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: "Joseph Duemer" >To: >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins >Date: Sat, Nov 3, 2001, 1:37 PM > ><> > >I ain't stuck. Lines of the week, for me this week, by Townes Van Zandt, may >he rest in peace: > >I have seen the David >Seen the Mona Lisa too >And I have heard Doc Watson >Play "Columbus Stockade Blues." > >jd From tadrichards Sat Nov 3 15:39:44 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 15:39:44 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> <3.0.5.32.20011102214631.007fd290@snowcrest.net> <001c01c1649e$f80d0de0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <001701c164a7$aea2b7a0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Or the words of Bob McDill's "Good Old Boys Like Me," as sung by Don Williams" John R. and the wolfman kept me company by the light of the radio by my bed with Thomas Wolfe whispering in my head And I still hear the soft southern wind in the live oak trees those Williams boys they still mean a lot to me, Hank and Tennessee I guess we're all gonna be what we're gonna be So what do you do with good ole boys like me Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joseph Duemer" To: Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2001 2:37 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins > <> > > I ain't stuck. Lines of the week, for me this week, by Townes Van Zandt, may > he rest in peace: > > I have seen the David > Seen the Mona Lisa too > And I have heard Doc Watson > Play "Columbus Stockade Blues." > > jd > ====================== > Joseph Duemer > School of Liberal Arts, 5750 > Clarkson University > Potsdam NY 13699 > 315.268.3967 > website http://web.northnet.org/duemer > journal http://rw/blogspot.com > ====================== > > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From halvard Sat Nov 3 16:34:21 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 16:34:21 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins In-Reply-To: <001701c164a7$aea2b7a0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Message-ID: Can we remove the word "accessible" from this subject line? It's making me ill. Sounds like he's got built-in ramps and hand-rails. Does he? Hal "The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided." --Casey Stengel Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html > Or the words of Bob McDill's "Good Old Boys Like Me," as sung by Don > Williams" > > > John R. and the wolfman kept me company > by the light of the radio by my bed > with Thomas Wolfe whispering in my head > > > And I still hear the soft southern wind in the live oak trees > those Williams boys they still mean a lot to me, Hank and Tennessee > I guess we're all gonna be what we're gonna be > So what do you do with good ole boys like me > > > Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." > The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet > of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 > http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Joseph Duemer" > To: > Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2001 2:37 PM > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins > > > > <> > > > > I ain't stuck. Lines of the week, for me this week, by Townes Van Zandt, > may > > he rest in peace: > > > > I have seen the David > > Seen the Mona Lisa too > > And I have heard Doc Watson > > Play "Columbus Stockade Blues." > > > > jd > > ====================== > > Joseph Duemer > > School of Liberal Arts, 5750 > > Clarkson University > > Potsdam NY 13699 > > 315.268.3967 > > website http://web.northnet.org/duemer > > journal http://rw/blogspot.com > > ====================== > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From duemer Sat Nov 3 17:01:31 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 17:01:31 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Accessible Collins References: <200111032035.fA3KZNQ28278@mx6.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <000c01c164b3$18df5e60$18724342@twcny.rr.com> David, you're right of course. I was just listening to a version of that song on the new Live at the Bluebird Cafe, featuring Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt & Steve Earle. The album is uneven, but has several great tracks, including a nice version of that old chestnut "Poncho and Lefty." ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From spacks Sat Nov 3 17:23:21 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 14:23:21 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Picasso loved the funnypapers In-Reply-To: <001c01c1649e$f80d0de0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> <3.0.5.32.20011102214631.007fd290@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011103142321.007f66c0@snowcrest.net> At 02:37 PM 11/3/01 -0500, Joseph wrote: >And I have heard Doc Watson >Play "Columbus Stockade Blues." And who with ears could ever forget it. B. I can blow high and I can blow low Hey you can't tell the difference when you're upsidedown From CobbCoStudioArts Sat Nov 3 17:51:41 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 14:51:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins Message-ID: <20011103225141.B47A436F9@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From wasanthony Sat Nov 3 18:04:09 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 15:04:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20011103230409.82156.qmail@web12102.mail.yahoo.com> --- Halvard Johnson wrote: > Can we remove the word "accessible" from this subject > line? It's making me ill. Sounds like he's got built-in ramps > and hand-rails. Does he? Ah, new critical lingo offers a doorway so readers can look out from the window of Collins' world. - Jim ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From JforJames Sat Nov 3 20:41:01 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 20:41:01 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] E=N=V=Y Message-ID: <10.14ee23e6.2915f6ad@aol.com> As it happens this week I read both the aforementioned Paris Review Interview w/ Billy Collins and the following piece: "My Grandfather's Tackle Box: The Limits of Memory-Driven Poetry" by Bill Collins (Poetry, August 2001): "A poem about a past experience can transcend the mere circumstances of its triggering event through many different maneuvers. The poem may turn down an alley into another part of the poem's town; it may develop a disproportionate interest in some feature of itself; it may get sick of its own reminiscence and throw up its hands. Or it may bend time and space..." (he goes on to quote from Jeffrey Harrison poem). ... "But we are within our rights as readers to expect memory to act in poetry as more than agency of reminiscence. Memory is often well employed as a starting place for a poem, a springboard into zones more exhilarating than the strictly personal, zones where language, not history, is king. In poetry, recollection mixes so easily with invention that many of the maneuvers we have come to associate with modernist poetry (the unexpected "turn" or "volta," for example) are really devices designed to escape the narrow confines of memory, to fly over history on the wings of imagination." (he goes on to quote Borges) ... & something in the same vein from the Paris Review interview: "I try to convey a sense that the poem is an opportunity for travel, that poetry can make some progress into exciting imaginative territory. Many poems based on the idea of family or a loved one, which have a literal relationship to the poet's biography, never quite get off the ground; in other words they're mired in these family issues, which limits the possibilities of some kind of transcendence. I think that the poem can sweep you up and take you at least beyond the limits of psychology." Some key words and phrases from the above: "transcend" and "transcendence, "maneuvers," "bend time and space," "develop a disproportionate interest," "mixes so easily with invention," "a springboard," "devices," "to fly over...on the wings of imagination," "opportunity for travel," "get off the ground," "sweep you up and take you." This is Collins' great facility as well as his primary flaw. Imagination offers a dual opportunity: to flight or for insight. The latter takes more effort... requires us to bear down, to get our hands dirty in the soul-stuff of the poem. The easiest thing to do for the contemporary poet is move the material into the imaginative realm of flight, device, easy transcendence. It's so much harder to bear down on material at hand...to make more of it without turning away or fleeing into epiphany. To stay in the muck and keep turning over rocks until the poem reveals itself. BTW, I bought his first book, Apple That Astonished Paris, when it came out from Arkansas, well before there was a "Billy Collins phenomenon," and I've followed each book since. He's a marvelous poet in many ways. But he's not above criticism. There are a few poets I "envy"...& it's always about the poetry not the trappings. Finnegan From adead_poet Sun Nov 4 06:32:29 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 05:32:29 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: i'm wondering who is the major influences on your writing. and how does the one that taught you and those that came before play into the style of writing a poet has. like now, i use humor more than i ever did before (which is to say i never used it before). and i'm sure that is the influence of my prof. and i am trying to write some metrical work, before i only did free verse. i haven't abandoned one for the other, just do some of both. i'm just wondering how the influences teachers of poets works on the poet's work. jason _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From michael.ritchie Sun Nov 4 10:01:11 2001 From: michael.ritchie (Michael Karl Ritchie) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 09:01:11 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Paul Greenberg on Billy Collins Message-ID: OPINION: No drums, no bugles A time for Billy Collins Whoever chose Billy Collins as the country's poet laureate (it was the Library of Congress) chose well. He is just the right poet for this time, this strange wartime. Not because I can find any poem of his about war. On the contrary. They are about the most ordinary, peacetime things. Which is just what the country needs reminding of amid the flags and fear, the rousing speeches and lurking doubts. We are an impatient people, a critical people, a restless people with a short attention span and a weakness for drama. We have built a complex, sophisticated, technologically advanced society that, we suddenly realize, is also fragile, vulnerable, and targeted. And we lose perspective. We lose sight of the simple things that are really not so simple--home, family, a sense of humor, and the unbreakable connection between the intimate and the universal. Billy Collins' poems remind us of the important things that are in danger of being obscured by the dramatic and overwhelming, by the next headline and threat. When war came to England in 1939, George Orwell wrote a pamphlet about what that war was about. He didn't write about ideology or geopolitics or empire. He wrote about the things that made England England, and they were simple things. He wrote about "solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes." He also wrote about the simple things that are intangible. Things you can't see or taste but can feel. He wrote about the ideas, the habits, that make the English English. Like the rule of law. Like an eccentric preference for custom and tradition over logic and efficiency. He wrote about how a man's home is his castle, and the English veneration of privacy--and their allergy to the power-worship that was sweeping Europe and the rest of the world at the time. Billy Collins writes about home and family, the joys of domesticity, the companionship of music--the simple things. But he writes about them at a step removed, on a second level, like someone standing back and looking at his own actions, his own life, his own country. And finding it comfortable, bemusing, then different and deeper. Here is a poet who understands that the best poems are journeys, that they may begin in familiar surroundings but are judged by the surprising turns they take. And the poet is as surprised as the reader at those successful moments when he is no longer the author of the work but a character in it, just going along for the ride and taking notes. Often enough the destination is surreal, like so much of America itself, and often enough hilarious, like America itself. Consider his Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House, with its title that is a poem itself. It begins with a barking dog next door and then ascends, descends, and spirals into the gentle, surreal, inexplicable America of blue dogs. It is the journey from irritation to whimsy everyone has taken when saved by laughter in the middle of a heated argument, and the effect is uproarious perspective. Just remember, as with the best poetry, to read it aloud to someone. There is an innocence in Billy Collins' poems that becomes power. As in America herself. So lovely and so strong a name at the same time, America. So childlike and so knowing at the same time, Billy Collins. I think my favorite poem of his this week is Osso Buco. The poem begins after a supper of osso buco and risotto washed down with a cold, exhilarating wine. ("I love the sound of the bone against the plate . . . . the lion of contentment has placed a warm, heavy paw on my chest'') And it ends at the center of existence. Anger and grief are easy enough, natural enough, in the aftershock of a sneak attack. It is patience and perspective that are in short supply. And humor. We already have a surplus of bloviation, of adolescent wit and political animus. See any television screen near you. To hear Billy Collins' words in your own mind is to be reminded that gentleness can be the strongest and most stirring and lasting of qualities, even the basis of faith. Reading him, I think of visiting the American embassy in Moscow at the end of a three-week tour of what was then the Soviet Union. We had been assaulted by indoctrination and ideology at every stop and from every billboard between Leningrad and Irkutsk. And then, on that last night, we set foot on formally American territory in the capital of all that falsity. The embassy was decorated with simple American folk art. In the hall was a sign from an old New England inn, and all it said was: Live and let live And I knew I was home. No grandiose proclamations of class war. No cries of ideological certitude. No strained dialectic and theory of history. Just an extended hand, a willingness to live and let live, to laugh and let laugh. It is a different time now, but this enemy, too, wouldn't understand anything so simple as tolerance. It is life itself that offends this enemy, the very presence of others in the universe. He has divided the world into true believers and infidels in which bloody havoc is some kind of holy war and there is no room for disagreement. He doesn't recognize the holiness of ordinary, undisturbed things. He refuses to recognize it. It would be the end of him. What would he have to hate? I don't think he would like Billy Collins' poetry. I don't believe he would see the point of it. Or understand the strength of it. Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. This article was published on Sunday, November 4, 2001 http://www.ardemgaz.com/today/edi/wopgreenberg4.asp From spacks Sun Nov 4 11:30:11 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 08:30:11 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Paul Greenberg on Billy Collins In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011104083011.00802100@snowcrest.net> At 09:01 AM 11/4/01 -0600, Paul Greenberg wrote: >OPINION: No drums, no bugles A time for Billy Collins and a time for Paul Greenberg, bless his soul. B. From thebobcooperfor Sun Nov 4 12:39:57 2001 From: thebobcooperfor (bob cooper) Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 17:39:57 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: Hi Jason, I thought about, but never got round to responding to a similar question you asked a while ago. But, even though I?m clicking the keyboard now, I can?t answer your question directly - because I was never ?taught? poetry in a formal way in a formal place. I read the stuff (and I still do) for the sheer pleasure of reading it ? and I wrote the stuff (and I still do) because I want to. OK, I admit, there have been occasions when I have had to write it ? I still want to maintain I wanted to write it too! No one ?taught me? how to write, but I guess there?s more than plenty people who?ve encouraged me what to read (and the reading?s given me permission to continue writing in that particular way, or develop my writing, or change my style and attitude to what I?m writing about). A few have offered advice about the craft of writing and I?ve found what they?ve said so important, essential. But that?s the tinkering after the writing?s happened isn?t it? Could I say ?I was caught (by poetry) more than taught (poetry)? Maybe. I mean I first read the stuff (on the bus going to work) and I was hooked! (The stuff in the book I had was about things that belonged to the world I lived in, and how I felt about myself and other people. No-one gave me the book. I found the book in a bookshop myself, and then individual poems found me). And then I wrote... I guess, as I continued to write and discovered other people who had books published, who read in public, who went for a drink... is that I heard they talked about who they liked to read too. Those suggestions mattered. Then the big issue I found (from those who were trying to teach me something when they suggested I read some other poet) was that I sometimes caught something that was different to what I was expected to learn. But that was the fun of it (and, I?d suggest) that?s part of what reading (and writing) poetry?s all about anyway. But I?m talking history as much as autobiography here... (and you asked your question today). Before I clicked this screen into life and movement, I was just collecting books together to put back on the shelves... James Wright, Kenneth White, Ken Smith, Gary Snyder, George Oppen, Norman McCaig, Brendan Kennelly, W.S. Graham, Stanley Cook, Elizabeth Bishop. A poem or two (or five or six, or more) from each of them, I guess. I?ve got more permission from favourite poems (and new ones snuggled near the ones I already knew so well)... I?ve only met two of them ? but I?ve heard stories about each of the rest that?ve warmed me. And what?s still on the table? Well, I?m amazed to say, Wordsworth! (But not for any reasons I guess he?s taught in a classroom). I?m enjoying his Duddon Sonnets, just love the way he?s sometimes got a bombastic tone, then sometimes he whispers. Why did I get him from the shelf? Again it was after a reading, when a few of us were talking about poems, someone in a pub mentioned him, and I thought... Yeh, OK, why not. Then I discovered these sonnets (and their hidden haikus, their amazing similies) and I felt I was discovering/learning again. And metrical stuff... Well, when I want to write it, it?s possibly because I?ve just read some... and liked it. So I just get the form (the rhythm) drilled into my head and start (and start again, and again). So, will I start writing Wordsworthian sonnets now? No... (I?ve just been there, done it, got the T-shirt that fits). But I may continue to use the pentameter line (which I have a love/hate relationship with) yet again for a few things. And I may use the crazy, intoxicating image-making, elsewhere too. And humour? I enjoyed your statement about humour. I wish I could remember who it was who said that the business of poetry is humour rather than tragedy? I think (particularly after 9.11) someone may be whispering from history (or is it from recent poetics or criticism), someone may be giving us permission, someone may be right. And I?m off out now (lucky sod that I am) to hear more people read their stuff. I?ll listen. We?ll chat. Who knows, (as we sip a few beers when it happens, and slurp a few beers when it's done - not too many cos I'm driving), what?ll be said, what'll burp into my mind on my way home... Bob >From: "dead poet" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: [New-Poetry] influences >Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 05:32:29 -0600 > >i'm wondering who is the major influences on your writing. and how does the >one that taught you and those that came before play into the style of >writing a poet has. like now, i use humor more than i ever did before >(which >is to say i never used it before). and i'm sure that is the influence of my >prof. and i am trying to write some metrical work, before i only did free >verse. i haven't abandoned one for the other, just do some of both. i'm >just >wondering how the influences teachers of poets works on the poet's work. > >jason > >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From wasanthony Sun Nov 4 18:26:18 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 15:26:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] New issue of The Salt River Review Message-ID: <20011104232618.8433.qmail@web12108.mail.yahoo.com> Now online: The Salt River Review, Vol. V, No.1, Winter, 2001-2002 With POETRY BY David Weinstock Wendy Battin Kate Sontag Joe Somoza Ruth E. Foley Peter Munro Frances McConnel Rochelle Hope Mehr FICTION BY Nathan Leslie Joan Wilking. COMMENTARY by Greg Simon AND A REVIEW by Catherine Daly ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From alphavil Mon Nov 5 06:52:45 2001 From: alphavil (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 06:52:45 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] a couple more References: <200111022059.fA2KxjL54467@mx10.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3BE67D8D.5CB68265@ix.netcom.com> of The Millenary's Centos Are the professional mourners Listing the End of the World In the table of contents Yet? The End of Racism. The End of History. The End of Science. A quorum of bio-geneticists, stock analysts and the Klan. Theories bear on praxis, So like praxis, theories cannot be commutative. Reason?s collar is a whorl from a cleric's bolt. ?Strictly speaking, ?Will always?, Cannot be tested.? An event is no more discrete Than its explanation. A skyscraper, a launch tower. Look at the legs on technology's calendar! Surely those gams Go on For a few more millenniams. The Greeks old boost; The eyes hosing light Into an aether of events. The cameras capture is privileged. We view through a light cone The random few, And are left to dream the habits of oblivion. Only the rarest comedian buoys a world. And paradise will trip you up. Physicist Robert Park asks, ?What century, are you left to wonder, Would the Smithsonian historians Preferred to have lived in?? Why Bob, Where circumstance is habituated to ubiquity. Where ?all things being equal? And Robert Park is the equal sign. Physicists aspiring to the 18th century; Corporations to a merger of the ninth and nineteenth; While politicians look more precisely to 1933. Which ozone will have come back by 2050? And to where will it be returning If 50 years won?t stand still? Even the deus ex machina of Michael Rennie Billed for a day Was only a matinee. 7/14/95, the Commerce Department reports A rebound in retail sales Fueled by orders for crystals and pyramids. Paradise is tricky In its ubiquity. And the 100 CEOs gathered on the Eastern shore Are slow to finger fuck the sweet meat Of their steaming crab?s legs. Nostalgic for the Hoover years They barely run their toast Into the mound of piscatorial eggs. ?GO BACK to what we had before the New Deal.? Commanding holomorphic time?s commutative thaumaturgy. The ?NO BACK TALK? of Winslow Taylor Or just ?GET BACK! GET BACK!? Judging by the police security. We are a people who on this, Bastille Day, Exercise the freedom to pay To keep ourselves away. 12,000,000 out of work, ?The problem; EXCESS Of the welfare state.? As waiters haul in yet another virtuosi plate To shore against a loss of appetite. The squalor of the rummaged food Smeared on plates in plastic tubs, Regurgitates for one VP A wrong turn his limousine took in Baltimore: ?Suppose our murders radicalize.? Beyond epiphany for this assize! The reader to spare his filthy rug Sets down his coffee mug And convulses in the novelty. CP From JforJames Sun Nov 4 19:54:24 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 19:54:24 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] 101 Discriminations Message-ID: <170.3683d84.29173d40@aol.com> Subject: Germaine Greer's "101 Discriminations" Interesting piece by Greer on her Faber anthology _101 Poems by 101 Women_ in today's (Glasgow) _Sunday Herald_: http://www.sundayherald.com/19759 From JforJames Sun Nov 4 19:58:20 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 19:58:20 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: 101 Discriminations Message-ID: <10d.8116ee0.29173e2c@aol.com> In a message dated 11/4/01 7:54:24 PM Eastern Standard Time, JforJames writes: << Subject: Germaine Greer's "101 Discriminations" Interesting piece by Greer on her Faber anthology _101 Poems by 101 Women_ in today's (Glasgow) _Sunday Herald_: http://www.sundayherald.com/19759 >> To clarify, this post was a snip for FYI purposes from a longer post by Candice Ward to another list. F From JforJames Sun Nov 4 20:38:34 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 20:38:34 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Is Revision Passe? Message-ID: <84.1def118a.2917479a@aol.com> After all the well-thunk posts on Collins v. O'Hara, MMoore, Negative Cape, etc, I hesitate to post a bit a shoptalk, but twice this past week I encountered poets who profess little interest in revision... (recent Paris Review, "Art of Poetry LXXXIII," an interview with Billy Collins) "I try to write very fast. I don't revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it rip. It's usually over in twenty to forty minutes. I'll go back and tinker with a word or two, change a line for some metrical reason week later, but I try to get the whole thing just done. Most of these poems have a kind of rhetorical momentum. If the whole thing doesn't come out at once, it doesn't come out at all. I just pitch it." (from "First: How Pricilla Becker Beat the Odds," by Joanna Smith Rakoff, current P&W Mag) "Revision, by the way, is a practice she doesn't really engage in anyway. Nearly every night she sits down to write, more out of need than obligation. 'I have an awful lot to clear away. I just write to clear it away.' The poems that result from these sessions generally don't change much form the original draft, because she "cannot reenter the state of mind" that led to a particular poem in the first place 'My revision,' she explains, 'is the next poem.'" Another incidental point from this article: "She submitted her manuscript to the Paris Review contest at a friend's suggestion, and with the security of knowing that Richard Howard, a former professor of hers, was judging. Another poet might have paused to consider the unlikely odds of winning a first-book award affiliated with one of the nation's most important literary magazines, judged by a poet, translator, and editor of legendary status... but Becker barely thought about it. 'I sent my book in to the contest because I never do anything with my work,' she explains. 'I never thought I would win.'" --- Finnegan From Rsgwynn1 Sun Nov 4 21:49:22 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 21:49:22 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Fun with Billy Message-ID: <7f.1cb3621c.29175832@cs.com> In a message dated 11/2/2001 2:29:12 PM Central Standard Time, alphavil at ix.netcom.com writes: > . In fact, taken historically, as the per capita > caloric intake of the average American poet rose dramatically after World > War > II, the subject matter, generally, took on an air of "contentment", > self-absorption and domesticity, virtually reversing all of the existential > gains that poets like Wallace Stevens and Rainer Maria Rilke had made > toward the > 'other.' Don't know about Rilke's diet, but Stevens didn't seem to miss too many meals. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Sun Nov 4 21:51:50 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 21:51:50 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees Message-ID: <118.72507ad.291758c6@cs.com> I love this. Kees is one of the great unknown American poets. He always says it in things, and the things he chooses always seem . . . well chosen. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gmcvay Sun Nov 4 22:14:46 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 22:14:46 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees References: <118.72507ad.291758c6@cs.com> Message-ID: <3BE60419.A0CAE4EA@patriot.net> O Gwynn of the supernumerary n, Unless I'm hallucinating badly, Gioia has written about Kees more than once, and interestingly. Gwyn of the solitary n From Rsgwynn1 Sun Nov 4 22:03:01 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 22:03:01 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: In a message dated 11/4/2001 5:33:12 AM Central Standard Time, adead_poet at hotmail.com writes: > > i'm wondering who is the major influences on your writing. and how does the > one that taught you and those that came before play into the style of > writing a poet has. like now, i use humor more than i ever did before > (which > is to say i never used it before). and i'm sure that is the influence of my > prof. and i am trying to write some metrical work, before i only did free > verse. i haven't abandoned one for the other, just do some of both. i'm > just > wondering how the influences teachers of poets works on the poet's work. > > Good question. I don't know the answer. Wilbur, Weldon Kees, Hecht, Kennedy, Nemerov, etc. I don't think I was ever influenced by any of my teachers (Miller Williams, for example). But someone reading my stuff could probably see whose tracks I'm following. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Sun Nov 4 22:09:25 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 22:09:25 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees Message-ID: <162.361d933.29175ce5@cs.com> In a message dated 11/4/2001 9:00:05 PM Central Standard Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: > > O Gwynn of the supernumerary n, > > Unless I'm hallucinating badly, Gioia has written about Kees more than > once, and interestingly. > > Gwyn of the solitary n > So? He's also written about Gwynn and he's still unknown. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tadrichards Sun Nov 4 22:33:21 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 22:33:21 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees References: <118.72507ad.291758c6@cs.com> <3BE60419.A0CAE4EA@patriot.net> Message-ID: <004701c165aa$9f1fed80$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> As has Donald Justice. He's still nowhere near as well known as he deserves to be. Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gwyn McVay" To: Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 10:14 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees > O Gwynn of the supernumerary n, > > Unless I'm hallucinating badly, Gioia has written about Kees more than > once, and interestingly. > > Gwyn of the solitary n > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From tadrichards Sun Nov 4 22:47:04 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 22:47:04 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences References: Message-ID: <005101c165ac$89be1280$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> My teachers -- the important ones -- were Finkel and Justice. I suspect that in some ways -- I'm not sure what -- they're still presences in my work. When I started teaching the blues as literature a few years ago, I realized how important Leadbelly was when I was young, and how important he stayed. The signifying of the blues writers taught me about economy, and what you leave unsaid. Oddly enough, Robert Service and Joseph Moncure March -- two wonderful doggerel poets my stepfather loved, and who taught me to love storytelling in poetry. Auden -- control. Stevens -- things about language and focus. Ashbery - taiught me I could open up the synapses farther than I had thought I could...but that was just an extension of Leadbelly. I know there are more...those are the first that came to mind. Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 10:03 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] influences In a message dated 11/4/2001 5:33:12 AM Central Standard Time, adead_poet at hotmail.com writes: i'm wondering who is the major influences on your writing. and how does the one that taught you and those that came before play into the style of writing a poet has. like now, i use humor more than i ever did before (which is to say i never used it before). and i'm sure that is the influence of my prof. and i am trying to write some metrical work, before i only did free verse. i haven't abandoned one for the other, just do some of both. i'm just wondering how the influences teachers of poets works on the poet's work. Good question. I don't know the answer. Wilbur, Weldon Kees, Hecht, Kennedy, Nemerov, etc. I don't think I was ever influenced by any of my teachers (Miller Williams, for example). But someone reading my stuff could probably see whose tracks I'm following. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tadrichards Sun Nov 4 22:50:34 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 22:50:34 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees References: <162.361d933.29175ce5@cs.com> Message-ID: <005d01c165ad$061d0fc0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Maybe we can get him to write about Gwyn. But no...it doesn't seem to help. Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 10:09 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees In a message dated 11/4/2001 9:00:05 PM Central Standard Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: O Gwynn of the supernumerary n, Unless I'm hallucinating badly, Gioia has written about Kees more than once, and interestingly. Gwyn of the solitary n So? He's also written about Gwynn and he's still unknown. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From adead_poet Mon Nov 5 02:09:02 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 01:09:02 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: I don?t know if anyone necessarily teach a person to write. I think there has to be a certain amount of natural talent, but I?ve learned a lot of new techniques and some things that I do that weaken the work. I also like the socializing after. One of my favorite things, and I?ve found most artists like the socializing. jason >No one ?taught me? how to write, but I guess there?s more than plenty >people >who?ve encouraged me what to read (and the reading?s given me permission to >continue writing in that particular way, or develop my writing, or change >my >style and attitude to what I?m writing about). _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From aprentiss Mon Nov 5 03:52:58 2001 From: aprentiss (Prentiss, Amber) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 03:52:58 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Is Revision Passe? Message-ID: Are they really not revising, or do they do it as they go along? You can make a thousand choices without a red pen if you want. -Amber -----Original Message----- From: JforJames at aol.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: 11/4/01 8:38 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Is Revision Passe? After all the well-thunk posts on Collins v. O'Hara, MMoore, Negative Cape, etc, I hesitate to post a bit a shoptalk, but twice this past week I encountered poets who profess little interest in revision... (recent Paris Review, "Art of Poetry LXXXIII," an interview with Billy Collins) "I try to write very fast. I don't revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it rip. It's usually over in twenty to forty minutes. I'll go back and tinker with a word or two, change a line for some metrical reason week later, but I try to get the whole thing just done. Most of these poems have a kind of rhetorical momentum. If the whole thing doesn't come out at once, it doesn't come out at all. I just pitch it." (from "First: How Pricilla Becker Beat the Odds," by Joanna Smith Rakoff, current P&W Mag) "Revision, by the way, is a practice she doesn't really engage in anyway. Nearly every night she sits down to write, more out of need than obligation. 'I have an awful lot to clear away. I just write to clear it away.' The poems that result from these sessions generally don't change much form the original draft, because she "cannot reenter the state of mind" that led to a particular poem in the first place 'My revision,' she explains, 'is the next poem.'" Another incidental point from this article: "She submitted her manuscript to the Paris Review contest at a friend's suggestion, and with the security of knowing that Richard Howard, a former professor of hers, was judging. Another poet might have paused to consider the unlikely odds of winning a first-book award affiliated with one of the nation's most important literary magazines, judged by a poet, translator, and editor of legendary status... but Becker barely thought about it. 'I sent my book in to the contest because I never do anything with my work,' she explains. 'I never thought I would win.'" --- Finnegan _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From BobGrumman Mon Nov 5 06:36:02 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 06:36:02 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences References: Message-ID: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> A related question might be: how many significantly different KINDS of poets have you been significantly influenced by? Of course, this is a rather self-congratulatory question for me since I've been influenced importantly by just about every kind of poet imaginable (Keats, Lax, Kempton, Roethke, Williams, Basho, Cummings, Bennett . . .) but if I were strongly influenced by only one kind of poet, I think I'd wonder about the size of my accomplishment (not that I don't anyway). --Bob G. From katenexile Mon Nov 5 07:15:45 2001 From: katenexile (kate thorn) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 04:15:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] influences In-Reply-To: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <20011105121545.77667.qmail@web12208.mail.yahoo.com> My first major literary unfluence was the work of Thomas Wolfe--I became quite drunk on his words at a young age--followed by works of Carl Sandburg. Followed by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Frost, TS Eliot and much later, in college, Syvia Plath, and, of course, Dorothy Parker. My own style evolved from extreme wordiness (influence of Wolfe) to a minimalist style--I now seek to say the most with the least amount of words--that is not to say that I do not ever dive into the pool of too many words! Recently, I have discoved the works of Eugenio Montale (Due to a posting by David Howard)--Ocatavio Paz, De Lorca, and Elinor Wylie, May Sarton--to name a few. I just purchased Poetry Speaks which a 3 CD thing with it in which the poets speak their own poetry! Very nice. My true prize in the realm of poetry however came last weekend when I discoved a copy of Barry Spacks book "Teaching The Penguins To Fly" in a used book store! The book now has a permanent home! I am far from the original subject--and will stop for now. Kate ===== PassionForPoetry at yahoogroups.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PassionForPoetry __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From michael.ritchie Mon Nov 5 08:36:12 2001 From: michael.ritchie (Michael Karl Ritchie) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 07:36:12 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: I personally have been influenced by Zippy the Pinhead. Or perhaps by a falling asteroid that bonked me on the head. Isn't it amazing how really really big asteroids get eaten away by earth's atmosphere before they strike the ground - except in Hollywood, of course. Look at Bruce Willis! What must have struck him to engineer such megalomania! I used to be dissatisfied with the message I left on my answering machine, but then, deus ex machina, I found the perfect rock tune which I played on my ghetto blaster that I cradled very close to the answering machine tape. As a result, I suspect that my telephone has been influenced by Man or Astroman. Every time I call myself, I don't hear Donald Justice, who was and probably still is the best teacher of poetry ever, nor do I hear Zippy the Pinhead, who talks only in air bubbles on the printed page and goes silent on the weekends. But that may be because I refuse to house the internet where I live. Only at work can I enjoy the back-stabbing bickering among all of you poets about who's great and who isn't. Time to visit Zippy! Dr. Mike From paul.lake Sun Nov 4 22:16:26 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 21:16:26 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Collins Message-ID: Thanks, Jim Finnegan, for posting the quote below. It proves my point about the facile nature of Collins' poetry. Paul Lake (recent Paris Review, "Art of Poetry LXXXIII," an interview with Billy Collins) "I try to write very fast. I don't revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it rip. It's usually over in twenty to forty minutes. I'll go back and tinker with a word or two, change a line for some metrical reason week later, but I try to get the whole thing just done. Most of these poems have a kind of rhetorical momentum. If the whole thing doesn't come out at once, it doesn't come out at all. I just pitch it." From JforJames Mon Nov 5 09:53:17 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 09:53:17 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Another BookLength Ms. Prize Message-ID: <15a.37a6ea3.291801dd@aol.com> THE TAMPA REVIEW PRIZE FOR POETRY This major new book award offers hardcover publication, $500 cash, royalties on sales of the book, and a selected portfolio of poems previewed in the hardcover biannual TAMPA REVIEW. The editors invite manuscript submissions by new and established poets. $20 entry. Postmark deadline December 31. See complete guidelines at http://tampareview.ut.edu/TampaprizePD/ or send an SASE for printed guidelines to: Tampa Review Prize Attn: Poetry Daily Promotion University of Tampa Press 401 West Kennedy Blvd. Tampa, FL 33606 From MillB Mon Nov 5 09:56:50 2001 From: MillB (MillB at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 09:56:50 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Revision Message-ID: <14.1d160690.291802b2@aol.com> Greetings: Maybe it's urban legend or poet-lore, but I've heard that Dylan Thomas only wrote one line a day. . .so, in effect, he revised in his head. . .before the line even made it to the page. Or he wrote notes and scribblings on small tear-offs of paper. His "final draft" was the first draft. Which goes to prove that there are many variations of the term "revision." Mill From wasanthony Mon Nov 5 10:17:21 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 07:17:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Revision In-Reply-To: <14.1d160690.291802b2@aol.com> Message-ID: <20011105151721.80806.qmail@web12104.mail.yahoo.com> --- MillB at aol.com wrote: > Greetings: > > Maybe it's urban legend or poet-lore, but I've heard that Dylan > Thomas only > wrote one line a day. . .so, in effect, he revised in his head. . > .before the > line even made it to the page. Yeah, I do that during the hiking season: make, revise, stitch, make, revise, stitch etc. Works well with the rhythm of hiking. > Or he wrote notes and scribblings on > small > tear-offs of paper. His "final draft" was the first draft. > The final draft is the first and last *written* draft. - Jim ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From JforJames Mon Nov 5 10:51:11 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 10:51:11 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Revision Message-ID: <2b.1dc35937.29180f6f@aol.com> In a message dated 11/5/01 9:57:27 AM Eastern Standard Time, MillB at aol.com writes: > Which goes to prove that there are many variations of the term "revision." > Mill, as you suggest there are many ways to "revise"...Amber suggested that Collins might be doing a lot of revision "on the fly" in the first draft. Tho it doesn't sound like that to me. I wouldn't have guessed it, but it seems Collins is vested in the verbal motion & rhetorical effect that "alla prima" writing can convey. Surprising, to me, because of the level of polish I find in his lines & the well-worked-out structures of his "poetic arguments," if you will. (In fact, the physical evidence of the poems makes me doubt his purported m.o. so much, I want subpeona his records: notebooks & drafts.) I think there is perhaps a useful distinction between the phase of "roughing out" the poem and the process of "revision." Most practical/teaching texts & articles deal with the revision, it seems to me. Fewer try to articulate approaches to accreting or drawing out the lines that will eventually be the first draft. Often, when it comes to praxis, what gets the first draft done is either left to "inspiration" or made a matter of a "creative writing exercise." A gulf exists between what is "magic" and the somewhat "artificial" process of the creative exercise. Finnegan From GrahamD Mon Nov 5 11:31:05 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 10:31:05 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Revision Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFD7@mail.ripon.edu> Many rooms in the mansion of poetry, yes, and many flavors of revision. For pedagogical purposes the comp texts usefully break the process out into its parts--prewriting & research, brainstorming, note-taking, invention exercises, drafting, revision, editing, etc. But these are not always distinct stages, of course, nor do they necessarily occur in linear fashion. And many accomplished writers learn to telescope the parts, or accomplish much before pen hits paper. Collins sounds like someone who does a lot of the preliminary work in his head, and then revises mentally (perhaps fairly lightly) as he drafts. But even he admits to a form of revision--a very important one, seems to me: he throws out completed drafts if they don't work. That's different from word-by-word tinkering, but it's still revision. If he's telling the truth about his methods, I suspect his wastebasket is crammed with aborted drafts. Needless to say, what matters to a reader is the final product. As reader I don't really care how Collins works, though as a fellow practitioner I'm interested in what he has to say about process. I sometimes tell my students that there is a spectrum of possibility with revision. To oversimplify, you can either draft 25 poems and keep the best one, or you can re-write the same poem 25 times. I really haven't encountered any successful poet who does *no* revision--or at least no poet who is successful in my eyes. Seems to me that both methods can "work," and I wouldn't necessarily call one more "facile" than the other, not in the derogatory sense, anyway. Only once in a great while does a truly successful poem just pop out, as far as I can tell, even or especially for poets who profess not to revise much. Whether one should *publish* all one's drafts and lesser efforts or not is another question. Allen Ginsberg was the sort of poet whose every 25th poem or so was pretty good, and I for one wish he had not always printed the other 24. As far as the magic of inspiration goes, I love the possibly apocryphal anecdote Hugo tells in *The Triggering Town*--about how a spectator allegedly commented on a "lucky shot" made by Jack Nicklaus. Nicklaus reported responded, "yes, but I notice that the more I practice, the luckier I get." I think that's exactly right: there *is* something magical about the process, but it's nurtured with practice. David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: JforJames at aol.com > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Monday, November 5, 2001 9:51 AM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Revision > > In a message dated 11/5/01 9:57:27 AM Eastern Standard Time, MillB at aol.com > > writes: > > > Which goes to prove that there are many variations of the term > "revision." > > > Mill, as you suggest there are many ways to "revise"...Amber suggested > that Collins might be doing a lot of revision "on the fly" in the first > draft. Tho it > doesn't sound like that to me. I wouldn't have guessed it, but it seems > Collins is vested in the verbal motion & rhetorical effect that "alla > prima" > writing can convey. Surprising, to me, because of the level of polish > I find in his lines & the well-worked-out structures of his "poetic > arguments," > if you will. (In fact, the physical evidence of the poems makes me doubt > his purported m.o. so much, I want subpeona his records: notebooks & > drafts.) > > I think there is perhaps a useful distinction between the phase of > "roughing > out" the poem and the process of "revision." Most practical/teaching texts > & articles deal with the revision, it seems to me. Fewer try to articulate > > approaches to accreting or drawing out the lines that will eventually be > the first draft. Often, when it comes to praxis, what gets the first draft > > done > is either left to "inspiration" or made a matter of a "creative writing > exercise." > A gulf exists between what is "magic" and the somewhat "artificial" > process of the creative exercise. > Finnegan > From paul.lake Mon Nov 5 00:40:25 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 23:40:25 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Revision In-Reply-To: <14.1d160690.291802b2@aol.com> Message-ID: on 11/5/01 8:56 AM, MillB at aol.com at MillB at aol.com wrote: > Greetings: > > Maybe it's urban legend or poet-lore, but I've heard that Dylan Thomas only > wrote one line a day. . .so, in effect, he revised in his head. . .before the > line even made it to the page. Or he wrote notes and scribblings on small > tear-offs of paper. His "final draft" was the first draft. > > Which goes to prove that there are many variations of the term "revision." > > Mill > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > I read somewhere that Dylan Thomas's friend Vernon Watkins, looking through one of Thomas's notebooks, discovered 200 versions of "Fern Hill." Thomas himself once said that he'd write every day till noon, and that a good day meant that he'd produced two usable lines. Paul Lake From JforJames Mon Nov 5 12:13:13 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 12:13:13 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Kelsey Street Press announces... Message-ID: <6c.128519e3.291822a9@aol.com> The Kelsey Street Press announces a two-month period of open submissions--from November 1 to December 31, 2001. We are looking for unpublished book-length collections of poems or poetically-informed prose. We are especially interested in receiving submissions from younger or less established writers. Manuscripts will be selected in early 2002 and published in 2003. We are interested in books with some cohesion in their overall composition and style whether it is a sense of narrative or consists of a set of interrelated series or parts. We appreciate writing that tells a story but not in the usual way, which subverts a particular kind of genre, has a sense of wit or irony, is honest but not na?ve, but is also direct, surprising, vital and graceful. The press is especially interested in work in which the writing, the page and the form of the book are in dynamic relation. Kelsey Street Press was founded in 1974 to publish experimental writing by women and has a history of publishing poets' collaborations with visual artists. Recent publications include Juice by Renee Gladman, Symbiosis by Barbara Guest and Laurie Reid, and Tales of Horror by Laura Mullen. Collaborations will not be accepted in this call for manuscripts. For more information on the press, please view our website at http://www.kelseyst.com Letters of inquiry and/or manuscripts should be sent to: Kelsey St. Press attn: Tanya Erzen/ Karla Nielsen 50 Northgate Ave Berkeley, CA 94705 From spacks Mon Nov 5 14:51:49 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 11:51:49 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... In-Reply-To: <6c.128519e3.291822a9@aol.com> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011105115149.007fb410@snowcrest.net> The following announcement of a Daniel Albright lecture in Santa Barbara -- one I can't get to -- got me thinking: what's so bad about (shades of the Collins thread?) being a 200-rewrite bricoleur? I confess I'm guilty of approaching many an art this way; common practice? rare? (maybe righteously to be despised)? B. ************** "Noble Savages in Armani Suits: American Art in the Late Twentieth Century" 4 P.M. / Thursday, November 8 /FREE McCune Conference Room, 6020 Humanities & Social Sciences Building In the last twenty years, the American artist has combined the old predilection for ignoble material with the European bricoleur?s predilection for slapdash technique. But the effect is not a total abdication of artistic control; instead it is often peculiarly charming, since the locus of the failure lies not in the artist but in art itself. In this talk, Albright will examine the operations of this studied nonchalance in the poetry of John Ashbery and Charles Wright--what might be called the anti-ideogrammic method--and in the illegible graphisms of the painter Cy Twombley and the composers Earle Brown and Christian Wolff. From adead_poet Mon Nov 5 15:48:46 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 14:48:46 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: ah, i see a few of my personal favorites in your lists of influences. love sandburg and frost. plath is a favorite of mine. and the more millay i read, the more i like her. i'm not sure what sort of influence they've had on me, other than a few poems attempting to mimic what they've done or their style. i know frost had an influence on me wanting to do some metrical work. and i love his sonnets. i keep them in mind whenever i try to write one. jason > >My first major literary unfluence was the work of >Thomas Wolfe--I became quite drunk on his words at a >young age--followed by works of Carl Sandburg. >Followed by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Frost, TS >Eliot and much later, in college, Syvia Plath, and, of >course, Dorothy Parker. > > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From GrahamD Mon Nov 5 16:36:05 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 15:36:05 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFDB@mail.ripon.edu> I never know how to answer the influence question. So many branching options--deep influences, not necessarily literary (pop & folk songs, The Book of Common Prayer, Rembrandt), early influences (Robert Bly, alas), brief hot enthusiasms (that year when I read all of Richard Hugo), enduring favorites (Whitman, Williams, Dickinson), recent discoveries (Alden Nowlan, Gray Jacobik), etc. Some poets I absolutely adore (Robert Frost, Philip Larkin) without finding much visible influence on me. Others I know I've picked up a trick or two from--but this would be invisible to anyone else (Marianne Moore, for one). Sometimes I *want* to be influenced but it doesn't take (Pattiann Rogers, Yeats, Donald Justice). Then there are teachers, whose influence was often as much on my character and habits as on my taste, or who pointed me toward other poets I adopted. And of course there are my close friends, all of whom are published in heaven. For more than 20 years I've seldom written a line without wondering what my pal Dennis Finnell (who?) might think of it. He's influenced me deeply, but perhaps not in my style. Donald Hall once wrote that he simply rotates the answers he gives when asked who his favorite poets are. One day he might say Andrew Marvell, the next day Geoffrey Hill. Day after that, E. A. Robinson. . . . When asked that question I tend to name poets I think are under-appreciated, whether or not they've influenced my style deeply or whether or not I think they're "great" : Robert Morgan, Brendan Galvin, Robert Francis, Norman Nicholson, Marianne Boruch, and of course Dennis Finnell. . . . David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: dead poet > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Monday, November 5, 2001 2:48 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] influences > > ah, i see a few of my personal favorites in your lists of influences. love > > sandburg and frost. plath is a favorite of mine. and the more millay i > read, > the more i like her. i'm not sure what sort of influence they've had on > me, > other than a few poems attempting to mimic what they've done or their > style. > i know frost had an influence on me wanting to do some metrical work. and > i > love his sonnets. i keep them in mind whenever i try to write one. > > jason > > From CobbCoStudioArts Mon Nov 5 16:37:39 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 13:37:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... Message-ID: <20011105213740.10A3836F9@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From adead_poet Mon Nov 5 16:52:07 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 15:52:07 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences Message-ID: well, i can make it an easier question. i may not have been clear in the original post, but i'm wondering how the teachers you had in school influenced. i'm wondering if formalist begat formalists, postmodern begat postmodern, and so on. sort of an informal study of whether or not the teacher influences the new poet. i know influences extend far beyond just the teacher, and beyond the art itself. jason >From: "Graham, David" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: "'new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu'" >Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences >Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 15:36:05 -0600 > >I never know how to answer the influence question. So many branching >options--deep influences, not necessarily literary (pop & folk songs, The >Book of Common Prayer, Rembrandt), early influences (Robert Bly, alas), >brief hot enthusiasms (that year when I read all of Richard Hugo), enduring >favorites (Whitman, Williams, Dickinson), recent discoveries (Alden Nowlan, >Gray Jacobik), etc. > >Some poets I absolutely adore (Robert Frost, Philip Larkin) without finding >much visible influence on me. Others I know I've picked up a trick or two >from--but this would be invisible to anyone else (Marianne Moore, for one). >Sometimes I *want* to be influenced but it doesn't take (Pattiann Rogers, >Yeats, Donald Justice). Then there are teachers, whose influence was often >as much on my character and habits as on my taste, or who pointed me toward >other poets I adopted. > >And of course there are my close friends, all of whom are published in >heaven. For more than 20 years I've seldom written a line without >wondering >what my pal Dennis Finnell (who?) might think of it. He's influenced me >deeply, but perhaps not in my style. > >Donald Hall once wrote that he simply rotates the answers he gives when >asked who his favorite poets are. One day he might say Andrew Marvell, the >next day Geoffrey Hill. Day after that, E. A. Robinson. . . . > >When asked that question I tend to name poets I think are >under-appreciated, >whether or not they've influenced my style deeply or whether or not I think >they're "great" : Robert Morgan, Brendan Galvin, Robert Francis, Norman >Nicholson, Marianne Boruch, and of course Dennis Finnell. . . . > >David Graham > > >=================== >David Graham >grahamd at mail.ripon.edu >=================== > > > ---------- > > From: dead poet > > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > Sent: Monday, November 5, 2001 2:48 PM > > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] influences > > > > ah, i see a few of my personal favorites in your lists of influences. >love > > > > sandburg and frost. plath is a favorite of mine. and the more millay i > > read, > > the more i like her. i'm not sure what sort of influence they've had on > > me, > > other than a few poems attempting to mimic what they've done or their > > style. > > i know frost had an influence on me wanting to do some metrical work. >and > > i > > love his sonnets. i keep them in mind whenever i try to write one. > > > > jason > > > > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From JforJames Mon Nov 5 16:58:14 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 16:58:14 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Revision Message-ID: <161.36af372.29186576@aol.com> In a message dated 11/5/01 11:32:43 AM Eastern Standard Time, GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU writes: > To oversimplify, you can either draft 25 poems and keep the best > one, or you can re-write the same poem 25 times. I really haven't > encountered any successful poet who does *no* revision--or at least no poet > who is successful in my eyes. Seems to me that both methods can "work David, I don't have the Paris Review interview at hand, but one of the points that Collins made was that the slow "integrating" method of making a poem out of bits & pieces, lines by passage, cut & paste, was not producing very satisfying results in contemporary poetry. I believe he said in so many words that he could "see the marks" of this kind of process in a lot of contemporary poetry. (Maybe he's seeing the postmod penchant for fragmentation & discontinuity). He definitely seemed to indicate that for him the poem should arise form a run of thought/extensive expression that shouldn't be interrupted/disrupted by collaging this bit in here or deleting that whole passage there. Finnegan From spacks Mon Nov 5 18:40:37 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 15:40:37 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... In-Reply-To: <20011105213740.10A3836F9@sitemail.everyone.net> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011105154037.008032b0@snowcrest.net> At 01:37 PM 11/5/01 -0800, you wrote: >Barry, > >Is Daniel Albright related in any way to Ivan Albright? > >Bob don't know either of them, Bob, but here's the true gen on Dan, as produced by the Santa Barbara folks sponsoring his lecture: Daniel Albright is Richard L. Turner Professor in the Humanities at the University of Rochester. He is the author of numerous books, including "Representation and the Imagination: Beckett, Kafka, Nabokov," "Schoenberg, Lyricality and English Literature," "Stravinsky: the Music Box and the Nightingale," "Quantum Poetics: Yeats, Pound, and Eliot and the Science of Modernism," and most recently "Untwisting the Serpent: Modernism in Music, Literature, and other Arts." He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellow and an NEH Senior Fellow. (& by the way, Bill Gates cut off the last word in my subject line -- don't you hate it when he does that?! -- which should read (we bricoleuren can be fastidiously particular): "Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twobley?" best, Barry From cstroffo Mon Nov 5 19:59:58 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 16:59:58 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences References: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <3BE7360D.9B2D14F9@earthlink.net> the size of your accomplishment? Bob Grumman wrote: > A related question might be: how many significantly different > KINDS of poets have you been significantly influenced by? Of > course, this is a rather self-congratulatory question for me since > I've been influenced importantly by just about every kind of poet > imaginable (Keats, Lax, Kempton, Roethke, Williams, Basho, > Cummings, Bennett . . .) but if I were strongly influenced by > only one kind of poet, I think I'd wonder about the size of my > accomplishment (not that I don't anyway). > > --Bob G. > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From spacks Mon Nov 5 21:18:00 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 18:18:00 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences In-Reply-To: <3BE7360D.9B2D14F9@earthlink.net> References: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011105181800.00803a70@snowcrest.net> At 04:59 PM 11/5/01 -0800, Chris wrote: >the size of your accomplishment? > 11B? > >Bob Grumman wrote: > >> A related question might be: how many significantly different >> KINDS of poets have you been significantly influenced by? Of >> course, this is a rather self-congratulatory question for me since >> I've been influenced importantly by just about every kind of poet >> imaginable (Keats, Lax, Kempton, Roethke, Williams, Basho, >> Cummings, Bennett . . .) but if I were strongly influenced by >> only one kind of poet, I think I'd wonder about the size of my >> accomplishment (not that I don't anyway). >> >> --Bob G. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> New-Poetry mailing list >> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > From Thom424 Mon Nov 5 21:19:30 2001 From: Thom424 (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 21:19:30 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Help Message-ID: I'm looking for mailing addresses for the following poets (none is listed in the most recent A DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN POETS AND FICTION WRITERS from Poets & Writers): Thomas Centolella Tim Suermondt Jake Adam York Beckian Fritz Goldberg Thanks for your help. Thom Tammaro Moorhead, MN From grahamd Mon Nov 5 21:23:47 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 20:23:47 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Help Message-ID: <200111060222.fA62M9230292@mx15.mx.voyager.net> Beckian Fritz Goldberg Associate Professor Department of English Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona 85287-0302 (602) 965-3663 beckian at asu.edu _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: Thom424 at aol.com >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Help >Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2001, 8:19 PM > >I'm looking for mailing addresses for the following poets (none is listed in >the most recent A DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN POETS AND FICTION WRITERS from Poets >& Writers): > >Thomas Centolella >Tim Suermondt >Jake Adam York >Beckian Fritz Goldberg > > >Thanks for your help. > >Thom Tammaro >Moorhead, MN >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From JackKerouac25 Mon Nov 5 22:19:29 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 22:19:29 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: <167.36de705.2918b0c1@aol.com> Wow . . . good question. Generally, whomever I'm reading becomes an influence. Right now, it's Machado. In my work, though, I think you can see Philip Levine (for better or worse), Rimbaud, Whitman, Eliot (sadly enough), and Weldon Kees. Contemporary poets like Mark Jarman, Dana Gioia, and (believe it or not) R.S. Gwynn influence me as well. Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 From JackKerouac25 Mon Nov 5 22:23:30 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 22:23:30 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] A Poet's Response to 9/11 Message-ID: <115.731a487.2918b1b2@aol.com> There's an interesting article by Dana Gioia at _San Francisco Magazine Online_. http://www.sanfran.com/features/SF0111critics.htm Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 From Rsgwynn1 Tue Nov 6 00:56:06 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 00:56:06 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: In a message dated 11/5/2001 9:20:33 PM Central Standard Time, JackKerouac25 at aol.com writes: > Contemporary poets like Mark Jarman, Dana Gioia, and (believe it or not) > R.S. > Gwynn influence me as well. > Stop them before they multiply! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From adead_poet Tue Nov 6 02:59:51 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 01:59:51 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] billy collins Message-ID: I went to the Billy Collins reading at U of Houston tonight. I?m not sure what the controversy over him is about (though much like Gioia, I think it is really about jealousy/money). It was a great reading, he reads his poems well. I haven?t read the collection yet, so I don?t know how they do on the page vs his reading, but I think they?ll be successful. He has a great use of humor. And I don?t know if I?d call him a ?frivolous? poet. Not every poem is successful, and I wouldn?t go so far as to say he is one of the greatest poets ever, but I don?t see where the rabid anti-Collins feelings come from. I rather enjoyed it. jason _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From BobGrumman Tue Nov 6 05:46:51 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 05:46:51 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences References: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> <3.0.5.32.20011105181800.00803a70@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <3BE7BF9B.1007@nut-n-but.net> Barry Spacks wrote: > At 04:59 PM 11/5/01 -0800, Chris wrote: > >the size of your accomplishment? > > > 11B? I missed Chris's comment. For new-poetry, I guess elucidation is required. An accomplishment is something someone does. Some accomplishments do not seem important. One can (metaphorically, I suppose--if you follow, or have access to a dictionary) call them small accomplishments, meaning insignificant, not worth mentioning, of little consequence, etc. Other accomplishments, which seem of greater importance, can be termed "large," using similar reasoning. Since "small" and "large" are words associated with size, it therefore seems not improper to me to speak of the "size" of an accomplishment. I hope this clarifies my perhaps too adventurously figurative language for you, Barry and Chris. --Bob G. > >Bob Grumman wrote: > > > >> A related question might be: how many significantly different > >> KINDS of poets have you been significantly influenced by? Of > >> course, this is a rather self-congratulatory question for me since > >> I've been influenced importantly by just about every kind of poet > >> imaginable (Keats, Lax, Kempton, Roethke, Williams, Basho, > >> Cummings, Bennett . . .) but if I were strongly influenced by > >> only one kind of poet, I think I'd wonder about the size of my > >> accomplishment (not that I don't anyway). > >> > >> --Bob G. From BobGrumman Tue Nov 6 05:58:20 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 05:58:20 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] A Poet's Response to 9/11 References: <115.731a487.2918b1b2@aol.com> Message-ID: <3BE7C24B.3FD9@nut-n-but.net> Gioia's response to the World Trade Center Obliteration seems typical of him: he picks out the very poem (by a very famous dead poet) that half the mediocrities in the American world of poetry immediately think of after the disaster and writes a very sound, very clear, completely unsurprising essay about it. --Bob G. JackKerouac25 at aol.com wrote: > > There's an interesting article by Dana Gioia at _San Francisco Magazine Online_. From katenexile Tue Nov 6 09:06:30 2001 From: katenexile (kate thorn) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 06:06:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20011106140630.17887.qmail@web12206.mail.yahoo.com> School for me was a long time ago. But there were two that were memorable. The first was a stickler for grammar and proper writing technique and she also pointed me towards Thomas Wolfe! The second was avant garde in her approach. We dispensed of a formal English book, grammar, etc--and learned how to express ourselves. She even had the football players writing poetry! Naturally, someone that "dangerous" would be made to conform, which she refused to do--and quit teaching. She taught me to question what I was reading--to look beyond the story, the plot--what was the purpose of the story? Quite a lot for a Senior English class--even if it was advanced English! Kate ===== PassionForPoetry at yahoogroups.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PassionForPoetry __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From mackechnie Tue Nov 6 09:20:13 2001 From: mackechnie (Russ MacKechnie) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 09:20:13 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] A Poet's Response to 9/11 In-Reply-To: <3BE7C24B.3FD9@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: > Gioia's response to the World Trade Center Obliteration > seems typical of him: he picks out the very poem (by a > very famous dead poet) that half the mediocrities in the > American world of poetry immediately think of after the > disaster and writes a very sound, very clear, completely > unsurprising essay about it. > > --Bob G. And your snide, unreasoned response to Gioia seems typical of you, Bob. If the "size of your accomplisments," poetically or otherwise, were remotely proportionate to your insufferable ego---an ego lacking even the most rickety intellectual, critical lumber to support its elephantine weight---there would not be an anthology in the English-speaking world ungraced by a Grummanian Mathemaku (may the saints preserve us). Sometimes poetry escapes even the best of us. You are, as Dickens would say, "a ass." Of the decidedly pompous . . . and medicore . . . breed. rwm From tadrichards Tue Nov 6 10:00:14 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 10:00:14 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences References: <20011106140630.17887.qmail@web12206.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <010001c166d3$be158ae0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> School was a long time ago for me, too, and I'm not sure I could give a good answer to this question after all these years, but I'll ask it anyway. What did our early mentors do that was significant to our development? What makes a Donald Justice, say, such a great teacher? Or others? Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "kate thorn" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 9:06 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] RE: influences > School for me was a long time ago. But there were two > that were memorable. The first was a stickler for > grammar and proper writing technique and she also > pointed me towards Thomas Wolfe! The second was avant > garde in her approach. We dispensed of a formal > English book, grammar, etc--and learned how to express > ourselves. She even had the football players writing > poetry! Naturally, someone that "dangerous" would be > made to conform, which she refused to do--and quit > teaching. She taught me to question what I was > reading--to look beyond the story, the plot--what was > the purpose of the story? Quite a lot for a Senior > English class--even if it was advanced English! > > Kate > > ===== > PassionForPoetry at yahoogroups.com > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PassionForPoetry > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Find a job, post your resume. > http://careers.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From MillB Tue Nov 6 10:18:19 2001 From: MillB (MillB at aol.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 10:18:19 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Help Message-ID: FYI Beckian is on page 6 in the P and W directory. . . Cheers Mill From spacks Tue Nov 6 11:39:44 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 08:39:44 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] comparing sizes In-Reply-To: <3BE7BF9B.1007@nut-n-but.net> References: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> <3.0.5.32.20011105181800.00803a70@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011106083944.00804160@snowcrest.net> >> At 04:59 PM 11/5/01 -0800, Bob G wrote: >I hope this clarifies my perhaps too adventurously >figurative language for you, Barry and Chris. > Well sure, Bob, but can't the little joke take a breath? All this judging and ranking and worrying over "size" is at least a little bit funny, wouldn't you say? And sad. And potentially harmful, no?. Aspiration for top "grosses" often seems like a national obsession, one that poetry -- that any creativity -- has to stand to the side of, if only to survive, much less to provide an alternative. My concern is not just that "size of accomplishment" thinking sometimes tries to beat the competition into the ground by any means necessary, it's more the way the attitude tends to stifle a modest practitioner or, worse, release unbelievable spew from more aggressive would-be poetry-world dominators. I see a serious issue, then, behind the little joke that gently says be cool. (and 11B, hey, that's already a pretty hefty size, many will be impressed). respectfully, B. We do for the love of the doing. -- anon From CobbCoStudioArts Tue Nov 6 11:59:49 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 08:59:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] comparing sizes Message-ID: <20011106165949.43AE72756@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From Rsgwynn1 Tue Nov 6 12:06:34 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 12:06:34 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] billy collins Message-ID: <25.1dca1a34.2919729a@cs.com> In a message dated 11/6/01 2:00:37 AM Central Standard Time, adead_poet at hotmail.com writes: > > I went to the Billy Collins reading at U of Houston tonight. I?m not sure > what the controversy over him is about (though much like Gioia, I think it > is really about jealousy/money). It was a great reading, he reads his poems > well. I haven?t read the collection yet, so I don?t know how they do on > the > page vs his reading, but I think they?ll be successful. He has a great use > of humor. And I don?t know if I?d call him a ?frivolous? poet. Not every > poem is successful, and I wouldn?t go so far as to say he is one of the > greatest poets ever, but I don?t see where the rabid anti-Collins feelings > come from. I rather enjoyed it. > > jason > > I agree with this. Some of the poems were moving, and almost all of them were funny. Collins reads in a very droll manner with understated tone. His poems are perfectly matched with his speaking voice. I think that a lot of the structure of his poems comes from his experience as a jazz pianist: there's a theme and then several variations on it. It was as good a reading as I've attended in a long while. Incidentally, he opened with a Neruda poem that seemed to have something to do with the notion that the ultimate protest is beauty, and he reiterated some of those post-9/11 remarks on his "duty" in the Q & A that followed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Tue Nov 6 12:10:41 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 12:10:41 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] A Poet's Response to 9/11 Message-ID: In a message dated 11/6/01 8:21:05 AM Central Standard Time, mackechnie at email.msn.com writes: > > Gioia's response to the World Trade Center Obliteration > > seems typical of him: he picks out the very poem (by a > > very famous dead poet) that half the mediocrities in the > > American world of poetry immediately think of after the > > disaster and writes a very sound, very clear, completely > > unsurprising essay about it. > This mediocrity immediately thought of it and read it to his class of mediocrities. How shall I ever escape from this mire? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Tue Nov 6 12:13:26 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 12:13:26 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] comparing sizes Message-ID: <62.16849ebb.29197436@cs.com> In a message dated 11/6/01 10:35:07 AM Central Standard Time, spacks at snowcrest.net writes: > I see a serious issue, then, behind the little joke that > gently says be cool. > > (and 11B, hey, that's already a pretty hefty size, many will > be impressed). > > I'm impressed, especially at how he manages to fit it into his mouth so deftly and so often. (Sorry. Couldn't resist and besides Moira is absent.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From CobbCoStudioArts Tue Nov 6 13:23:36 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 10:23:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] comparing sizes Message-ID: <20011106182336.989332755@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From CobbCoStudioArts Tue Nov 6 13:34:42 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 10:34:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] comparing sizes Message-ID: <20011106183442.A83BE2756@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From BobGrumman Tue Nov 6 16:03:22 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 16:03:22 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] A Poet's Response to 9/11 References: Message-ID: <3BE8501A.674C@nut-n-but.net> Russ MacKechnie wrote: > > > Gioia's response to the World Trade Center Obliteration > > seems typical of him: he picks out the very poem (by a > > very famous dead poet) that half the mediocrities in the > > American world of poetry immediately think of after the > > disaster and writes a very sound, very clear, completely > > unsurprising essay about it. > > > > --Bob G. > > And your snide, unreasoned response to Gioia seems typical of you, Bob. > If the "size of your accomplisments," poetically or otherwise, were > remotely proportionate to your insufferable ego---an ego lacking even > the most rickety intellectual, critical lumber to support its > elephantine weight---there would not be an anthology in the > English-speaking world ungraced by a Grummanian Mathemaku (may the > saints preserve us). Sometimes poetry escapes even the best of us. You > are, as Dickens would say, "a ass." Of the decidedly pompous . . . and > medicore . . . breed. Just the kind of defense of Gioia I would expect from an imbecile like you, Russ. --Bob G. From BobGrumman Tue Nov 6 16:24:51 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 16:24:51 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] comparing sizes References: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> <3.0.5.32.20011105181800.00803a70@snowcrest.net> <3.0.5.32.20011106083944.00804160@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <3BE85523.4091@nut-n-but.net> > Well sure, Bob, but can't the little joke take a breath? The joke was mildly funny, but I didn't think Chris's seeming to question what I meant by "size of accomplishment" made much sense as a joke or serious comment. (But, I was only reacting to a quote from his post, so don't really know what he meant by his question.) And it irked me that it seems to have been the only reaction to my post, except the 11b. > All this judging and ranking and worrying over "size" > is at least a little bit funny, wouldn't you say? And sad. > And potentially harmful, no?. Worrying over anything is funny, I suppose. Judging is impossible to avoid, so we should do it intelligently (unless you have time to read every poem published--and stay up on everything else in our culture at the same time). Concern over ranking is interesting, and ultimately important for any poet who cares whether anyone bothers with what he composes or not--though very comic, most of the time. As for size of one's accomplishment, I can only say that I care very much about mine. I have this strange desire to achieve as much as I can--to make the most of my life. > Aspiration for top "grosses" often seems like a > national obsession, one that poetry -- that any creativity -- > has to stand to the side of, if only to survive, > much less to provide an alternative. I don't know about that, but I've certainly stood aside from it all my life. In any case, it has nothing to do with my idea of size of accomplishment. > My concern is not just that "size of accomplishment" thinking > sometimes tries to beat the competition into the ground > by any means necessary, it's more the way the attitude tends to > stifle a modest practitioner or, worse, release unbelievable > spew from more aggressive would-be poetry-world dominators. That a kind of thinking can be misused is no reason to spurn its appropriate use. You might consider that some "modest practitioner," attacked for being influenced by formalists only, for instance, might widen his interests--and improve as a poet (i.e., increase the size of his accomplishment). I grant you that I sometimes sound (perhaps) like I'm trying to beat the competition into the ground, but I'm really (in my opinion) only trying to clear a little space for my own kind of poetry--and absolutely have no desire to "dominate." > I see a serious issue, then, behind the little joke that > gently says be cool. Right. So do I. > (and 11B, hey, that's already a pretty hefty size, many will > be impressed). Not in hat sizes, I don't think. . . . But I pride myself in having an unusually small hat size. > respectfully, > > B. > > We do for the love of the doing. > -- anon But would love to be paid for it so we could do more than we now have the time to do for the love of doing. --bnon --Bob G. From BobGrumman Tue Nov 6 16:31:41 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 16:31:41 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] A Poet's Response to 9/11 References: Message-ID: <3BE856BD.4999@nut-n-but.net> Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: > > In a message dated 11/6/01 8:21:05 AM Central Standard Time, > mackechnie at email.msn.com writes: > > > Gioia's response to the World Trade Center Obliteration > > seems typical of him: he picks out the very poem (by a > > very famous dead poet) that half the mediocrities in the > > American world of poetry immediately think of after the > > disaster and writes a very sound, very clear, completely > > unsurprising essay about it. > > This mediocrity immediately thought of it and read it to his class of > mediocrities. How shall I ever escape from this mire? Well, that a thing was thought by mediocrities does not mean it could not be thought by a non-mediocrity. If you're really concerned. --Bob G. From GrahamD Tue Nov 6 17:32:10 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 16:32:10 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFDE@mail.ripon.edu> Gioa's essay about poetic responses to 9/11 (http://www.sanfran.com/features/SF0111critics.htm ) was interesting and sane, I thought. And let's not forget that it's journalism--not literary criticism--that he's writing here. Lumping him together with all the "mediocrities" in the poetry world--without engaging his argument, his poetics, his politics, or indeed anything specific--serves little point, seems to me, especially if you happen to agree with what he says. I was amused by one thing. For I couldn't help noticing how strenuously Gioia seems to try and lay claim to the Auden poem, calling it a "long-neglected masterpiece" and implying that he might just have been the one who sent it out on its recent burst of popularity on the internet. He doesn't say so outright, of course. But he makes a point of mentioning how he was quoted on the radio reciting the poem, how someone at his reading later read the Auden at her reading, etc. To what point? Well, probably he's auditioning for the job of laureate, I would guess. And one could argue that, because Gioia seems much happier in the role of public spokesperson, he might be a better choice for the job than Billy Collins--which seems to be the not-so-buried plea in this passage: "Not many writers can manage public poetry well. The new U.S. poet laureate, Billy Collins, has already declared his inability--ever, he claims--to address the recent tragedy, and one admires his candor, if not his boldness." In fact I think Gioia would make a good laureate. Add him to the short list. I don't agree with all of his assessments of the state of contemporary poetry, nor am I drawn to all his remedies, but it seems hard to argue with the following, for instance: _________________________ "Over the past century, American poetry has celebrated the virtues of individuality, originality, and complexity even to the point of prizing--not without reason--the enigmatic idiosyncrasy of writers. The greatness of a poet like Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, or T.S. Eliot lies at least partially in the magnificently private language each developed to express certain personal themes and obsessions. The poet has often been seen as a prophet whose pronouncements the reader/acolyte must carefully learn to interpret. This tradition has produced many masterpieces, but it has also led critics and writers to neglect poetry's other civic functions. Poetry is a vast and flexible art that should be able to express all of human experience--public and private. The horrors of September 11 remind us that the art should be able to articulate our common sorrows as well as our private ones. Sometimes great poetry is not conspicuously individual, original, or complex, but communal, familiar, and direct. What matters most is not its stylistic novelty but its expressive power." _________________________ Reading this, I think how well it applies not only to much of Gioia's own work, but to Collins's, too. They have very different attitudes toward public poetry, it's true, but in their consistent skepticism toward "the enigmatic idiosyncrasy of writers"--especially as deployed in certain modernist and post-modernist modes-- they definitely seem to share some turf. Maybe it makes sense to see them as "communal, familiar, and direct" poets? I mean this descriptively, not as praise or blame, in case that isn't obvious. =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== From GrahamD Tue Nov 6 17:46:54 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 16:46:54 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFDF@mail.ripon.edu> Think I've said this before, but briefly: The formalist / free verse schism was one I happily avoided, partly due to my good luck in teachers. In college I studied under Sydney Lea, who recognizes the absurdity of erecting battle lines on such a flimsy basis (as if loving Ginsberg means you can't also love Justice). Then in grad school I encountered Madeline DeFrees and Joe Langland, who were similarly spirited. My good fortune, I can see now. I gather not everyone enjoyed my kind of experience. My own work has tended increasingly toward free verse end of the spectrum, but with frequent forays into various experiments in conventional form. I have in fact a great love for the tradition, including the tradition of William Carlos Williams as well as that of Robert Frost (to put it in shorthand). =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: dead poet > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Monday, November 5, 2001 3:52 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] RE: influences > > well, i can make it an easier question. i may not have been clear in the > original post, but i'm wondering how the teachers you had in school > influenced. i'm wondering if formalist begat formalists, postmodern begat > postmodern, and so on. sort of an informal study of whether or not the > teacher influences the new poet. > > i know influences extend far beyond just the teacher, and beyond the art > itself. > > jason > > From duemer Tue Nov 6 17:45:29 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 17:45:29 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences References: Message-ID: <000a01c16714$bca7b980$18724342@twcny.rr.com> <> My most influential teachers were Donald Justice & Sandra McPherson, but I don't think either one influenced my style; rather, I learned the working details of poetry from them, as well as a certain disdain for the fashionable. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From duemer Tue Nov 6 17:49:24 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 17:49:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... References: <3.0.5.32.20011105154037.008032b0@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <000f01c16715$487b5160$18724342@twcny.rr.com> I took an NEH Summer Seminar with Dan Albright in 1995 on Modernist music & literature. He's smart & a little eccentric & well worth listening to. Encyclopedic knowledge of 20th c. literature & music. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From CobbCoStudioArts Tue Nov 6 18:52:56 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 15:52:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... Message-ID: <20011106235256.B8EF72757@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From CobbCoStudioArts Tue Nov 6 18:57:31 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 15:57:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... Message-ID: <20011106235732.138212755@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From gmcvay Tue Nov 6 21:37:46 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 21:37:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFDE@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is sparing you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words From JforJames Tue Nov 6 21:51:44 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 21:51:44 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] billy collins Message-ID: <2b.1dd0a1fb.2919fbc0@aol.com> I was not in Houston for the Collins reading. But I 've heard BC read twice and both times were very enjoyable... he's about as good in the room as they get. Finnegan From bardo Tue Nov 6 22:01:54 2001 From: bardo (Daniel Zimmerman) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 22:01:54 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences References: <167.36de705.2918b0c1@aol.com> Message-ID: <010401c16738$8e7a6520$7692be18@DanielZimmerman> Pretty much in order of my recognizing them as (Western) fixed stars in my bardic sky: Ezra Pound, Emily Dickinson, William Blake, John Donne, W. B. Yeats, Gregory Corso, Dylan Thomas, Dante, William Carlos Williams, Bob Dylan, Gary Snyder, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, Ed Dorn, Ed Sanders, Anselm Hollo, Ted Berrigan, John Clarke. Each of their techniques (of 'voice,' of 'style,' of 'perspective,') perfectly embodies the poet's project; each *always* proves insightful / surprising / provocative ('new') to me, no matter how many times I read his or her work. Of course, I also find individual works of many other poets valuable, even essential, but virtually every work of these I've mentioned functions as a holographic fragment of a larger vision, and each serves as a different but crucial stepping stone to my own. Dan Zimmerman ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 10:19 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] influences > Wow . . . good question. > > Generally, whomever I'm reading becomes an influence. Right now, it's > Machado. In my work, though, I think you can see Philip Levine (for better > or worse), Rimbaud, Whitman, Eliot (sadly enough), and Weldon Kees. > Contemporary poets like Mark Jarman, Dana Gioia, and (believe it or not) R.S. > Gwynn influence me as well. > > Jeffrey L. Newberry > Adjunct Instructor > Department of English and Foreign Languages > University of West Florida > 11000 University Parkway > Pensacola, FL 32514 > 850.474.2923 > 850.473.7330 > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From spacks Tue Nov 6 22:32:25 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 19:32:25 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFDE@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011106193225.00843e50@snowcrest.net> At 09:37 PM 11/6/01 -0500, you wrote: >Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is sparing >you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words Gwyn, "karuna" I know, good stuff, but could I have a gloss on this "muditaa"? (might need to get me some) Barry From barr Tue Nov 6 22:51:59 2001 From: barr (Brandon Barr) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 22:51:59 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... In-Reply-To: <20011106235256.B8EF72757@sitemail.everyone.net> References: <20011106235256.B8EF72757@sitemail.everyone.net> Message-ID: Um, Here at the U of R, we all know him as Dan, so I don't believe this information is correct; Dan may not be his given name (I've never thought to ask) but it isn't just a pen name. Dan is a soft-spoken eccentric professor who is really interested in the relationships between arts. His _Quantum Poetics_ is an amazing read, a book that really boils down what's at the heart of modernism in my mind. He has his irons in a lot of fires--both at the English Department here and I think at the Eastman School of Music. But the irons are all redhot, IMHO. At any rate, the lecture looks interesting to me. "Anti-ideogrammatic" seems at least an interesting way into Ashbery's vein of poetics... Brandon Barr University of Rochester Robert Cobb wrote: >I asked Jim Cervantes earlier if Dan Albright was in any way related >to Ivan. Apparently, Dan Albright is a pseudonym, pen name, or >what-have-you, not his given name. Anyway, if anyone is Barry Spacks wrote: >The following announcement of a Daniel Albright >lecture in Santa Barbara -- one I can't get to -- got >me thinking: what's so bad about (shades of the Collins >thread?) being a 200-rewrite bricoleur? I confess I'm guilty >of approaching many an art this way; common practice? >rare? (maybe righteously to be despised)? > >B. >************** > >"Noble Savages in Armani Suits: American Art in the Late Twentieth Century" >4 P.M. / Thursday, November 8 /FREE >McCune Conference Room, 6020 Humanities & Social Sciences Building > >In the last twenty years, the American artist has combined the old >predilection >for ignoble material with the European bricoleur?s predilection for slapdash >technique. But the effect is not a total abdication of artistic control; >instead it is often peculiarly charming, since the locus of the failure lies >not in the artist but in art itself. In this talk, Albright will examine the >operations of this studied nonchalance in the poetry of John Ashbery and >Charles Wright--what might be called the anti-ideogrammic method--and in the >illegible graphisms of the painter Cy Twombley and the composers Earle Brown >and Christian Wolff. From Rsgwynn1 Tue Nov 6 23:06:53 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 23:06:53 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece Message-ID: <130.42a51a4.291a0d5d@cs.com> In a message dated 11/6/2001 8:39:02 PM Central Standard Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his > "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But > laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > I agree. Not in my lifetime. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grahamd Tue Nov 6 23:45:07 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 22:45:07 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece Message-ID: <200111070445.fA74jH962995@mx2.mx.voyager.net> Anyone interested in a friendly wager? I think Gioia will be laureate, probably sooner rather than later, given his skill at literary politicking. Certainly we have had laureates before who were on the young side--Dove was in her 40's when chosen, wasn't she? Gioia's in his 50s. I've said nothing about his merits as a poet, by the way. But as a smiling public man, well, I think he'd be a natural. As for poetic merit, well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the impression that there were some slight disagreements in these parts about the quality of the *current* laureate's work. So apparently universal critical acclaim is not necessarily a requirement for the job. . . . _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece Date: Tue, Nov 6, 2001, 10:06 PM In a message dated 11/6/2001 8:39:02 PM Central Standard Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. I agree. Not in my lifetime. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Wed Nov 7 00:20:14 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 00:20:14 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece Message-ID: In a message dated 11/6/2001 10:45:56 PM Central Standard Time, grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: > Anyone interested in a friendly wager? I think Gioia will be laureate, > probably sooner rather than later, given his skill at literary politicking. > Certainly we have had laureates before who were on the young side--Dove > was in her 40's when chosen, wasn't she? Gioia's in his 50s. > Dana is one of my best friends, and as much as I love him I doubt if he will ever be laureate, just the same as I know he will never get an NEA. This is not to say that I don't think he would make an effective laureate, of course. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From antrobin Wed Nov 7 00:35:08 2001 From: antrobin (Anthony Robinson) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 21:35:08 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] poem References: <167.36de705.2918b0c1@aol.com> <010401c16738$8e7a6520$7692be18@DanielZimmerman> Message-ID: <002d01c1674d$fd2222a0$72aeefd8@0021936706> Magic I've become enraptured by the twin gnomes of causality and supposition- Suppose the beautiful twins down -stairs are waiting for me, wishing I'd call. Magic, I'm told, is when one uses X to cause Y-if one lights a match after coughing and drops the fiery imp into a tall glass of water while concentrating hard upon Vanessa, the tall one, and Sarah, the shorter, but no-less fetching girl, one or the other will ring the doorbell sometime before the cock crows thrice or at least before the next full moon. If it's a blue Moon, both will come in the space of a month, and you'll be sad, so sad. And the neighbors will be suspicious. __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger From BobGrumman Wed Nov 7 05:20:35 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 05:20:35 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: Message-ID: <3BE90AF3.4CBD@nut-n-but.net> Gwyn McVay wrote: > > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of > his "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost > did. But laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > > Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is > sparing you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words I'm curious to know from you members of Gioia's club if Gwyn has just put her foot in her mouth. I'll put mine in mine and say that the problem with Gioia is that he IS a Jack Kennedy. What he is not, is a Tom Jefferson--but what recent poet laureate has been? --Bob G. From tadrichards Wed Nov 7 07:43:27 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 07:43:27 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: <3BE90AF3.4CBD@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <001901c16789$d05caec0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> My only problem with Gwyn's post is that I don't know what either karuna or muditaa means. It's hard to disagree that poet laureate is a silly institution, but I don't think it's a maleficent institution. I'm glad that there is a poet laureateship, I'm glad that it gets a certain amount of publicity and creates a little blip on the radar screen for poetry. Gioia is probably a divider, not a uniter, in the poetry world, but who isn't? The mandate of the PL, to the extend that there is one, is to be poetry's emissary to the outside world, and -- no strong admirer of Gioia myself -- t think he'd do just fine in that role. I can't imagine him going out there and using the teeny weeny pulpit to say don't read Bernstein, don't read Ashbery. I'd actually rather talk about Ted Gioia, whose generally thorough and perceptive history of jazz is tarnished by an strange white bias -- how can he spend so much time praising Glen Gray, Paul Whiteman and Ferde Grofe, and coldly dismiss the contributions of Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan? Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Grumman" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2001 5:20 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece > Gwyn McVay wrote: > > > > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of > > his "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost > > did. But laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > > > > Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is > > sparing you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words > > I'm curious to know from you members of Gioia's club if Gwyn has > just put her foot in her mouth. I'll put mine in mine and say that > the problem with Gioia is that he IS a Jack Kennedy. What he > is not, is a Tom Jefferson--but what recent poet laureate has been? > > --Bob G. > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From duemer Wed Nov 7 08:06:00 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 08:06:00 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: <3BE90AF3.4CBD@nut-n-but.net> <001901c16789$d05caec0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Message-ID: <003b01c1678c$f2c71420$18724342@twcny.rr.com> We could have Dana Gioia one year & Charles Bernstein the next--or could adopt the late Roman proconsul system & have them both in there at the same time. ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From gmcvay Wed Nov 7 08:46:10 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 08:46:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: <003b01c1678c$f2c71420$18724342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: karuna = compassion muditaa = taking pleasure in the goodness of others mala *with* long-vowel diacritics = prayer beads, often worn around the neck or at the wrist (hence the fad for those bracelets) mala *without* long-vowel diacritics = garbage And other useless knowledge... I was interested by JD's vision of a proconsul system, as Proconsul is also the genus name of a gang of apelike prehominids, and I pictured a grand rapprochement in which Gioia and Bernstein would groom each other's fleas. Gwyn "Trivia Woman" McVay From duemer Wed Nov 7 08:41:48 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 08:41:48 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: Message-ID: <007401c16791$f3008160$18724342@twcny.rr.com> <> Now there's a vision of poetic comity we all could learn from! jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From Henry_Gould Wed Nov 7 08:58:08 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 08:58:08 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: References: <003b01c1678c$f2c71420$18724342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011107085231.00aa6d00@postoffice.brown.edu> The Proconsul gang is a minor, peripheral subspecies of the Mandarinate of Sultana Vendler, which includes a constellation of courtiers including Heaney, Walcott, Graham. . . a network of international consequence. The flea circus has been underway for some time. Henry >And other useless knowledge... I was interested by JD's vision of a >proconsul system, as Proconsul is also the genus name of a gang of apelike >prehominids, and I pictured a grand rapprochement in which Gioia and >Bernstein would groom each other's fleas. > >Gwyn "Trivia Woman" McVay ******************************************************** HG afloat: www.nedgemagazine.com * www.xlibris.com/HenryGould.html www.spuytenduyvil.net * www.jacket.zip.com.au * www.unf.edu/mudlark "Read it back to me, quietly, quietly." - O. Mandelstam From cstroffo Wed Nov 7 09:35:46 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 06:35:46 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: <3BE90AF3.4CBD@nut-n-but.net> <001901c16789$d05caec0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> <003b01c1678c$f2c71420$18724342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <3BE946C2.1000DB84@earthlink.net> oh, for a third party candidate....one without soft money.... Joseph Duemer wrote: > We could have Dana Gioia one year & Charles Bernstein the next--or could > adopt the late Roman proconsul system & have them both in there at the same > time. > ====================== > Joseph Duemer > School of Liberal Arts, 5750 > Clarkson University > Potsdam NY 13699 > 315.268.3967 > website http://web.northnet.org/duemer > journal http://rw/blogspot.com > ====================== > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From halvard Wed Nov 7 09:48:33 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 09:48:33 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > muditaa = taking pleasure in the goodness of others Aha, an antonym for "Schadenfreude," almost. Hal "The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided." --Casey Stengel Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From paul.lake Tue Nov 6 22:37:03 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 21:37:03 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: Message-ID: on 11/6/01 8:37 PM, Gwyn McVay at gmcvay at patriot.net wrote: > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his > "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But > laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > > Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is sparing > you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > I agree with Gywn. The official poetry culture tries its best to ignore Gioia--not an easy task, given his ubiquity. No New Formalist will ever be the nation's laureate--at least not within the next decade. It's a sure bet that Dana won't be picked for the job. Paul Lake From paul.lake Tue Nov 6 22:39:29 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 21:39:29 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: <200111070445.fA74jH962995@mx2.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: on 11/6/01 10:45 PM, David Graham at grahamd at mail.ripon.edu wrote: > Anyone interested in a friendly wager? I think Gioia will be laureate, > probably sooner rather than later, given his skill at literary politicking. > Certainly we have had laureates before who were on the young side--Dove was in > her 40's when chosen, wasn't she? Gioia's in his 50s. > > I've said nothing about his merits as a poet, by the way. But as a smiling > public man, well, I think he'd be a natural. > > As for poetic merit, well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the impression > that there were some slight disagreements in these parts about the quality of > the *current* laureate's work. So apparently universal critical acclaim is > not necessarily a requirement for the job. . . . > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > > ---------- > From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece > Date: Tue, Nov 6, 2001, 10:06 PM > > >> In a message dated 11/6/2001 8:39:02 PM Central Standard Time, >> gmcvay at patriot.net writes: >> >> >>> Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his >>> "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But >>> laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. >> >> I agree. Not in my lifetime. >> >> I?ll take up that bet, David. My latest collection or yours, for whoever wins. Paul Lake -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paul.lake Tue Nov 6 22:40:34 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 21:40:34 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: Message-ID: on 11/6/01 11:20 PM, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com at Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: > In a message dated 11/6/2001 10:45:56 PM Central Standard Time, > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: > > >> Anyone interested in a friendly wager? I think Gioia will be laureate, >> probably sooner rather than later, given his skill at literary politicking. >> Certainly we have had laureates before who were on the young side--Dove was >> in her 40's when chosen, wasn't she? Gioia's in his 50s. >> > > Dana is one of my best friends, and as much as I love him I doubt if he will > ever be laureate, just the same as I know he will never get an NEA. This is > not to say that I don't think he would make an effective laureate, of course. I agree with Sam, here. I?ve known Dana for twenty years and think he?d be a great laureate. As it is, I?m afraid he?ll have to continue being an unofficial one. Paul Lake -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tadrichards Wed Nov 7 10:21:24 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:21:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: Message-ID: <00a801c1679f$dcf21c40$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Re: "The official poetry culture tries its best to ignore Gioia" -- who exactly selects the laureate, anyway? While we're on the subject -- who is the official poetry culture, and how can I get into it? Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Lake" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 10:37 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece > on 11/6/01 8:37 PM, Gwyn McVay at gmcvay at patriot.net wrote: > > > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his > > "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But > > laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > > > > Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is sparing > > you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words > > > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > I agree with Gywn. The official poetry culture tries its best to ignore > Gioia--not an easy task, given his ubiquity. No New Formalist will ever be > the nation's laureate--at least not within the next decade. It's a sure bet > that Dana won't be picked for the job. > > Paul Lake > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From tadrichards Wed Nov 7 10:22:34 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:22:34 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: Message-ID: <00ae01c167a0$06b77840$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> I'm hoping you don't need karuna and muditaa -- that would disqualify me right out of the box. Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Lake" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 10:37 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece > on 11/6/01 8:37 PM, Gwyn McVay at gmcvay at patriot.net wrote: > > > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his > > "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But > > laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > > > > Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is sparing > > you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words > > > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > I agree with Gywn. The official poetry culture tries its best to ignore > Gioia--not an easy task, given his ubiquity. No New Formalist will ever be > the nation's laureate--at least not within the next decade. It's a sure bet > that Dana won't be picked for the job. > > Paul Lake > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From mmagee Wed Nov 7 10:28:32 2001 From: mmagee (Michael Magee) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:28:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] A Completed Portrait of Lee Greenwood In-Reply-To: from "Eileen Tabios" at Oct 30, 2001 11:09:44 am Message-ID: <200111071528.KAA24042@dept.english.upenn.edu> A COMPLETED PORTRAIT OF LEE GREENWOOD (After Stein and Johns) If I scold him would he like it. Would he like it if I scold him. Would he like it would a soldier would a soldier would would he like it. If I scold him if I sold it if I scold him like a soldier. Would he like it if I scold him if I sold him to a soldier. If I sold him would he like it would he like it if I scold him. Then. Not then. And then. Then. Specifically operating. Exactly specifically operating. Exactly operative. Exacting operatives. Exact specs exactly suspect of an operative. Wheat waves and whistles so do we. Wheat waves and so waves and so sways and so weighs its sways and waves in so ways. One I'm proud. Two I'm proud. One aloud. Two I'm proud. Two aloud. One is aloud. One aloud. One aloud to be a aloud. To be proud. Two be proud. Two be proud to be aloud to be aloud. To be aloud to be loudly proud loudly proudly aloud. A patriot. A pat riot. A pater riot. A laugh riot a rootin tootin laugh riot. Pater and pater. Who starts a riot. Mater and mater. Who cries at a riot. Play patriotism. Play material. Play material well. Missile and thistle. Was a king a groom. Mistle epistle. Has a carpet broom. Pistol and pistol. Has a whip a tomb. Is a mosque an ashram and so it is. A mosque is an ashram and so it is and also. A mosque is a mosque is a mosque and so it is. Ashram and ashram ashram and has ram and has it ram and as it ram and has it ram. And as it ran and has it ran and as has it ran and ran. And as it ran an ashram and ashcroft and has it croft as as it croft and is it aloft. And aircraft and is it aloft and is it soft and ashcroft. And this is so because. Free free free free free free and free and free and free and the free. Free free free and least I'm free and lease the free and the least free and the free and so the free. Me and gave his life. Me and gave a life. Me and gave of his life. Me and a life. Me and life. Me for a life. He for a life for me and a life for a life. Let me recite what Lee preaches. Lee preaches. From GrahamD Wed Nov 7 11:10:44 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:10:44 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFE0@mail.ripon.edu> OK, you're on. We just need to agree on the terms. You said earlier "not within the next decade." Just to be sporting, I'll say 7 years, OK? David =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Paul Lake > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Tuesday, November 6, 2001 9:39 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece > > on 11/6/01 10:45 PM, David Graham at grahamd at mail.ripon.edu wrote: > > > > Anyone interested in a friendly wager? I think Gioia will be > laureate, probably sooner rather than later, given his skill at literary > politicking. Certainly we have had laureates before who were on the young > side--Dove was in her 40's when chosen, wasn't she? Gioia's in his 50s. > > I've said nothing about his merits as a poet, by the way. But as a > smiling public man, well, I think he'd be a natural. > > As for poetic merit, well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the > impression that there were some slight disagreements in these parts about > the quality of the *current* laureate's work. So apparently universal > critical acclaim is not necessarily a requirement for the job. . . . > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > > ---------- > From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece > Date: Tue, Nov 6, 2001, 10:06 PM > > > > > In a message dated 11/6/2001 8:39:02 PM Central Standard > Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: > > > > > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At > the tippy-top of his > "form," as it were, he does something kind of like > what Frost did. But > laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > > > > I agree. Not in my lifetime. > > > > > > I'll take up that bet, David. My latest collection or yours, for whoever > wins. > > Paul Lake > From GrahamD Wed Nov 7 11:24:26 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:24:26 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: A Completed Portrait of Lee Greenwood Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFE3@mail.ripon.edu> This is luscious. By the way, one can listen to Gertrude herself recite "If I Told Him" at Salon: http://www.salon.com/audio/2000/10/05/stein/ =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: mmagee at dept.english.upenn.edu > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Wednesday, November 7, 2001 9:28 AM > To: POETICS at LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Cc: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu; writing at listerv.brown.edu; > pmetres at jcu.edu; parker2 at fas.harvard.edu > Subject: [New-Poetry] A Completed Portrait of Lee Greenwood > > A COMPLETED PORTRAIT OF LEE GREENWOOD (After Stein and Johns) > > If I scold him would he like it. Would he like it if I scold him. > Would he like it would a soldier would a soldier would would > he like it. > If I scold him if I sold it if I scold him like a soldier. Would he > like it if I scold him if I sold him to a soldier. If I sold him would > he like it would he like it if I scold him. > Then. > Not then. > And then. > Then. > Specifically operating. > Exactly specifically operating. > Exactly operative. > Exacting operatives. > Exact specs exactly suspect of an operative. > Wheat waves and whistles so do we. Wheat waves and so waves > and so sways and so weighs its sways and waves in so ways. > One I'm proud. > Two I'm proud. > One aloud. > Two I'm proud. > Two aloud. > One is aloud. > One aloud. > One aloud to be a aloud. > To be proud. > Two be proud. > Two be proud to be aloud to be aloud. > To be aloud to be loudly proud loudly proudly aloud. > A patriot. > A pat riot. > A pater riot. > A laugh riot a rootin tootin laugh riot. > Pater and pater. Who starts a riot. Mater and mater. > Who cries at a riot. > Play patriotism. Play material. Play material well. > Missile and thistle. > Was a king a groom. > Mistle epistle. > Has a carpet broom. > Pistol and pistol. > Has a whip a tomb. > Is a mosque an ashram and so it is. A mosque is an ashram and > so it is and also. A mosque is a mosque is a mosque and so it is. > Ashram and ashram ashram and has ram and has it ram and as it > ram and has it ram. And as it ran and has it ran and as has it ran > and ran. And as it ran an ashram and ashcroft and has it croft as > as it croft and is it aloft. And aircraft and is it aloft and is it soft > and ashcroft. And this is so because. > Free free free free free free and free and free and free and the > free. Free free free and least I'm free and lease the free and the > least free and the free and so the free. > Me and gave his life. > Me and gave a life. > Me and gave of his life. > Me and a life. > Me and life. > Me for a life. > He for a life for me and a life for a life. > Let me recite what Lee preaches. Lee preaches. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > From paul.lake Wed Nov 7 00:52:28 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 23:52:28 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Official Poetry Culture Message-ID: >>exactly selects the laureate, anyway? >While we're on the subject -- who is the official poetry culture, and how >can I get into it? Tad, I guess the official poetry culture would be defined--loosely--as those institutions with the most clout in publishing and reviewing poetry, giving grants, and employing poets. Major university writing programs, university presses, large mainstream publications, and grant-giving institutions ranging from the NEA to private foundations would comprise the official poetry culture. In short, the people and institutions who've elevated poets like Jorie Graham, Charles Wright, and, yes, Billy Collins to positions of eminence. One sure qualification for official poetry culture is that the poet must write free verse, in a not-too-difficult, post Modernist (though not often "postmodern") style. Such a poet can verge on total incoherence, as Graham and Wright often do, but verse too fragmented and radically disjunctive rarely wins official laurels. Similarly, poetry that uses meter or rhyme and form--at least, for poets under 70--results in automatic exclusion. Gender and race can also be important factors. Thus, Timothy Steele, our own Sam Gwynn, and Dana Gioia will not get Pulitzers, Guggenheims, endowed chairs, or Laureateships within our lifetimes, while Marilyn Nelson and Rachel Hadas have longshot chances at each. Paul Lake From paul.lake Wed Nov 7 00:53:11 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 23:53:11 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFE0@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: on 11/7/01 10:10 AM, Graham, David at GrahamD at mail.ripon.edu wrote: > OK, you're on. We just need to agree on the terms. You said earlier "not > within the next decade." Just to be sporting, I'll say 7 years, OK? > > David > > =================== > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > =================== > >> ---------- >> From: Paul Lake >> Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> Sent: Tuesday, November 6, 2001 9:39 PM >> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece >> >> on 11/6/01 10:45 PM, David Graham at grahamd at mail.ripon.edu wrote: >> >> >> >> Anyone interested in a friendly wager? I think Gioia will be >> laureate, probably sooner rather than later, given his skill at literary >> politicking. Certainly we have had laureates before who were on the young >> side--Dove was in her 40's when chosen, wasn't she? Gioia's in his 50s. >> >> I've said nothing about his merits as a poet, by the way. But as a >> smiling public man, well, I think he'd be a natural. >> >> As for poetic merit, well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the >> impression that there were some slight disagreements in these parts about >> the quality of the *current* laureate's work. So apparently universal >> critical acclaim is not necessarily a requirement for the job. . . . >> >> _______________________ >> David Graham >> grahamd at mail.ripon.edu >> _______________________ >> >> ---------- >> From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com >> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece >> Date: Tue, Nov 6, 2001, 10:06 PM >> >> >> >> >> In a message dated 11/6/2001 8:39:02 PM Central Standard >> Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: >> >> >> >> >> Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At >> the tippy-top of his >> "form," as it were, he does something kind of like >> what Frost did. But >> laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. >> >> >> >> I agree. Not in my lifetime. >> >> >> >> >> >> I'll take up that bet, David. My latest collection or yours, for whoever >> wins. >> >> Paul Lake >> > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > A deal. Paul From aprentiss Wed Nov 7 12:15:17 2001 From: aprentiss (Prentiss, Amber) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 12:15:17 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] How a Poet Laureate Gets Selected Message-ID: In America, the Librarian of Congress appoints the Poet Laureate, so take 'im out to dinner. http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/01078/poet.html -Amber From halvard Wed Nov 7 12:56:16 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 12:56:16 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Equi poems round-up Message-ID: Way back when, I posted an exercise to which quite a few of you responded. The exercise is way down at the bottom of this, should you care to review it before you look at the responses, which I've pasted in here without any of the whines and excuses and apologies that sometimes accompan- ied them. ;) Hal "Flotsam, please, and a side order of jetsam." Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html Happy birthday The minute is past, beat up in the nick of future Ages. Dark but modern, done like movies that vie with meals to serve Man. What a terrific landscape under glass. Mom? Wait. Swing low. The death trend is a cra-zy part of a ridiculous future. The big grenade will keep you little like a girl. So you see I'm really ready to ascend like champagne elevators to a weirdo heaven. The late and future king. --Cindy Closkey Vietnamese Girl With Weirdo Depart the future, dig the ridiculous glass hair style Yes I'll be ready After death you really do serve champagne The brass shirt lodged too close behind the movies, Dark Ages cosmetics Man, like, this chocolate potential --Gwyn McVay champagne under Mom's bra recurring potential for her but for me it's a glass grenade --Tad Richards "IS" Man, you dig into Vietnamese meals and dress in a cra-zy beatnik style, talking _potential, potential, potential_, _be the future_ _be the future_ _be the future_, the Big Brass in the Department of the Possible. I'm like a poet lodged in a recurring landscape where I'll sell my hair for a little champagne. I supervise the Department of the Past, swinging a birthday grenade through the weird modern movies (because they really do ask for it). This order I make is behind reason. Yes I (am) was a terrific mom, kept dark chocolate under my shirt, ready to offer around like glass to this red girl. I'd serve her. Following that, the next girl. Done so by the minute, hear? You do dream of the hi-fashion trend that will be happy like mean cosmetics are (is to look on, but is not to see with), but I keep after the ages. Wait -- if I must store it all by the section, then what elevators ascend to that heaven? Why must death close her candy store, too? --Liz "jibber jabber" Ahl I dream of trend glass swinging my happy Mom in dark recurring elevators Ridiculously big behind ascends the Ages, her red dress following after Next death is birthday in future candy store's chocolate heaven A little poet grenade lodged in brass landscape orders a modern dig. Be do be too so you do serve this future --Robin Morris Departments In Candies a red-haired girl selling chocolates serves little sections of heaven and in Dreams a man in a dark shirt is making a trendy movie, modern Minute Mom lodged for ages in elevator closed by grenade. So Poets, be happy, swing into the future with a glass of champagne because it is done for. A future of not talking but following orders, where you must dig for past potentials in a landscape storing death -- Marianne Poloskey (after Elaine Equi [sort of]) Yes, supervise that swinging future store. See the beatnik cosmetics the Vietnamese champagne glass happy meals by dark movies the ages past reason the following offer the candy like brass this red potential hair shirt this minute grenade. A potential death. A potential dream. A potential heaven. So modern man must wait for the future behind this future will not serve to keep a recurring future under where I hear because of fashion talking her< they be >with< it> after to sell to department on department. In-the-trend ridiculous but kept by mom but look what you are is a landscape in the dress I?m seeing and all of that chocolate is too lodged around you. Next? Then ascend the crazy elevators to make the hi style order the possible to be big be mean do little. Dig, weirdo poet, like ready? Terrific. Done. Through. --Nick Argentarius Like Taking Candy from a Hi-Fashion Beatnick The potential man sells potential dream In the Cosmetics Champagne Candy store of the future. Past the Death department A Vietnamese Mom serves dark chocolate grenades. Movies are offered in elevators to heaven Behind a glass section. Potential landscape recurrs. Hair styles, minute meals, dress shirts. Wait, what ridiculous birthday follows? Really. Ready? The Modern Yes-Man Poet Age. Dig the trend, see. --Gaetan Jeaurond Glass Dress, Champagne And Red Candy Grenade With all that is possible, All that potential, What reason but trend For the cosmetic modern style Of a ridiculous poet? --James Finnegan Dream in Dark Glass Grenade possibilities dress in red and offer potential futures in order and heaven like little girls sell candy. Reason chocolate from the store of Man. Are you ready? I'll wait in the Nick, kept by the Brass for being cra-zy and happy with it. --Sherri/WolfDancing Hi Weirdo Why is chocolate man like potential Mom? That swinging dream must keep her a be be a do be beatnick hair. Seeing a ridiculous brass minute wait under her potential cra-zy future, I'd look behind. To dig the terrific poet in this landscape. Girl, I'm recurring like Vietnamese elevators, ascending into the candy department. If they talk to champagne I'll order modern cosmetics through heaven because the possible shirt I really mean is too dressy. I closed the department of the red past. For I am the next supervisor and so make a by-by for a little grenade. This glass will sell to the Dark girl I follow, this offer not ready in stores of the future. Store that. All happy birthdays to all movies seen. Be in the lodge after the meals ask you with reason but the potential must keep you around the section. The trend is of potential fashion death is it? Yes like what do I hear on my then my where. That it was done to serve a future style but the Ages are big. --David Graham On Being and Time after Elaine Equi and Annie Dillard I?m swinging through the future, the minute of red and ridiculous, ready for the next big trend, a candy of potential. And what is the past? A cosmetic, a grenade, the ages' dark talking, a recurring landscape. Wait. be ready. Doesn?t the present make Mom birthday-happy , look terrific from a glass elevator? It?s the next big trend. It must be the right style for living. Dig the brass, possible to hear in this cra--zy department, a little chocolate and style, a recurring ascension into heaven. --Pat Fargnoli Wait Dig the swinging past, that brass section following. Talk, talk, talk, but the minute landscape is possible. Happy, must be. Not chocolate, not cosmetics. You'd ascend, but minutes keep you here. Next, the terrific future. --Russ Kesler Brass red dress chocolate candy potential grenade in a weirdo landscape future dream in a champagne glass Cher With Beatnik Hair I'm lodged in a chocolate store, then the Vietnamese department close by a potential grenade. Its ascending, werido birthday is the poet's happy dress, elevated through Dark Ages. The landscape swings - cra-zy! Brass possibilities styled into look-and-see, glass shirts, movie meals, a champagne elevator past the red cosmetic section. An unsupervised man orders a trend and I dream brass heaven. Death is the reason I recur, big and terrific, the beat into future's hi-fashion. --James Cervantes Dream Meals Modern girl grenade of beatnik candy, Because it is possible. You mean I like my future? Where champagne is kept, I'll ready myself for heaven as Elevators take me past the ages. Are you the modern man With dark potential? Little death, Big dream. Ready I am, For red movie-like end, And my ridiculous cosmetic behind. --Teehan Kaye Little Talking Big Seeing >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> a brass shirt weirdo serves heaven a potential grenade. dreams of dark swinging glass. a red future lodged in movies, the end of this cosmetic candy age, this ridiculous champagne style. modern me. so dig for chocolate in a cra-zy landscape. order a past but no following. a happy death to ascend. and you will wait for me. supervise a possible future of terrific potential, a recurring trend of department. the elevators are ready. i make the reason. --Tabetha Dunn FUTURE ORDERS AWAIT DEATH'S MINUTES "Hi"-I'm reasonable to ask, "What do you see as recurring trends in dreams? My, my, are you ready?" Under Mom's supervision, I'll hear why my following future potential must be lodged in past movies seen, of beatnick hair styles. Yes, all around mean weirdo poets swinging, "Cra-zy man! Dig this girl under glass in her fashionable little red dress!" Terrific possibilities, if you have an offer. Because, talking about birthdays is like talking of brass grenades! Sold in Vietnamese stores, next to the candy department, close to heavenly chocolates, champagne, ridiculous cosmetics. Where the elevators ascend, big dark modern landscapes, seen under glass. Elaine ages happily like a kept Equi girl. --Bob Cobb The original exercise: Here's your next assignment: At the bottom of this message is a prose poem by Elaine Equi. Your assignment is to write one or more poems using nothing but words and punctuation marks found in her text. The rules: 1. Use only words and punctuation marks found in Equi's text. 2. If a word is used five times in Equi's text, you may use it an equal number of times, but no more. Same goes for marks of punctuation. 3. You may use word variants: e.g. "talked" for "talking." 4. You may use word parts: e.g. the "king" from "talking." 5. You may not use groups of words in sequence from Equi: (i.e. not even "of the"). 6. You must follow the rules. All the rules. 7. If or when you break any of the first five rules, you must append a "confession" to the poem you've submitted. In the confession, you must explain your reason(s) for breaking the rule(s) and plead for mercy. The text: Hi-Fashion Girl I'm swinging through a department store of the future because by then it will be possible to do that. I mean hear red. Dig the brass section of this cra-zy shirt. Wait a minute. If this is the future, why am I talking like a ridiculous beatnick poet? The past must be following too close behind. Lodged by the cosmetics like a little Vietnamese girl with a grenade under her dress. I'd offer chocolate but in the department store of the future all they sell is the potential for candy. The potential to make Mom happy on her birthday the potential to look terrific. What is all this potential I keep seeing like landscape in a recurring weirdo dream? It must be the reason I ask you to style my hair, order my meals and supervise the movies I see. Yes, so I'll be ready for the next big trend after death. Glass elevators where you really do ascend into heaven but are kept around to serve champagne. Man, that is not modern. That was done in the Dark Ages. --Elaine Equi Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvardjohnson From TerryP17 Wed Nov 7 14:00:44 2001 From: TerryP17 (TerryP17 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 14:00:44 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece Message-ID: <112.7455055.291adedc@aol.com> All-- Interesting thread to which I can only make a short contribution as I'm on holiday in Daytona Beach and am using a machine with limited time at the Volusia County Library, home of hanging and pregnant chads. I've been on the road a lot lately, and also hadn't had the chance to reply to Joe Duemer's query from last month as well. I'll catch up sooner or later. But my 2 cents' worth. I think Dana is becoming more of a force as a critic than a poet. His poetry output has slowed and he's getting a lot more mileage out of his prose pieces these days as this thread proves. New Formalism, Old Formalism, Expansive Poetry, New Narrative--whatever--is beginning to become an unwieldy concept and I am not sure the center is going to hold. Re: Pulitzers and Laureateships--not in my lifetime to anyone who writes "formal verse"--basically what Paul said. Back to Dana's piece--I consider it one of his weaker efforts. Too much reliance on the memoir approach. I'd rather see poets writing poems about 9/11 rather than sincere and honest feelings on the same. We'll be featuring poems on the topic in upcoming issues of Edge City and I'll be soliciting more. Re: Ted Gioia. Ted points out in one of his recent books that he is West Coast centric when it comes to jazz criticism because he believes it's being neglected. He also squarely states that he is not going to do the "race thing" in his jazz coverage, giving equal time however one defines that, to white and black jazz musicians. Marsalis took the opposite tack as advisor to the rather poor Ken Burns series on jazz. This is obviously still a hot topic. However, since Ted never bothers to respond to my missives, I'm not going to defend his point of view beyond this point. Back to the Boardwalk. I'll make appearances when possible, but I expect the next time I'm back the thread will be different. --Terry Ponick From GrahamD Wed Nov 7 14:35:21 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 13:35:21 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] The Form of Laureate Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFE4@mail.ripon.edu> Before it hardens into dogma, I'd like to splash a little skeptical water on the notion that the institution of poet laureate, such as it is, discriminates against poets who write in conventional forms. Since 1986, when the modern poet laureateship replaced the old "Consultant to the Librarian of Congress" position, some of the raving anti-formalist poets who have served in this position include Stanley Kunitz, Richard Wilbur, Howard Nemerov, Mona Van Duyn, Joseph Brodsky, Robert Pinsky, and Rita Dove, who is a known writer of sonnets. And, let's see, who have I left out? Just Robert Hass, Mark Strand, and Billy Collins. Sounds like a conspiracy against free versers to me. . . . =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== From CobbCoStudioArts Wed Nov 7 13:19:16 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:19:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece Message-ID: <20011107181917.C787336FF@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From paul.lake Wed Nov 7 03:53:43 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 02:53:43 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] The Form of Laureate Message-ID: Sorry, David, but you're wrong here: "Since 1986, when the modern poet laureateship replaced the old "Consultant to the Librarian of Congress" position, some of the raving anti-formalist poets who have served in this position include Stanley Kunitz, Richard Wilbur, Howard Nemerov, Mona Van Duyn, Joseph Brodsky, Robert Pinsky, and Rita Dove, who is a known writer of sonnets. And, let's see, who have I left out? Just Robert Hass, Mark Strand, and Billy Collins. Sounds like a conspiracy against free versers to me. . . ." As I said in my original post, the no formal verse stricture only applies to poets under 70. Look at the ages of the poets you list up till Pinsky; they're all old or dead. Distinguished elder poets, from the "Greatest Generation," like war veteran Nemerov, are indulged in their peculiar penchant toward rhyme and meter; it's unforgivable, however, in a younger poet. Robert Pinsky offers a somewhat odd case; he and (free verse poet) Bob Hass, are the last generation of white male poets to enter the poetic establishment without apologies. Their politics are also acceptably left/liberal. Pinsky's formalism (An Explanation of America, for instance, is in blank verse) is usually rather loosely worn; he writes free and "formal" verse almost indistinguishable from each other. Hass, Strand, and Collins write free verse. Dove, to my mind, is also a free verse poet; I can't think of a poem of hers with regular meter or a regular rhyme pattern. Trust me, distinguished formal poets like Charles Martin and younger ones like Greg Williamson are not in the running for the laureateship--or MacArthurs--now or in years to come. Paul Lake From Rsgwynn1 Wed Nov 7 15:12:02 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 15:12:02 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece Message-ID: In a message dated 11/7/01 1:57:54 PM Central Standard Time, CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com writes: > > I don't know exactly how one is chosen to become our national poet > laureate. Is it that political a position? Must one be nominated to run? > What qualifications are necessary? Is it a one year term? > What renumeration might a poet laureate expect to receive, in addition to > the honor, endorsements, etc? > And, if it comes down to a single vote, I would choose you. I am certain > that you meet all the criteria to become our next poet laureate. > > It's a small groundswell, to be sure, but I appreciate it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From GrahamD Wed Nov 7 15:41:33 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 14:41:33 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: The Form of Laureate Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFE7@mail.ripon.edu> Paul, I just checked the archives, and see I somehow missed your earlier post about "official verse culture." Sorry. I was responding to today's messages, which seemed to suggest that formalist poets had been shut out of the laureateship. That simply isn't true, as my list of the winners since 1986 clearly shows. I believe that the list of Pulitzer winners, MacArthurs, etc. for the same period will yield similar results. It's certainly true that the prizes do often go to the Geezer set, of whichever aesthetic, of course. Maybe it's true that for poets of Gioia's generation and younger, there is a big fix in against formalism, but I'm going to need more evidence before I buy into that. Now, one can certainly quibble about whether Dove or Pinsky can be admitted to the True Church of formalism, but that's an argument I'm not at all interested in. =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Paul Lake > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Wednesday, November 7, 2001 2:53 AM > To: New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: [New-Poetry] The Form of Laureate > > Sorry, David, but you're wrong here: > > "Since 1986, when the modern poet laureateship replaced the old > "Consultant > to the Librarian of Congress" position, some of the raving anti-formalist > poets who have served in this position include Stanley Kunitz, Richard > Wilbur, Howard Nemerov, Mona Van Duyn, Joseph Brodsky, Robert Pinsky, and > Rita Dove, who is a known writer of sonnets. And, let's see, who have I > left out? Just Robert Hass, Mark Strand, and Billy Collins. > > Sounds like a conspiracy against free versers to me. . . ." > > As I said in my original post, the no formal verse stricture only applies > to > poets under 70. Look at the ages of the poets you list up till Pinsky; > they're all old or dead. Distinguished elder poets, from the "Greatest > Generation," like war veteran Nemerov, are indulged in their peculiar > penchant toward rhyme and meter; it's unforgivable, however, in a younger > poet. Robert Pinsky offers a somewhat odd case; he and (free verse poet) > Bob Hass, are the last generation of white male poets to enter the poetic > establishment without apologies. Their politics are also acceptably > left/liberal. Pinsky's formalism (An Explanation of America, for > instance, > is in blank verse) is usually rather loosely worn; he writes free and > "formal" verse almost indistinguishable from each other. Hass, Strand, and > Collins write free verse. Dove, to my mind, is also a free verse poet; I > can't think of a poem of hers with regular meter or a regular rhyme > pattern. > > Trust me, distinguished formal poets like Charles Martin and younger ones > like Greg Williamson are not in the running for the laureateship--or > MacArthurs--now or in years to come. > > Paul Lake > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > From paul.lake Wed Nov 7 04:52:36 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 03:52:36 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Laureates Message-ID: David, I don't know how my comment showed up as "yesterday" on the board, but it did on mine, too. As to your comment-- "Now, one can certainly quibble about whether Dove or Pinsky can be admitted to the True Church of formalism, but that's an argument I'm not at all interested in." I'd say that (though no True Church is involved) Pinsky is largely in, Dove largely out. Check those MacArthurs again. Except for Leithauser, many years ago, there's been a drought of formal poets. It's not a grand conspiracy, it's just the way things are. Paul Lake From GrahamD Wed Nov 7 16:46:42 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 15:46:42 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Laureates Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFE8@mail.ripon.edu> Poets who have won MacArthur Fellowships. I don't have them sorted by date, but the Fellowships began in 1981: Ammons, A. R. Ashbery, John Bierds, Linda Brodsky, Joseph Carson, Anne Clampitt, Amy Crase, Douglas Feldman, Irving Fulton, Alice Graham, Jorie Grossman, Allen Gunn, Thom Hass, Robert Hine, Daryl Hirsch, Edward Hollander, John Howard, Richard Kenney, Richard Kinnell, Galway Lauterbach, Ann Leithauser, Brad McGrath, Campbell Moss, Thylias Perillo, Lucia Powell, Jim Ramanujan, A. K. Rich, Adrienne Simic, Charles Strand, Mark Swenson, May Walcott, Derek Warren, Robert Penn Wilner, Eleanor Wright, Jay =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Paul Lake > > > Check those MacArthurs again. Except for Leithauser, many years ago, > there's been a drought of formal poets. > > It's not a grand conspiracy, it's just the way things are. > > > Paul Lake > > From BobGrumman Wed Nov 7 16:50:44 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 16:50:44 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: <3BE90AF3.4CBD@nut-n-but.net> <001901c16789$d05caec0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> <003b01c1678c$f2c71420$18724342@twcny.rr.com> <3BE946C2.1000DB84@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <3BE9ACB3.5BA5@nut-n-but.net> Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino wrote: > > oh, for a third party candidate....one without soft money.... Yes, exactly what I thought on reading Joseph's suggestion. But, on second thought, Bernstein is almost exactly to what I call burstnorm poetry what Gioia is to knownstream poetry, so the pairing DOES make sense. --Bob G. From BobGrumman Wed Nov 7 16:56:26 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 16:56:26 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: Message-ID: <3BE9AE09.7A58@nut-n-but.net> > I agree with Gywn. The official poetry culture tries its best to ignore > Gioia--not an easy task, given his ubiquity. No New Formalist will ever be > the nation's laureate--at least not within the next decade. It's a sure bet > that Dana won't be picked for the job. > > Paul Lake So, who does everyone think will become poet laureate sooner: a new formalist or a language poet? The language poets are becoming mainstream pretty rapidly, it seems to me, but I still think a new formalist will beat them to the position. Certainly no visual poet will give either of them any competition. --Bob G. From duemer Wed Nov 7 17:25:50 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 17:25:50 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: <3BE9ACB3.5BA5@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <> I picked Bernstein because he seemed like a mirror image of Gioia. _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From robin.hamilton2 Wed Nov 7 20:24:10 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 01:24:10 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Aside: Gioia References: <3BE9AE09.7A58@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <00fd01c167f4$176a2d00$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> As Gioia is pretty crap poet, and his maunderings on "formalist" verse in his prose texts are at the best, third rate, this seems to me a singularly silly thread. Jus' an observation. Robin Hamilton. From grahamd Wed Nov 7 20:36:42 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 19:36:42 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Aside: Gioia Message-ID: <200111080134.fA81Ytv32573@mx15.mx.voyager.net> Hey, spin us a new thread, then, Robin. Nobody's forcing you to think about D*** G**** if you don't wish to. Be sure not to maunder, though. _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: "Robin Hamilton" >To: >Subject: [New-Poetry] Aside: Gioia >Date: Wed, Nov 7, 2001, 7:24 PM > >As Gioia is pretty crap poet, and his maunderings on "formalist" verse in >his prose texts are at the best, third rate, this seems to me a singularly >silly thread. > >Jus' an observation. > >Robin Hamilton. > From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 00:07:36 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 05:07:36 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Aside: Gioia References: <200111080134.fA81Ytv32573@mx15.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <018901c16814$d1fc6be0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Oh, I WISH!!! Shall I play it out? Dana Gioia as a poet sucks. As a so-called NeoFormalist, his poetry doesn't even scan (Auden-and-water for all of me.) And as to his commentary on poetics in his Prose Works ... Well ... Even David Fussel made more sense (and that wasn't even really very much). Present a DG poem that is less than ... um ... pathetic? crap? Waiting ... (In anticipation.) Robin ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Graham" To: Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 1:36 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Aside: Gioia > Hey, spin us a new thread, then, Robin. Nobody's forcing you to think > about D*** G**** if you don't wish to. > > Be sure not to maunder, though. > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > > ---------- > >From: "Robin Hamilton" > >To: > >Subject: [New-Poetry] Aside: Gioia > >Date: Wed, Nov 7, 2001, 7:24 PM > > > > >As Gioia is pretty crap poet, and his maunderings on "formalist" verse in > >his prose texts are at the best, third rate, this seems to me a singularly > >silly thread. > > > >Jus' an observation. > > > >Robin Hamilton. > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 00:21:11 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 05:21:11 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <200111080134.fA81Ytv32573@mx15.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <019601c16815$4ad29080$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> ... and just to put my neck on the line. Robin the (octosyllabic) Formalist ... PERSUASIONS TO ENJOY Though thoughts of you indeed aspire Yet love is rooted in desire, Impulse half-brother to the lust So early sprung from human dust. A reasonable plain intent Is all our bodies can invent, In which the weaker vessel cries For supreme unction as it dies. Our private parts, united, groan A sound that sighs, "I'm not alone" An idiom that we reserve For lexicons of lust - one verb. A dull language, however we Swerve into perversity, Permutate, or change position In strange shapes of joint coition. The sweats of mingled ardours break With more insistence than fears make: Such modest sweat is oftener found Than honour's detumescent sound. While Nanny Time waits at the door, The infant anguish still cries more, Oh more of this enchanting juice Which bathes our limbs in such excuse As relegates the marriage pact, The mortgage, and all moral fact To such reminders as may serve To salt with guilt a meal of love." Till Death as bridegroom, Age as bride Assert once more their ancient right, And witnessed by the sexton worm Remarry us within the tomb. Meanwhile the blood, like a faint rose Defines the body's clasping hose, Where on that equatorial zone Flesh kisses flesh, but stays alone. Our quaint concerns with love or lust Are problematics of the dust, In which the liquid volumes rise And flesh, not spirit, seeks the skies. From Rsgwynn1 Thu Nov 8 00:50:45 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 00:50:45 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) Message-ID: <10.152476f0.291b7735@cs.com> In a message dated 11/7/2001 11:26:45 PM Central Standard Time, robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > > PERSUASIONS TO ENJOY > > Though thoughts of you indeed aspire > Yet love is rooted in desire, > Impulse half-brother to the lust > So early sprung from human dust. > > A reasonable plain intent > Is all our bodies can invent, > In which the weaker vessel cries > For supreme unction as it dies. > > Our private parts, united, groan > A sound that sighs, "I'm not alone" > An idiom that we reserve > For lexicons of lust - one verb. > > A dull language, however we > Swerve into perversity, > Permutate, or change position > In strange shapes of joint coition. > > The sweats of mingled ardours break > With more insistence than fears make: > Such modest sweat is oftener found > Than honour's detumescent sound. > > While Nanny Time waits at the door, > The infant anguish still cries more, > Oh more of this enchanting juice > Which bathes our limbs in such excuse > > As relegates the marriage pact, > The mortgage, and all moral fact > To such reminders as may serve > To salt with guilt a meal of love." > > Till Death as bridegroom, Age as bride > Assert once more their ancient right, > And witnessed by the sexton worm > Remarry us within the tomb. > > Meanwhile the blood, like a faint rose > Defines the body's clasping hose, > Where on that equatorial zone > Flesh kisses flesh, but stays alone. > > Our quaint concerns with love or lust > Are problematics of the dust, > In which the liquid volumes rise > And flesh, not spirit, seeks the skies. > > I've never seen this Gioia poem, and, hard as it is to do so for me, I must admit that Robin is right in that it provides pretty damning evidence for Gioia's ineptitude as a formalist. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 01:36:24 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 06:36:24 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <10.152476f0.291b7735@cs.com> Message-ID: <01c501c1681f$c12225c0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Oh, sarcasm, srarcasm ... 'Twas not a poor thing of Dana's but mine own. If you want to knock it, please be more pertinemt -- howsabaout you take on the scansion of the lines? Oh, I'm REALLY hurt [ow!!!] . Robin (whimper) [Aw, dat pome was published somewhere -- _Outposts_? Whatever. Can't be bothered to check. Long time passing ... Ro.] (Oh, if you're SERIOUS about challenging the metrics of the poem, try crossing Auden with Marvell -- have fun! D2) ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 5:50 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) > In a message dated 11/7/2001 11:26:45 PM Central Standard Time, > robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > > > > > > PERSUASIONS TO ENJOY > > > > Though thoughts of you indeed aspire > > Yet love is rooted in desire, > > Impulse half-brother to the lust > > So early sprung from human dust. > > > > A reasonable plain intent > > Is all our bodies can invent, > > In which the weaker vessel cries > > For supreme unction as it dies. > > > > Our private parts, united, groan > > A sound that sighs, "I'm not alone" > > An idiom that we reserve > > For lexicons of lust - one verb. > > > > A dull language, however we > > Swerve into perversity, > > Permutate, or change position > > In strange shapes of joint coition. > > > > The sweats of mingled ardours break > > With more insistence than fears make: > > Such modest sweat is oftener found > > Than honour's detumescent sound. > > > > While Nanny Time waits at the door, > > The infant anguish still cries more, > > Oh more of this enchanting juice > > Which bathes our limbs in such excuse > > > > As relegates the marriage pact, > > The mortgage, and all moral fact > > To such reminders as may serve > > To salt with guilt a meal of love." > > > > Till Death as bridegroom, Age as bride > > Assert once more their ancient right, > > And witnessed by the sexton worm > > Remarry us within the tomb. > > > > Meanwhile the blood, like a faint rose > > Defines the body's clasping hose, > > Where on that equatorial zone > > Flesh kisses flesh, but stays alone. > > > > Our quaint concerns with love or lust > > Are problematics of the dust, > > In which the liquid volumes rise > > And flesh, not spirit, seeks the skies. > > > > > > I've never seen this Gioia poem, and, hard as it is to do so for me, I must > admit that Robin is right in that it provides pretty damning evidence for > Gioia's ineptitude as a formalist. > From BobGrumman Thu Nov 8 05:40:02 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 05:40:02 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <200111080134.fA81Ytv32573@mx15.mx.voyager.net> <019601c16815$4ad29080$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Message-ID: <3BEA6102.A8E@nut-n-but.net> Robin, for me your excercies in formalism doesn't work too well. It fails to scan in too many places (and I like formal poems to scan); on the other hand, it seems deadeningly repetitious, sensually: each stanza thunks like the previous one. I believe that is due to (1) its being formal PLUS (because that would not be enough to explain it) (2) its being a series of generalized assertions, pretty much. I also have trouble following some of your thought--for instance, what is this lust that's "so early sprung from human dust?" But you DO seem to me to have a good, effective vocabulary, and to be close to being able to knock out effective formal poems. There's a suggestion of archetypal depth to your piece, too, which I consider a requirement of poems of size. --Bob G. From halvard Thu Nov 8 07:33:24 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 07:33:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Anthrax and the slush pile Message-ID: FYI, the following from this morning's NYTimes: November 8, 2001 Publishers and Magazines Avoiding Unsolicited Mail By CELESTINE BOHLEN npublished authors are used to rejection, but these days they can blame anthrax. Anthrax has not only cost lives and caused panic, but also emerged as one more excuse for all but a handful of publishing houses not to read unsolicited manuscripts. At The New Yorker, one of the most celebrated first stops on the road to literary success in America, no regular mail is getting through right now, period. As of this week, there are thousands of short stories, poems, queries and letters in an unidentified mailroom somewhere as editors and publishers ponder what to do next. In the meantime, literary agents, fiction and poetry magazines and small publishing houses that pride themselves on reading all their mail continue to plow through their slush piles, the trade term for mailings from would-be authors. But they are definitely being more careful. "Last week a package from Pakistan came tied up in twine, and we all went into a panic and placed somewhat hysterical phone calls to 911," said Kathy Pories, an editor at the North Carolina office of Algonquin Books. "Then when we went in the files, we found a letter saying it was coming, and so we went and fished it out of the Dumpster." There are lessons for new authors in these suspicious times, and the first is to include a return address on any letter or package. Several publishing houses, which habitually return unsolicited manuscripts unread, are now simply junking those that come without any identification. "We don't accept unsolicited manuscripts for review," said Lisa Herling, director for corporate communications at HarperCollins. "We send a card in response to those that come in with a return address, and those that don't, we discard." Unsolicited mail from unknown sources "doesn't even make it out of the mailroom," said Adam Rothberg, spokesman for Simon & Schuster. "We have always had a policy that we don't read unsolicited manuscripts," he added. "This has given us an opportunity to reiterate this policy." Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for Random House Inc., would not discuss mailroom policies. "We don't make them public because we feel it is a matter that we are handling privately," he said. "Unsolicited manuscripts is not something we have encouraged in the past, and we do not encourage them now." Indeed, it has been many years since junior editorial assistants at major publishing houses were given the job of reading their way through the slush pile. One editorial assistant with a New York publisher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he and his peers still met once a month or so to address the return mail. They can dip into the pile and read anything they want, he said, "but I haven't known anyone who has done that." He added that the backed up manuscripts would probably not be returned, but that the meetings would eventually resume. Still, the myth of miraculous discoveries ? like Alan Paton's "Cry, the Beloved Country," spotted in 1947 by a young editor at Scribners ? has lingered. Jason Epstein, former editorial director at Random House, said he remembered when a "permanent atomic cloud" of 8,000 to 10,000 unsolicited manuscripts used to circulate around the publishing houses on an unending circuit. "I swear some of them were floating around for 15 years," he said. But even then, when young editors or receptionists were obliged to at least glance through a manuscript's opening pages, the odds of spotting a good book, let alone a best seller, were very long. "It doesn't happen that way in real life," Mr. Epstein said. "In real life a writer will know a real writer who has an agent, and one thing leads to another and the manuscript gets into the hands of the agent and gets to a publisher." So now, the real frontline for untested authors are literary agents. It was in fact in the slush pile of a British agent that "Harry Potter" was first discovered in 1995 when J. K. Rowling, a single mother on welfare, sent in the first three chapters of what was published in England as "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" over the transom. "It must have been at the top" of the slush pile, her agent, Christopher Little, recounted later. "Because you pick up from the top." These days most agents say they are bombarded more by letters of inquiry than by boxed manuscripts. "We get 6,000 query letters from writers we don't know, and they all get opened," said Jean V. Naggar, who runs a literary agency in New York. Nothing has changed in the current climate except an added dose of fear, and some precautions. "It has been haunting my nights, I must confess," Ms. Naggar said. "And I have asked my assistant to wear gloves and a mask." Arthur Klebanoff, chief executive of the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, which charges $450 to authors who want their manuscripts read, said, "It is very hard to be in this business and then not open and read your mail, even if most of the mail you get is not ultimately of commercial value." Even before the anthrax scares, agents had in-house rules about mail that was probably not worth reading ? or eating. Donald Maass, who has his own literary agency and is the president of the Association of Authors' Representatives, has received fudge and cookies from aspiring authors. Now more than ever, the rule is never to eat the food, he said. "If the package is too crude, too taped together or with squishy stuff inside, then we think twice about opening it," Mr. Maass said. "We try to be on the lookout, but I am not greatly concerned." At Poetry Magazine, a monthly in Chicago that since 1912 has been printing poetry sent in by readers, the editors cannot afford to ignore unsolicited submissions. "We almost never solicit anything," said Joseph Parisi, an editor. "We absolutely depend on the mail. Every once in a while we get the nut case, but the worst we've had are dead bugs." Poetry's editors do not even reject letters that come in without return addresses. "The English almost never put a return address on envelopes for some reason," Mr. Parisi said. "So when we see a British stamp, particularly coming from Cambridge or Oxford, we think we are safe." The Poetry editors have taken standard precautions, but rejected certain safety measures. "For two days my assistant had gloves, and then I realized even the gloves would be spreading it around so what was the point?" Mr. Parisi said. At Algonquin Books in North Carolina, the volume of mail has decreased in recent weeks, suggesting that authors are aware that attracting an editor's attention by mail these days is an uncertain business. "We used to get 10 manuscripts a day, and now that number has been cut in half," Ms. Pories said. At The New Yorker, where mail deliveries were stopped much as they have been at other news publications, editors say they are hoping that a message on the Internet may persuade contributors to hold off. Bill Buford, fiction editor at The New Yorker, said submissions had gone up in recent years and in normal times averaged about 1,000 a week. Only rarely are manuscripts that come in over the transom published in the magazine. One exception was one by Thom Jones, whose first story in The New Yorker helped propel him as a celebrated and published short-story writer. But the magazine's fiction editors, aided by four or five readers, normally look through them all. The moratorium has been in place about two weeks. When and how it will end and what happens to the backlog is still "an unresolved question," Mr. Buford said. In the meantime, writers have resorted to private messengers, Federal Express and United Parcel Services as well as e-mail. "There is a real sense of loss that we cannot answer our mail," said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker. "Bad times require certain measures, but we hope it is temporary." Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information Hal Please stand clear of the closing doors. Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From Rsgwynn1 Thu Nov 8 09:32:10 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 09:32:10 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) Message-ID: <146.43d3558.291bf16a@cs.com> In a message dated 11/8/2001 12:42:04 AM Central Standard Time, robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > Oh, > > sarcasm, srarcasm ... > > 'Twas not a poor thing of Dana's but mine own. > > If you want to knock it, please be more pertinemt -- howsabaout you take on > the scansion of the lines? > > Oh, I'm REALLY hurt [ow!!!] . > > Robin > > (whimper) > > [Aw, dat pome was published somewhere -- _Outposts_? Whatever. Can't be > bothered to check. > > Long time passing ... > > Ro.] > Just kidding, of course. It scanned very nicely, but so do most of Dana's tetrameter poems. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From CobbCoStudioArts Thu Nov 8 09:44:58 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 06:44:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Aside: Gioia Message-ID: <20011108144458.25E3A2756@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 10:44:20 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 15:44:20 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <200111080134.fA81Ytv32573@mx15.mx.voyager.net> <019601c16815$4ad29080$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> <3BEA6102.A8E@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <08d501c1686c$4a49ed00$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Bob: > Robin, for me your excercies in formalism doesn't work too well. > It fails to scan in too many places (and I like formal poems to > scan); Could you be more specific? Give me a line, even? But if you're talking about, say, line 3: Impulse half-brother to the lust -- this may be a case of one-man's-formalism-is-another's-lapsus. A trochaic substitution in the first foot seems to me perfectly acceptable. But might not be to Gioia. (Incidentally, +did+ he coin that appalling term/concept, "promotion" [of syllables]?) > on the other hand, it seems deadeningly repetitious, > sensually: each stanza thunks like the previous one. Not quite sure I follow this -- do you mean the thought is repetitious, or the metre? (In the later case, I'd half-agree -- almost comes with the tetrameter territory.) > I believe > that is due to (1) its being formal PLUS (because that would > not be enough to explain it) (2) its being a series of generalized > assertions, pretty much. The grave's a fine and private place, But none I think do there embrace ... I was partly echoing Marvell rather than Carew's "Rapture" [which doesn't seem to be online -- ain't the Web prissy sometimes?] (though there is some Carew behind it). > I also have trouble following some of > your thought--for instance, what is this lust that's "so early sprung > from human dust?" Would have thought that was all too obvious, really -- Adam and red earth and the Bible and that. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Anyway, I +would+ be interested in which specific line you think don't scan. Cheers Robin From kellogg Thu Nov 8 11:01:53 2001 From: kellogg (David Kellogg) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 11:01:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Aside: Gioia In-Reply-To: <018901c16814$d1fc6be0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Message-ID: Robin, *De gustibus.* I'm not really a fan of Gioia's poetry, but lots of pretty bright people are. It seems odd for you to say Gioia's poetry "sucks" across the board without further justification and then demand specific criticism of your own little ditty. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines kellogg at duke.edu Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing (919) 660-4357 Duke University FAX (919) 660-4372 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ From duemer Thu Nov 8 11:55:36 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 11:55:36 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] composing practices In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Something has been gnawing away in the back of my mind since David Graham posted a description of Billy Collins' compositional habits. Walking across campus just now, I finally had a moment to think about it & what strikes me now, upon reflection, is that Collins all-in-one-go process & his sort of zen-lite approach to reality is certainly ONE way to conceive of writing a poem. But doesn't Collins go on in a rather more prescriptive vein, saying that he can see the marks of revision in many contemporary poems? My response to that would be, So? Lots of art visibly enacts its own process. And how many poets would we have to strike from the canon if we applied this measure? Speaking only for myself, I write in order to figure things out, to make a structure of meaning I can live with. And I usually have to claw for every word. My aesthetic valorizes awkwardness. (Years ago I wrote an review-essay that deals with this subject. It's on the web--if anybody wants to look at it, the url is: http://web.northnet.org/duemer/Duemer%20work/awk.htm) So, Mr. Collins, I won't object to your compositional methods if you won't object to mine, even if your methods usually lead down the same street. jd From Rsgwynn1 Thu Nov 8 12:08:32 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 12:08:32 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) Message-ID: <32.1d905b92.291c1610@cs.com> In a message dated 11/8/01 9:48:14 AM Central Standard Time, robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > . (Incidentally, +did+ he coin that appalling > term/concept, "promotion" [of syllables]?) > > This is pretty common, from Lew Turco and even earlier prosodists. But Tim Steele's book on meter is the main contemporary source of this, which which I have some disagreements. Your line: A dull language, however we strikes me as one of the few lines with which I'd quibble at all. iamb, trochee, iamb, iamb The reversed foot with no caesura before it is one of the toughest substitutions to carry off (though Milton was excessively fond of it). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 11:55:02 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 16:55:02 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Aside: Gioia References: Message-ID: <01ad01c16878$5e0c1960$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Fair enough -- I'll hunt down the three or so Gioia poems that turned me off. (Having read them, I didn't feel inclined to go further. Though I did track down some of his writing on metrics.) And I wasn't asking for comment on my "little ditty", merely that Bob specified the lines he found unmetrical. I didn't even, please not, ask him to scan them. If he suggests a line is unmetrical, +then+ the onus is on me to demonstrate otherwise. But I'm not about to scan the whole poem. Off to Hunt The Boyar ... Robin > *De gustibus.* I'm not really a fan of Gioia's poetry, but lots of pretty > bright people are. It seems odd for you to say Gioia's poetry "sucks" > across the board without further justification and then demand specific > criticism of your own little ditty. > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines > kellogg at duke.edu Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing > (919) 660-4357 Duke University > FAX (919) 660-4372 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ > > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From cstroffo Thu Nov 8 12:17:38 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 09:17:38 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Hamilton (continued) References: <200111080134.fA81Ytv32573@mx15.mx.voyager.net> <019601c16815$4ad29080$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> <3BEA6102.A8E@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <3BEABE32.B4622458@earthlink.net> Bob-- I'm curious what you mean when you say you have a hard time following Robin's thought about the lust "so early sprung from human dust"? Why? What would it mean to follow it more clearly? I liked that phrase; it, and several others, had a kind of Shakespearean edge to it. How do you, or any others on this list, follow Shakespeare's sonnet #129 (the 'redoubtable' lust sonnet) for instance---just curious.... think it would be great to get into a little bit of the logic of close reading here.... chris Bob Grumman wrote: > Robin, for me your excercies in formalism doesn't work too well. > It fails to scan in too many places (and I like formal poems to > scan); on the other hand, it seems deadeningly repetitious, > sensually: each stanza thunks like the previous one. I believe > that is due to (1) its being formal PLUS (because that would > not be enough to explain it) (2) its being a series of generalized > assertions, pretty much. I also have trouble following some of > your thought--for instance, what is this lust that's "so early sprung > from human dust?" But you DO seem to me to have a good, effective > vocabulary, and to be close to being able to knock out effective > formal poems. There's a suggestion of archetypal depth to your > piece, too, which I consider a requirement of poems of size. > > --Bob G. > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 12:12:23 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 17:12:23 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Aside: Gioia References: Message-ID: <01b201c16878$96d091e0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> >It seems odd for you to say Gioia's poetry "sucks" > across the board without further justification > David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines K -- to save repeating myself, here's my immediate response to Gioia when his name came up a few months ago on another list. I made the effort to track him down, looked at some of his poems, and wasn't impressed. Perhaps it's an exaggeration to say all of his poetry sucks, but I've yet to be presented with one of his that would make me want to turn the page. Robin *************** It's probably unfair to base a judgement on one poem selected at random, but ... From Dana Gioia's website: (I don't think I've quoted so much as to violate copyright -- material quoted in the context of fair comment -- OK, moderators?) The Next Poem How much better it seems now than when it is finally done- the unforgettable first line, the cunning way the stanzas run. The rhymes soft-spoken and suggestive are barely audible at first, an appetite not yet acknowledged like the inkling of a thirst. abcb has to be a cop-out. This is much the easiest of the quatrain forms. And that first verse -- the last line finally reaches regular iambic octameter. Is this deliberate (I think there could be a case made out for this in the larger context of the poem, but ...) or is it that the rhythms of lines 1-3 [especially line 2] simply aren't in focus? And behind the whole poem, the ghost of Auden. In fact, I'm tempted to say the poem is a bad pastiche of Auden. "No jumble box of imagery" (Gioia) -- "Jumbled in a common box" (Auden). If I want to read Auden, I'll read Auden, not Auden-and-water. Gioia again: The music that of common speech but slanted so that each detail sounds unexpected as a sharp inserted in a simple scale. That "detail" -- the only way to make rhythmic sense (and the context of the rhyme with "scale" emphasises this) is to twist the normal pronunciation of DEtail to deTAIL. This after a line mentioning the music of common speech (sic!). Or is this a complex postmodern example of irony? OK someone, convince me why I should bother to read another Gioia poem. Maybe this isn't typical? But ... Robin From paul.lake Thu Nov 8 01:03:49 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 00:03:49 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: <3BE9AE09.7A58@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: on 11/7/01 3:56 PM, Bob Grumman at BobGrumman at nut-n-but.net wrote: >> I agree with Gywn. The official poetry culture tries its best to ignore >> Gioia--not an easy task, given his ubiquity. No New Formalist will ever be >> the nation's laureate--at least not within the next decade. It's a sure bet >> that Dana won't be picked for the job. >> >> Paul Lake > > So, who does everyone think will become poet laureate sooner: a new > formalist or a language poet? The language poets are becoming > mainstream pretty rapidly, it seems to me, but I still think a > new formalist will beat them to the position. Certainly no visual > poet will give either of them any competition. > > --Bob G. > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > It's a tough call, Bob. Most likely it'll first be a language poet. In fact, some might consider the recent winner Ann Lauterbach to be a poet in the Lang-po school. Paul Lake From Rsgwynn1 Thu Nov 8 12:23:36 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 12:23:36 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] composing practices Message-ID: In a message dated 11/8/01 10:57:32 AM Central Standard Time, duemer at clarkson.edu writes: > So, > Mr. Collins, I won't object to your compositional methods if you won't > object to mine, even if your methods usually lead down the same street. > > I do a lot of revision before I ever get to the computer. One of the things I've found most useful is one of those tiny little tape recorders, which I always carry when I drive. I can put together fragments of lines, whole stanzas, afterthought lines, etc. on a long cross-country drive and transcribe them when I get to my destination. Obviously I use up more petroleum reserves than rain forests in writing (the word is figurative) my poems. But I do compose for the ear first, even if it's just a matter of listening to myself. I agree with one thing of Collins's remark, which is that most poems start with me with some kind of beginning--a title, an opening line, a conceit, a tune in my head. I rarely begin with some kind of definite ending in mind. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paul.lake Thu Nov 8 01:15:28 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 00:15:28 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Anthrax and slush pile Message-ID: Hal, an interesting article. About three weeks ago, I sent The New Yorker a poem and it came back in like a week and a half, with a rejection slip in it. But since the last time I submitted there I'd received a handwritten note (of rejection, alas), I wondered if indeed editors were actually reading submissions. A week and a half turn around is highly unusual. Yesterday, an editor sent me a stack of manuscripts to judge for a contest--by UPS, partly to avoid the US mail. Paul Lake From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 12:43:24 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 17:43:24 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <32.1d905b92.291c1610@cs.com> Message-ID: <01c701c1687d$00372820$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> > > . (Incidentally, +did+ he coin that appalling > > term/concept, "promotion" [of syllables]?) > > > > > > This is pretty common, from Lew Turco and even earlier prosodists. But Tim > Steele's book on meter is the main contemporary source of this, which which I > have some disagreements. Hey, thanks -- I tried to chase this down, ages ago when it came up, but couldn't find it in either (the obvious place) _The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics_ or (in a metrical context) OED2. I've Turco on my shelves, so I'll look there. But isn't Tim Steele A Dedicated Follower of Gioia? > Your line: A dull language, however we > > strikes me as one of the few lines with which I'd quibble at all. > > iamb, trochee, iamb, iamb > > The reversed foot with no caesura before it is one of the toughest > substitutions to carry off (though Milton was excessively fond of it). Yup -- fair do's. Your scansion is what it was meant to sound like (not rescuing the iamb by wrenching the stress on langUAGE). But you're right -- it doesn't work, even with the heavy caesura AFTER the trochee. If it were a recent poem, I'd be tempted to revise, but it goes way back ... Still, how about: Dull idioms, however we Lesser ionic descending, followed by two iambs. (I mean, if Marvell can get away with a DOUBLE substition of two lesser ionic ascending feet for four iambs in "The Garden" ...) Robin (PS -- didn't manage to find Turco -- was it _A Handbook of Forms_ you had in mind? -- but did discover that Derek Attridge, in _The Rhythms of English Poetry_ has some pages on it. But I still can't see for the life of me why it's necessary, if you accept the basic Wimsatt/Beardsley "Concept ... Abstraction" point that metrical ictus is a matter of stress +contrast+ rather than absolute stress. R2) From duemer Thu Nov 8 12:55:44 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 12:55:44 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] composing practices In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <> True for me as well, though pretty often the beginning I begin with gets thrown out. I've tried the tape recorder thing, but feel too self conscious, even alone in the car, to make it work for me. I understand John Lennon used to write a lot of his songs that way. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maxpaul Thu Nov 8 12:56:20 2001 From: maxpaul (MAXINE CHERNOFF) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 09:56:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Is Ann Lauterbach a language poet? No more than Kenneth Koch is a new formalist. Maxine Chernoff On Thu, 8 Nov 2001, Paul Lake wrote: > on 11/7/01 3:56 PM, Bob Grumman at BobGrumman at nut-n-but.net wrote: > > >> I agree with Gywn. The official poetry culture tries its best to ignore > >> Gioia--not an easy task, given his ubiquity. No New Formalist will ever be > >> the nation's laureate--at least not within the next decade. It's a sure bet > >> that Dana won't be picked for the job. > >> > >> Paul Lake > > > > So, who does everyone think will become poet laureate sooner: a new > > formalist or a language poet? The language poets are becoming > > mainstream pretty rapidly, it seems to me, but I still think a > > new formalist will beat them to the position. Certainly no visual > > poet will give either of them any competition. > > > > --Bob G. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > It's a tough call, Bob. Most likely it'll first be a language poet. In > fact, some might consider the recent winner Ann Lauterbach to be a poet in > the Lang-po school. > > Paul Lake > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From cstroffo Thu Nov 8 12:59:54 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 09:59:54 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] composing practices References: Message-ID: <3BEAC81A.51225905@earthlink.net> Ah, writing to figure things out--- that doesn't seem to be very popular these days-- (I'm not being sarcastic)----and hooray for awkwardness-- Joseph, I'm glad to see you urging a "pact" with Collins-- And I don't think Collins is necessarily being prescriptive--- after all he wrote a very nice blurb for David Berman's poetry which may not "visibly enact its own process" as much as, say, Ashbery, but which certainly bears "the marks of revision." Chris Joseph Duemer wrote: > Something has been gnawing away in the back of my mind since David Graham > posted a description of Billy Collins' compositional habits. Walking across > campus just now, I finally had a moment to think about it & what strikes me > now, upon reflection, is that Collins all-in-one-go process & his sort of > zen-lite approach to reality is certainly ONE way to conceive of writing a > poem. But doesn't Collins go on in a rather more prescriptive vein, saying > that he can see the marks of revision in many contemporary poems? My > response to that would be, So? Lots of art visibly enacts its own process. > And how many poets would we have to strike from the canon if we applied this > measure? > > Speaking only for myself, I write in order to figure things out, to make a > structure of meaning I can live with. And I usually have to claw for every > word. My aesthetic valorizes awkwardness. (Years ago I wrote an review-essay > that deals with this subject. It's on the web--if anybody wants to look at > it, the url is: http://web.northnet.org/duemer/Duemer%20work/awk.htm) So, > Mr. Collins, I won't object to your compositional methods if you won't > object to mine, even if your methods usually lead down the same street. > > jd > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From Rsgwynn1 Thu Nov 8 13:05:19 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 13:05:19 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) Message-ID: <9c.15f0725b.291c235f@cs.com> In a message dated 11/8/01 11:48:07 AM Central Standard Time, robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > . But isn't Tim Steele A Dedicated > Follower of Gioia? > > I don't think Tim would approve this epithet. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Thu Nov 8 13:06:59 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 13:06:59 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) Message-ID: <10e.7d2e0de.291c23c3@cs.com> In a message dated 11/8/01 11:48:07 AM Central Standard Time, robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > > Still, how about: > > Dull idioms, however we > > Lesser ionic descending, followed by two iambs. > > (I mean, if Marvell can get away with a DOUBLE substition of two lesser > ionic ascending feet for four iambs in "The Garden" ...) > > Robin > A standard substitution here. > (PS -- didn't manage to find Turco -- was it _A Handbook of Forms_ you had > in mind? -- but did discover that Derek Attridge, in _The Rhythms of English > Poetry_ has some pages on it. But I still can't see for the life of me why > it's necessary, if you accept the basic Wimsatt/Beardsley "Concept ... > Abstraction" point that metrical ictus is a matter of stress +contrast+ > rather than absolute stress. > > R2) > > Turco's Book of Forms and Steele's All the Fun's in How You Say a Thing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Thu Nov 8 13:07:59 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 13:07:59 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece Message-ID: <72.128e3c5d.291c23ff@cs.com> In a message dated 11/8/01 11:56:59 AM Central Standard Time, maxpaul at sfsu.edu writes: > Is Ann Lauterbach a language poet? No more than Kenneth Koch is a new > formalist. Maxine Chernoff > Lauterback, at least judging from the one book of hers I read a few years back, is a pretty solid Ashberian. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 13:02:34 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 18:02:34 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Hamilton (continued) References: <200111080134.fA81Ytv32573@mx15.mx.voyager.net> <019601c16815$4ad29080$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> <3BEA6102.A8E@nut-n-but.net> <3BEABE32.B4622458@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <01f301c16881$e96d2a40$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> From: "Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino" > How do you, or any others on this list, follow Shakespeare's sonnet #129 > > (the 'redoubtable' lust sonnet) for instance---just curious.... > think it would be great to get into a little bit of the logic of close > reading here.... There's a lovely analysis of this in (of all places!) Robert Graves and Laura Riding's _A Survey of Modernist Poetry_. And as to Graves (and by association of ideas with [American] [neo]formalist poetry), Carcanet have now issued his _Complete Poems_ in three volumes (or one, if you can live without the notes). Volume 1 is probably the juicy one -- masses of poems Graves successively striped from the various _Collecteds_. All the war poems, for instance. Now +there's+ a REAL formalist for you ... Robin [Useless fact of the day -- Thomas Carew's "Ask me no more ..." appears in the final (miscellaneous authors) section of the 1640 Benson edition of Shakespeare's poems. As "anon". The same year Carew dies. Dunno what this means, but it ought to mean something ... R2] From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 13:37:28 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 18:37:28 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <10e.7d2e0de.291c23c3@cs.com> Message-ID: <021601c16884$83c6cc20$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> > > Lesser ionic descending, followed by two iambs. > > > > (I mean, if Marvell can get away with a DOUBLE substition of two lesser > > ionic ascending feet for four iambs in "The Garden" ...) > > A standard substitution here. The ascending (or Gizza a Spondee, Mate!) certainly is -- X X / /. Almost a rhythmic cliche. I'm less sure how common (or successful) the ascending -- / / X X -- is. Robin From paul.lake Thu Nov 8 02:14:05 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 01:14:05 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) In-Reply-To: <9c.15f0725b.291c235f@cs.com> Message-ID: on 11/8/01 12:05 PM, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com at Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: > In a message dated 11/8/01 11:48:07 AM Central Standard Time, > robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > > >> . But isn't Tim Steele A Dedicated >> Follower of Gioia? >> >> > > I don't think Tim would approve this epithet. Yeah, ?co-conspirator? is how he?s described in FBI files. Paul -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maxpaul Thu Nov 8 13:51:03 2001 From: maxpaul (MAXINE CHERNOFF) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 10:51:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: <72.128e3c5d.291c23ff@cs.com> Message-ID: Is Ashbery a language poet? MC On Thu, 8 Nov 2001 Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: > In a message dated 11/8/01 11:56:59 AM Central Standard Time, > maxpaul at sfsu.edu writes: > > > > Is Ann Lauterbach a language poet? No more than Kenneth Koch is a new > > formalist. Maxine Chernoff > > > > Lauterback, at least judging from the one book of hers I read a few years > back, is a pretty solid Ashberian. > From GrahamD Thu Nov 8 14:39:50 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 13:39:50 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Aside: Gioia Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFEC@mail.ripon.edu> A footnote on scansion. Is the word pronounced DE-tail or de-TAIL? Well, it depends on where you're from. In many regions of the US, at least, de-TAIL is common. Both pronunciations are listed as acceptable in Webster's 9th Collegiate Dictionary, for example. One of the perennial vexations of trying to erect a systematic theory of scansion is that English speakers differ rather a lot from each other in terms of accent, don't they? (That's one reason we call it an "accent," as I point out to my students each semester when we do scansion.) We must tread a little carefully when gazing across the Atlantic, from either direction, I'd say. Joe Duemer talks about the aesthetic pleasures of deliberate awkwardness, and I think that gets to one of the frequent differences between English and U.S. poetics. We colonials have a rather long tradition (since Dickinson, Emerson, Melville, and Whitman, at least) of finding pleasure in sounds (including metrics) that diverge a bit from earlier English practice. In fact, conditioned by my love of Dickinson, I often find slant rhymes more beautiful than full ones, no matter how skillfully rendered. So, among other things: one person's skillful deployment of metrics is another person's sing-song, along with the obvious corollaries. We ought not to forget that. David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Robin Hamilton > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Thursday, November 8, 2001 11:12 AM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Aside: Gioia > > >It seems odd for you to say Gioia's poetry "sucks" > > across the board without further justification > > > David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines > > K -- to save repeating myself, here's my immediate response to Gioia when > his name came up a few months ago on another list. I made the effort to > track him down, looked at some of his poems, and wasn't impressed. > Perhaps > it's an exaggeration to say all of his poetry sucks, but I've yet to be > presented with one of his that would make me want to turn the page. > > Robin > > *************** > > It's probably unfair to base a judgement on one poem selected at random, > but > > ... From Dana Gioia's website: > > (I don't think I've quoted so much as to violate copyright -- material > quoted in the context of fair comment -- OK, moderators?) > > The Next Poem > > How much better it seems now > than when it is finally done- > the unforgettable first line, > the cunning way the stanzas run. > > The rhymes soft-spoken and suggestive > are barely audible at first, > an appetite not yet acknowledged > like the inkling of a thirst. > > abcb has to be a cop-out. This is much the easiest of the quatrain forms. > > And that first verse -- the last line finally reaches regular iambic > octameter. Is this deliberate (I think there could be a case made out for > this in the larger context of the poem, but ...) or is it that the rhythms > of lines 1-3 [especially line 2] simply aren't in focus? > > And behind the whole poem, the ghost of Auden. In fact, I'm tempted to > say > the poem is a bad pastiche of Auden. "No jumble box of imagery" (Gioia) > -- > "Jumbled in a common box" (Auden). If I want to read Auden, I'll read > Auden, not Auden-and-water. > > Gioia again: > > The music that of common speech > but slanted so that each detail > sounds unexpected as a sharp > inserted in a simple scale. > > That "detail" -- the only way to make rhythmic sense (and the context of > the > rhyme with "scale" emphasises this) is to twist the normal pronunciation > of > DEtail to deTAIL. This after a line mentioning the music of common speech > (sic!). Or is this a complex postmodern example of irony? > > OK someone, convince me why I should bother to read another Gioia poem. > Maybe this isn't typical? But ... > > Robin > > From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 14:56:20 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 19:56:20 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: Message-ID: <001201c1688f$a701a740$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Well, it's all a strange and foreign country to me -- I was only +just+ beginning to get my head round LangPo when I was confronted by Giaio and Neoformalism. (NEOformalism? When did it leave?) Robin (from That Offshore Island) [I mean, the closest I came to America was when Fred Nims published me in _Poetry_(Chicago). Eliot, Pound, Stevens .... and me. *JOKE* {in case anyone missed it} (142:6: September 1983: 322-324) R2] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Lake" To: Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 7:14 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) on 11/8/01 12:05 PM, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com at Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: > In a message dated 11/8/01 11:48:07 AM Central Standard Time, > robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > > >> . But isn't Tim Steele A Dedicated >> Follower of Gioia? >> >> > > I don't think Tim would approve this epithet. Yeah, ?co-conspirator? is how he?s described in FBI files. Paul From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 16:10:11 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 21:10:11 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Aside: Gioia References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFEC@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <001601c1689a$93ecb360$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> From: "Graham, David" > A footnote on scansion. Is the word pronounced DE-tail or de-TAIL? Well, > it depends on where you're from. In many regions of the US, at least, > de-TAIL is common. Both pronunciations are listed as acceptable in > Webster's 9th Collegiate Dictionary, for example. Yes -- this was an issue that came up as soon as I raised this last July. I'd just so +love+ to give a URL to the archives, but as the archives (and the list itself) are currently closed in the wake of The Identity Wars ... (Who said poetry didn't matter?) But DEtail or deTAIL aside, I still think the Gioia poem I was analysing was metrically incoherent, regardless of which side of The Pond you read it on. > One of the perennial vexations of trying to erect a systematic theory of > scansion is that English speakers differ rather a lot from each other in > terms of accent, don't they? (That's one reason we call it an "accent," as > I point out to my students each semester when we do scansion.) Indeed, and ... > We must tread a little carefully when gazing across the Atlantic, from > either direction, I'd say. .. it's not only an Across The Pond problem. My natural ear is seven years of Ayrshire (rural Scotland) overlaid by coming on for twenty of (varieties of) [urban] Glasgow. One thing this seems to result in is (if you-all will forgive me this anecdotal intrusion) that I have no problems (soundwise) with Pound/Stevens/Eliot, but I +still+ can't get my ear around WCW. BUT ... I have exactly the same problem with Thomas Hardy (whose poetry I love, but each new Hardy poem is Another River To Cross). And (before I heard him read) Tom Paulin. As Tom is basically Northern Irish Belfast, which is pretty close to most of the versions of Glasgow I grew up with, this is really odd. Suggests that those Mean Streets where accents divide are both close thegither and far apart ... > Joe Duemer talks about the aesthetic pleasures > of deliberate awkwardness, and I think that gets to one of the frequent > differences between English and U.S. poetics. We colonials have a rather > long tradition (since Dickinson, Emerson, Melville, and Whitman, at least) > of finding pleasure in sounds (including metrics) that diverge a bit from > earlier English practice. Uh ... A curious quartet, but to single out the Blessed Emily, I thought she based mostly on the New English Hymnbook? (And if you want you-can't-scan-this-but-it-works, try Stevie Smith. And didn't Whitman draw to some degree on Blake's Prophetic Books? Tangled and curiouser.) > In fact, conditioned by my love of Dickinson, I > often find slant rhymes more beautiful than full ones, no matter how > skillfully rendered. Real question (for once -- not simply rhetorical posturing) -- I thought all rhymes before Owen were full rhyme, and the appearance of slant/off rhyme was due to pronunciation shift over time? > So, among other things: one person's skillful deployment of metrics is > another person's sing-song, along with the obvious corollaries. We ought > not to forget that. Well, not just ... the metrical catastrophe in England post-Tottel and pre-Sidney (HIT the BEAT and ON ly'the BEAT) was real and not just impressionistic. And at that point, (North) America was only a gleam in the eye of hopeful cartographers. Robin From JackKerouac25 Thu Nov 8 16:20:35 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 16:20:35 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) Message-ID: <15b.3bede95.291c5123@aol.com> In a message dated 11/8/01 2:00:56 PM Central Standard Time, robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > (NEOformalism? When did it leave?) Wow...how many times have I heard this one? Sounds like Eliot Weinberger to me. Cheers JLN Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JackKerouac25 Thu Nov 8 16:24:18 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 16:24:18 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Aside: Gioia Message-ID: <148.44890c8.291c5202@aol.com> In a message dated 11/8/01 11:16:24 AM Central Standard Time, robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > OK someone, convince me why I should bother to read another Gioia poem. > Maybe this isn't typical? But ... > > Robin > > Why should anyone _want_ to convince you to read anybody? There are plenty of "established" poets that I don't read. I don't see anybody posting Ashberry all over this list, demanding that "someone" convince him of Ashberry's prowess. Sheesh--this thread reminds me of the old, "Could God make a rock so big that He couldn't lift it?" argument. JLN Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 17:08:23 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 22:08:23 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Aside: Gioia References: <148.44890c8.291c5202@aol.com> Message-ID: <004d01c168a3$a81215c0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> > > OK someone, convince me why I should bother to read another Gioia poem. > > Maybe this isn't typical? But ... > > > > Robin > > Why should anyone _want_ to convince you to read anybody? There are plenty > of "established" poets that I don't read. I don't see anybody posting > Ashberry all over this list, demanding that "someone" convince him of > Ashberry's prowess. > > Sheesh--this thread reminds me of the old, "Could God make a rock so big that > He couldn't lift it?" argument. > > JLN Issues here -- Ashbery (SIC!) baffles the hell out of me. But I'm prepared to take the Tennis Court Oath that he might be worth paying attention to. Gioia, au contraire, seems for all I can see to be a pimple on the left buttock of The Nation. Compadre, you seem to be maybe a mite parochial on this. Robin (obviously on the rong sight of the pound.) [OK -- I +know+ New Poetry is an American list. I try, I really +do+ try. But heavens to betsy, is the +only+ thing happening over there a LangPo vs. Neoformalist fight? Galway Kinnell isn't dead yet. For all the faffing around of Neoformalist vs. LangPo, has anyone mentioned "The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World"? When you forget your own ... {Or, if Kinnell is too obscure, howsabout John Crowe Ransom? How would Gioia have scanned +him+?} R2] (And as to the God-and-the-rock argument, this has been hashed and rehashed in all three of the major monotheistic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- and the general consensus is (to cut a story) No! Yesterday's weak-brewed tea. D2) From CobbCoStudioArts Thu Nov 8 17:31:11 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 14:31:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) Message-ID: <20011108223112.147F32756@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 17:29:19 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 22:29:19 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <15b.3bede95.291c5123@aol.com> Message-ID: <004e01c168a4$e80ee4e0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> (trying to keep my temper) ... ... but as this might just be a Cross Pond issue .. ... but the Metrical Consensus held here (in the YoubeNightedKingdom from Sidney in 1598 to (maybe) Pound's HSM in 1915. As HSM is laced with metrically-strict quatrains, it's just a little difficult to lose a formalist line ... Then (here) next down the line is Auden (whose second-favourite book was Saintsbury's _History of English Prosody_). And now Heaney. (Sorry, I +know+ the current English Laureate is Andrew Motion, but as that's pretty much of a joke ...) And if you run the UNOFFICIAL line -- Hardy/Graves/Harrison, it's even +more+ formalist. While in The Nation, what do you have? Stevens writing blank verse in "Sunday Morning". The Nation's Laureate (Frost) refusing to play tennis without nets ... Lowell doing his peculiar blank-verse thing ... So I ask again, where is the Neo in Neoformalist? Robin ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 9:20 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) > In a message dated 11/8/01 2:00:56 PM Central Standard Time, > robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > > > > (NEOformalism? When did it leave?) > > Wow...how many times have I heard this one? > > Sounds like Eliot Weinberger to me. > > Cheers > > JLN > > > Jeffrey L. Newberry > Adjunct Instructor > Department of English and Foreign Languages > University of West Florida > 11000 University Parkway > Pensacola, FL 32514 > 850.474.2923 > 850.473.7330 > From BobGrumman Thu Nov 8 17:35:18 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 17:35:18 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: Message-ID: <3BEB08A6.908@nut-n-but.net> new formalist or language poet--which will first become poet laureate? > It's a tough call, Bob. Most likely it'll first be a language poet. In > fact, some might consider the recent winner Ann Lauterbach to be a poet in > the Lang-po school. > > Paul Lake I'm pretty sure she isn't but don't know here work that well. Some also think Ashbury a language poet--but he hasn't been poet laureate yet, has he? (And he definitely is not a language poet, by my definition.) --Bob G. From BobGrumman Thu Nov 8 17:42:35 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 17:42:35 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <200111080134.fA81Ytv32573@mx15.mx.voyager.net> <019601c16815$4ad29080$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> <3BEA6102.A8E@nut-n-but.net> <08d501c1686c$4a49ed00$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Message-ID: <3BEB0A5B.3B89@nut-n-but.net> Robin, I'm afraid I deleted the post with your poem after responding to it (and I thought you'd posted it for response). If you'd re-post it, I'll do a line-by-line. And answer yours and Chris's question about lust. I know what lust is and that dust is dead people, but don't see how lust comes from the dust. Need to see the poem again to see just what bothers me about it. --Bob G. --Bob G. From GrahamD Thu Nov 8 17:46:33 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 16:46:33 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Neoformalism Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFF3@mail.ripon.edu> The degree to which the "new" in "new formalism" is justified is a matter of ongoing dispute. I incline to see continuities, myself, where some of my fellow citizens see rupture. I've never been convinced of the argument (advanced in the book *Rebel Angels*, e.g.) that metrical verse suffered an eclipse--at least nothing like the sort of dramatic eclipse that's often suggested. But this opinion is not universally shared. In any case, it's a very hoary debate these days, and many of us are tired of it. LangPo vs. Neoform? These dualisms are particularly tedious, I think, but understandable. Those who are nearer the ends of various aesthetic spectra naturally attract a lot of ink relative to their actual readership, while poets in what Bob G. calls "the knownstream" sometimes don't. Haven't heard anyone mention Kinnell's "Avenue" in a very long time. Brought me back to my youth. . . . (Anyone wanna talk about Kinnell?) =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Robin Hamilton > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Thursday, November 8, 2001 4:29 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) > > (trying to keep my temper) ... > > ... but as this might just be a Cross Pond issue .. > > ... but the Metrical Consensus held here (in the YoubeNightedKingdom from > Sidney in 1598 to (maybe) Pound's HSM in 1915. > > As HSM is laced with metrically-strict quatrains, it's just a little > difficult to lose a formalist line ... > > Then (here) next down the line is Auden (whose second-favourite book was > Saintsbury's _History of English Prosody_). > > And now Heaney. (Sorry, I +know+ the current English Laureate is Andrew > Motion, but as that's pretty much of a joke ...) > > And if you run the UNOFFICIAL line -- Hardy/Graves/Harrison, it's even > +more+ formalist. > > While in The Nation, what do you have? > > Stevens writing blank verse in "Sunday Morning". > > The Nation's Laureate (Frost) refusing to play tennis without nets ... > > Lowell doing his peculiar blank-verse thing ... > > So I ask again, where is the Neo in Neoformalist? > > Robin > > From duemer Thu Nov 8 17:40:19 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 17:40:19 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <15b.3bede95.291c5123@aol.com> <004e01c168a4$e80ee4e0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Message-ID: <003001c168a6$5837db40$18724342@twcny.rr.com> Robin, in order to promote themselves as oppressed victims of an academic orthodoxy of free verse fascists, Gioia, Steele & all the lesser lights have had to set up Pound / Eliot as the progenitors of metrical chaos. Steele makes this argument explicitly in his book Missing Measures. Then they can publish an anthology of very ordinary suburban meditations on the troubles of owning a Ford & finding good schools for the kids & give it the title Rebel Angels! It's a sort of magic trick, actually, but pretty convincing, apparently, since what few literary intellectuals we have left over here have bought the category of New Formalist. Me, I'm an old formalist. I'm a fucking Neolithic formalist. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From duemer Thu Nov 8 17:41:43 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 17:41:43 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps References: <15b.3bede95.291c5123@aol.com> <004e01c168a4$e80ee4e0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Message-ID: <003101c168a6$8a788aa0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> And Ransom, Ah, Ransom--one of the beautiful fascists. But if there is a more beautiful lyric elegy than "Dead Boy," I don't know what it is. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 17:49:02 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 22:49:02 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <20011108223112.147F32756@sitemail.everyone.net> Message-ID: <005c01c168a7$ad8e5d20$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Aw, SHUCKS!!! Wanna see my Charles Cotton ("Laura Sleeping") imitation? Jus' be glad I never tried a rip of Carew's "The Rapture". Robin (Hey, fans, anyone want to read the "Gasgoigne's Lullaby" transposition? I do seem to have this thing about tetrameters ... R2) How the Elements Loved Her (after Charles Cotton) The wilful winds that brush her cheeks and touch her lips with sly design Her dutiful attendants are to trace a shape no hands confine. The waters rising round her, lip the outer skin of her attire: Such swelling waves perturb tall ships, but modest from her thighs, retire. That surge, withdrawing, leaves his tears, those salty pearls on her skin; Unwilling captives to such fears as stun desire to vanquish sin. The sighing flowers about her feet in anxious blush abashed expire To distil scent almost as sweet as hers, which sets all souls afire. To clasp her single presence so all separate elements conspire That more than human she may go -- the sum of all the world's desire. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert R.Cobb" To: Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 10:31 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) > Robin, > Pretty sexy poem! > > Bob C. > > --- "Robin Hamilton" > > wrote: > >... and just to put my neck on the line. > > > >Robin the (octosyllabic) Formalist ... > > > > PERSUASIONS TO ENJOY From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 18:30:34 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 23:30:34 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps References: <15b.3bede95.291c5123@aol.com> <004e01c168a4$e80ee4e0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> <003101c168a6$8a788aa0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <007901c168ad$cda5a360$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> From: "Joseph Duemer" To: Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 10:41 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps > And Ransom, Ah, Ransom--one of the beautiful fascists. But if there is a > more beautiful lyric elegy than "Dead Boy," I don't know what it is. Ah, Ransom ... But if the epithet "beautiful fascist" has to go to anyone, surely it has to go to Rupert Brooke? And if we're chanting Ransom titles, how about: Carpenter Carpenter The Equilibrists Piazza Piece (But to be honest, "Dead Boy" makes me feel more than mildly sick. If we're talking about Great Elegies, how about Roethke's "Elegy for Jane", leave alone the howls of despair Berryman comes out with in the _Dream Songs_? Robin) From gmcvay Thu Nov 8 18:51:00 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 18:51:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Ashbery (with an e, one r) In-Reply-To: <3BEB08A6.908@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: >>> Some also think Ashb[e]ry a language poet--but he hasn't been poet laureate yet, has he? (And he definitely is not a language poet, by my definition.)<<< Little J.A. in his prospect of flowers has not been laureate, but would probably make one of the most interesting ones in the history of the position. Although _Tennis Court Oath_ definitely presages the work of the writers who published in L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, Ashbery is pretty solidly a New York School poet. All pigeons to their holes. Are the neoformalistas on a "hate-Ashbery" kick again? I'd never have thought them hippies.... Gwyn From BobGrumman Thu Nov 8 18:54:02 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 18:54:02 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <20011108223112.147F32756@sitemail.everyone.net> <005c01c168a7$ad8e5d20$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Message-ID: <3BEB1B19.7CA2@nut-n-but.net> No need to re-post a copy of your poem, Robin--I just found one. Will probably get back to you on it tomorrow. --Bob G. From duemer Thu Nov 8 18:49:12 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 18:49:12 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps References: <15b.3bede95.291c5123@aol.com> <004e01c168a4$e80ee4e0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> <003101c168a6$8a788aa0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> <007901c168ad$cda5a360$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Message-ID: <005f01c168af$f7dce920$18724342@twcny.rr.com> And isn't "Janet Waking" one of the weirder poems ever written? But the diction shift from baby talk to the Episcopalianism of "transmogrifying bee" is SO audacious. One can merely gape. I went to university at the U of Washington shortly after Roethke died, but it still seemed to be written into the contracts of English profs that they had to mention R a certain number of times every term. In those distant years I read R's poems many times, but I never much cottoned to "Elegy for Jane." During the same period I heard Berryman give one of his last readings--the first 77 dream songs were & are something so amazing that they inspire in me a kind of aesthetic awe; the other hundreds of them seem merely an explosion of despair, full of brilliant bits & fragments, but finally a loss--this includes the most histrionic of the father elegies. ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From BobGrumman Thu Nov 8 20:22:59 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 20:22:59 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <20011108223112.147F32756@sitemail.everyone.net> <005c01c168a7$ad8e5d20$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Message-ID: <3BEB2FF3.67A7@nut-n-but.net> okay, back to you before tomorrow, Robin: > > PERSUASIONS TO ENJOY > > > >Though thoughts of you indeed aspire > >Yet love is rooted in desire, > >Impulse half-brother to the lust break in scansion--but, sure, you can claim it's justified and give it a name, but it's still a break in scansion > >So early sprung from human dust. My problem here is what "lust" do you mean? If standard human lust, as in the Shakespeare sonnet Chris mentions, how did it spring from "human dust?" Pause. Okay, I see that the lust is what came with Adam and Eve's becoming mortal, or dust, but your figure still doesn't work since the lust did not come from the dust but came with the knowledge of the the dust to come, I suppose. > >A reasonable plain intent To get the scansion, you have to pronounce each syllable of "reasonable," which is okay but a little awkward. > >Is all our bodies can invent, > >In which the weaker vessel cries > >For supreme unction as it dies. I don't pronounce "supreme" "SUE preem." > >Our private parts, united, groan > >A sound that sighs, "I'm not alone" > >An idiom that we reserve > >For lexicons of lust - one verb. > > > >A dull language, however we way off here > >Swerve into perversity, and here > >Permutate, or change position / ^ ^ ^ / ^ / ^ furthest off yet > >In strange shapes of joint coition. To my ear you are no longer using iambs > > > >The sweats of mingled ardours break > >With more insistence than fears make: a little off here but okay > >Such modest sweat is oftener found okay with of'ner > >Than honour's detumescent sound. > > > >While Nanny Time waits at the door, > >The infant anguish still cries more, > >Oh more of this enchanting juice > >Which bathes our limbs in such excuse > > > >As relegates the marriage pact, > >The mortgage, and all moral fact > >To such reminders as may serve > >To salt with guilt a meal of love." > > > >Till Death as bridegroom, Age as bride > >Assert once more their ancient right, > >And witnessed by the sexton worm > >Remarry us within the tomb. > > > >Meanwhile the blood, like a faint rose loose here > >Defines the body's clasping hose, > >Where on that equatorial zone equator yal > >Flesh kisses flesh, but stays alone. > > > >Our quaint concerns with love or lust > >Are problematics of the dust, > >In which the liquid volumes rise > >And flesh, not spirit, seeks the skies. My problem with the poem overall is that it seems a bunch of flat statements about generalities using standard images-- a here's how I see things. That coupled with the very standard iambic (mostly) tetrameter quatrains makes everything about the poem, for me, seem thunky. This could well be just my taste, I dunno. --Bob G. From gmcvay Thu Nov 8 21:15:58 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 21:15:58 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] "Persuasions to Enjoy" References: <20011108223112.147F32756@sitemail.everyone.net> <005c01c168a7$ad8e5d20$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> <3BEB2FF3.67A7@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <3BEB3C49.2B554913@patriot.net> I'm afraid this wasn't greatly to my taste. I couldn't get past >Our private parts, united, groan >A sound that sighs, "I'm not alone" Leaving aside the equation of a groan with a sigh, it seems that the genitals here are unusually noisy. If not for the lines >Oh more of this enchanting juice >Which bathes our limbs [....] I would rather suspect insufficient lubrication. I'm sorry. I know this sounds rude. But these are truly my stumbling blocks in this poem; I didn't even get as far as engaging with its philosophical argument. The whole thing rather reminds me of a jokey little poem written by Gertrude Buckman at the time she was acting as the proximate cause of Robert Lowell's divorce from Jean Stafford (although, arguably, it was a mercy killing of a marital disaster which included Lowell's breaking Stafford's face in a gruesome car accident and then rebreaking the repaired nose by punching her). Would it were not so... Gwyn From kellogg Thu Nov 8 21:11:52 2001 From: kellogg (David Kellogg) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 21:11:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] "Persuasions to Enjoy" In-Reply-To: <3BEB3C49.2B554913@patriot.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 8 Nov 2001, Gwyn McVay wrote: > I'm afraid this wasn't greatly to my taste. I couldn't get past > > >Our private parts, united, groan > >A sound that sighs, "I'm not alone" > > Leaving aside the equation of a groan with a sigh, it seems that the > genitals here are unusually noisy. If not for the lines > > >Oh more of this enchanting juice > >Which bathes our limbs [....] > > I would rather suspect insufficient lubrication. Gwyn, this is the funniest thing I've read on this list in a while (Joe Duemer's neolithic fascist comment was also great). I laughed out loud. Thanks. I'm in agreement with you and Bob G. on the poem's merits in general. > I'm sorry. I know this sounds rude. But these are truly my stumbling > blocks in this poem; I didn't even get as far as engaging with its > philosophical argument. The whole thing rather reminds me of a jokey > little poem written by Gertrude Buckman at the time she was acting as > the proximate cause of Robert Lowell's divorce from Jean Stafford > (although, arguably, it was a mercy killing of a marital disaster which > included Lowell's breaking Stafford's face in a gruesome car accident > and then rebreaking the repaired nose by punching her). > > Would it were not so... Gwyn > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines kellogg at duke.edu Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing (919) 660-4357 Duke University FAX (919) 660-4372 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ From JackKerouac25 Thu Nov 8 21:19:44 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 21:19:44 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Aside: Gioia Message-ID: <14.1d49d9c7.291c9740@aol.com> In a message dated 11/8/01 4:25:29 PM Central Standard Time, robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > (And as to the God-and-the-rock argument, this has been hashed and rehashed > in all three of the major monotheistic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, > and Islam -- and the general consensus is (to cut a story) No! Yesterday's > weak-brewed tea. > Um...yeah. ??? I guess you didn't get it. Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From duemer Thu Nov 8 21:17:33 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 21:17:33 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] "Persuasions to Enjoy" References: Message-ID: <000c01c168c4$b134f0c0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> David, that was "Neolithic formalist," which is me--as opposed to those mere neos. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 21:21:25 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 02:21:25 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) References: <20011108223112.147F32756@sitemail.everyone.net> <005c01c168a7$ad8e5d20$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> <3BEB2FF3.67A7@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <00a901c168c5$a50e2c20$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> > My problem with the poem overall is that it seems a bunch > of flat statements about generalities using standard images-- > a here's how I see things. That coupled with the very standard > iambic (mostly) tetrameter quatrains makes everything about the > poem, for me, seem thunky. This could well be just my taste, I dunno. > > --Bob G. Bob: Actually, it's frigging COLD here. [Geez, I'm freezing TO DEATH!!!] Mostly (through teeth chattering) dunno that I go with you that far, but ... Tomorrow? K??? Robin` From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 21:35:11 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 02:35:11 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] BRAVEHEART!!! References: <20011108223112.147F32756@sitemail.everyone.net> <005c01c168a7$ad8e5d20$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> <3BEB2FF3.67A7@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <00b601c168c8$30eef880$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> ... lives, OK. NEVER RETREAT!! NEVER FORGIVE!!! (Which is a total joke, as the reason "Hamilton" is the commonest surname in Scotland is we retreated faster than any other clan. Please DON''T ask me why "Byrne" is the commonest surname in Ireland. My ex-wife might forgive me a joke on this, but not the Demon Princess. Oh, Sarge, hold my hand, I'm dying. (Christ, it's cold -- the pookas are biting my toes ... MANYANA, forever AHHHH!!!! {oops} Robin From robin.hamilton2 Thu Nov 8 21:47:46 2001 From: robin.hamilton2 (Robin Hamilton) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 02:47:46 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Aside: Gioia References: <14.1d49d9c7.291c9740@aol.com> Message-ID: <00ca01c168c9$3f8cecc0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> > > (And as to the God-and-the-rock argument, this has been hashed and rehashed > > in all three of the major monotheistic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, > > and Islam -- and the general consensus is (to cut a story) No! Yesterday's > > weak-brewed tea. > > > > Um...yeah. > > ??? > > I guess you didn't get it. > > > Jeffrey L. Newberry Uh ... Sorry. This came over as the standard undergrad argument. Did I miss something? Robin. (SLOWMO wins the Dick Tracey decoder ring ... R2) From kellogg Thu Nov 8 22:59:55 2001 From: kellogg (David Kellogg) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 22:59:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] "Persuasions to Enjoy" In-Reply-To: <000c01c168c4$b134f0c0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 8 Nov 2001, Joseph Duemer wrote: > > David, > that was "Neolithic formalist," which is me--as opposed to those mere neos. Formalist, fascist -- I get 'em so confused. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines kellogg at duke.edu Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing (919) 660-4357 Duke University FAX (919) 660-4372 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ From Rsgwynn1 Thu Nov 8 23:29:10 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 23:29:10 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) Message-ID: <146.44b74df.291cb596@cs.com> In a message dated 11/8/2001 4:34:00 PM Central Standard Time, robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: > So I ask again, where is the Neo in Neoformalist? > > Robin > Poets born since 1940. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Thu Nov 8 23:34:45 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 23:34:45 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] "Persuasions to Enjoy" Message-ID: <6d.1d187abc.291cb6e5@cs.com> In a message dated 11/8/2001 8:02:11 PM Central Standard Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: > arguably, it was a mercy killing of a marital disaster which > included Lowell's breaking Stafford's face in a gruesome car accident > and then rebreaking the repaired nose by punching her). > > The car wreck occurred before they were married, I believe. Not to justify the Mad Cal, but I'm sure J. S. gave as good as she got. One tough cookie. Ever read "An Influx of Poets"? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Thu Nov 8 23:38:30 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 23:38:30 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] "Persuasions to Enjoy" Message-ID: <127.6cefb6f.291cb7c6@cs.com> In a message dated 11/8/2001 10:02:19 PM Central Standard Time, kellogg at duke.edu writes: > > Formalist, fascist -- I get 'em so confused. > Same reason we Tarheel fans always referred to that school in Durham as "Puke." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JackKerouac25 Thu Nov 8 23:48:21 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 23:48:21 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Academy of American Poets Ousts Director Message-ID: <164.39c6d97.291cba15@aol.com> Howdy gang (and you too, Robin), I read this article from the NY Times and found it interesting. I guess I don't know the back story on this ousting; any comments about the article, the ousting, anything at all? Poets' Group Ousts Chief, Igniting Ire of Members November 7, 2001 By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK The board of the Academy of American Poets has ousted its popular executive director, William Wadsworth, setting off an uproar among some of the country's most prominent poets. The board is scheduled to meet today in an effort to quell some of the unrest among the academy's members, who have been enthusiastic about Mr. Wadsworth's expansive - and expensive - efforts to help stir interest in verse. Mr. Wadsworth, 51, a poet and former wine store owner, ran the 65-year-old organization for 12 years, during which he updated its image, increased its profile, created a popular Web site to encourage poetry reading and turned April into poetry month. But Jonathan Galassi, chairman of the academy's board, said that in the last two years the academy's programs had run up deficits of hundreds of thousands of dollars on a budget of about $3 million, with an even greater deficit expected this year. He said Mr. Wadsworth had been unwilling to taper the activity in the face of economic reality. "It wasn't a precipitous event," he said, adding that the board asked Mr. Wadsworth to resign after months of negotiations to resolve the budget shortfall. But poets around the country relished the new attention brought by Mr. Wadsworth's efforts, and many of them worry that his resignation signals that the organization's programs may be trimmed or curtailed in the wake of the economic downturn. His resignation has elicited letters from more than a dozen poets who serve on the academy's advisory board, including Adrienne Rich, Jorie Graham, Philip Levine, Robert Creeley, Galway Kinnell, Rosanna Warren, Susan Howe and J. D. McClatchy. Some have personally attacked Mr. Galassi, an accomplished poet himself and the editor in chief of the publishing house Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and Henry Reath, the president of the board and the former publisher of Doubleday. "Had some clan of Yahoos wanted to wreck the Academy of American Poets," Mr. Levine wrote to Mr. Reath, "they could not have done a more effective job than you and Galassi and the inner circle of executives did by forcing the `stepping down' - the firing - of Bill Wadsworth." Eliot Weinberger, a poetry translator, sent a widely circulated e-mail message calling on others to protest to Mr. Galassi. "It was a kind of legal coup d'etat, in that the executive committee fired him without consulting the rest of the board," he said. "Bill is just about the most loved person working in one of the literary service organizations that I can think of - he is the only one who can really negotiate the balkans of American poetry, he has even united strict neo-formalists with committed avant-gardists, all of whom have joined together to protest his firing." Mr. Galassi, however, said, "It is not about cultural politics, it is about finance, and the financial health of the organization." He said that the academy is enduring some of the same difficulties as other cultural organizations, facing economic crunches at a time of economic slowdown and national trauma. "Certainly the academy was going through a huge expansion in a very expansionist moment, and the expansion continued when the economy started to contract," Mr. Galassi said. "I know some of the poets see it in more Manichaean terms, but it is not about good versus evil or the weak versus the strong - it is about making sure that the institution survived healthily." Mr. Galassi said that Mr. Reath, the academy's president, "tried very hard to get Bill to revise his plans in light of the changed expectations and didn't meet with a very flexible response." Suggesting that "a paranoid streak" ran through the membership, Mr. Galassi said the board had no plans to drastically curtail the academy's programs. "The academy has to be prudent," he said, adding that the staff "may have to pull in their horns a little bit, but this is not about changing what they do." At least a few of the poets who initially questioned Mr. Wadsworth's removal have come around as the board revealed more details. "Even institutions devoted to poetry have to run on cash," Mr. McClatchy said. "These are just business bumps in the road and they need to be resolved. To have made it into a clash of personalities may suit the poetic temperament but it really doesn't face the facts." Mr. Wadsworth, however, is not going quietly. He said he cut the budget when the board asked him to and sketched a contingency plan with deeper cuts last March. Last week he wrote a memo to the board and the advisory board of poets, effectively blaming the directors for failing to meet a commitment to raise more funds. "I was asked on Aug. 30 to resign for reasons I still find difficult to fathom, unless the board's true intention is to drastically downsize the organization, shutting down outreach programs and firing staff, thereby relieving the directors of all but minimal fund-raising obligations," he wrote. "What this would leave would be an organization that looked not much different from the one I came to in 1989, consisting primarily of academy awards." In response, Mr. Galassi said the directors' contributions had increased, but "there were some expectations that were fairly pie in the sky, given the downturn." Everyone involved credits Mr. Wadsworth with revitalizing the academy after a period of sleepy obscurity. The former proprietor for about 10 years of the Warren Store Wine Shop in Warren, Vt., and then a consultant to restaurants and wine collectors, Mr. Wadsworth was working on writing and publishing poetry while directing a reading series at the Manhattan Theater Club when he was hired by the academy on the strength of a recommendation from his former teacher and mentor, the poet Joseph Brodsky. At the time the academy staff consisted of five employees mostly working on their own writing in a one room office on Third Avenue on the Upper East Side. Its main programs were holding a reading in New York and awarding prizes. Mr. Wadsworth soon found similarities between promoting poetry and selling wine. "I was good at selling a product that was fairly esoteric to a lot of people," he said, in a telephone interview. Under Mr. Wadsworth the academy expanded its series of poetry readings from New York to 18 sites in seven cities and it added readings about new topics like the environment. Through increased publicity and a resurgent interest in poetry, attendance at readings grew from a few hundred each to a few thousand in some instances. The organization's membership grew from fewer than 2,000 to more than 10,000. In 1995 Mr. Wadsworth helped establish April as National Poetry Month, designated by Congress. The academy sent posters to bookstores, schools and libraries around the country, organized local readings and encouraged discussion of poetry in the news media. He also helped raise money to endow more awards for poets, including the Wallace Stevens Award of $150,000. The organization's annual income grew from about $400,000 to about $3 million, and its assets grew from about $2 million to about $10 million, about $7 million of which is earmarked to endow awards. Its staff grew from 5 to 17. Mr. Wadsworth also helped create a popular Web site (www.poets.org) to help schools teach poetry and allow readers to search a database of poems and poets. Last April, the Web site received 15 million hits from 400,000 users. In 1999 after the poets Maxine Kumin and Carolyn Kizer resigned from the academy's advisory board over the predominance of white men in its ranks, Mr. Wadsworth and Mr. Galassi helped restructure the board to remedy its private-club image. Not all of the new initiatives have paid off, however. Three years ago, the academy created a poetry book club, selling books through the mail. Its membership reached 8,000, but people at the organization estimate that it will take more than twice as many subscribers to put it in the black. Some moves have proved ill timed. This fall, as the academy's finances deteriorated, the staff moved into an expanded office on Broadway in SoHo. The new office includes a library and a small auditorium for readings, which the organization hopes to broadcast over its Web site. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/07/books/07POET.html?ex=1006176793&ei=1& en=2de9fd4354f48bbe Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellogg Fri Nov 9 07:07:03 2001 From: kellogg (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 07:07:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] "Persuasions to Enjoy" In-Reply-To: <127.6cefb6f.291cb7c6@cs.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 8 Nov 2001 Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: > In a message dated 11/8/2001 10:02:19 PM Central Standard Time, > kellogg at duke.edu writes: > > > > > > Formalist, fascist -- I get 'em so confused. > > > > Same reason we Tarheel fans always referred to that school in Durham as > "Puke." Sam, I thought that was a reference to what Tarheel fans had to do after a Duke-UNC basketball game. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines kellogg at duke.edu Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing (919) 660-4357 Duke University FAX (919) 660-4372 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 9 08:20:49 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 08:20:49 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Laureates In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109081018.00a9a6e0@postoffice.brown.edu> Certain gangs of poets get together & label their product (yes, I know, the language poets didn't actually coin the term "language poets" - but they ran with it). Why should we buy these labels? There's only poetry, as far as I can see. Pigeonholing is a meaningless activity in this context. I grant you, certain styles & idioms cluster & accentuate themselves (the New York School, the Beats, etc). But the differences invariably outweigh the similarities. These vague lumpings (labeling & pigeonholing) get in the way of perception. There were some acute quotes from EH Gombrich on this issue in his obit in the NY Times yesterday. Henry At 03:52 AM 11/7/01 -0600, you wrote: >David, I don't know how my comment showed up as "yesterday" on the board, >but it did on mine, too. As to your comment-- > >"Now, one can certainly quibble about whether Dove or Pinsky can be admitted >to the True Church of formalism, but that's an argument I'm not at all >interested in." > >I'd say that (though no True Church is involved) Pinsky is largely in, Dove >largely out. > >Check those MacArthurs again. Except for Leithauser, many years ago, >there's been a drought of formal poets. > >It's not a grand conspiracy, it's just the way things are. > > >Paul Lake > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry ******************************************************** HG afloat: www.nedgemagazine.com * www.xlibris.com/HenryGould.html www.spuytenduyvil.net * www.jacket.zip.com.au * www.unf.edu/mudlark "Read it back to me, quietly, quietly." - O. Mandelstam From halvard Fri Nov 9 08:48:55 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 08:48:55 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Laureates In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109081018.00a9a6e0@postoffice.brown.edu> Message-ID: > These vague lumpings > (labeling & pigeonholing) get in the way of perception. Even exact, precise labeling can get in the way of perception, methinks. Too easy to tune out as soon as we know what something *is*, as soon as we know what to call it. Hal "The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided." --Casey Stengel Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From Rsgwynn1 Fri Nov 9 09:51:33 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 09:51:33 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] "Persuasions to Enjoy" Message-ID: <3b.1cf5b0fd.291d4775@cs.com> In a message dated 11/9/2001 6:09:18 AM Central Standard Time, kellogg at duke.edu writes: > Sam, > > I thought that was a reference to what Tarheel fans had to do after a > Duke-UNC basketball game. > > Some years yes, some years no. I must admit that Coach K. has almost cleansed the taste of Stanley Fish from my palate. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From DICK Fri Nov 9 09:51:11 2001 From: DICK (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 01 09:51:11 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] "lesser lights" Message-ID: <200111091453.fA9ErOf18654@sp1n189at0.watson.ibm.com> Joe Duemer wrote: >>in order to promote themselves as oppressed victims of an academic orthodoxy >>of free verse fascists, Gioia, Steele & all the lesser lights have had to Are there lights lesser than Gioia and Steele ....? Richard From kellogg Fri Nov 9 09:56:40 2001 From: kellogg (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 09:56:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] "Persuasions to Enjoy" In-Reply-To: <3b.1cf5b0fd.291d4775@cs.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 9 Nov 2001 Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: > > Sam, > > > > I thought that was a reference to what Tarheel fans had to do after a > > Duke-UNC basketball game. > > > > > > Some years yes, some years no. I must admit that Coach K. has almost > cleansed the taste of Stanley Fish from my palate. I've never actually tasted Stanley. Now that he's in Chicago, I guess I never will. So you have me there. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines kellogg at duke.edu Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing (919) 660-4357 Duke University FAX (919) 660-4372 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ From DICK Fri Nov 9 10:00:34 2001 From: DICK (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 01 10:00:34 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Lowell's fist Message-ID: <200111091502.fA9F2lf148582@sp1n189at0.watson.ibm.com> Same Gwynn wrote: >>The car wreck occurred before they were married, I believe. Not to justify >>the Mad Cal, but I'm sure J. S. gave as good as she got. One tough cookie. >>Ever read "An Influx of Poets"? According to Mariani's bio of Lowell -- as best I recall -- there was the car accident that broke her nose, surgery to repair it, a "domestic squabble" when he broke it for her again, and when she complained about trouble breathing, he offered "don't breathe so much." Geez, Sam, did she ever give him as good as that? Richard From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 9 10:08:36 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 10:08:36 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] accurate i.d. Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109095658.00aa8340@postoffice.brown.edu> "Accurate label", Halvard, might be another name for "name". Humankind being the naming animal (or homo monikerans) - it being our purpose on earth to hang around naming things & in so doing provide them with some kind of quiddity - sort of a golem-like re-creation - and this being something at which poets are supposed to excel - the branding & classification projects are understandable, I guess. George W. provides a primitive example of this propensity, with his instinctive nicknaming. But then words have a knack of becoming handy magic talismans, so that when you say "new formalist" or "language poet", the aspiring litterateur instantly emits a cry of "huhhnn!" (meaning: I understand!). Very useful for tribal conclaves, etc. Henry ******************************************************** HG afloat: www.nedgemagazine.com * www.xlibris.com/HenryGould.html www.spuytenduyvil.net * www.jacket.zip.com.au * www.unf.edu/mudlark "Read it back to me, quietly, quietly." - O. Mandelstam From BobGrumman Fri Nov 9 10:20:51 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 10:20:51 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Laureates References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109081018.00a9a6e0@postoffice.brown.edu> Message-ID: <3BEBF452.4FDA@nut-n-but.net> Sorry, Henry, but as the resident taxonomaniac of new-poetry, I have to strongly disagree with your disdain for "pigeon-holing." A simple question if classification is valueless: why distinguish Beethoven from Shakespeare since they both created works of art? Another: why distinguish either from Newton since all three created works of culture? Labels tell us what is what. When used intelligently. That many don't use them intelligently is no more reason to discard them than the fact that some write lousy poems is a reason for tossing poetry. --Bob G. From Rsgwynn1 Fri Nov 9 10:47:42 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 10:47:42 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Lowell's fist Message-ID: In a message dated 11/9/2001 9:06:53 AM Central Standard Time, DICK at watson.ibm.com writes: > Geez, Sam, did she ever give him as good as that? > > Richard > > > No, you got me there. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paul.lake Thu Nov 8 23:40:49 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 22:40:49 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia Message-ID: >". . .in order to promote themselves as oppressed victims of an academic orthodoxy >of free verse fascists, Gioia, Steele & all the lesser lights have had to set up Pound / Eliot as the progenitors of metrical chaos. Steele makes this argument explicitly in his book Missing Measures. Then they can publish an anthology of very ordinary suburban meditations on the troubles of owning a Ford & finding good schools for the kids & give it the title Rebel Angels! It's a sort of magic trick, actually, but pretty convincing, apparently, since what few literary intellectuals we have left over here have bought the category of New Formalist. Me, I'm an old formalist. I'm a fucking Neolithic >formalist." Though I interpret 20th century literary poetics somewhat differently than Steele (see my essay "Disorderly Orders" in Southern Review if you like), Pound and Eliot saw themselves as "the progenitors of metrical chaos." To counter the flood of anarchically free verse they'd unloosed, Pound and Eliot began writing in rhymed quatrains in Mauberly and Eliot's Poems of 1920. To see if New Formalists are in fact "oppressed victims of academic orthodoxy of free verse fascists," simply look at anthologies edited by free verse poets and see how many New Formalists are included (almost none); look at where New Formalists teach (with a couple of notable exceptions, in obscure small schools); see who gets the major grants; and look at who gets invited as guests at leading writing programs. Even a cursory glance will show that New Formalists are underrepresented. The fact that Rebel Angels had to be published by Story Line proves that they are in fact rebel angels. Compare that anthology to, say, Paul Hoover's huge Norton anthology on Postmodern Poetry and you'll see which army occupies the heavens of the publishing industry. The final charge, that New Formal poets are suburban yuppies, has a long and distinguished pedigree. Ariel Dawson in about 1987 published an essay in the AWP Chronicle called "The Yuppie Poet." Since the charge is made so often, and by poets like Diane Wakoski who make a lot more money as teachers and speakers than the New Formalists they criticize, there's more than a small share of hypocrisy in the charge. Paul Lake From paul.lake Thu Nov 8 23:42:54 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 22:42:54 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kinnell Message-ID: >(Anyone wanna talk about Kinnell?) God, no. PL From BobGrumman Fri Nov 9 10:59:44 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 10:59:44 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia References: Message-ID: <3BEBFD70.6E8C@nut-n-but.net> Paul Lake wrote: > > >". . .in order to promote themselves as oppressed victims of an academic > orthodoxy > >of free verse fascists, Gioia, Steele & all the lesser lights have had to > set up Pound / Eliot as the progenitors of metrical chaos. Steele makes this > argument explicitly in his book Missing Measures. Then they can publish an > anthology of very ordinary suburban meditations on the troubles of owning a > Ford & finding good schools for the kids & give it the title Rebel Angels! > It's a sort of magic trick, actually, but pretty convincing, apparently, > since what few literary intellectuals we have left over here have bought the > category of New Formalist. Me, I'm an old formalist. I'm a fucking Neolithic > >formalist." > > Though I interpret 20th century literary poetics somewhat differently than > Steele (see my essay "Disorderly Orders" in Southern Review if you like), > Pound and Eliot saw themselves as "the progenitors of metrical chaos." To > counter the flood of anarchically free verse they'd unloosed, Pound and > Eliot began writing in rhymed quatrains in Mauberly and Eliot's Poems of > 1920. > > To see if New Formalists are in fact "oppressed victims of academic > orthodoxy of free verse fascists," simply look at anthologies edited by free > verse poets and see how many New Formalists are included (almost none); look > at where New Formalists teach (with a couple of notable exceptions, in > obscure small schools); see who gets the major grants; and look at who gets > invited as guests at leading writing programs. Even a cursory glance will > show that New Formalists are underrepresented. The fact that Rebel Angels > had to be published by Story Line proves that they are in fact rebel angels. > Compare that anthology to, say, Paul Hoover's huge Norton anthology on > Postmodern Poetry and you'll see which army occupies the heavens of the > publishing industry. > > The final charge, that New Formal poets are suburban yuppies, has a long and > distinguished pedigree. Ariel Dawson in about 1987 published an essay in > the AWP Chronicle called "The Yuppie Poet." Since the charge is made so > often, and by poets like Diane Wakoski who make a lot more money as teachers > and speakers than the New Formalists they criticize, there's more than a > small share of hypocrisy in the charge. > > Paul Lake The problem with this analysis is that it ignores the fact that the free-versers outnumber the formalists by a wide margin. It also ignores the fact that the free-versers may just be better poets than the formalists. I'm neutral on that, being in a poetry school ridiculously less visible than that of the new formalists'. Your poets aren't represented in major anthologies; my poets aren't mentioned in major anthologies. --Bob G. From GrahamD Fri Nov 9 11:27:48 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 10:27:48 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Kinnell Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFF6@mail.ripon.edu> Apparently your opinion of Kinnell is shared by others, Paul, to judge by the silence. I'm not sure how much my fondness for Kinnell comes from early infatuation, and how much might withstand a good close reading, which I haven't given him in years. My aerial view at this moment would be that he hasn't done much impressive work in a long time (not an uncommon observation about a poet in his 70s), but that some of his earlier work will last a while. I also credit Kinnell with finally putting Whitman across for me--heard him give an all-Walt reading a quarter century ago, and I finally "got" it. He is a wonderful reader. To pull together a couple of loose threads here--one notable feature of Kinnell's writing, first to last, is his awkwardness, to use Joe Duemer's term. He's ever-ready to attempt just about anything--in terms of diction, rhythm, "bad" taste, etc. The results are sometimes spectacularly noisome, in my opinion. The same is true of Whitman, of course. But Kinnell has a boldness that-- other virtues aside--a poet like Gioia lacks. In the tradition of Whitman and W C Williams, Kinnell prizes rough edges, doesn't even try for elegance, and in fact suspects elegance when it appears. I don't say this as a knock against Gioia, I hasten to point out. Different flavors, and all that. My current suspicion is that a lot of the ire against Dana G. and other new formalists has rather little to do with metrics per se, but is more an indication of different attitudes toward the notion of elegance as goal. There are plenty of free verse smoothies, after all, and Gioia himself writes free verse, too. I'd also hasten to say that awkwardness itself is hardly a warrant of quality. Sometimes it's just clumsiness. But not always. Dickinson's deviations from various norms was considered clumsiness for decades; still may be, in some quarters. With time, though, we see her awkwardness as expanding the possibilities, rather as Donne or Wyatt did so long ago. Knowing the difference between productive awkwardness and mere muddle is the trick, of course. . . . David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Paul Lake > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Thursday, November 8, 2001 10:42 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: [New-Poetry] Kinnell > > >(Anyone wanna talk about Kinnell?) > > God, no. > > PL > > From tadrichards Fri Nov 9 11:30:04 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 11:30:04 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] accurate i.d. References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109095658.00aa8340@postoffice.brown.edu> Message-ID: <001f01c1693b$ced46ee0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Go back to "Caliban upon Setebos" for some great stuff on the human need to name things. Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Henry Gould" To: Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 10:08 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] accurate i.d. > "Accurate label", Halvard, might be another name for "name". Humankind > being the naming animal > (or homo monikerans) - it being our purpose on earth to hang around naming > things & in so doing provide > them with some kind of quiddity - sort of a golem-like re-creation - and > this being something at which > poets are supposed to excel - the branding & classification projects are > understandable, I guess. > George W. provides a primitive example of this propensity, with his > instinctive nicknaming. But > then words have a knack of becoming handy magic talismans, so that when you > say "new formalist" > or "language poet", the aspiring litterateur instantly emits a cry of > "huhhnn!" (meaning: I > understand!). Very useful for tribal conclaves, etc. > > Henry > > ******************************************************** > HG afloat: www.nedgemagazine.com * www.xlibris.com/HenryGould.html > www.spuytenduyvil.net * www.jacket.zip.com.au * www.unf.edu/mudlark > "Read it back to me, quietly, quietly." - O. Mandelstam > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From gmcvay Fri Nov 9 11:36:46 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 11:36:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Paul (and Terry P., or whoever is in a position to shed light), This is a non-sarcastic, non-rhetorical question regarding the alleged underrepresentation of formalists in academe. How many New Formalist poets are there? I guess there's a corollary question: is a contemporary poet writing in fixed form (the anagrammatic pseudonym "Wesli Court" doesn't count), a small-f formalist, also a New Formalist in initial-caps? Seriously, Gwyn From paul.lake Fri Nov 9 00:41:33 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 23:41:33 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Kinnell In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFF6@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: on 11/9/01 10:27 AM, Graham, David at GrahamD at mail.ripon.edu wrote: > Apparently your opinion of Kinnell is shared by others, Paul, to judge by > the silence. > > I'm not sure how much my fondness for Kinnell comes from early infatuation, > and how much might withstand a good close reading, which I haven't given him > in years. My aerial view at this moment would be that he hasn't done much > impressive work in a long time (not an uncommon observation about a poet in > his 70s), but that some of his earlier work will last a while. > > I also credit Kinnell with finally putting Whitman across for me--heard him > give an all-Walt reading a quarter century ago, and I finally "got" it. He > is a wonderful reader. > > To pull together a couple of loose threads here--one notable feature of > Kinnell's writing, first to last, is his awkwardness, to use Joe Duemer's > term. He's ever-ready to attempt just about anything--in terms of diction, > rhythm, "bad" taste, etc. The results are sometimes spectacularly noisome, > in my opinion. The same is true of Whitman, of course. But Kinnell has a > boldness that-- other virtues aside--a poet like Gioia lacks. In the > tradition of Whitman and W C Williams, Kinnell prizes rough edges, doesn't > even try for elegance, and in fact suspects elegance when it appears. > > I don't say this as a knock against Gioia, I hasten to point out. Different > flavors, and all that. My current suspicion is that a lot of the ire > against Dana G. and other new formalists has rather little to do with > metrics per se, but is more an indication of different attitudes toward the > notion of elegance as goal. There are plenty of free verse smoothies, after > all, and Gioia himself writes free verse, too. > > I'd also hasten to say that awkwardness itself is hardly a warrant of > quality. Sometimes it's just clumsiness. But not always. Dickinson's > deviations from various norms was considered clumsiness for decades; still > may be, in some quarters. With time, though, we see her awkwardness as > expanding the possibilities, rather as Donne or Wyatt did so long ago. > > Knowing the difference between productive awkwardness and mere muddle is the > trick, of course. . . . > > David Graham > > =================== > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > =================== > >> ---------- >> From: Paul Lake >> Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> Sent: Thursday, November 8, 2001 10:42 PM >> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> Subject: [New-Poetry] Kinnell >> >>> (Anyone wanna talk about Kinnell?) >> >> God, no. >> >> PL >> >> > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > Liking Whitman as I do, I just don't see a deep similarity between Walt and Kinnell. What you call Dickinson's awkwardness I also like. For that matter, there's a good deal of awkwardness--or at least a kind of sinuous toughness--in Donne which makes his work seem muscular and rough in a pleasing way to me. Paul Lake From paul.lake Fri Nov 9 00:52:58 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2001 23:52:58 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] New Formalists Message-ID: Gwyn, I guess using Sam Gwynn's definition, any poet born after 1940 who writes in form a good deal of the time would be, by definition, a new formalist, with or without caps. There's no secret handshake or decoder ring. There are 25 poets in Rebel Angels, but a much larger group beyond that. At West Chester each summer, a couple hundred poets show up, all with a high degree of interest and experience in writing poems in form. There are several magazines that publish formal verse, all well filled each issue with formal poets, and several web sites as well. I'm constantly discovering new voices. I guess if too many people write formal poetry, it won't be an out-group anymore, which would be fine with me. I think it's safe to say that there are more poets who write free verse than formal these days, so I guess new formalists remain a relatively small minority in the larger poetic scene. Paul From GrahamD Fri Nov 9 12:10:48 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 11:10:48 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFF7@mail.ripon.edu> Ah, we murder to dissect! Except when we don't, I'd say. Analysis, categorization, & labeling can get in the way, yes. But it can also open the doors of perception an inch or two more, in my experience. How can both be true? It's a mystery, as they say in *Shakespeare in Love*. I love it when John F. Nims in his textbook *Western Wind* prints a diagram of a bird, with all parts scrupulously labelled. Then he comments, "There is no reason to worry about this bird. It has not been injured or 'taken apart'. If one is interested in birds, one likes to be able to tell one from another--a catbird from a mockingbird, a great racket-tail drongo from a blue-faced booby. The diagram shows where the points of difference lie. And so with poems. Diagrams and analyses no more substitute for them than our drawing substitutes for a bird. But they may help make a point or two." I think that gets the tone exactly right. Making a point or two--a nice description of the critical enterprise. Taxonomy can be a fetish, I'd say, leading to reification & other sins. But so can any knee-jerk resistance to taxonomy. David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Halvard Johnson > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Friday, November 9, 2001 7:48 AM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] Laureates > > > These vague lumpings > > (labeling & pigeonholing) get in the way of perception. > > Even exact, precise labeling can get in the way of perception, > methinks. Too easy to tune out as soon as we know what > something *is*, as soon as we know what to call it. > > Hal "The secret of managing is to keep the guys > who hate you away from the guys who are > undecided." > --Casey Stengel > Halvard Johnson > From JforJames Fri Nov 9 12:22:31 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 12:22:31 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia Message-ID: <17.1e4619a9.291d6ad7@aol.com> I don't think there is any denying that formalist poets starting from Beat period of the late 50s continuing well into 80s, suffered from almost total critical eclipse. Yes, there were a few who garnered some literary light (Wilbur, Hecht, Nemerov, VonDuyn, Merril, etc..) But mostly there was also a lot critical condescension and sniffing about the poetry being musty and academic. In the 80s, I think a couple of breakthrough poets were Henry Taylor (when he won the Pulitzer) and the review attention paid to Molly Peacock's (liberally) formal poetry. But the real revolution of poetry in the 20thC was the advent of free verse. The new formalists are more correctly termed a counter-revolutionary movement. And that's the way they "play it up," to the hilt: with "Rebel Angels" and Dana Gioia's referring to the Westchester Poetry Conference as the "New Black Mountain." Can one claim to be rebel and at same time complain the institutions of literary largesse are neglecting me? Some may have noticed that certain LangPos, whose movement pre-dates New Formalism by a decade at least, are now being ensconced in places such as the Academy of American Poets. Finnegan From JackKerouac25 Fri Nov 9 12:32:28 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 12:32:28 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia Message-ID: In a message dated 11/9/01 10:41:14 AM Central Standard Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: > Dear Paul (and Terry P., or whoever is in a position to shed light), > > This is a non-sarcastic, non-rhetorical question regarding the alleged > underrepresentation of formalists in academe. > > How many New Formalist poets are there? I guess there's a corollary > question: is a contemporary poet writing in fixed form (the anagrammatic > pseudonym "Wesli Court" doesn't count), a small-f formalist, also a New > Formalist in initial-caps? > > Seriously, Gwyn > > Gwyn, Although I've seen the term used to describe both, I think New Formalism is a misnomer, primarily because what these poets cherish, above all I believe, is clarity in their work and a desire to get poetry to mass audience. The main thing that drove me to their philosophy is the fact that I had plenty of poets shoved down my throat for years: Ashbery, The New York School, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry (whatever that means) and others. When I didn't understand a poet, when I couldn't see what he/she was trying to do, I was always told that the problem was mine as a reader, not the poet's problem. I got sick of this charge. When I first started reading poets allied with this New Formalism, most notably Mark Jarman (whose cause I will always champion) and Robert McDowell, our own Sam Gwynn, and Gioia for that matter, I was struck by the clarity in their lines. No, not the simplicity, not the immature thoughts, and not the shoddy writing, but the clarity. That's why I am more on the New Formalist side. JLN Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Fri Nov 9 12:44:08 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 12:44:08 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia Message-ID: <146.455ad26.291d6fe8@cs.com> In a message dated 11/9/01 10:41:14 AM Central Standard Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: > > How many New Formalist poets are there? I guess there's a corollary > question: is a contemporary poet writing in fixed form (the anagrammatic > pseudonym "Wesli Court" doesn't count), a small-f formalist, also a New > Formalist in initial-caps? > > Our names are legion, and we grow by the day. But I would estimate there are around 100 or so who don't totally eschew the designation. And, as I've said, repeatedly, the only "new" in new formalism is generational. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davisa Fri Nov 9 12:44:35 2001 From: davisa (Alan Davis) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 11:44:35 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kinnell In-Reply-To: <200111091628.fA9GS3D19121@wiz.cath.vt.edu> Message-ID: Kinnell is the great living example of the poet who meditates almost exclusively on mortality and on its corollary, the pleasures both sensual and aesthetic in being alive. We have nobody quite like him, and that's why so many of us stay with him and return to him. He's a lovely poet, and his awkwardness can be his charm, especially because he's awkward like a fox. From Rsgwynn1 Fri Nov 9 12:49:36 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 12:49:36 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia Message-ID: <57.170ec92.291d7130@cs.com> In a message dated 11/9/01 11:39:03 AM Central Standard Time, JackKerouac25 at aol.com writes: > . No, not the simplicity, not the immature thoughts, and not the shoddy > writing, but the clarity. > > That's why I am more on the New Formalist side. > > I appreciate that. I always try to potato when I urge the line towards its almanac. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 9 13:11:37 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 13:11:37 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFF7@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109130354.00aa6810@postoffice.brown.edu> Well put, David. The trouble is there's something acquisitive, pedantic & overly-domesticating about taxonomies of literature, all of which seems diametrically opposed to their actual purpose, which is to enliven, make new, break out of the box. What do we "know" about a poem once we've labeled and pigeonholed it? Yes, undeniably, the more we know about the history & forms of poetry, the more attentive we can be to the differences & details of a new poem. On the other hand, it has occurred to me that the measure of value of a work of art is its impact on the "innocent" reader - the immediate impact of its sound, shape, and meaning, irregardless of its literary pedigree. Henry At 11:10 AM 11/9/01 -0600, you wrote: >Ah, we murder to dissect! Except when we don't, I'd say. Analysis, >categorization, & labeling can get in the way, yes. But it can also open >the doors of perception an inch or two more, in my experience. How can both >be true? It's a mystery, as they say in *Shakespeare in Love*. > >I love it when John F. Nims in his textbook *Western Wind* prints a diagram >of a bird, with all parts scrupulously labelled. Then he comments, "There >is no reason to worry about this bird. It has not been injured or 'taken >apart'. If one is interested in birds, one likes to be able to tell one >from another--a catbird from a mockingbird, a great racket-tail drongo from >a blue-faced booby. The diagram shows where the points of difference lie. >And so with poems. Diagrams and analyses no more substitute for them than >our drawing substitutes for a bird. But they may help make a point or two." > >I think that gets the tone exactly right. Making a point or two--a nice >description of the critical enterprise. > >Taxonomy can be a fetish, I'd say, leading to reification & other sins. But >so can any knee-jerk resistance to taxonomy. > >David Graham > >=================== >David Graham >grahamd at mail.ripon.edu >=================== > > > ---------- > > From: Halvard Johnson > > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > Sent: Friday, November 9, 2001 7:48 AM > > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] Laureates > > > > > These vague lumpings > > > (labeling & pigeonholing) get in the way of perception. > > > > Even exact, precise labeling can get in the way of perception, > > methinks. Too easy to tune out as soon as we know what > > something *is*, as soon as we know what to call it. > > > > Hal "The secret of managing is to keep the guys > > who hate you away from the guys who are > > undecided." > > --Casey Stengel > > Halvard Johnson > > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 9 13:12:56 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 13:12:56 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Re: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109131211.00a9e100@postoffice.brown.edu> Sorry, that should have been "regardless", not irregardless ! >Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 13:11:37 -0500 >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >From: Henry Gould >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! > >Well put, David. The trouble is there's something acquisitive, pedantic & >overly-domesticating about >taxonomies of literature, all of which seems diametrically opposed to >their actual purpose, which is to >enliven, make new, break out of the box. What do we "know" about a poem >once we've labeled and >pigeonholed it? Yes, undeniably, the more we know about the history & >forms of poetry, the more >attentive we can be to the differences & details of a new poem. On the >other hand, it has occurred to >me that the measure of value of a work of art is its impact on the >"innocent" reader - the immediate >impact of its sound, shape, and meaning, irregardless of its literary >pedigree. > >Henry From duemer Fri Nov 9 13:31:19 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 13:31:19 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <> Surely you are not claiming that clarity is the exclusive province of the New Formalists? The opposition you set up between free verse poets & the New Formalists seems to imply this, but certainly there are poets who write in open forms who are also clear. Part of the NF agenda is accessibility, but that is not exactly the same thing as clarity. Emily Dickinson is clear, but she is often enough very difficult as well. jd -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames Fri Nov 9 13:39:27 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 13:39:27 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Carruth poem Message-ID: The Cows at Night The moon was like a full cup tonight, too heavy, and sank in the mist soon after dark, leaving for light faint stars and the silver leaves of milkweed beside the road, gleaming before my car. Yet I like driving at night in summer and in Vermont: the brown road through the mist of mountain-dark, among farms so quiet, and the roadside willows opening out where I saw the cows. Always a shock to remember them there, those great breathings close in the dark. I stopped, and took my flashlight to the pasture fence. They turned to me where they lay, sad and beautiful faces in the dark, and I counted them-forty near and far in the pasture, turning to me, sad and beautiful like girls very long ago who were innocent, and sad because they were innocent, and beautiful because they were sad. I switched off my light. But I did not want to go, not yet, nor knew what to do if I should stay, for how in that great darkness could I explain anything, anything at all. I stood by the fence. And then very gently it began to rain. --Hayden Carruth --------------------------------- copyright (c) 1992. From "Collected Shorter Poems, 1946-1991," published by Copper Canyon Press (http://www.coppercanyonpress.org). --------------------------------- From JforJames Fri Nov 9 13:47:41 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 13:47:41 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Kinnell Message-ID: <21.13ea1ccc.291d7ecd@aol.com> In a message dated 11/9/01 12:53:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, davisa at mnstate.edu writes: > Kinnell is the great living example of the poet who meditates almost > exclusively on mortality and on its corollary, the pleasures both sensual > and aesthetic in being alive. We have nobody quite like him, and that's why > so many of us stay with him and return to him. He's a lovely poet, and his > awkwardness can be his charm, especially because he's awkward like a fox. > well said, Finnegan From BobGrumman Fri Nov 9 14:02:36 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 14:02:36 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109130354.00aa6810@postoffice.brown.edu> Message-ID: <3BEC284C.6411@nut-n-but.net> > What do we "know" about a poem once we've labeled and > pigeonholed it? It depends on the cometence of the labeling. Properly done, it clarifies connections. But it is of value, in that way, only to students of creativity, literary history, and aesthetics. For poets and readers of poetry not interested in poems, as opposed to poetry, the point of labeling is to facilitate discussion. We can talk about the difference between what I call songmode poems and what I call plaintext poems, or we can talk about the difference between poems relying on rhyme and meter in the main for their aesthetic effect and those which eschew those and related devices (except, of course, it would not be proper to LABEL similar-sounding words as "rhyme," or patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables as "meter" . . . nor, really, to LABEL one-beat parts of words "syllables" or voiced or printed utterances representing parts of the universe as "words" or . . . ) --Bob G. From BobGrumman Fri Nov 9 14:16:19 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 14:16:19 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109130354.00aa6810@postoffice.brown.edu> <3BEC284C.6411@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <3BEC2B83.275A@nut-n-but.net> Not "cometence of the labeling" but "competence of the labeling." I do rather like "comet-ence," though. --Bob G. From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 9 14:19:49 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 14:19:49 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! In-Reply-To: <3BEC284C.6411@nut-n-but.net> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109130354.00aa6810@postoffice.brown.edu> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109141448.00a972b0@postoffice.brown.edu> Yes, I can see the value of this, Bob. & once you've categorized the various subspecies of free versers, New Formalists, language poets, and other creatures, it might be possible to do a statistical survey which eventually would allow you to predict with some accuracy exactly WHERE in "the field" the next poet laureate might emerge. This would be useful in all sorts of contexts. Whether it would "take the top of my head off", as Dickinson put it, or send a tingling up my spine, or bring tears to my eyes, or set my feet dancing, I'm not so sure. Henry At 02:02 PM 11/9/01 -0500, you wrote: > > What do we "know" about a poem once we've labeled and > > pigeonholed it? > >It depends on the cometence of the labeling. Properly done, it >clarifies connections. But it is of value, in that way, only to >students of creativity, literary history, and aesthetics. > >For poets and readers of poetry not interested in poems, as >opposed to poetry, the point of labeling is to facilitate >discussion. We can talk about the difference between what I >call songmode poems and what I call plaintext poems, or we >can talk about the difference between poems relying on rhyme and >meter in the main for their aesthetic effect and those which >eschew those and related devices (except, of course, it would not >be proper to LABEL similar-sounding words as "rhyme," or >patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables as "meter" . . . >nor, really, to LABEL one-beat parts of words "syllables" or >voiced or printed utterances representing parts of the universe >as "words" or . . . ) > > --Bob G. > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry ******************************************************** HG afloat: www.nedgemagazine.com * www.xlibris.com/HenryGould.html www.spuytenduyvil.net * www.jacket.zip.com.au * www.unf.edu/mudlark "Read it back to me, quietly, quietly." - O. Mandelstam From BobGrumman Fri Nov 9 14:23:24 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 14:23:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Carruth poem References: Message-ID: <3BEC2D2C.2484@nut-n-but.net> JforJames at aol.com quoted Carruth's "The Cows at Night," which I quote liked. It seemed to me a fine deep image poem, which I mention mainly to show the value of labels. "Deep Image Poetry" is a poor label, in my view, because it's too hard to decide what is and isn't a deep image, and whatever it is, it will only be a part of most poems. On the other hand, there are certain poems and poets associated with the term, so it is minorly useful as a short-cut to those poets and poems. And it may make someone who likes the poem but knows nothing of deep image poetry, to investigate it, and find other poets he likes. Etc. (Note: I think all good poems have a deep image in them somewhere. I should add, though, that I've done no deep study of the term and am probably using it very inexpertly.) --Bob G. From kellogg Fri Nov 9 14:26:44 2001 From: kellogg (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 14:26:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia In-Reply-To: <17.1e4619a9.291d6ad7@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 9 Nov 2001 JforJames at aol.com wrote: > with "Rebel Angels" and Dana Gioia's referring to the Westchester > Poetry Conference as the "New Black Mountain." Where does Gioia say this? I find that hilarious, given the total experiment (including music, dance, art, architecture, and writing) that was Black Mountain. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines kellogg at duke.edu Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing (919) 660-4357 Duke University FAX (919) 660-4372 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ From kellogg Fri Nov 9 14:31:58 2001 From: kellogg (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 14:31:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Piggybacking on my own post: On Fri, 9 Nov 2001, David Kellogg wrote: > > On Fri, 9 Nov 2001 JforJames at aol.com wrote: > > with "Rebel Angels" and Dana Gioia's referring to the Westchester > > Poetry Conference as the "New Black Mountain." > > Where does Gioia say this? I find that hilarious, given the total > experiment (including music, dance, art, architecture, and writing) that > was Black Mountain. Pop quiz: What West Chester conference poet has (or will have) the stature, achievement, or for that matter formal gifts of Robert Creeley? Or Robert Duncan? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines kellogg at duke.edu Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing (919) 660-4357 Duke University FAX (919) 660-4372 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ From BobGrumman Fri Nov 9 14:40:09 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 14:40:09 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109130354.00aa6810@postoffice.brown.edu> <4.3.2.7.2.20011109141448.00a972b0@postoffice.brown.edu> Message-ID: <3BEC3119.2967@nut-n-but.net> Henry Gould wrote: > > Yes, I can see the value of this, Bob. & once you've categorized the > various subspecies of free > versers, New Formalists, language poets, and other creatures, I did all that a while ago. > it might be > possible to do a statistical > survey which eventually would allow you to predict with some accuracy > exactly WHERE in "the field" > the next poet laureate might emerge. Believe it or not, that doesn't sound like anything I'd be likely to do. > This would be useful in all sorts of > contexts. Whether it would > "take the top of my head off", as Dickinson put it, or send a tingling up > my spine, or bring tears to my > eyes, or set my feet dancing, I'm not so sure. > > Henry Henry, you're being silly. You're just saying you probably wouldn't get much pleasure out of a good taxonomy of poetry. I have no problem with that. My only problem is with people who say that labeling is either valueless or inimical to poetry. --Bob G. From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 9 15:06:19 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 15:06:19 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! In-Reply-To: <3BEC3119.2967@nut-n-but.net> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109130354.00aa6810@postoffice.brown.edu> <4.3.2.7.2.20011109141448.00a972b0@postoffice.brown.edu> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109145133.00aa68f0@postoffice.brown.edu> Maybe. But I think it's sillier to argue/speculate about which theoretical pigeonhole contains the next poet laureate, or which gang is on top of the heap. Undoubtedly, verse in traditional forms has been making a comeback, with or without those who label themselves New. But in allowing the gangs of publicists-polemicists define the field, we neglect the critical work necessary to say anything useful. I would create some new pigeonholes: Official, Marketed, Highly-Marketed, Blurb-Heavy, Deeply-Networked, Workshop-Smoken'Cured, Politically- Badged (Badgered?), Unknown, Seriously Unknown, Hopelessly Unknown, Impossibly Unreadably Obscurely Unknown, Barnum Center-Ringed. Henry >Henry, you're being silly. You're just saying you probably wouldn't >get much pleasure out of a good taxonomy of poetry. I have no >problem with that. My only problem is with people who say that >labeling is either valueless or inimical to poetry. > > --Bob G. From spacks Fri Nov 9 15:05:28 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 12:05:28 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Carruth poem In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011109120528.007b8e90@snowcrest.net> At 01:39 PM 11/9/01 EST, J forJames posted: a beautiful Carruth poem, many thanks for the treat. I see Carruth as a fellow Omnist (the majority party by a long mile but with no badges to wear at the party). I like to think of myself, in fact, as a "New" Omnist (constantly born-again) but comparisons are odious and I wouldn't want to irritate the Old duffers. We Omnists are entirely a shadow-government, unwilling to recognize party lines. We'll rhyme & we'll not-rime, scan six odd ways to Tuesday, commit one-line poems, barbaric yawlps, haiku that claim to be senryu, Miltonics, Acme-istics, even (blushfully) Cinquins. I for one have drunk the juice of the Ashbery with my honeydew. Up the O=M+N^I#S%T POETS!! FROM THE ASHBERYAN We'll start with two (stained-red) redwood doors to enlist this thing called "the subject"; or say meat from exacting salami slicers, unshucked constraints of the body-skin. But let's pass on from that, returning joy to the words. Send them off on vacation! To make the point Beethovenistically, *no shrubs were abused in this travelogue.* The trick's in a solacing touch of d?tente as when dressing your hero in underwear pathetic with holes. Not even a saint could admire this Babushka's style at covert vodka sales (though it's cool she survives). Myself, I'd never require Sir Priest to ditch my plumbing, the beauty Calista to batter my clothes on the river stones. But the rainforest-mist, now: how can it share in our plotted action, its syllables soaked clear through? Wait, wait, I know! -- we'll hang out our lined-yellow tablets as flags. -- NewBarry Spacks From JforJames Fri Nov 9 15:09:36 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 15:09:36 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Carruth poem Message-ID: <12d.7508dcf.291d9200@aol.com> In a message dated 11/9/01 2:24:22 PM Eastern Standard Time, BobGrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: > And it may make someone > who likes the poem but knows nothing of deep image poetry, to > investigate it, and find other poets he likes. Etc. (Note: I > think all good poems have a deep image in them somewhere. I should > add, though, that I've done no deep study of the term and am probably > using it very inexpertly.) Bob, Certainly Carruth is making deep (archetypal/metaphoric) connection with the cows. I think the difference between Carruth's poem and the deep image poetry (Bly, Wright, Merwin often get stuffed in this pigeonhole) would be that here Carruth is making the deep image connection "overtly". Whereas a deep image poem is likely to suggest the numinous nature of the image...without a direct bridge: A leaf carried off along the surface of stream (suggesting loss), rather than saying 'My life was a leaf carried along a stream.' Of course Carruth's direct bridge is more elegant than my poor example of the latter: Always a shock to remember them there, those great breathings close in the dark ... turning to me, sad and beautiful like girls very long ago who were innocent, and sad because they were innocent, and beautiful because they were sad. (Oh how much less would that simile would have been had Carruth stopped after the first sad?) Apropos quote stumbled upon this very day: A man's work is nothing but the slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened. --Albert Camus Great and simple like cows. Finnegan From spacks Fri Nov 9 15:10:57 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 12:10:57 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011109121057.007b7750@snowcrest.net> At 02:31 PM 11/9/01 -0500, David Kellogg wrote: >Pop quiz: What West Chester conference poet has (or will have) the >stature, achievement, or for that matter formal gifts of Robert Creeley? >Or Robert Duncan? Chryss Yost? From BobGrumman Fri Nov 9 15:23:49 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 15:23:49 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109130354.00aa6810@postoffice.brown.edu> <4.3.2.7.2.20011109141448.00a972b0@postoffice.brown.edu> <4.3.2.7.2.20011109145133.00aa68f0@postoffice.brown.edu> Message-ID: <3BEC3B55.3232@nut-n-but.net> You may have missed the beginning of this thread or something, Henry. I doubt that anyone is serious about what school the next laureate will come from, or whether a language poet will beat a new formalist to the honor, but in discussing those questions, labeling came up, and I had to defend it. --Bob G. From GrahamD Fri Nov 9 15:31:42 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 14:31:42 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kinnell Poem Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFF8@mail.ripon.edu> Here's the final section of "Freedom, New Hampshire," Kinnell's elegy for his brother: The fingerprints of our eyeballs would zigzag On the sky; the clouds that came drifting up Our fingernails would drift into the thin air; In bed at night there was music if you listened, Of an old surf breaking far away in the blood. Kids who come by chance on grass green for a man Can guess cow, dung, man, anything they want. To them it is the same. To us who knew him as he was After the beginning and before the end, it is green For a name called out of the confusions of the earth-- Winnipesaukee coined like a moon, a bullcalf Dragged from the darkness where it breaks up again, Larks which long since have crashed for good in the grass To which we fed the flies, buzzing ourselves like flies, While the crickets shrilled beyond us, in July. . . The mind may sort it out and give it names-- When a man dies he dies trying to say without slurring The abruptly decaying sounds. It is true That only flesh dies, and spirit flowers without stop For men, cows, dung, for all dead things; and it is good, yes-- But an incarnation is in particular flesh And the dust that is swirled into a shape And crumbles and is swirled again had but one shape That was this man. When he is dead the grass Heals what he suffered, but he remains dead, And the few who loved him know this until they die. --Galway Kinnell =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 9 15:46:44 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 15:46:44 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! In-Reply-To: <3BEC3B55.3232@nut-n-but.net> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109130354.00aa6810@postoffice.brown.edu> <4.3.2.7.2.20011109141448.00a972b0@postoffice.brown.edu> <4.3.2.7.2.20011109145133.00aa68f0@postoffice.brown.edu> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109154109.00a9a910@postoffice.brown.edu> I guess it was not a serious discussion, then, discussing those questions. Let's categorize it as a case of Petty Labeling, within the subject Contemporary Poetry Discussion, subset Brand Names. Henry At 03:23 PM 11/9/01 -0500, you wrote: >You may have missed the beginning of this thread or something, >Henry. I doubt that anyone is serious about what school the >next laureate will come from, or whether a language poet will beat >a new formalist to the honor, but in discussing those questions, >labeling came up, and I had to defend it. > > --Bob G. From paul.lake Fri Nov 9 04:53:41 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 03:53:41 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Pop quiz Message-ID: >Pop quiz: What West Chester conference poet has (or will have) the >stature, achievement, or for that matter formal gifts of Robert Creeley? >Or Robert Duncan? Well, Richard Wilbur and Anthony Hecht have been at West Chester. And I doubt any poet at the conference has written poems as bad as some of Creeley's. Here's an entire poem from *Pieces*. Four Before I die. Before I die. Before I die. Before I die. Here's another Creeley gem that would get a college freshman laughed out of West Chester, from R. C.'s Selected. Time What happened to her and what happened to her and what happened to her. Of course it's all a matter of taste. Still, I think there are lots of poets at West Chester who have greater formal gifts and more enduring literary achievements than Duncan or Creeley. As for stature, that's conferred by the intertwined literary-academic establishment, as I've recently lamented on this very list. "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite, That ever I was born to put it right." Paul Lake From JforJames Fri Nov 9 16:09:48 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 16:09:48 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia Message-ID: In a message dated 11/9/01 2:29:41 PM Eastern Standard Time, kellogg at duke.edu writes: > referring to the Westchester > > Poetry Conference as the "New Black Mountain." > > Where does Gioia say this? I find that hilarious, given the total > experiment (including music, dance, art, architecture, and writing) that > was Black Mountain. I believe it was in the context of rallying the troops (or opening remarks) at the West Chester conference a couple years back (as reported somewhere or other). Finnegan From kellogg Fri Nov 9 16:24:30 2001 From: kellogg (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 16:24:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Pop quiz In-Reply-To: Message-ID: It _is_ all a matter of taste, Paul. I think both of those poems are pretty interesting, and of course *Pieces* is a complete sequence of works, not simply a set of poems. Both Wilbur and Hecht are old formalists (based on the post-1940 birthdate criterion) -- Wilbur, to me, seems Jurassic. Having them at West Chester would be like having W.C. Williams visit Black Mountain (I don't think he did). That is, if the West Chester/Black Mountain analogy had any weight in the first place. Of course Creeley has written some bad poems. Duncan wrote some horrible ones. That's a byproduct of poetic risk-taking (something to which Wilbur, though not Hecht, seems averse). Among recent traditional-formalists, none have been as risky as James Merrill. One might say that *The Changing Light at Sandover* is a bad poem, but isn't it something anyway? To me, its grand failure is worth more than all of Wilbur's tidily successful verses. On Fri, 9 Nov 2001, Paul Lake wrote: > Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 03:53:41 -0600 > From: Paul Lake > To: New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: [New-Poetry] Pop quiz > > >Pop quiz: What West Chester conference poet has (or will have) the > >stature, achievement, or for that matter formal gifts of Robert Creeley? > >Or Robert Duncan? > > > Well, Richard Wilbur and Anthony Hecht have been at West Chester. And I > doubt any poet at the conference has written poems as bad as some of > Creeley's. Here's an entire poem from *Pieces*. > > > Four > > Before I die. > Before I die. > Before I die. > Before I die. > > > > > Here's another Creeley gem that would get a college freshman laughed out of > West Chester, from R. C.'s Selected. > > > Time > > What happened to her > and what happened to her > and what happened to her. > > > Of course it's all a matter of taste. Still, I think there are lots of > poets at West Chester who have greater formal gifts and more enduring > literary achievements than Duncan or Creeley. > > As for stature, that's conferred by the intertwined literary-academic > establishment, as I've recently lamented on this very list. > > "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite, > That ever I was born to put it right." > > Paul Lake > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines kellogg at duke.edu Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing (919) 660-4357 Duke University FAX (919) 660-4372 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ From GrahamD Fri Nov 9 16:26:49 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 15:26:49 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Calling All Omnists Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFF9@mail.ripon.edu> Now "omnist" is a label I can get behind. After Carruth & Spacks, my next nominee would perhaps be Fred Chappell, a poet of notable inventiveness and range who sees no reason to claim a "side" in these silly wars. His *Midquest* is a real tour de force of formal possibilities. I recently mentioned three of my former teachers, Sydney Lea, Madeline DeFrees, and Joe Langland, who would also fit comfortably under the Omnist label. Oh, and then you could add Robert Lowell, John Berryman, May Swenson, Tom McGrath, James Wright, Stanley Kunitz, Maxine Kumin, John Logan, Donald Hall, Robert Penn Warren, Paul Zimmer, David Wagoner, Donald Justice . . . all notable switch-hitters, and hardly a bunch of obscurities. Among younger poets, a veritable flood, well known and not so: Kelly Cherry, Michael McFee, Marilyn Nelson, Baron Wormser, Ronald Wallace, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Eric Nelson, David Wojahn. . . . Harder to think of a great many poets who straddle the old New American Poets/HallPackSimpson divide, I suppose, and there are those who complained when Dacey & Jauss's anthology *Strong Measures* bent the boundaries so as to include people like Levertov, Creeley, Snyder, Ashbery, and O'Hara as formalists. But I've always liked that book as expressing a notion of form that's closer to mine than most stricter taxonomies. Omnivorous, you might say. David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Barry Spacks > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Friday, November 9, 2001 2:05 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Carruth poem > > At 01:39 PM 11/9/01 EST, J forJames posted: > > a beautiful Carruth poem, many thanks for the treat. > > I see Carruth as a fellow Omnist (the majority party > by a long mile but with no badges to > wear at the party). I like to think of > myself, in fact, as a "New" Omnist (constantly > born-again) but comparisons are odious > and I wouldn't want to irritate the Old duffers. > > We Omnists are entirely a shadow-government, > unwilling to recognize party lines. We'll rhyme > & we'll not-rime, scan six odd ways to Tuesday, > commit one-line poems, barbaric yawlps, haiku that > claim to be senryu, Miltonics, Acme-istics, > even (blushfully) Cinquins. I for one have > drunk the juice of the Ashbery with my honeydew. > > Up the O=M+N^I#S%T POETS!! > > > FROM THE ASHBERYAN > > We'll start with two (stained-red) redwood doors > to enlist this thing called "the subject"; or say > meat from exacting salami slicers, > unshucked constraints of the body-skin. > > But let's pass on from that, returning > joy to the words. Send them off on vacation! > To make the point Beethovenistically, > *no shrubs were abused in this travelogue.* > > The trick's in a solacing touch of d?tente > as when dressing your hero in underwear > pathetic with holes. Not even a saint > could admire this Babushka's style at covert > > vodka sales (though it's cool she survives). > Myself, I'd never require Sir Priest > to ditch my plumbing, the beauty Calista > to batter my clothes on the river stones. > > But the rainforest-mist, now: how can it share > in our plotted action, its syllables > soaked clear through? Wait, wait, I know! -- > we'll hang out our lined-yellow tablets as flags. > > -- NewBarry Spacks > > _______________________________________________ > From kellogg Fri Nov 9 16:47:05 2001 From: kellogg (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 16:47:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Calling All Omnists In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFF9@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: I like the label "omnist," too, though can't stand Fred Chappell's poetry: I think Chappell's got an awful ear in poetry (though a wonderful one in prose, for some reason). But I may have lived in North Carolina too long to have a good perspective on this. All your other nominees are right on the money, though some too old to really experience the divide _as_ a divide. In other words, I wouldn't extend the label "Omnist" to all switch-hitters but only to poets who really grab pragmatically for whatever fits the occasion. Under those criteria, I would also include Harry Mathews, the great Oulipo poet and maybe the most formally inventive American poet of our times, and also John Ashbery, whose approaches are in fact amazingly diverse. (Aside: I don't understand why people view him as somehow anti-formalist. There are formal poems in *A Wave* and *Can you Hear Bird*; moreover, *Flow Chart* was written according to a formal procedure and contains an amazing double sestina toward the end.) Kenneth Koch is definitely an Omnist, too, and a wonderful one. Funny, I've heard many gripes against the New York School from New Formalists, but somehow Koch's name never comes up, though he's a central figure and the New York School's most important teacher. *Strong Measures* was an anthology of _poems_ more than poets -- it made no claims to purity, as an anthology edited by (may have the name wrong) Robert Richman (??) did a few years later. Nothing wrong with including Ashbery in that, or Creeley. On Fri, 9 Nov 2001, Graham, David wrote: > Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 15:26:49 -0600 > From: Graham, David > To: "'new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu'" > Subject: [New-Poetry] Calling All Omnists > > Now "omnist" is a label I can get behind. After Carruth & Spacks, my next > nominee would perhaps be Fred Chappell, a poet of notable inventiveness and > range who sees no reason to claim a "side" in these silly wars. His > *Midquest* is a real tour de force of formal possibilities. > > I recently mentioned three of my former teachers, Sydney Lea, Madeline > DeFrees, and Joe Langland, who would also fit comfortably under the Omnist > label. > > Oh, and then you could add Robert Lowell, John Berryman, May Swenson, Tom > McGrath, James Wright, Stanley Kunitz, Maxine Kumin, John Logan, Donald > Hall, Robert Penn Warren, Paul Zimmer, David Wagoner, Donald Justice . . . > all notable switch-hitters, and hardly a bunch of obscurities. > > Among younger poets, a veritable flood, well known and not so: Kelly > Cherry, Michael McFee, Marilyn Nelson, Baron Wormser, Ronald Wallace, Ellen > Bryant Voigt, Eric Nelson, David Wojahn. . . . > > Harder to think of a great many poets who straddle the old New American > Poets/HallPackSimpson divide, I suppose, and there are those who complained > when Dacey & Jauss's anthology *Strong Measures* bent the boundaries so as > to include people like Levertov, Creeley, Snyder, Ashbery, and O'Hara as > formalists. But I've always liked that book as expressing a notion of form > that's closer to mine than most stricter taxonomies. Omnivorous, you might > say. > > David Graham > > > =================== > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > =================== > > > ---------- > > From: Barry Spacks > > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > Sent: Friday, November 9, 2001 2:05 PM > > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Carruth poem > > > > At 01:39 PM 11/9/01 EST, J forJames posted: > > > > a beautiful Carruth poem, many thanks for the treat. > > > > I see Carruth as a fellow Omnist (the majority party > > by a long mile but with no badges to > > wear at the party). I like to think of > > myself, in fact, as a "New" Omnist (constantly > > born-again) but comparisons are odious > > and I wouldn't want to irritate the Old duffers. > > > > We Omnists are entirely a shadow-government, > > unwilling to recognize party lines. We'll rhyme > > & we'll not-rime, scan six odd ways to Tuesday, > > commit one-line poems, barbaric yawlps, haiku that > > claim to be senryu, Miltonics, Acme-istics, > > even (blushfully) Cinquins. I for one have > > drunk the juice of the Ashbery with my honeydew. > > > > Up the O=M+N^I#S%T POETS!! > > > > > > FROM THE ASHBERYAN > > > > We'll start with two (stained-red) redwood doors > > to enlist this thing called "the subject"; or say > > meat from exacting salami slicers, > > unshucked constraints of the body-skin. > > > > But let's pass on from that, returning > > joy to the words. Send them off on vacation! > > To make the point Beethovenistically, > > *no shrubs were abused in this travelogue.* > > > > The trick's in a solacing touch of d?tente > > as when dressing your hero in underwear > > pathetic with holes. Not even a saint > > could admire this Babushka's style at covert > > > > vodka sales (though it's cool she survives). > > Myself, I'd never require Sir Priest > > to ditch my plumbing, the beauty Calista > > to batter my clothes on the river stones. > > > > But the rainforest-mist, now: how can it share > > in our plotted action, its syllables > > soaked clear through? Wait, wait, I know! -- > > we'll hang out our lined-yellow tablets as flags. > > > > -- NewBarry Spacks > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines kellogg at duke.edu Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing (919) 660-4357 Duke University FAX (919) 660-4372 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg/ From wasanthony Fri Nov 9 18:48:11 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 15:48:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20011109234811.32849.qmail@web12108.mail.yahoo.com> --- Gwyn McVay wrote: > How many New Formalist poets are there? That's important to know in case we want to call for air strikes. Also, should we look in caves? - Jim ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From bardo Fri Nov 9 19:49:17 2001 From: bardo (Daniel Zimmerman) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 19:49:17 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Pop quiz References: Message-ID: <008301c16981$86bfd0e0$7692be18@DanielZimmerman> Creeley's pieces below strike me as a minimalist response to deep image, using the purely linguistic resources of pronoun ambiguity or indeterminacy to add dimension to what he famously has called "condition" as "occasion[s]" of "circumstance" (the latter a matter for the reader to flatter: e.g., how many "I's" speak in "Four"? How many "hers" count [in] "Time" or get, by implication, recounted as, time and again they appear?). He seems to have taken Williams' "no ideas but in things" into the realm of the names of things--a realm beyond the "words" in the following from _For Love_: my lady, fair, with soft arms, what can I say to you, words, words, as if all worlds were there (Sorry; I don't have the text at hand, so the line breaks come from memory). Dan Zimmerman ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Lake" To: Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 4:53 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] Pop quiz > >Pop quiz: What West Chester conference poet has (or will have) the > >stature, achievement, or for that matter formal gifts of Robert Creeley? > >Or Robert Duncan? > > > Well, Richard Wilbur and Anthony Hecht have been at West Chester. And I > doubt any poet at the conference has written poems as bad as some of > Creeley's. Here's an entire poem from *Pieces*. > > > Four > > Before I die. > Before I die. > Before I die. > Before I die. > > > > > Here's another Creeley gem that would get a college freshman laughed out of > West Chester, from R. C.'s Selected. > > > Time > > What happened to her > and what happened to her > and what happened to her. > > > Of course it's all a matter of taste. Still, I think there are lots of > poets at West Chester who have greater formal gifts and more enduring > literary achievements than Duncan or Creeley. > > As for stature, that's conferred by the intertwined literary-academic > establishment, as I've recently lamented on this very list. > > "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite, > That ever I was born to put it right." > > Paul Lake > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From wasanthony Fri Nov 9 21:16:20 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 18:16:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] poems Message-ID: <20011110021620.68299.qmail@web12102.mail.yahoo.com> March Before April You purse yourself, anti-blossom, show bone as you work yourself inward until wrist bones click a clasp, a last exhalation of perfume from the clutch-purse a husband sniffs dog-like over and over, nuzzling as if a soft, moist push could pry it open, rolls on the ground next to a stem, a quiver of buds, exclamation of root. March before April must come again before sudden November and gasp: a store- window look, a soft brush against brittle hair like a wand across little glass bells, and a pat on a velveteen rose on a plush lapel, a lump of silk scarf interceding before blouse and brassiere, flesh like the skin of a drum. ========= Girl With Cell-Phone I leave my office to have a cigarette and see her on a stone bench. Her legs are crossed, left elbow on left thigh, chin in her left hand, her gaze downward, the right arm crossed over her thighs, the right hand clutching a cell-phone tightly. I can see the veins standing out. She is that way the whole time. I light another cigarette and now the hand with the phone moves up and down in fits, and I think she clutches it tighter. Her mind must be tied to the phone and what came from it, or what she expects if it rings. But no, something has already happened. I can tell from the stare and the artifact in her hand. And there the story ends. I had thought to muse on signals I couldn't have heard or intercepted, or postulate scenarios common to many, perhaps interject a magnetic pull ending in voices, cigarette tossed, a hug. Or leave out cigarettes for posterity. But no, I could tell from her stare and the artifact in her hand. - Jim ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From CobbCoStudioArts Sat Nov 10 08:32:47 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 05:32:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! Message-ID: <20011110133247.1BC3236F9@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From CobbCoStudioArts Sat Nov 10 09:09:58 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 06:09:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia Message-ID: <20011110140958.EBBEB36F9@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From cstroffo Sat Nov 10 10:37:35 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 07:37:35 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps References: <15b.3bede95.291c5123@aol.com> <004e01c168a4$e80ee4e0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> <003101c168a6$8a788aa0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <3BED49C0.3DF60F5A@earthlink.net> Does Anybody here know the poetry of his granddaughter, Jane Ransom? Joseph Duemer wrote: > And Ransom, Ah, Ransom--one of the beautiful fascists. But if there is a > more beautiful lyric elegy than "Dead Boy," I don't know what it is. > > jd > ====================== > Joseph Duemer > School of Liberal Arts, 5750 > Clarkson University > Potsdam NY 13699 > 315.268.3967 > website http://web.northnet.org/duemer > journal http://rw/blogspot.com > ====================== > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From adead_poet Sat Nov 10 14:43:29 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 13:43:29 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Anthology Announcement Message-ID: bob g, i'm ready to get the book. i'll be sending the money monday or tuesday. do you prefer personal check or money order. and who do i make it out to. and does the $24 cover postage? jason >From: Bob Grumman >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: [New-Poetry] Anthology Announcement >Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 14:03:12 -0400 > >forgive the HYPERBOLEEEEE but it is appropriate > for this is an announcement of Volume One > of the FIRST MAJOR (American) anthology >of visual and related poetries in some 30 years. > > $24 postpaid from > > Bob Grumman > 1708 Hayworth Road > Port Charlotte FL 33952 > > also available through Small Press Distribution > > WRITING TO BE SEEN > edited by Bob Grumman and Crag Hill > > ISBN 0-87924-083-0 > >Contributors: Carol Stetser, Scott Helmes, Bill Keith, Joel Lipman, >Guy R. Beining, Marilyn R. Rosenberg, David Cole, Kathy Ernst, >Karl Young, Harry Polkinhorn, William L. Fox and Karl Kempton, >each of whom has twenty pages of works and an introductory >Artist's Statement that is in some cases ten pages in length > >500 copies published for The Runaway Spoon Press and Score >Publications by Light & Dust; 328 11 by 8.5 inch pages; glossy >color cover. A must for any serious student of visual poetry & >a probable collectible. Volume Two is under way. Contributors >to that will be John Vieira, Miekal And, Liz Was, Michael Basinski, >Crag Hill, Bob Grumman, John M. Bennett, Paul Zelevansky, Irving >Weiss, Richard Kostelanetz and Jonathan Brannen. > > --Bob G. > > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From adead_poet Sat Nov 10 14:50:02 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 13:50:02 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Anthology Announcement Message-ID: oops sorry, that was meant to be sent just to bob g, not the list. jason >From: "dead poet" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Anthology Announcement >Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 13:43:29 -0600 > >bob g, > >i'm ready to get the book. i'll be sending the money monday or tuesday. do >you prefer personal check or money order. and who do i make it out to. and >does the $24 cover postage? > >jason > > >>From: Bob Grumman >>Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >>To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >>Subject: [New-Poetry] Anthology Announcement >>Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 14:03:12 -0400 >> >>forgive the HYPERBOLEEEEE but it is appropriate >> for this is an announcement of Volume One >> of the FIRST MAJOR (American) anthology >>of visual and related poetries in some 30 years. >> >> $24 postpaid from >> >> Bob Grumman >> 1708 Hayworth Road >> Port Charlotte FL 33952 >> >> also available through Small Press Distribution >> >> WRITING TO BE SEEN >> edited by Bob Grumman and Crag Hill >> >> ISBN 0-87924-083-0 >> >>Contributors: Carol Stetser, Scott Helmes, Bill Keith, Joel Lipman, >>Guy R. Beining, Marilyn R. Rosenberg, David Cole, Kathy Ernst, >>Karl Young, Harry Polkinhorn, William L. Fox and Karl Kempton, >>each of whom has twenty pages of works and an introductory >>Artist's Statement that is in some cases ten pages in length >> >>500 copies published for The Runaway Spoon Press and Score >>Publications by Light & Dust; 328 11 by 8.5 inch pages; glossy >>color cover. A must for any serious student of visual poetry & >>a probable collectible. Volume Two is under way. Contributors >>to that will be John Vieira, Miekal And, Liz Was, Michael Basinski, >>Crag Hill, Bob Grumman, John M. Bennett, Paul Zelevansky, Irving >>Weiss, Richard Kostelanetz and Jonathan Brannen. >> >> --Bob G. >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>New-Poetry mailing list >>New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >>http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From JforJames Sat Nov 10 16:43:55 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 16:43:55 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia reading report Message-ID: <14a.3d0ff9f.291ef99b@aol.com> Last night I heard Dana Gioia "read" at Trinity College. Actually it was part reading and part recital. Three of his poems that had been set to music were sung by students in the Music Dept., as well as a section from his libretto for the opera Nosferatu (sp?... based on the Dracula legend, as you all know.). Gioia's reading itself I would characterize as more of a traditional poetry recital...since he did most of his poems from memory, standing before the audience without aid of the page and gesturing with hands, often moving about as his recited. Only for a few poems did he fix himself behind the podium, and those poems, too, seemed to be largely committed to memory judging by how little he looked down at the page. In truth, I thought the musical portion the best part of the program. I found a bit off-putting the amount of time he expended introducing each poem and his manner a tad dydatic/superior. Also, he tended, I thought, to hit the stressed syllables of his metrics too definitely and to hang his rimes in midair, letting them flutter and resonate there a half-second as tho to be admired. I guess I would have preferred a more subtle address. I'm not a stranger to poetry slams, and, honestly, tho the blue blazer and tie Gioia wore betrayed him as more academic, his recitation was not too far removed from the juiced-up style slammer's often employ. (Tho DG didn't tilt toward the rant...a "form" many slammers find de rigueur.) I should mention that the microphone was not functioning and that fact may have influenced Gioia's approach. Since this was my first time in his presence, I can't say. He did poems from the new book _Interrogations at Noon_ and a number of pieces I felt I knew fairly well, like "Summer Storm," "The Country Wife" and "Planting the Sequoia." (That last title I may have slightly wrong....the poem is an elegy for the death his infant son.) "Summer Storm" I'm beginning to cotton to more than I did the first time I experienced it. He tells us a bit too much toward the end of the poem. A poem that's so much about setting and gestural nuance shouldn't break its spell. Finnegan From thebobcooperfor Sat Nov 10 18:11:50 2001 From: thebobcooperfor (bob cooper) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 23:11:50 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia reading report Message-ID: I?ve read with both amazement and surprise the number of posts about Gioia and whether the new US Laureate will rhyme and scan or continue to play with the net down. In my naivet? I guess I thought most poets would have practised all manner of styles and demonstrated all sorts of accomplishments well before they could be considered for such a job. Is the game you?re playing, therefore, only one for yourselves? I mean I write both freely formed poems and ones that work with established forms (have done for years, will probably do for a while longer as well). But I do tend to find full-blown rhymes (always stuck at the end of lines) can feel rather insensitive. Much more subtle to follow on from the flow of much 20th Century rhyming practice and, instead of a Sousa march of rhyme, seduce the readers ear with sound. Perhaps, like Finnegan reports of Gioia?s reading I, too, don?t like those who ?hit the stressed syllables of metrics too definitely and .. hang rimes in midair, letting them flutter and resonate there a half-second as tho to be admired.?either when they read, or when I read their poems on the page. When I?ve read Gioia, on the page only, I?ve found little subtlety, and when he?s trying to work his rhymes I would describe the end result of his efforts more as bland. When he?s blatant with his sound I?m reminded of the brass band marching by again... I recently heard Tony Harrison read (and a more prolific rhymster probably can?t be found this side of the pond) but (as he always does) he never let his craft get in the way of his poems. However I also recall hearing Gavin Ewart reading during the Gulf War and echoing Wilfred Owen?s techniques in one poem in particular (which, like Owen?s work, faced war head on). But there I found I was constantly trying to guess the rhyme before it came (and so lost the poem). But it may be that I?m not all that good a listener. I mean I can rarely concentrate all the way through when hearing a sestina. Can any of you who hears one stay with it all the way through? If the ear and the eye have to work on a poem (and I think they do) it might be that deeper questions need to be explored about both free-versers and neo-formalists poets and poems. Henry Gould you hit the nail square on the head again! If, at a reading, I find my ear and eye attracted/delighted I?ll probably remember the poem, even buy the book and look more closely... and sense labelling doesn?t matter as much as what I?ve found. If I?m reading I?m listening for the music (early jazz from new Orleans or John Coltrane//a lute or a moog synthesiser//a Motzart Opera or Vaughan William?s folk song arrangement) of the poem. (hope I never get as deaf as my dad did!) Bob Cooper _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From JforJames Sun Nov 11 10:17:33 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 10:17:33 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia reading report Message-ID: reading my recent post: << a tad dydatic >> oops, that's "didactic"...proving once again that I could use some teacherly instruction in orthography. F From JforJames Sun Nov 11 10:35:37 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 10:35:37 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Jacket #15 announcement Message-ID: <8c.f486d8f.291ff4c9@aol.com> Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 22:30:47 +0000 From: John Tranter Subject: Jacket #15 announcement Jacket # 15 is under construction, and will be complete in December 2001. In the meantime you can read these items (...together with dozens of poems and reviews) , at http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/jacket15/index.html "Kenneth Koch Tribute" -- A special tribute to New York poet Kenneth Koch -- 23 items from over twenty writers, including an audio recording of "Popeye and William Blake Fight to the Death" =97 a hilarious public rhyming contest between Koch and Allen Ginsberg at St Mark's Poetry Project, New York City, 9 May 1979 and "Words to Comfort" -- A selection of poems and photographs from the benefit readings to support the World Trade Center Relief Fund on Wednesday October 17, 2001. Many of the poems being read were selected from the enormous public outpouring of poetry after the terrorist attack, posted at New York City fire stations, Union Square, and numerous other memorial sites around the city. ...and of course Jacket 13 and 14 are still available: -- Jacket 13, the special co-production with New American Writing magazine, at http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/jacket13/ and -- Jacket 14, another special co-production http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/jacket14/ with Cambridge UK magazine SALT, including a French writing supplement. ... Jacket magazine, free as the breeze. Enjoy! (If you'd like to be taken off this mailing list, please just ask.) -- John Tranter, Editor, Jacket magazine From tadrichards Sun Nov 11 12:17:31 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 12:17:31 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia reading report References: Message-ID: <002701c16ad4$bf6eb880$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2001 10:17 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia reading report > reading my recent post: > << a tad dydatic >> > oops, that's "didactic"...proving once again that > I could use some teacherly instruction in orthography. > F > _______________________________________________ Just so long as it's not... "a didactic Tad" Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards From Rsgwynn1 Sun Nov 11 13:55:45 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 13:55:45 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps Message-ID: In a message dated 11/10/2001 9:36:45 AM Central Standard Time, cstroffo at earthlink.net writes: > > Does Anybody here know the poetry of his granddaughter, Jane Ransom? > > > Two books from Story Line--Jane Reavill Ransom. Very confessional stuff. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Sun Nov 11 14:13:26 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 14:13:26 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia reading report Message-ID: I've heard Dana read twenty times or so, and Finnegan's report seems fair and accurate. Dana gives a good reading, but he has quirks like everyone else. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cstroffo Mon Nov 12 01:27:56 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 22:27:56 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps References: Message-ID: <3BEF6BEC.B94871D@earthlink.net> Is that term "confessional" for you meant derogatorily? (Sorry, I forget).... But actually, there seems to be a pretty big difference between her second Story Line book and her first--- (then there's also her weird "novel" published by NYU...) Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: > In a message dated 11/10/2001 9:36:45 AM Central Standard Time, > cstroffo at earthlink.net writes: > > > >> >> Does Anybody here know the poetry of his granddaughter, Jane Ransom? >> >> >> > > Two books from Story Line--Jane Reavill Ransom. Very confessional > stuff. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman Mon Nov 12 06:55:14 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 06:55:14 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011109130354.00aa6810@postoffice.brown.edu><4.3.2.7.2.20011109141448.00a972b0@postoffice.brown.edu><4.3.2.7.2.20011109145133.00aa68f0@postoffice.brown.edu> <4.3.2.7.2.20011109154109.00a9a910@postoffice.brown.edu> Message-ID: <001401c16b70$f502dfc0$cf04fea9@y3b2r8> ----- Original Message ----- From: Henry Gould To: Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 3:46 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] All pigeons to their holes! > I guess it was not a serious discussion, then, discussing those > questions. Let's categorize it as a case of > Petty Labeling, within the subject Contemporary Poetry Discussion, subset > Brand Names. > > Henry I agree that much of the labeling was petty--what I call typology as opposed to taxonomy. But I'd call it not a case of petty labeling but a case of petty use of labeling. And I'm not even sure of that because it is a fact that certain kinds of poetry do better in the big world than others, and the ones that do well in this way can be distinguished from those that don't with labels. And that's important to someone like me, who would rather give a talk on poetry at some college and live off the proceeds for a year or more than substitute teach, but can't because I don't compose the right kind of poetry. But this is old hat, and I REALLY don't want to go through it again. So you can have the last word if you want it, Henry. amicably, Bob From Rsgwynn1 Mon Nov 12 09:50:07 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 09:50:07 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps Message-ID: <15b.3eb1593.29213b9f@cs.com> In a message dated 11/12/2001 12:26:43 AM Central Standard Time, cstroffo at earthlink.net writes: > Is that term "confessional" for you meant derogatorily? > (Sorry, I forget).... But actually, there seems to be a pretty big > difference between > her second Story Line book and her first--- (then there's also her weird > "novel" published by NYU...) > > The first book, as I recall, had a lot of poems about dysfunctional family, abuse, etc. It's been about ten years. The second one I can't recall except for the cover, which was pretty wild. I'll try to look it up. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From GrahamD Mon Nov 12 10:30:34 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 09:30:34 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] I confess Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFFB@mail.ripon.edu> In my research on the confessional poets and their heirs, I've found virtually no examples of the term being used in a non-derogatory way, unless in reference to the original generation of Lowell, Plath, et al. And even sometimes then. David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 12:27 AM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps > > Is that term "confessional" for you meant derogatorily? > (Sorry, I forget).... > > From poetnic Sat Nov 10 19:28:33 2001 From: poetnic (Peter Nicholson) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 16:28:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Australian poet Message-ID: <20011111002833.88802.qmail@web10008.mail.yahoo.com> http://peternicholson.byteserve.com.au http://www.uiowa.edu/uiowapress/cogvisemi.htm Emily - pp 69-70 http://wagner-nsw.org.au/reviews/Nicholson_July2001.html Extract from Wagner essay http://www.Cosmoetica.com/VM.htm Kursk http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozlit/edit9727.html Ozlit editorial http://dargo.vicnet.net.au/ozlit/writers.cfm?id=716 3 poems http://overthere.com.au/ergence/index2.html Collaborative poetics Dear New Poetry, I was recently told about your list and thought you might be interested in the work of an Australian poet. Hope you will find some of these refereces useful. With kind regards, Peter __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From halvard Mon Nov 12 10:53:42 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 10:53:42 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps In-Reply-To: <15b.3eb1593.29213b9f@cs.com> Message-ID: I must say that I'm enGioia-ing seeing the end of this Gioia thread loom in the offing. Hal "Way down the deserted street, I thought I saw a bus which, with luck, might get me out of this sentence . . . " --Rosmarie Waldrop Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html -----Original Message----- From: new-poetry-admin at wiz.cath.vt.edu [mailto:new-poetry-admin at wiz.cath.vt.edu]On Behalf Of Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 9:50 AM To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps In a message dated 11/12/2001 12:26:43 AM Central Standard Time, cstroffo at earthlink.net writes: Is that term "confessional" for you meant derogatorily? (Sorry, I forget).... But actually, there seems to be a pretty big difference between her second Story Line book and her first--- (then there's also her weird "novel" published by NYU...) The first book, as I recall, had a lot of poems about dysfunctional family, abuse, etc. It's been about ten years. The second one I can't recall except for the cover, which was pretty wild. I'll try to look it up. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From GrahamD Mon Nov 12 11:18:49 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 10:18:49 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFFC@mail.ripon.edu> Hmmmm. There oughta be a name for this particular kind of meta-post: one that, in lamenting a certain thread, actually prolongs it. Pretty postmodern ploy, seems to me. Hal, you sly dog: you actually *like* Gioia, don't you? David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Halvard Johnson > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 9:53 AM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps > > I must say that I'm enGioia-ing seeing the end of this Gioia > thread loom in the offing. > > Hal "Way down the deserted street, I thought I saw > a bus which, with luck, might get me out of this > sentence . . . " > --Rosmarie Waldrop > Halvard Johnson From JforJames Mon Nov 12 11:20:18 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 11:20:18 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Mary Ruefle poems Message-ID: <145.473e877.292150c2@aol.com> Japanese Bloodgod I feed my sorrow I feed my sorrow spinach I feed my sorrow eggs I feed my sorrow sunflowers I feed my sorrow pineapples and newspapers and trash There is a cake rising for my sorrow I feed it opium and I buy Scotch tape for it I buy batteries for my sorrow I throw coins at my sorrow I look at it through binoculars I throw lavender on the sheets of my sorrow I burn frankincense for my sorrow I starch my sorrow I iron it flat, then fold it up again I buy blueberries for my sorrow Like all things, it likes itself It likes what it is made of When I want to touch it I fill the sink with hot water and add a submarine ? 2001 Mary Ruefle ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --- Cold Pluto The moon tonight- those milky & sliding tears on the face of Christ that hung in my grandmother's bedroom! The purple wardrobe of his open heart! My grandma & Cranshaw, centuries apart, collide tonight in a lunar spell. My memory can be so gibbous. My brain the matted back of an embroided swatch of cloth. Mosquitos! So many mosquitos in the eerie light! I swat my arm, then suck the blood for its salt. In the penetralia of my existence there must be some marrow, not this glucose of the virtuoso, the King of Collisions. What I would give to see him dangling. Despised. Out of power. No one wants to live like this. The crowd swells. Off with his head! Off memory, off oeuvre, off with the stuff atoms are made of! To live without him, to be dim, to live under the incomparable spell of impossibly cold Pluto. Aloof & severe. Impossibly, but unfortunately, like the green glazed tiles of a distant Chinese roof. ? 1996 Mary Ruefle From halvard Mon Nov 12 11:28:26 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 11:28:26 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia (continued) ps In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFFC@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: > Hmmmm. There oughta be a name for this particular kind of meta-post: one > that, in lamenting a certain thread, actually prolongs it. > > Pretty postmodern ploy, seems to me. Hal, you sly dog: you actually *like* > Gioia, don't you? > > David Graham Nah, don't even know him. I just had my Meta-Post Toasties for breakfast this morning. Hal "Dear Mrs, Mr, Miss or Mr and Mrs----: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action." --Joseph Heller Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From halvard Mon Nov 12 11:30:36 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 11:30:36 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Mary Ruefle poems In-Reply-To: <145.473e877.292150c2@aol.com> Message-ID: Aha, another souffle from Mary Ruefle! (Sorry, couldn't resist it.) Hal > Japanese Bloodgod > > I feed my sorrow > I feed my sorrow spinach > I feed my sorrow eggs > I feed my sorrow sunflowers > I feed my sorrow pineapples and newspapers and trash > There is a cake rising for my sorrow > I feed it opium and I buy Scotch tape for it > I buy batteries for my sorrow > I throw coins at my sorrow > I look at it through binoculars > I throw lavender on the sheets of my sorrow > I burn frankincense for my sorrow > I starch my sorrow > I iron it flat, then fold it up again > I buy blueberries for my sorrow > Like all things, it likes itself > It likes what it is made of > When I want to touch it > I fill the sink with hot water > and add a submarine > > > ? 2001 Mary Ruefle > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > --- > > Cold Pluto > > The moon tonight- > those milky & sliding tears on the face of Christ > that hung in my grandmother's bedroom! > The purple wardrobe of his open heart! > My grandma & Cranshaw, centuries apart, collide tonight > in a lunar spell. > My memory can be so gibbous. My brain the matted back > of an embroided swatch of cloth. Mosquitos! > So many mosquitos in the eerie light! > I swat my arm, then suck the blood > for its salt. In the penetralia of my existence > there must be some marrow, not this glucose > of the virtuoso, the King of Collisions. > What I would give to see him dangling. > Despised. Out of power. > No one wants to live like this. > The crowd swells. Off with his head! Off > memory, off oeuvre, off with the stuff > atoms are made of! To live without him, to be dim, > to live under the incomparable spell of impossibly cold > Pluto. Aloof & severe. Impossibly, > but unfortunately, like the green glazed tiles > of a distant Chinese roof. > > > ? 1996 Mary Ruefle > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From duemer Mon Nov 12 12:12:15 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 12:12:15 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] confessin' the blues In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I went to the crossroad fell down on my knees I went to the crossroad fell down on my knees Asked the lord above "Have mercy on poor Bob if you please Standin' at the crossroad I tried to flag a ride Standin' at the crossroad I tried to flag a ride Didn't nobody seem to know me everybody pass me by Sun goin down boy the dark gonna catch me here Sun goin down boy the dark gonna catch me here I haven't got no lovin' sweet woman that love and feel my care You can run, you can run tell my friend-boy Willie Brown You can run tell my friend-boy Willie Brown Lord, that I'm standin' at the crossroad, babe I believe I'm sinkin' down. [Robert Johnson, "Crossroad Blues"] From Rsgwynn1 Mon Nov 12 13:18:01 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 13:18:01 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Mary Ruefle poems Message-ID: Cranshaw? Crashaw? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames Mon Nov 12 16:06:17 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 16:06:17 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Mary Ruefle poems Message-ID: <133.4789eb8.292193c9@aol.com> In a message dated 11/12/01 1:18:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com writes: << Cranshaw? Crashaw? >> probably the latter...poem was copied from a webpage. I found and corrected an obvious typo in the first of the the two poems posted. Not sure how Crashaw's life squares with these lines: the King of Collisions. What I would give to see him dangling. Despised. Out of power. No one wants to live like this. The crowd swells. Off with his head! Off memory, off oeuvre, off with the stuff atoms are made of! To live without him, to be dim, to live under the incomparable spell of impossibly cold Pluto. Aloof & severe. Impossibly, but unfortunately, like the green glazed tiles of a distant Chinese roof. -- Finnegan From JforJames Mon Nov 12 16:07:09 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 16:07:09 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Mary Ruefle poems Message-ID: <136.47a9035.292193fd@aol.com> In a message dated 11/12/01 1:18:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com writes: << Cranshaw? Crashaw? >> probably the latter...poem was copied from a webpage. I found and corrected an obvious typo in the first of the the two poems posted. Not sure how Crashaw's life squares with these lines: the King of Collisions. What I would give to see him dangling. Despised. Out of power. No one wants to live like this. The crowd swells. Off with his head! Off memory, off oeuvre, off with the stuff atoms are made of! To live without him, to be dim, to live under the incomparable spell of impossibly cold Pluto. Aloof & severe. Impossibly, but unfortunately, like the green glazed tiles of a distant Chinese roof. -- Finnegan From JforJames Mon Nov 12 16:10:50 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 16:10:50 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Mary Ruefle poems Message-ID: <152.3e6300e.292194da@aol.com> In a message dated 11/12/01 1:18:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com writes: << Cranshaw? Crashaw? >> probably the latter...poem was copied from a webpage. (I noticed and corrected an obvious typo in the first of the the two poems posted.) But I'm not sure how Crashaw's life squares with the details in these lines: the King of Collisions. What I would give to see him dangling. Despised. Out of power. No one wants to live like this. The crowd swells. Off with his head! Off memory, off oeuvre, off with the stuff atoms are made of! To live without him, to be dim, to live under the incomparable spell of impossibly cold Pluto. Aloof & severe. Impossibly, but unfortunately, like the green glazed tiles of a distant Chinese roof. -- Finnegan From bobgrumman Mon Nov 12 17:05:03 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 17:05:03 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Calling All Omnists References: Message-ID: <001301c16bc6$1516d8c0$cf04fea9@y3b2r8> Sorry, but I think you guys are nuts. It's the old Wilbur-to-Ashbery boast. Omnist? No. A genuine omnist would compose plaintext, songmode (to use my terms for conventional free and formal verse) AND visual, sound, performance, mathematical, cryptographic, infraverbal, hypertext, computer and all kinds of other poetry. --Bob G. From bobgrumman Mon Nov 12 17:12:35 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 17:12:35 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Anthology Announcement References: Message-ID: <004901c16bc7$223be8a0$cf04fea9@y3b2r8> Hi, Jason. $24 covers postage. I'll be lookin' for your check--thanks! --Bob From Thom424 Mon Nov 12 17:19:44 2001 From: Thom424 (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 17:19:44 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] More on Collins... Message-ID: <35.1db2b87c.2921a500@aol.com> This report just in from a Chicago friend... No reading I've attended has ever been better--o how he can make me laugh (and underneath) cry. I suspect his reading & intertextual remarks are somewhat canned, but I don't care: I think I would appreciate the latter at least 17 times. Upon taking the podium he paused, looked up at the audience, and said "My People." Later when he said he would have to "start to end" the reading, somebody in the back shouted "No!!" Collins replied "Thanks, Dad," etc. A bonus was that after reading poems for about 40 minutes he then engaged in an on-stage interview/questions-from-the-audience session with Ira Glass (who produces & hosts "This American Life," an American treasure in itself); that second part was almost as good as the first (including Collins' professed puzzlement about how he got the laureateship & what its duties are)." Thom Tammaro Moorhead, MN From JforJames Mon Nov 12 18:43:19 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 18:43:19 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] too sane for the sake of the poem Message-ID: <4a.195cd27.2921b897@aol.com> A friend of mine sometimes remarks that the poetry of So-&-So is "too sane." He suggests that sanity is bad for one's art. "But if any man come to the gates of poetry without the madness of the Muses, persuaded that skill alone will make him a good poet, then shall he and his works of sanity be brought to nought by the poetry of madness." (Socrates by way of Plato, trans. by Hackforth.) Your thoughts? Finnegan From wasanthony Mon Nov 12 18:46:56 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 15:46:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Mary Ruefle poems In-Reply-To: <136.47a9035.292193fd@aol.com> Message-ID: <20011112234656.69311.qmail@web12104.mail.yahoo.com> Third time for this post. What gives? Are we not getting it? - Jim --- JforJames at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 11/12/01 1:18:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, > Rsgwynn1 at cs.com > writes: > > << Cranshaw? Crashaw? > > >> > probably the latter...poem was copied from a webpage. > I found and corrected an obvious typo in the first of the > the two poems posted. Not sure how Crashaw's life squares > with these lines: > the King of Collisions. > What I would give to see him dangling. > Despised. Out of power. > No one wants to live like this. > The crowd swells. Off with his head! Off > memory, off oeuvre, off with the stuff > atoms are made of! To live without him, to be dim, > to live under the incomparable spell of impossibly cold > Pluto. Aloof & severe. Impossibly, > but unfortunately, like the green glazed tiles > of a distant Chinese roof. > > -- > Finnegan > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From halvard Mon Nov 12 18:59:38 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 18:59:38 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Mary Ruefle poems In-Reply-To: <20011112234656.69311.qmail@web12104.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hey, that makes four now, and mine makes five! What gives indeed? Hal > Third time for this post. What gives? Are we not getting it? > > - Jim > > --- JforJames at aol.com wrote: > > In a message dated 11/12/01 1:18:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, > > Rsgwynn1 at cs.com > > writes: > > > > << Cranshaw? Crashaw? > > > > >> > > probably the latter...poem was copied from a webpage. > > I found and corrected an obvious typo in the first of the > > the two poems posted. Not sure how Crashaw's life squares > > with these lines: > > the King of Collisions. > > What I would give to see him dangling. > > Despised. Out of power. > > No one wants to live like this. > > The crowd swells. Off with his head! Off > > memory, off oeuvre, off with the stuff > > atoms are made of! To live without him, to be dim, > > to live under the incomparable spell of impossibly cold > > Pluto. Aloof & severe. Impossibly, > > but unfortunately, like the green glazed tiles > > of a distant Chinese roof. > > > > -- > > Finnegan > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > ===== > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net > Salt River Review: > "Ripples" @ > Poetserv: > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Find a job, post your resume. > http://careers.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From grahamd Mon Nov 12 20:16:11 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 19:16:11 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Calling All Omnists Message-ID: <200111130124.fAD1O8b11396@mx16.mx.voyager.net> Duly noted, Bob. In the future, whenever I write anything about American poetry, please understand the phrase "except, of course, for visual, sound, performance, mathematical, cryptographic, infraverbal, hypertext, computer and all kinds of other poetry" as implied. Thank you. David _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: "Bob Grumman" >To: >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Calling All Omnists >Date: Mon, Nov 12, 2001, 4:05 PM > >Sorry, but I think you guys are nuts. It's the old Wilbur-to-Ashbery >boast. Omnist? No. A genuine omnist would compose plaintext, >songmode (to use my terms for conventional free and formal verse) AND >visual, sound, performance, mathematical, cryptographic, infraverbal, >hypertext, >computer and all kinds of other poetry. > > > --Bob G. From grahamd Mon Nov 12 20:30:57 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 19:30:57 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: too sane for the sake of the poem Message-ID: <200111130131.fAD1Vr613897@mx5.mx.voyager.net> If "too sane" is meant literally, I think that's romantic twaddle of the worst sort. It reminds me of those Beat-era hipsters who thought that jazz musicians just blew their horns in Dionysiac frenzy ("spontaneous bop prosody," anyone?)--demonstrating a remarkable ignorance about the complexity of the music and the skill & practice required to produce it. If, however, "too sane" is a metaphor for "simplistic," "unduly tidy," etc., well, that's probably what we ought to say. David Graham _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: JforJames at aol.com >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: [New-Poetry] too sane for the sake of the poem >Date: Mon, Nov 12, 2001, 5:43 PM > >A friend of mine sometimes remarks >that the poetry of So-&-So is "too sane." >He suggests that sanity is bad for one's art. >"But if any man come to the gates of >poetry without the madness of the Muses, >persuaded that skill alone will make >him a good poet, then shall he and his >works of sanity be brought to nought >by the poetry of madness." (Socrates >by way of Plato, trans. by Hackforth.) >Your thoughts? >Finnegan From bobgrumman Mon Nov 12 20:33:27 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 20:33:27 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Calling All Omnists References: <200111130124.fAD1O8b11396@mx16.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <000f01c16be3$31e62880$cf04fea9@y3b2r8> > Duly noted, Bob. > > In the future, whenever I write anything about American poetry, please > understand the phrase "except, of course, for visual, sound, performance, > mathematical, cryptographic, infraverbal, hypertext, computer and all kinds > of other poetry" as implied. > > Thank you. > > David I have always understood that to be true of all academics' references to American Poetry, David, but I fear that would not make your use of the term, "omnist," apt, which was what my criticism was about. --Bob G. From gmcvay Mon Nov 12 20:35:58 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 20:35:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: too sane for the sake of the poem In-Reply-To: <200111130131.fAD1Vr613897@mx5.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: David, Actually, Allen Ginsberg revised rather a lot. There are drafts and drafts of "Howl for Carl Solomon." Best, Gwyn From bobgrumman Mon Nov 12 20:37:53 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 20:37:53 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] too sane for the sake of the poem References: <4a.195cd27.2921b897@aol.com> Message-ID: <001901c16be3$d0f12f60$cf04fea9@y3b2r8> > A friend of mine sometimes remarks > that the poetry of So-&-So is "too sane." To me, he's just saying that poetry that is too predictable doesn't have it. > He suggests that sanity is bad for one's art. I think the more insanity one's SANITY can contain, the better. > "But if any man come to the gates of > poetry without the madness of the Muses, > persuaded that skill alone will make > him a good poet, then shall he and his > works of sanity be brought to nought > by the poetry of madness." (Socrates > by way of Plato, trans. by Hackforth.) > Your thoughts? > Finnegan Seems to me too obvious to state, but I'll do it anyway: great art must tread a fine line between excessive obscurity and excessive clarity. --Bob G. From grahamd Mon Nov 12 20:52:54 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 19:52:54 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] too sane for the sake of the poem Message-ID: <200111130151.fAD1p6B70252@mail4.mx.voyager.net> And a little known fact is that Kerouac's famous phrase, "first thought best thought," was, in its first printing, "First thought first draft." ________________ David Graham grahamd at vbe.com ________________ ---------- >David, > >Actually, Allen Ginsberg revised rather a lot. There are drafts and drafts >of "Howl for Carl Solomon." > >Best, Gwyn > From halvard Mon Nov 12 21:03:51 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 21:03:51 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Calling All Omnists In-Reply-To: <200111130124.fAD1O8b11396@mx16.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: My inbox sometimes truncates subject lines, and I thought for one wild moment that we were getting into a really spectacular subject here: Calling All Omnivores. Another metapost from Hal "Balthus is a painter about whom nothing is known." --Balthus Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html > Duly noted, Bob. > > In the future, whenever I write anything about American poetry, please > understand the phrase "except, of course, for visual, sound, performance, > mathematical, cryptographic, infraverbal, hypertext, computer and all kinds > of other poetry" as implied. > > Thank you. > > David > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > > ---------- > >From: "Bob Grumman" > >To: > >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Calling All Omnists > >Date: Mon, Nov 12, 2001, 4:05 PM > > > > >Sorry, but I think you guys are nuts. It's the old Wilbur-to-Ashbery > >boast. Omnist? No. A genuine omnist would compose plaintext, > >songmode (to use my terms for conventional free and formal verse) AND > >visual, sound, performance, mathematical, cryptographic, infraverbal, > >hypertext, > >computer and all kinds of other poetry. > > > > > > --Bob G. > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From cstroffo Tue Nov 13 03:15:20 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 00:15:20 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] confessin' the blues References: Message-ID: <3BF0D698.E63C175@earthlink.net> And then Mouth McMoralist intones: he should've tried to ride a flag he should've tried to ride a flag then he'd have some lovin sweet woman (to shag).... but unherd sounds are sweeter "and the king hath many marchin' in his coats" Joseph Duemer wrote: > I went to the crossroad fell down on my knees > I went to the crossroad fell down on my knees > Asked the lord above "Have mercy on poor Bob if you please > > Standin' at the crossroad I tried to flag a ride > Standin' at the crossroad I tried to flag a ride > Didn't nobody seem to know me everybody pass me by > > Sun goin down boy the dark gonna catch me here > Sun goin down boy the dark gonna catch me here > I haven't got no lovin' sweet woman that love and feel my care > > You can run, you can run tell my friend-boy Willie Brown > You can run tell my friend-boy Willie Brown > Lord, that I'm standin' at the crossroad, babe I believe I'm sinkin' down. > > [Robert Johnson, "Crossroad Blues"] > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From JforJames Tue Nov 13 09:13:09 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 09:13:09 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Cid Corman via audiocast next Monday Message-ID: <65.1d9fea97.29228475@aol.com> Subj: Cid Corman via audiocast next Monday Date: 11/13/01 8:44:27 AM Eastern Standard Time From: afilreis at dept.english.upenn.edu (Al Filreis) Sender: owner-whwebcastpast at dept.english.upenn.edu To: webcastfolks at dept.english.upenn.edu To those who enjoy Writers House webcasts: Please join us for our conversation with Cid Corman next Monday. You can participate by live audiocast from wherever you are. If you want to participate, please RSVP to << whcorman at english.upenn.edu >> and please tell us if you're coming to the House or listening via audiocast. The full announcement is below. Al Filreis The Class of 1942 Professor of English Faculty Director, the Kelly Writers House University of Pennsylvania << www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE KELLY WRITERS HOUSE presents a conversation with CID CORMAN via live audiocast 9 PM (eastern time), Monday, November 19 | co-moderated by | Frank Sherlock, | Fran Ryan, | Tom Devaney & | Al Filreis With great pleasure we invite you to join us for a reading and conversation with Cid Corman, who will join us from his home in Kyoto, Japan. The program will be audiocast live worldwide. You can join us by coming to the Kelly Writers House at 3805 Locust Walk in Philadelphia, where an audience will converse directly with Corman by an amplified telephone connection. That conversation will be audiocast, and thus you can also join us, wherever you are, by making a simple connection to the web. Audiocast participants will be able to pose questions for Cid Corman via email. If you intend to participate, please write to < whcorman at english.upenn.edu > and be sure to indicate if you will attend at the Writers House or will participate from a distance through the audiocast. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cid Corman, b. 1924, was born in Boston, and received his B.A. from Tufts. He did graduate work at the University of Michigan, where he won the Hopwood Award for Poetry, and the University of North Carolina. Throughout the 1950's and 1960's Corman's magazine ORIGIN published some of the major works of the Black Mountain poets, as well as other important work, choosing mostly poems not yet readily available elsewhere: the early poetry of Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Denise Levertov with the late works of Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams. He carried on a fascinating correspondence with Stevens, who greatly respected what Origin was doing. Corman has published over seventy volumes of poetry, translated several French and Japanese poets, and published four volumes of essays. He has lived in Kyoto, Japan since 1958 where he and his wife run a business, Cid Corman's Dessert Shop. Corman is one of "late" modernism's most significant enablers, a poet of talent himself, and a master of "production" -- whose work, both as poet and publisher, is intertwined with the Objectivists Zukofsky and Oppen, as well as Creeley and Olson. Among those poetic colleagues and many younger poets worldwide, Corman's verse is perhaps the most committed to the sublime, refusing the temptation of "effect" for the tactile ink of line and "touch." His collection Nothing Doing is full of poetry of cognitive conundrum, but also of uncompromising wisdom, where Corman can definitively declare: "There's only / one poem: / this is it." Corman was one of the first to theorize what modernist verse can do on the radio. In Poetry (1952) he wrote a piece on poetry and radio that reads, in part: "What few poets seem to realize is that radio is their best potential outlet these days. It puts the stress rightly on the spoken word, tests the imagination of writer and listener spoken revives the need of the oral-aural commitment in verse, and permits the largest possible audience to experience the poem. As a rare diet, of course, it undermines itself. But there is no reason today, under sincere and determined effort, that good poetry programs should not be available throughout the country. They con be noncommercial sustaining programs, like This Is Poetry. Nearly three years ago I initiated my weekly broadcasts, known as This Is Poetry, from WMEX (1510 kc.) in Boston. The program has been usually a fifteen-minute reading of modern verse on Saturday evenings at seventhirty; however, I have taken some liberties and have read from Moby Dick and from stories by Dylan Thomas, Robert Creeley, and Joyce. In the approximately 150 programs to date, during which I have had the opportunity to improve my delivery and to appreciate oral detail, I have offered the program to many guest poets, to read and discuss their work. About a third of the programs have been of this kind. My guests have included such writers as John Crowe Ransom, Archibald MacLeish, Stephen Spender, John Ciardi, Theodore Roethke, Pierre Emmanuel, Allan Curnow, Richard Wilbur, Richard Eberbart, Katherine Hoskins, and Vincent Ferrini. A number of the programs have been bilingual, in English and French, Spanish, German, or Italian. I have had young but highly qualified persons, native to the tongues, read the originals against my reading of translations. Programs have been given to Corbiere, Eluard, Lorca, Ungaretti, Benn, and others. Imagine hearing Claudio Guillen, son of Jorge Guillen, read a poem that Lorca wrote for him when he was a child in Spain...." From JforJames Tue Nov 13 09:16:39 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 09:16:39 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Mary Ruefle poems Message-ID: <80.12f916f3.29228547@aol.com> In a message dated 11/12/01 6:47:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, wasanthony at yahoo.com writes: << Third time for this post. What gives? Are we not getting it? - Jim >> Sorry for the trouble...my email program seems to be having some trouble. F From JforJames Tue Nov 13 10:35:26 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 10:35:26 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Hard Times at The Academy Message-ID: November 9, 2001 Poets' Academy to Cut Its Staff By DAVID KIRKPATRICK The board of the Academy of American Poets, the 65-year-old organization best known for making April poetry month and for its popular Web site, has decided to lay off nearly half its staff to forestall an impending financial crisis. The board met Wednesday amid protests from prominent poets over the ouster of the academy's executive director, William Wadsworth, himself a poet. The board said Mr. Wadsworth had not met requests to curtail spending as new contributions dried up. But Mr. Wadsworth, 51, said he had cut the budget when asked. In a memo to the board, he blamed it for not raising as much money as expected. Poets worried that the academy's programs might be curtailed. Jonathan Galassi, who is the board's chairman, a poet and the publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, said the board had decided to lay off 8 of its 17 employees and to sublease half of its office space in SoHo. The board also set out to raise a new "stabilization fund," doubling the amount the board will try to raise to $500,000 over two years. Charles Flowers, 36, associate director of the academy, will become acting director while the board hunts a successor to Mr. Wadsworth, who formally leaves at the end of the year. The academy programs include: a national series of poetry readings, several awards and grants and a mail-order poetry book club, as well as the Web site (www.poets.org) and promoting poetry month. Mr. Galassi said that only the poetry book club, which has not made money, faced an uncertain future. "The whole goal was to keep the programs going," he said. "The programs are what the academy exists to do, but we are going to try a more cost-effective approach." Mr. Galassi said that he was writing an explanatory letter to the poets on the academy's advisory board, and so is the poet J. D. McClatchy. One poet on the advisory board, Philip Levine, said he planned to resign over the moves. "I'm outraged," he said, particularly by the removal of Mr. Wadsworth without consulting the advisers. From CobbCoStudioArts Tue Nov 13 11:12:27 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 08:12:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] too sane for the sake of the poem Message-ID: <20011113161227.2B8122758@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From Rsgwynn1 Tue Nov 13 23:09:52 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 23:09:52 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Reading Message-ID: I'll be reading (I think) tomorrow on the radio show listed below: This is a reminder that the first of three shows dealing with the Sonoma Country Day School Teaching Poetry Conference will be on KPFA (94.1 FM) this Wednesday, November 7 at 3:30 p.m. (The show's time has shifted permanently: it is now at 3:30, not 3.) Those of you outside the range of the station can hear it via "streaming audio" at the KPFA web site: www.kpfa.org. The second and third shows will air at 3:30 on November 14 and November 21. Hope you enjoy them! This is Pacific Time, by the way. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tadrichards Tue Nov 13 23:41:32 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 23:41:32 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Reading References: Message-ID: <008901c16cc6$a2f3dde0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Streaming audio live, or can we access it at other times? Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 11:09 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Reading I'll be reading (I think) tomorrow on the radio show listed below: This is a reminder that the first of three shows dealing with the Sonoma Country Day School Teaching Poetry Conference will be on KPFA (94.1 FM) this Wednesday, November 7 at 3:30 p.m. (The show's time has shifted permanently: it is now at 3:30, not 3.) Those of you outside the range of the station can hear it via "streaming audio" at the KPFA web site: www.kpfa.org. The second and third shows will air at 3:30 on November 14 and November 21. Hope you enjoy them! This is Pacific Time, by the way. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tadrichards Wed Nov 14 01:10:19 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 01:10:19 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Reading References: <008901c16cc6$a2f3dde0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Message-ID: <009501c16cd3$0a318000$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> I'm looking for sources for early Native American poetry in New York State, esp. the Hudson Valley. Any ideas? Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: theoldmole To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 11:41 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Reading Streaming audio live, or can we access it at other times? Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 11:09 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Reading I'll be reading (I think) tomorrow on the radio show listed below: This is a reminder that the first of three shows dealing with the Sonoma Country Day School Teaching Poetry Conference will be on KPFA (94.1 FM) this Wednesday, November 7 at 3:30 p.m. (The show's time has shifted permanently: it is now at 3:30, not 3.) Those of you outside the range of the station can hear it via "streaming audio" at the KPFA web site: www.kpfa.org. The second and third shows will air at 3:30 on November 14 and November 21. Hope you enjoy them! This is Pacific Time, by the way. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Wed Nov 14 03:21:29 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 03:21:29 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Reading Message-ID: In a message dated 11/13/2001 10:46:05 PM Central Standard Time, tadrichards at prodigy.net writes: > Streaming audio live, or can we access it at other times? > > > Streaming, I think. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From adead_poet Wed Nov 14 15:50:52 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 14:50:52 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] baudelaire Message-ID: how is the howard translation of baudelaire? is there a better one? looking for any thoughts, opinions, advice on which one to get, and so on. jason _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From adead_poet Wed Nov 14 16:35:15 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 15:35:15 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] billy collins poem Message-ID: there's a poem by billy collins called "the country" that i'm looking for. it's not in his new and selected, and not on the internet. does anyone have the text? or if not, know which book or magazine it can be found in. thanks, jason _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From GrahamD Wed Nov 14 16:47:12 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 15:47:12 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: billy collins poem Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BE010@mail.ripon.edu> I can tell you it's not in *Picnic, Lightning*, *The Art of Drowning*, *The Apple That Astonished Paris*, or *Questions About Angels*. =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: dead poet > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2001 3:35 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: [New-Poetry] billy collins poem > > there's a poem by billy collins called "the country" that i'm looking for. > > it's not in his new and selected, and not on the internet. does anyone > have > the text? or if not, know which book or magazine it can be found in. > > thanks, > jason > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > From JforJames Wed Nov 14 16:58:50 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 16:58:50 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] baudelaire Message-ID: <167.3e6b995.2924431a@aol.com> In a message dated 11/14/01 3:56:04 PM Eastern Standard Time, adead_poet at hotmail.com writes: > howard translation of baudelaire? is there a better one? looking > for any thoughts, opinions, advice on which one to get, and so on. jason, if you have the time, please post one. Maybe we can get a few other versions posted to the list and compare? I've often found that I vest myself in the first translation I experience of a poet so that I consider those "the best" even after hearing from others, far more expert in the language, that those translations were inferior to So&So's. And, even though, I only came upon these "first translations" because I happened to pick them up at a used bookshop. Finnegan From adead_poet Thu Nov 15 04:12:46 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 03:12:46 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: billy collins poem Message-ID: i heard it at his reading in houston. it might be one of his newer poems, and not in a book yet. could make tracking it down real hard. jason >From: "Graham, David" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: "'new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu'" >Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: billy collins poem >Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 15:47:12 -0600 > >I can tell you it's not in *Picnic, Lightning*, *The Art of Drowning*, *The >Apple That Astonished Paris*, or *Questions About Angels*. > >=================== >David Graham >grahamd at mail.ripon.edu >=================== > > > ---------- > > From: dead poet > > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2001 3:35 PM > > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > Subject: [New-Poetry] billy collins poem > > > > there's a poem by billy collins called "the country" that i'm looking >for. > > > > it's not in his new and selected, and not on the internet. does anyone > > have > > the text? or if not, know which book or magazine it can be found in. > > > > thanks, > > jason > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at >http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From adead_poet Thu Nov 15 04:15:01 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 03:15:01 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] baudelaire Message-ID: here's the thing, i haven't read any baudelaire translations. i've heard of the richard howard one because i think it won some major award, but i'm not sure. i'm looking to buy his work, and i'm trying to figure out what translation or translations to get. if no one knows of a better one, i'll get the howard, just because i've heard of it. jason >From: JforJames at aol.com >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] baudelaire >Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 16:58:50 EST > >In a message dated 11/14/01 3:56:04 PM Eastern Standard Time, >adead_poet at hotmail.com writes: > > > howard translation of baudelaire? is there a better one? looking > > for any thoughts, opinions, advice on which one to get, and so on. >jason, >if you have the time, please post one. Maybe we can get a few other >versions posted to the list and compare? I've often found that I vest >myself in the first translation I experience of a poet so that I consider >those "the best" even after hearing from others, far more expert in >the language, that those translations were inferior to So&So's. >And, even though, I only came upon these "first translations" because >I happened to pick them up at a used bookshop. >Finnegan >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From JforJames Thu Nov 15 14:32:33 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 14:32:33 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Celan translations Message-ID: I know that there are two newish translations of Paul Celan's work: one by Pierre Joris and and another by Heather McHugh (w/ a co-translator). I'm not certain how much overlap there is in terms of which poems were translated, but has any one compared these two translations or seen a review that compares them? I have the Michael Hamburger translations. Finnegan From bobgrumman Thu Nov 15 17:07:18 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 17:07:18 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Carruth poem References: <12d.7508dcf.291d9200@aol.com> Message-ID: <3BF43C96.50D7@nut-n-but.net> My computer was out of commission for a while, then my e.mail was erratic, so I missed what follows till now: > Bob, > Certainly Carruth is making deep (archetypal/metaphoric) connection > with the cows. I think the difference between Carruth's poem and the > deep image poetry (Bly, Wright, Merwin often get stuffed in this > pigeonhole) would be that here Carruth is making the deep image > connection "overtly". Whereas a deep image poem is likely to > suggest the numinous nature of the image...without a direct bridge: > A leaf carried off along the surface of stream (suggesting loss), > rather than saying 'My life was a leaf carried along a stream.' > Of course Carruth's direct bridge is more elegant than my poor example > of the latter: > Always a shock > to remember them there, those > great breathings close in the dark > ... > turning to me, sad and beautiful > like girls very long ago > who were innocent, and sad > > because they were innocent, > and beautiful because they were > sad. > > (Oh how much less would that simile would have been > had Carruth stopped after the first sad?) Agreed. And my comparison of the Carruth to the deep imagists (I was thinking of James Wright's best-known one about the horse(s?) and his stepping out of his body of something) was strictly impressionistic. Anyway, I do think the Carruth has much in common with Wright's poems, and others of the deep image school. > Apropos quote stumbled upon this very day: > A man's work is nothing but the slow trek to rediscover, through > the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images > in whose presence his heart first opened. --Albert Camus > > Great and simple like cows. or eyes. Good quote, but I'd say more like two or three THOUSAND great and simple images. On reflection, I think I'd have other arguments with it, but it's a great half-truth. --Bob G. From JforJames Thu Nov 15 17:56:39 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 17:56:39 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] National Book Award - Poetry Message-ID: <152.4135a50.2925a227@aol.com> Winner in the Poetry category is Poems Seven. In this complete collection that tracks his 40-year career and its shifting concerns, Alan Dugan adds to his legend with nearly three dozen new poems. Dugan spent World War II in the Army Air Corps, and several of his early poems are wry testaments to the somber business of modern warfare. Others plumb the depths of existential angst with bracing black humor and vigor. From gmcvay Thu Nov 15 21:32:29 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 21:32:29 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Celan translations References: Message-ID: <3BF47AB4.C81CD01F@patriot.net> I love the Joris translations. They are magic and terrible and beautiful. The reason I haven't bought the McHugh yet is that I've looked at it and it doesn't have the original German en face to read simultaneously. Gwyn From JackKerouac25 Thu Nov 15 22:43:40 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 22:43:40 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Rimbaud Message-ID: <37.1df34598.2925e56c@aol.com> Well, since we're talking about translations, I figured I'd ask a question or two, too. As a young misguided chap, I wanted to write just like old Rimbaud; I'd read Fowlie's translation through a couple of times and was convinced that symbolism was the way to go. After a year or so, I grew out of the phase, but I still loved old Rimbaud, and recently, I've read a couple of old reviews of Fowlie's translation that claim he is a "creative translator" and his translations don't really hold up to the original. Since I've recently finished reading a Rimbaud bio (can't remember the joke's name who wrote it, though, but it's brand new--the bio that is), I might want to read Arthur again. So: Who can steer me in the right direction of a well-done Rimbaud translation, or is the Fowlie I have adequate? Thanks for your time and patience with this post. Cheers, Jeff N. ============================================================= Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 From JforJames Fri Nov 16 10:00:58 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 10:00:58 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Celan translations Message-ID: <170.4070a40.2926842a@aol.com> In a message dated 11/15/01 9:19:56 PM Eastern Standard Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: > The reason I haven't bought the McHugh yet is that I've > looked at it and it doesn't have the original German en face to read > simultaneously. > Some blurbage I saw on the McHugh/Popov translatation suggested the translators were going for the spirit rather than the letter of Celan's work...so perhaps not putting the original text at hand was an intentional decision. If possible I too prefer to have the original language text in the same book...even tho I often understand very little of the language. You tell quite a lot by just seeing how the translation & the original are laid out on the page. Or the kinds (noun/adj/verb/connective) and number of words used to render each line. I like to try to "sound out"a few lines too. (But the cadence can be hard to feel your way thru unless you really know the language.) Finnegan From JforJames Fri Nov 16 12:09:02 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 12:09:02 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Mothers and Motherhood issue Message-ID: <25.1e53f4d3.2926a22e@aol.com> Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 08:18:59 -0800 (PST) From: Jessy Randall I am guest-editing a special Mothers and Motherhood issue of Snakeskin, scheduled to come out in February 2002. Please send me your poems or very short prose (one page or less) about being a mother, or having a mother, or thinking about motherhood, or ... you get the idea. The Snakeskin URL is http://www.snakeskin.uk.org. If you visit the Archives, you can see the Fathers and Fatherhood issue that I did last year. Feel free to forward this to anybody you know who might like to contribute. -- Jessy Randall (jessyrandall at yahoo.com) From cathyp Fri Nov 16 14:03:26 2001 From: cathyp (cathyp at vsl.cua.edu) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 14:03:26 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Mothers and Motherhood issue In-Reply-To: <25.1e53f4d3.2926a22e@aol.com> Message-ID: <3BF51CAE.32352.E6677B@localhost> I think the url for this is supposed to be www.snakeskin.org.uk Cathy > The Snakeskin URL is http://www.snakeskin.uk.org. If you visit the Archives, > you can see the Fathers and Fatherhood issue that I did last year. > > Feel free to forward this to anybody you know who might like to contribute. > > -- Jessy Randall (jessyrandall at yahoo.com) > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From JforJames Fri Nov 16 14:05:19 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 14:05:19 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] SLOPE #13 Message-ID: <96.1d493706.2926bd6f@aol.com> SLOPE #13 | www.slope.org | the first new issue since july ... and it's BIG featuring NEW AFRICAN POETRY | EASTERN & BUDDHIST POETRY SAMPLER | FEATURED POET SECTION - DAVID SOLWAY: CANADA'S RENEGADE GENIUS? new POEMS and PROSE and CRITICISM: paul HOOVER | dzvinia ORLOWSKY | gian LOMBARDO | gary YOUNG barbara ORTON | mark SALERNO | max WINTER | david RODERICK robyn SARAH | richard GARCIA | arielle GREENBERG | and MANY more ***REMINDER*** Slope Editions Book Prize - $1,000 and print publication Judge: DAVID LEHMAN OPEN TO ALL POETS Accepting submissions til Feb. 15, 2002 - see guidelines at www.slopeeditions.org VISIT SOON TO FIND OUT ABOUT OUR DEBUT SEASON, SPRING-FALL 2002 we apologise if this message finds you in error. SLOPE is ISSN # 1536-0164. From adead_poet Sat Nov 17 02:29:57 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 01:29:57 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] complete editions Message-ID: i just picked up Sandburg's Complete Poems. I went through his Selected Poems, to see which ones were in the Complete Poems. surprisingly, there were 30 or 30 poems not in the selected that are not in the complete. and i have a book called poems for the people which has poems not in either book (a couple of exceptions, one was in both selected and complete, but in a different version, and another was in the selected but not the complete). here's my question. how complete is a complete edition? i was under the impression that a volume titled complete poems would contain all poems by the poet. but it seems i'm wrong. so, how often does this happen? jason _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From adead_poet Sat Nov 17 05:59:15 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 04:59:15 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow Message-ID: i was talking to my father the other day, and poetry came up. he's not a literary man, so it surprised me when mentioned a poem about a red wheelbarrow, rain, and white chickens. it's the only one he remembers, so i printed him a copy. he asked me to. but then he told me that he wasn't real smart when it came to literature, and didn't understand the poem and asked me what it meant. now, there are a lot of poems i can talk about. this isn't one of them. i have to be honest here, i have no idea what williams was saying. so, i turn to those who know poetry better than i do. can you tell me what the poem means? jason _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From barr Sat Nov 17 08:22:25 2001 From: barr (Brandon Thomas Barr) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 08:22:25 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I've heard some ridiculous readings. This poem proliferates critical meaning when I don't think that was Williams's point at all. To me, and here I go added to the heappile, the poem has to be read with the background of imagism--after all, it adheres to Pound's main tenets. In the context of Spring and All, the book that it was published in, one also sees a Dadaist tendency tempered by Williams's own American lyricism. What MATTERS isn't thousands of texts from the past, the sort of source material "the traditionalists of plagiarism" would anchor their poems on. What matter is that the poem exists, that there was "so much" depending of the image presented in the poem that a poem was written. To me, that is why the poem continually reminds the reader through its linebreaks that they are reading a poem. Someone somewhere once pointed out that the poem is really two rather blah lines of iambic pentameter. But the form Williams chooses is AWKWARD on the first read (I remember a video of people on a city street being asked to spot read it and messing it up) and amazing re-readable after that. The poem is a simple statement that leaves the reader with questions--of form, of meaning--and a peaceful sense of bafflement. To me, that is enduring, and needs no footnotes. Of course, another person I knew pointed out that an older meaning of "depend" is something like "to cling to." He felt what depended on the red wheelbarrow was, quite simply, the rainwater. :) so there you go. Maybe we need footnotes after all. Brandon Barr University of Rochester On Sat, 17 Nov 2001, dead poet wrote: > i was talking to my father the other day, and poetry came up. he's not a > literary man, so it surprised me when mentioned a poem about a red > wheelbarrow, rain, and white chickens. it's the only one he remembers, so i > printed him a copy. he asked me to. but then he told me that he wasn't real > smart when it came to literature, and didn't understand the poem and asked > me what it meant. now, there are a lot of poems i can talk about. this isn't > one of them. i have to be honest here, i have no idea what williams was > saying. so, i turn to those who know poetry better than i do. can you tell > me what the poem means? > > jason > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From MillB Sat Nov 17 09:02:45 2001 From: MillB (MillB at aol.com) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 09:02:45 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow Message-ID: Greetings all: I teach this poem in class as a line-break exercise. What seems to astonish students every semester is how, when they "see" the poem as it really is---instead of how they had line-breaked it--the lines actually do look like wheelbarrows. . . Of course there's much more to say, but it's 6:00 am on a Saturday, and I've been up half the night. Cheers, Mill http://www.mercygirl.com From halvard Sat Nov 17 10:15:10 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 10:15:10 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > i was talking to my father the other day, and poetry came up. he's not a > literary man, so it surprised me when mentioned a poem about a red > wheelbarrow, rain, and white chickens. it's the only one he remembers, so i > printed him a copy. he asked me to. but then he told me that he wasn't real > smart when it came to literature, and didn't understand the poem and asked > me what it meant. now, there are a lot of poems i can talk about. this isn't > one of them. i have to be honest here, i have no idea what williams was > saying. so, i turn to those who know poetry better than i do. can you tell > me what the poem means? > > jason It's the wrong question. It makes little more sense than asking what a sunset means or what a splendid meal means. When there's a simple answer to it, the answer doesn't begin (usually) to do justice to the poem. Ciardi's version of the question (how does a poem mean?) is more "meaningful." Hal "What, should we get rid of our ignorance, the very substance of our lives, merely in order to understand each other?" --R. P. Blackmur Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From bardo Sat Nov 17 10:23:46 2001 From: bardo (Daniel Zimmerman) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 10:23:46 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow References: Message-ID: <00aa01c16f7b$d9c4d2e0$7692be18@DanielZimmerman> Jason, Someone asked me the same question last week, and I answered (rather glibly and academically, I suppose, but it seemed appropriate at the time) that the poem offers an early Imagist instance of what Stanley Fish calls a 'self-consuming artifact.' The effusive and vague assertion "So much depends / upon" introduces the wheelbarrow, a utilitarian object upon which much might indeed depend (e.g., feeding the chickens). Undercut one: the color of the wheelbarrow doesn't seem to matter with respect to that kind of utility; undercut two: nor does the detail "Glazed with rain / water"--in fact, such 'glazing' might make it appear newly painted or unused, and thus rather less 'depended upon' than the first two lines assert. Finally--undercut three--the mention of the white chickens serves to draw attention away from the wheelbarrow upon which so much depends--away from an inanimate object to animate ones, perhaps more compelling to human attention (you can't eat a wheelbarrow). The poem introduces but does not complete a comparison: so much A (that B). Perhaps Williams reacts here against the poem-with-a-moral-at-the-end so endemic to the pre-Imagist period, and does so by putting half a moral at the beginning of the poem and then deploying facts which do not demonstrate any sort of logical or moral imperative--facts incomparable with anything, and so inhibiting the completion of the 'so A (that B)' structure introducing them. I suspect that WCW introduced the imagery here for its own sake, but also wanted to tweak his audience by upsetting its genre expectation of poetry as moralizing--a conceptual expectation here shaken up as much as the imagery the poem reports may have shaken up Williams' own perceptual expectations (as in a random scanning gaze interrupted by a striking collocation of objects). What do you think? Dan ----- Original Message ----- From: "dead poet" To: Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 5:59 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow > i was talking to my father the other day, and poetry came up. he's not a > literary man, so it surprised me when mentioned a poem about a red > wheelbarrow, rain, and white chickens. it's the only one he remembers, so i > printed him a copy. he asked me to. but then he told me that he wasn't real > smart when it came to literature, and didn't understand the poem and asked > me what it meant. now, there are a lot of poems i can talk about. this isn't > one of them. i have to be honest here, i have no idea what williams was > saying. so, i turn to those who know poetry better than i do. can you tell > me what the poem means? > > jason > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From spacks Sat Nov 17 11:34:23 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 08:34:23 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] complete editions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011117083423.007ef9b0@snowcrest.net> At 01:29 AM 11/17/01 -0600, Jason wrote: i was under the >impression that a volume titled complete poems would contain all poems by >the poet. but it seems i'm wrong. so, how often does this happen? > often a "collected" is a selected,big-time, no? last chance to get rid of the verbal dust-bunnies B. From spacks Sat Nov 17 12:33:19 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 09:33:19 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011117093319.0085b900@snowcrest.net> At 08:22 AM 11/17/01 -0500, Brandon Barr wrote: >I've heard some ridiculous readings. Years ago a student lit up in class with the definitive interpretation: the poem is about Nuclear Deterrence! ("red," see"? -- red wheelbarrow=Russian Missile, & then all the rest fits beautifully, the little white-coated scientists (chickens) race around in dismay because (duh) it's raining & their counter-rocket won't work!) I sometimes talk about the poem in class as a mirroring combination of pastoral and mock-pastoral, a modernist riff on poems like "Ode on a Grecian Urn." Striking how many, new to the piece, see pure white chicks and a brand new red-gleaming wheelbarrow from Sears, then arrive at the celebration of the truly, the unexalted-"ordinary" by recognizing that chickens will indeed get muddy in the rain and that wheelbarrows rust. The poem can take you as far as you care to go, serving as a koan revealing "process" as what we take refuge in...but then almost anything can serve as a meditational device, as Buddha Shakyamuni demonstrated by his silent flower-sermon. (funny, Wheelbarrow, you don't *look* like a Russian Rocket....) cheerily, B. From thebobcooperfor Sat Nov 17 12:53:04 2001 From: thebobcooperfor (bob cooper) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 17:53:04 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow Message-ID: Hope this doesn't take too long to arrive on the list (where my posts sometime seem to travel slower than wheelbarrows...) Cos, what you ask is probably the 64,000 dollar poetry question! Maybe Archibald McLeish's poem Ars Poetica (written not many years after it) has a bit of an answer (about your puzzlement about "meaning") when he declared "a poem should not mean, but be". Maybe, your father?s question's a similar question to those that can be asked about still-life paintings of flowers (like Van Gogh?s) or bowls of fruit... (and all works of art need a frame, and a poem has a frame as much as a painting). Maybe it?s (just) a (fun) poem ABOUT a wheelbarrow... Maybe what yr father's asking's like the question about jazz... ?if you?ve gotta ask you?ll never know!? Or maybe the point that we (I) don?t know what it?s about is part of the point. Maybe the phrase "so much depends" invites our conjectures... (but it's amazing that those are the words so few people notice!) Or maybe William Carlos Williams just saw a red wheelbarrow and wrote something that is so unforgettable (and he knew, because he'd been writing for a fair while, it was a poem). Maybe he got drunk with some mates (or was at a writing workshop) and he answered a challenge like "write a poem about the last thing you saw as you were leaving home!" Maybe the challenge was "Write something no-one who reads it will ever forget!" Maybe today?s answers are different from tomorrows. In my head is an expensive roll-top desk with a small (infinitely expandable, Tardis like) drawer called ?poems I read once and will never forget the time or the place or the poem? and that was one of the ones, along with some Jaques Prevert and some W.S. Graham, that first ended up in there. Bob >From: "dead poet" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow >Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 04:59:15 -0600 > >i was talking to my father the other day, and poetry came up. he's not a >literary man, so it surprised me when mentioned a poem about a red >wheelbarrow, rain, and white chickens. it's the only one he remembers, so i >printed him a copy. he asked me to. but then he told me that he wasn't real >smart when it came to literature, and didn't understand the poem and asked >me what it meant. now, there are a lot of poems i can talk about. this >isn't >one of them. i have to be honest here, i have no idea what williams was >saying. so, i turn to those who know poetry better than i do. can you tell >me what the poem means? > >jason > >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From tadrichards Sat Nov 17 12:53:24 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 12:53:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow References: <00aa01c16f7b$d9c4d2e0$7692be18@DanielZimmerman> Message-ID: <00ef01c16f90$c1146e80$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Dan -- I love this reading. Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel Zimmerman" To: Cc: "Daniel Zimmerman" ; Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 10:23 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow > Jason, > > Someone asked me the same question last week, and I answered (rather glibly > and academically, I suppose, but it seemed appropriate at the time) that the > poem offers an early Imagist instance of what Stanley Fish calls a > 'self-consuming artifact.' The effusive and vague assertion "So much depends > / upon" introduces the wheelbarrow, a utilitarian object upon which much > might indeed depend (e.g., feeding the chickens). Undercut one: the color of > the wheelbarrow doesn't seem to matter with respect to that kind of utility; > undercut two: nor does the detail "Glazed with rain / water"--in fact, such > 'glazing' might make it appear newly painted or unused, and thus rather less > 'depended upon' than the first two lines assert. Finally--undercut > three--the mention of the white chickens serves to draw attention away from > the wheelbarrow upon which so much depends--away from an inanimate object to > animate ones, perhaps more compelling to human attention (you can't eat a > wheelbarrow). > > The poem introduces but does not complete a comparison: so much A (that B). > Perhaps Williams reacts here against the poem-with-a-moral-at-the-end so > endemic to the pre-Imagist period, and does so by putting half a moral at > the beginning of the poem and then deploying facts which do not demonstrate > any sort of logical or moral imperative--facts incomparable with anything, > and so inhibiting the completion of the 'so A (that B)' structure > introducing them. I suspect that WCW introduced the imagery here for its own > sake, but also wanted to tweak his audience by upsetting its genre > expectation of poetry as moralizing--a conceptual expectation here shaken up > as much as the imagery the poem reports may have shaken up Williams' own > perceptual expectations (as in a random scanning gaze interrupted by a > striking collocation of objects). > > What do you think? > > Dan > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "dead poet" > To: > Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 5:59 AM > Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow > > > > i was talking to my father the other day, and poetry came up. he's not a > > literary man, so it surprised me when mentioned a poem about a red > > wheelbarrow, rain, and white chickens. it's the only one he remembers, so > i > > printed him a copy. he asked me to. but then he told me that he wasn't > real > > smart when it came to literature, and didn't understand the poem and asked > > me what it meant. now, there are a lot of poems i can talk about. this > isn't > > one of them. i have to be honest here, i have no idea what williams was > > saying. so, i turn to those who know poetry better than i do. can you tell > > me what the poem means? > > > > jason > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From grahamd Sat Nov 17 13:17:47 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 12:17:47 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: red wheelbarrow Message-ID: <200111171817.fAHIHVQ96393@mx6.mx.voyager.net> I'll admit that I'm heartily tired of "The Red Wheebarrow"--for me it's like a good simple song ruined by radio overplay. Kind of fun to look at new explictions, though. But one footnote: Williams did not, in fact, write a poem called "The Red Wheelbarrow." He wrote a book called *Spring and All* (1923), which consists of wooly, fragmented, and occasionally coherent meditations on life and art, with poetry & prose interspersed. The untitled but numbered poems are presumably examples of the principles he's discussing in the prose parts, but I've never been able to follow any logical thesis in this work. It's all highly impressionistic. In any case, what we know as "The Red Wheelbarrow" is more properly called poem XXII in this book. Not sure when it gained the title by which we now know it--perhaps with Jarrell's selected edition in 1949. For what it's worth, the poem is immediately followed by this paragraph: "The fixed categories into which life is divided must always hold. These things are normal--essential to every activity. But they exist--but not as dead dissections." David Graham _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: Barry Spacks >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow >Date: Sat, Nov 17, 2001, 11:33 AM > >At 08:22 AM 11/17/01 -0500, Brandon Barr wrote: >>I've heard some ridiculous readings. > >Years ago a student lit up in class with the definitive >interpretation: the poem is about Nuclear Deterrence! >("red," see"? -- red wheelbarrow=Russian Missile, >& then all the rest fits beautifully, the little white-coated >scientists (chickens) race around in dismay because >(duh) it's raining & their counter-rocket won't work!) > >I sometimes talk about the poem in class as a >mirroring combination of pastoral and mock-pastoral, >a modernist riff on poems like "Ode on a Grecian Urn." >Striking how many, new to the piece, see pure white >chicks and a brand new red-gleaming wheelbarrow from Sears, >then arrive at the celebration of the truly, the unexalted-"ordinary" >by recognizing that chickens will indeed get muddy in the rain >and that wheelbarrows rust. > >The poem can take you as far as you care to go, >serving as a koan revealing "process" as >what we take refuge in...but then almost >anything can serve as a meditational device, >as Buddha Shakyamuni demonstrated by >his silent flower-sermon. > >(funny, Wheelbarrow, you don't *look* >like a Russian Rocket....) > >cheerily, > >B. > >_ From JforJames Sat Nov 17 13:36:28 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 13:36:28 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow Message-ID: <148.4c19923.2928082c@aol.com> Agreeing with what others have said in so many words, it might help to speak of the poem as an example of "antipoetry"...WCW subverting conventions of what a poem should do or be. Lovely wryness, too, in this fragment that stops time as it eternally begs a whole... and the linebreaks do resist inertness in its reading. Finnegan From bobgrumman Sat Nov 17 13:43:27 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 13:43:27 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow References: <00aa01c16f7b$d9c4d2e0$7692be18@DanielZimmerman> Message-ID: <3BF6AFCF.3F1F@nut-n-but.net> I think Dan's take on "The Red Wheelbarrow" (the proper title for it, in spite of what W C called it, just to keep arguing allatime with David) is close to mine--which is in the following essay-in-progress, which I grab this chance to let out for comment: On Kernular Poetry I am a taxonomaniac, especially when it comes to lyric poet poems. So it should come as no surprise that I have classified such poems on the basis of their size into four categories. To the first category I assign the shortest poems, those that are less than 20 syllables or so in length. I call these poems, "kernular," which derives, of course, from "kernel." The u improves its sound for me, and also hints, I hope, of "capsular." The haiku--17 syllables long in English, when the rules have been meticulously followed--is the most popular kind of kernular poem, but there are more condensed kinds as small as a single word. Thesis, antithesis and synthesis--or image, counter-image and scene--and a space between for tension to smolder in, is all, at the most, they leave room for. I divide kernular poems into three subcategories, "macro-kernular," "micro-kernular" and "nano-kernular" poems; the first consists of poems from six syllables (or so) to twenty syllables or so in length, the second of poems from one to five, or so, syllables in length, and the last of poems less than one syllable in length. Lyrics whose length falls between 20 or so syllables and 20 or so lines I categorize, simply, as "short lyrics." The characteristic short lyric is the sonnet, which is fourteen lines long. Thesis, antithesis and synthesis, or image, counter-image and Event, plus tension--and some ornamentation and discussion. Something equivalent to a reflection as opposed to a thought. The lyrics in my next category I call "mid-length." They run from 20 to 80 lines in length and can take up anywhere from 2 to 5 pages. Longer lyrics I call, simply, "long lyrics." "Tintern Abbey" is a prime example. 200 or 300 lines would be their maximum length, I would think. I don't think a lyric can be any longer. "The Prelude," for instance, is mainly lyric, but even in its relatively short first version, it is in my view a sequence of lyrics rather than a single lyric in itself. When I was younger, it seemed to me that quantity of esthetic experience determined a given artwork's worth, other things being equal. Ergo, the best lyrics were the long lyrics, and kernular lyrics, however valuable, were the least valuable. Then it seemed to me that the animated cartoon was the prime vehicle for art, for it could hold more kinds of art than any other form of art. One could write a play, draw its characters and settings, and compose music into it. Only one further step toward the total artwork could be required, the invention of large-scale animated holography. Maximalism, as dreamed of by Wagner, who with his music dramas still seems to have come as close to realizing as anyone although there have been comicstrip creators in this century who have come close to Wagner in their different ways, albeit without much recognition. Al Capp, for instance--and, of course, Robert Crumb. Walt Kelly, another, and Carl Barks. All of them handicapped in the race for Highbrow Acclaim because they had (or have) senses of humor. Aeschylus will always get more respect than Aristophanes, however larger the imagination and range of the latter. Early on, though, I developed a love of the haiku. 17 syllables, and almost the total reverse of the music drama and other forms of my maximalist dream. I do not deplore that dream but now believe it only one among several equal dreams. The minimalist dream is as valuable. It is to expel as much from an artwork as possible in order to focus on some final single stimulus, thus intensifying the aesthcipient's experience of that stimulus--for all time! My impression is that it was mid-century illumagists such as Josef Albers, Ad Reinhardt, Franz Kline, Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell and Piet Mondrian who first--at any rate first forcefully--propelled minimalistic concerns into artistic importance. There was a long evolution of concern with large anthroceptual, sagaceptual, architectonic, sensual, intellectual and etceteral matter in vizlation into impressionism's concern not with outdoor lighting (as the received word has it) but with brush-strokes and color. Representation of visual reality slowly disappeared as llumagery condensed into pure forms and colors. By the height of abstract expressionism a kind of maximalism was still in effect--Pollock, for instance, was combining color-music (i.e., colors used like notes in music), architectonics, and evidence of paint-application as a means of expressing temperment and physique--as a means, really, of recording oneself as a dance. At the same time, though, he and Hoffman and de Kooning were continuing to deflect aesthcipients from subject-matter to the smaller concerns of paint as color, texture, something-applied--the basis of minimalist intensification. Gottlieb and Motherwell then began concentrating parts or all of many of their paintings on final simplicities--rectangles and ovals. Similarly Rothko and Kline and others became concerned with edges, and the huge effect one color can have on another if one concentrates on their clash. I suspect (but have done no research to verify) that Albers started minimalism. The important thing, though, is that he discarded everything in painting but color, reducing his canvases to two or three colors, and his forms to just one--the square. Hence, the viewer must focus on what one color does to another to get anything out of his pictures. Few other abstract-expressionists went as far as he, but many, like Ad Reinhardt, used the same kind of operation in parts of their pictures. With the pop artists representation returned, but not maximalism as the pop artists in general avoided color effects, brush-stroke-interest and such painterly concerns, and classical subject matter as well, to concentrate of what was generally accepted as banal subjects. A kind of minimalism of objectness came about with --well it was before the flashiest pop artists, with DuChamp's urinal and similar found art. The Urinal is a reduction of illumagery to a single mundane, ordinarily ignored object just as Albers's magic squares are reductions of illumagery to a single pairing of colors that would ordinarily be lost in "larger" concerns such as subject matter, patterns of shapes, brush strokes. Duchamp wrenches his object out of the background by isolating it from its context; he puts it in a frame (of sorts) to force viewers to look at it as something visual and to see it freshly in the same way Albers might get one to suddenly see what some shade of blue against a shade of orange really is. Of course, pop art like Duchamps's, or like Warhol's later soup cans, are not as minimal as Albers's squares because they have subject matter and thus comment on Art--although Albers comments on Art, too, by claiming that even the simplest of effects are worth concentrating on. For the purposes of this essay, however, the important thing is that pop art is a minimalist art which attempts to give an aesthcipient less than reality does rather than more, as the more traditional kind of poetry does, and Wagnerian music drama, etc. The Japanese were ahead of us in minimalism, having invented the haiku some 300 years or more ago. Perhaps the most famous of their haiku is Basho's much-translated: old pond, and the sound of a frog's splash-in In this version (which is mine), lineation arrests us first in the image of a pond, an old pond. We don't generally associate age with a pond, so the adjective gets the gears goin'. Ponds don't change much from year to year, and certainly their water remains agelessly water--though it can take on impurities, I suppose. Anyway one begins to feel geological time--the length of time it would take a pond to become old--and then what a short time that is geologically, ponds being rather ephemeral compared with mountains or continents, and the like. But in line two we have a sound, and little is more ephemeral than a sound. The final line identifies the sound as the result of a frog's splash as he enters the pond. All these dwellers in different kinds of time--the sound alive for an instant, likewise the splash--but the frog making the splash not alive much longer than the splash in comparison to the pond it enters. But the rings the splash sets into being (and the counterparts in the air that the sound gives rise to. Infinitesimal ramifications. Also the idea of serenity broken. And the implicit metaphor of pond as Time Itself, into which lives splash briefly, then disappear forever. All these and other impressions, mainly because the poem's brevity holds the attention long enough for experience to grow out of it. This haiku influence helped make imagism what it was, and in part inspired that movement's masterpiece, Pound's "In a Station of the Metro," which does the same kind of things Basho's haiku does. Meanwhile, Joyce had begun alphaconceptualization, or the significant concern with spelling for aesthetic effect that became an important aspect of much later minimalistic poems. William Carlos Williams was the one modernist who went in for minimalism--too unlyrically much to my taste most of the time. But he carried it off brilliantly in his well-known, "The Red Wheelbarrow": so much depends upon the red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens This contains 22 syllables but I categorize it "kernular," anyway. Be that as it may, it is a major lyrical poem. One thing that makes it so, as pointed out by Marjorie Perloff, is its structure. For instance, she claims that the line-breaks Williams put in the middle of "wheelbarrow" and "rainwater" get readers to "rethink" the meanings of those words. Bruce Bawer, a New Criterion reviewer, disagrees. "In exactly what way do (the) poem's line breaks make her rethink the meaning of the words wheelbarrow and rainwater?" he asks. I can't answer for Perloff, but I can describe how the line breaks work for me. The division of "wheelbarrow" makes me briefly (and not wholly consciously) visualize a particular red wheel--or the sun at dawn. Arbitrary, yes, but plausible, too, as I hope later to show. The appearance of "barrow" of course focuses me on a wheelbarrow, but one surrounded by hints of mounds, burials, undergroundnesses and other things associated with barrows. It is a wheelbarrow with a vividly central, and implicitly centering, wheel, too. In short, if I perhaps don't exactly rethink the word's meaning, I certainly refeel it--that is, its connotational (or poetic) value increases for me, significantly. As for the line-break in the middle of "rainwater," that makes me (however fleetingly and pre-consciously) feel the raining that went on prior to the scene described, but which is now over (or the slightest of drizzles) since it would otherwise be preventing any glaze from holding up. Without the break, I'm sure I would have experienced the rain as water only, not as the process which produced the water. "Water," off by itself, brings the rain more fully to rest. It also makes it seem more substantial, and more sensually liquid: something requiring three syllables--and a space--to represent rather than just a single syllable. In the final stanza of Williams's poem, another line break nicely stops us in undifferentiated whiteness for a moment, then breaks that down into specific chickens. Again, one must re-appraise the text--if one is susceptible to Williams's sort of formal excellence. Similarly the size and shape of Williams's stanzas adds to his poem's effectiveness--according to Perloff, by "framing" the picture presented. Bawer doesn't accept that, either, but I'm with Perloff again--except that I'm not sure I mean by "framing" what she does. For me, the stanzas make a 4-frame movie of the poem. It starts in a large generality, then at once narrows to a specific small detail, a wheelbarrow's wheel. This it quickly overlays with information about the weather conditions prevailing. Thereupon its fourth frame expands the poem fully into a scene. That scene is said to have "much depend(ing) upon it." Since a wheelbarrow and some chickens would seem of little consequence to most people, the reader must try to figure out just how the scene can be thought of as having what critic Bruce Bawer calls "importance . . . in the universe," and which he denies the poem as having. Needless to say, I consider him to be wrong. For one thing, he seems oblivious to the archetypal substance the scene has. It speaks of Newness, since the wheelbarrow will take a glaze and is thus not old and rusted or worn; and of Cleanness, since water washes, and white is pure; and of Primariness, because of the colors (as Perloff points out), and the cultural fundamentality of the scene, on a farm. It speaks, too, of spring because of the qualities just mentioned, and because it has to do with agriculture, and includes a recent rain. The idea of the barrow as a burial mound would fit in with this scheme, too--as something primeval (like spring soil) which contains precious items awaiting rebirth. Add to all this the rising sun, or day's beginning, that I consider the "red wheel" to hint at, and which the poem's "under-burden" that I've been describing should make much more plausible than it might have at first seemed, and it becomes hard to dispute that the scene symbolizes Fertility and Birth and Creation. It therefore is of "importance . . . in the universe." But the poem is not in my view finally about the meaningfulness of the scene--or about a nation's having a thriving agriculture, as suggested by Perloff. It is about the ability of the red wheelbarrow, the glaze on it, and the white chickens not merely to be meaningful, but to convey meaningfulness. So, I would phrase the poem's main meaning as follows: "so much depends upon the way everyday scenes can in the world's best moments convey a sense of enduring, universal meaningfulness." The poem makes me--and I believe, most people who read it--recall similar scenes we've turned some corner of our lives into, and felt exalted by. Williams's scene is a symbol for all such scenes. They are what keep us going. On is it up Yes upon It is and now Endure The above is a poem by Margaret Tongue that I found, surprisingly, in a book of criticism by James Dickey, Babel to Byzantium. Surprisingly because, while he is a fine and stimulating critic of knownstream textual poetry, he has never shown much interest in what I call pluraesthetic poetry (poetry using techniques from more than the verbal aesthetic). The poem by Tongue, however, was probably in a book of less unconventional poetry. Moreover, it is only barely unconventional itself. The article on it by Dickey, incidentally, was written in 1959. I'd never heard of Tongue until I read it, so I assume her poem was an accident--or that something took her too soon out of poetry. In any case, the poem is kernular. It is also monaesthetic, but flirts with what I call alphaconceptual concerns--that is, it concerns itself with letter-arrangement rather than with words. With, specifically, "on" before, and then following "up." Before I pontificate on the importance of this, I need to complete the poem for you: its title is "Fawn." It is incomprehensible without that title. With it, it should come across as a description of a fawn's tottering to its feet for the first time. This allows an alphaconceptual metaphor (whether intended or not): the trip of "on" (past two obstacles) to "up" and then the place-changing of the two to form "upon" is equated with a fawn's awkward rearrangement of itself from recumbent to upright. This is subtle, or at least it was for me--exactly the kind of thing one needs time to recognize, the time that only minimalist art (normally) can narrow one into. Minimalism is the presentation of a package so severely simplified that one can keep the whole of it in mind while one concentrates of its emphasized minimal special effects. Aside from what it does with "on" and "up," the poem nicely jerks through its four brief lines to form just the kind of four step effect that the fawn's rising no doubt formed. With a question quivered out of the first step in step with the uncertainty of the fawn's undertaking. But we're still not--I'm still not finished with the alphaconceptual effect of Tongue's play with "on" and "up." For the minimalism of the poem holds us also onto the change from what "on" means to what "UPon" means, from a kind of passive on-ness to being both up AND on. So much more mastery and triumph coming from upon-ness than simple up-ness, but mastery and triumph that might have been missed if the minimalism of the poem didn't make the reader want to get something more out of the words in the poem than he otherwise might have. A sense of this can't be all that is one's first response to any poem that is both short and simple. And which should cause one to dig for more meaning--but too often doesn't, the reader assuming the poet having been a simpleton. So the fawn is first on, then on up--or it is uncertain at first whether the fawn is on OR on up until the second line declares that it is by then up--and up on (the earth). Whereupon "is" and "it" exchange places in a rhyme with what "on" and up" just did, and underscore the ascent from uncertainty into accomplishment. The "and now/ endure" contains a neat little rim-rhyme (and/end--a rim-rhyme being a rhyme occurring between words whose initial, in this case blank, and terminal syllables are the same, but whose vowels differ). This, plus--again--the poem's attention-heightening minimalism, made me hear "grandeur" along with "endure." Most appropriately. --Bob Grumman From michael.ritchie Sat Nov 17 13:43:05 2001 From: michael.ritchie (Michael Karl Ritchie) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 12:43:05 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow Message-ID: Williams had answered a call and was standing at the kitchen window, unceratin whether or not the child's fever would break, when he wrote, "So much depends...." That's according to the famous biography, "A New World Naked." The line breaks were an innovation discovered later. Dr. Mike From JforJames Sat Nov 17 13:58:32 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 13:58:32 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: red wheelbarrow Message-ID: In a message dated 11/17/01 1:18:25 PM Eastern Standard Time, grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: << Not sure when it gained the title by which we now know it--perhaps with Jarrell's selected edition in 1949. For what it's worth, the poem is immediately followed by this paragraph: "The fixed categories into which life is divided must always hold. These things are normal--essential to every activity. But they exist--but not as dead dissections." David Graham >> David, Yes, but from Spring & All to '63 when he died, WCW must have approved of the poem being printed as a stand-alone entity in various selections and anthologies. It may be an outtake, but he gave it, or didn't fight against it having, a life of its own. Finnegan From davisa Sat Nov 17 14:03:27 2001 From: davisa (Alan Davis) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 13:03:27 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Wheelbarrow, red or not In-Reply-To: <200111171846.fAHIk2Z08068@wiz.cath.vt.edu> Message-ID: "So much depends" includes the visual shape of the poem - four little wheelbarrows, red or not, lined up vertically as if ready for rain. From grahamd Sat Nov 17 14:11:07 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 13:11:07 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: red wheelbarrow Message-ID: <200111171910.fAHJAPx58827@mx9.mx.voyager.net> True enough, Jim, though even in the Jarrell selection the poem is carefully noted as being from *Spring & All*. It just seems to me that anyone doing a full-dress explication of this tiny poem ought to investigate its context. I've seen too many analyses that ignore *Spring & All* altogether. But as I said I'm tired of this poem! Especially when I think how many other interesting brief lyrics Williams wrote. (I mean, I like "We Real Cool" too, but I wish more anthologies moved beyond that Gwendolyn Brooks chestnut.) Waiting When I am alone I am happy. The air is cool. The sky is flecked and splashed and wound with color. The crimson phalloi of the sassafras leaves hang crowded before me in shoals on the heavy branches. When I reach my doorstep I am greeted by the happy shrieks of my children and my heart sinks. I am crushed. Are not my children as dear to me as falling leaves or must one become stupid to grow older? It seems much as if Sorrow had tripped up my heels. Let us see, let us see! What did I plan to say to her when it should happen to me as it has happened now? ___________________________ Williams Apr?s le Bain I gotta buy me a new girdle. (I'll buy you one) O.K. (I wish you'd wig- gle that way for me, I'd be a happy man) I GOTTA wig- gle for this. (You pig) _______________________________ The Act There were the roses, in the rain. Don't cut them, I pleaded, They won't last, she said But they're so beautiful where they are. Agh, we were all beautiful once, she said, and cut them and gave them to me in my hand. _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: JforJames at aol.com >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: red wheelbarrow >Date: Sat, Nov 17, 2001, 12:58 PM > >David, >Yes, but from Spring & All to '63 when he died, WCW must >have approved of the poem being printed as a stand-alone entity >in various selections and anthologies. It may be an outtake, >but he gave it, or didn't fight against it having, a life of its own. >Finnegan From cstroffo Sat Nov 17 14:36:46 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 11:36:46 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: DUH..... References: <00aa01c16f7b$d9c4d2e0$7692be18@DanielZimmerman> Message-ID: <3BF6BC4D.F6DA2D33@earthlink.net> So, uh, it isn't about racism, .... "the white chickens"? Daniel Zimmerman wrote: > Jason, > > Someone asked me the same question last week, and I answered (rather glibly > and academically, I suppose, but it seemed appropriate at the time) that the > poem offers an early Imagist instance of what Stanley Fish calls a > 'self-consuming artifact.' The effusive and vague assertion "So much depends > / upon" introduces the wheelbarrow, a utilitarian object upon which much > might indeed depend (e.g., feeding the chickens). Undercut one: the color of > the wheelbarrow doesn't seem to matter with respect to that kind of utility; > undercut two: nor does the detail "Glazed with rain / water"--in fact, such > 'glazing' might make it appear newly painted or unused, and thus rather less > 'depended upon' than the first two lines assert. Finally--undercut > three--the mention of the white chickens serves to draw attention away from > the wheelbarrow upon which so much depends--away from an inanimate object to > animate ones, perhaps more compelling to human attention (you can't eat a > wheelbarrow). > > The poem introduces but does not complete a comparison: so much A (that B). > Perhaps Williams reacts here against the poem-with-a-moral-at-the-end so > endemic to the pre-Imagist period, and does so by putting half a moral at > the beginning of the poem and then deploying facts which do not demonstrate > any sort of logical or moral imperative--facts incomparable with anything, > and so inhibiting the completion of the 'so A (that B)' structure > introducing them. I suspect that WCW introduced the imagery here for its own > sake, but also wanted to tweak his audience by upsetting its genre > expectation of poetry as moralizing--a conceptual expectation here shaken up > as much as the imagery the poem reports may have shaken up Williams' own > perceptual expectations (as in a random scanning gaze interrupted by a > striking collocation of objects). > > What do you think? > > Dan > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "dead poet" > To: > Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 5:59 AM > Subject: [New-Poetry] red wheelbarrow > > > i was talking to my father the other day, and poetry came up. he's not a > > literary man, so it surprised me when mentioned a poem about a red > > wheelbarrow, rain, and white chickens. it's the only one he remembers, so > i > > printed him a copy. he asked me to. but then he told me that he wasn't > real > > smart when it came to literature, and didn't understand the poem and asked > > me what it meant. now, there are a lot of poems i can talk about. this > isn't > > one of them. i have to be honest here, i have no idea what williams was > > saying. so, i turn to those who know poetry better than i do. can you tell > > me what the poem means? > > > > jason > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From bobgrumman Sat Nov 17 16:37:18 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 16:37:18 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Wheelbarrow, red or not References: Message-ID: <3BF6D88E.5840@nut-n-but.net> Alan Davis wrote: > > "So much depends" includes the visual shape of the poem - four little > wheelbarrows, red or not, lined up vertically as if ready for rain. > I agree, though I never saw it myself--and I call mineself a visual poet! --Bob G. From JforJames Sat Nov 17 17:14:45 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 17:14:45 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: red wheelbarrow Message-ID: In a message dated 11/17/01 2:11:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: << But as I said I'm tired of this poem! Especially when I think how many other interesting brief lyrics Williams wrote. (I mean, I like "We Real Cool" too, but I wish more anthologies moved beyond that Gwendolyn Brooks chestnut.) >> David, I don't disagree that WCW wrote other wonderful short lyrics. But to call "The Red Wheelbarrow," however suspect its provenance as discrete entity, a "lyric," is to overstate its right to place itself in any genre. The poem is a watershed because with it Williams has tested the bottom: How low (minimal) can you go and still call "this" a poem. Saroyan's single word/neologism is arguably the absolute endpoint (Bob G may remind me here that poetry can dip into infraverbal). One might say that haiku at 3 lines, or poem so influenced, like Pound's "Petals on a wet, black bough," are less than WCW's poem. But, really, they are more complete. More able to claim a "genre." That' s why I brought up the term "anti-poetry," because Willams has tested (rhetorically, with "so much depends...") the very endpoint of "poemness." And somehow, improbably, comes away with a poem. Finnegan PS: jason, are you sorry yet that you asked? From david.bircumshaw Fri Nov 16 09:42:58 2001 From: david.bircumshaw (david.bircumshaw) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 14:42:58 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Depression (an Ode) Message-ID: <000901c16ead$16c6a800$8bf4a8c0@netserver> Do you know for the first three days after my mother died I couldn't even find where her body was this was because she was in the hands of professionals like arts administrators but I did know through an illiterate note from a care assistant what had happened to her teeth. Now that all of our world belongs to poison's morons, like a fulfilment of the American dream, there is a sort of comfort to be found in Universal (United) Notions (almost Leibniz-like) of stupidity, and a panegyric to be declared to the Stars and Stripes (in the true tradition of poets i.e. crawlers see Spenser see Dryden see Shakespeare's Sonnets) which I am now about to begin. It goes so: Fuck off America Go to Hell G Dubbya Rot in your saliva Tony Cocksucker (that's only a beginning I know but I swear it shows promise. I reckon it needs interesting references to LangPo, apartment sublets in New York, PoMo, tenureships on creative writing courses, call centres, Kent Johnson, cluster bombs, messages from anthrax and Dante's Inferno) David Bircumshaw Leicester, England Home Page A Chide's Alphabet Painting Without Numbers www.paintstuff.20m.com/index.htm http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm From jessyrandall Fri Nov 16 13:52:28 2001 From: jessyrandall (Jessy Randall) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 10:52:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Mothers and Motherhood issue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20011116185228.52815.qmail@web12703.mail.yahoo.com> I am so sorry -- I feel like a dope. The correct URL is http://www.snakeskin.org.uk -- Jessy --- "Prentiss, Amber" wrote: > The url in the forwarded message did not work... > -Amber > > -----Original Message----- > From: JforJames at aol.com > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: 11/16/2001 12:09 PM > Subject: [New-Poetry] Mothers and Motherhood issue > > Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 08:18:59 -0800 (PST) > From: Jessy Randall > > I am guest-editing a special Mothers and Motherhood issue of Snakeskin, > scheduled to come out in February 2002. Please send me your poems or > very > short > prose (one page or less) about being a mother, or having a mother, or > thinking > about motherhood, or ... you get the idea. > > The Snakeskin URL is http://www.snakeskin.uk.org. If you visit the > Archives, > you can see the Fathers and Fatherhood issue that I did last year. > > Feel free to forward this to anybody you know who might like to > contribute. > > -- Jessy Randall (jessyrandall at yahoo.com) > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals http://personals.yahoo.com From wasanthony Sat Nov 17 18:45:39 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 15:45:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Depression (an Ode) In-Reply-To: <000901c16ead$16c6a800$8bf4a8c0@netserver> Message-ID: <20011117234539.57806.qmail@web12105.mail.yahoo.com> David: This is known as synchronicity. I say that because of a recent event. Below is a message I sent to a less professional list this morning - necessary explanatory remarks are in brackets, and my sympatheic response follows that. ========== Yesterday, after I'd spoken with Joan [a colleague] about Paulette's [colleague and close friend; heart attack on Tuesday, declared brain dead on Thurs., died yesterday afternoon] passing, I asked about funeral arrangements. She said they were thinking of scheduling it for Friday or Saturday, depending on the availability of a church, because they thought it would be best to do it when no one had to be at school. Right there, a little hair went up on my neck. But, I said, "oh . . .," and Joan understood right away that I'd be at my daughter's up in Flagstaff for Thanksgiving. So, I said that that was o.k. as I shouldn't be a prime consideration, and that I'd do my best to be there no matter what. Now, I'm not considering convenience for me here, because I will turn around and come back from Flag after Thanksgiving dinner if need be, and I can go up Wednesday anyway. What gets me - and even more so after some reflection - is that the prime consideration should be the avoidance of messing up our school schedule. Sure, there are 39 full-time faculty in our department, and having that many people out during a school day would be a great disruption for god knows how many classes and how many students. But what I'm thinking about is Paulette's body sitting in cold storage for a week just so the drudgery can continue without interruption - Paulette, I know, would be pissed at that notion. Besides, next week is Thanksgiving week and we all know how attendance drops around Tuesday, not to mention the fact that many cancel classes for that Wednesday, me included. I have a hard time trying to think that it's *just" a body. Paulette is gone. She's been gone since Tuesday. I know funerals are for the mourners, and I have the Buddhist outlook on Paulette's passing. She's back out in the stream. Done is done. But I'm having real trouble with this insult to her body. At least that's how I'm seeing it. Am I being irrational? I have no choice but to go with whatever happens, and that's o.k., but am I having a "normal" reaction to this? ========== I don't beg sympathy or response to those last questions, but in sympathy/empathy regarding your message, I would add for those about whom I'm complaining: myopic fuckers! And, it would be deserved. And, if I were in your mood, I'd extend it globally. - Jim, Where-I'm Coming-From Cervantes --- "david.bircumshaw" wrote: > > > Do you know > > for the first three days > after my mother died > > I couldn't even find > where her body was > > this was because > she was in the hands > of professionals > > like arts administrators > but I did know > > through an illiterate note > from a care assistant > > what had happened > > to her teeth. Now that > all of our world > belongs to poison's > > morons, like a > fulfilment > > of the American dream, > there is a sort > > of comfort to be found > in Universal (United) Notions > (almost Leibniz-like) > > of stupidity, and a panegyric > to be declared > > to the Stars and Stripes > (in the true tradition of poets i.e. crawlers > > see Spenser see Dryden see Shakespeare's Sonnets) > > which I am now about to begin. > It goes so: > > Fuck off America > Go to Hell G Dubbya > Rot in your saliva > Tony Cocksucker > > (that's only a beginning I know but I swear it shows promise. I > reckon it > needs interesting references to LangPo, apartment sublets in New > York, PoMo, > tenureships on creative writing courses, call centres, Kent Johnson, > cluster > bombs, messages from anthrax and Dante's Inferno) > > > David Bircumshaw > > Leicester, England > > Home Page > > A Chide's Alphabet > > Painting Without Numbers > > www.paintstuff.20m.com/index.htm > > http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals http://personals.yahoo.com From jdavis Sat Nov 17 21:26:30 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 21:26:30 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] farmer's In-Reply-To: <57.170ec92.291d7130@cs.com> Message-ID: on 11/9/01 12:49 PM, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com at Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: I appreciate that. I always try to potato when I urge the line towards its almanac. Sam - As much as I admire that line of yours, I have to say that you're really not *that* starchy. Sincerely, Jordan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jdavis Sat Nov 17 21:30:56 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 21:30:56 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kinnell Poem In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFF8@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: I think I've made enough peace with Kinnell's work to pass along the NYU student gossip that in GK's workshop, a poem isn't a *poem* until it has some excrement in it. Jordan on 11/9/01 3:31 PM, Graham, David at GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU wrote: > Here's the final section of "Freedom, New Hampshire," Kinnell's elegy for > his brother: > > The fingerprints of our eyeballs would zigzag > On the sky; the clouds that came drifting up > Our fingernails would drift into the thin air; > In bed at night there was music if you listened, > Of an old surf breaking far away in the blood. > > Kids who come by chance on grass green for a man > Can guess cow, dung, man, anything they want. > To them it is the same. To us who knew him as he was > After the beginning and before the end, it is green > For a name called out of the confusions of the earth-- > > Winnipesaukee coined like a moon, a bullcalf > Dragged from the darkness where it breaks up again, > Larks which long since have crashed for good in the grass > To which we fed the flies, buzzing ourselves like flies, > While the crickets shrilled beyond us, in July. . . > > The mind may sort it out and give it names-- > When a man dies he dies trying to say without slurring > The abruptly decaying sounds. It is true > That only flesh dies, and spirit flowers without stop > For men, cows, dung, for all dead things; and it is good, yes-- > > But an incarnation is in particular flesh > And the dust that is swirled into a shape > And crumbles and is swirled again had but one shape > That was this man. When he is dead the grass > Heals what he suffered, but he remains dead, > And the few who loved him know this until they die. > --Galway Kinnell > > > =================== > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > =================== > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From jdavis Sat Nov 17 21:41:22 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 21:41:22 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] what first thought meant In-Reply-To: <200111130151.fAD1p6B70252@mail4.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: On to Brooklyn College gossip: Ginsberg's students tell me that he used to explain that the "first thought best thought" mantra was NOT a validation of automatic writing or an attack on revision. Instead, it meant that the *thought* one had when one sat down to write a piece was what one ought to go back to when working on that piece - and that the thought was more like a picture or a lived experience than a phrase or cadence. Jordan on 11/12/01 8:52 PM, David Graham at grahamd at vbe.com wrote: > > And a little known fact is that Kerouac's famous phrase, "first thought best > thought," was, in its first printing, "First thought first draft." From gmcvay Sat Nov 17 21:59:35 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 21:59:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] farmer's In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 17 Nov 2001, Jordan Davis wrote: > I appreciate that. I always try to potato when I urge the line towards its > almanac. > > Sam - > > As much as I admire that line of yours, I have to say that you're really not > *that* starchy. > > Sincerely, > Jordan But surely, as one adrift on a summer lake, Professor Gwynn with two n's is in touch with his inner tuber? Gwyn of one n, mashing metaphors From grahamd Sun Nov 18 10:04:02 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 09:04:02 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy Message-ID: <200111181503.fAIF32011316@mx14.mx.voyager.net> An article on "The Selling of Billy Collins" available at the New York Times web site: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/nyregion/thecity/18COLL.html?searchpv=nytT oday _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ From wasanthony Sun Nov 18 10:13:46 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 07:13:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy In-Reply-To: <200111181503.fAIF32011316@mx14.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <20011118151346.70043.qmail@web12101.mail.yahoo.com> "The size of Billy's audience speaks to the fact that he's completely on the right track." See, "the right track." It's all about "the right track." Choo-choo Billy, full steam ahead. - Jim --- David Graham wrote: > An article on "The Selling of Billy Collins" available at the New > York Times > web site: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/nyregion/thecity/18COLL.html?searchpv=nytT > oday > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals http://personals.yahoo.com From halvard Sun Nov 18 10:28:19 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 10:28:19 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy In-Reply-To: <200111181503.fAIF32011316@mx14.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: Didja notice, David, that that agent Collins has work only, it seems, with laureates? And none of those penny-ante state laureates either. Hal "The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided." --Casey Stengel Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html > An article on "The Selling of Billy Collins" available at the New York Times > web site: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/nyregion/thecity/18COLL.html?searchpv=nytT > oday > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From halvard Sun Nov 18 10:32:33 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 10:32:33 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I suppose that "work" below should be "works," but I'm sort of thinking of working to stamp out -s ending. Hal "A poet is someone from whom nothing must be taken and to whom nothing must be given." --Anna Akhmatova Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html > Didja notice, David, that that agent Collins has work only, > it seems, with laureates? And none of those penny-ante > state laureates either. > > Hal "The secret of managing is to keep the guys > who hate you away from the guys who are > undecided." > --Casey Stengel > Halvard Johnson > =============== > email: halvard at earthlink.net > website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html > > > An article on "The Selling of Billy Collins" available at the New York Times > > web site: > > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/nyregion/thecity/18COLL.html?searchpv=nytT > > oday > > _______________________ > > David Graham > > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > > _______________________ > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From JackKerouac25 Sun Nov 18 13:58:39 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 13:58:39 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy Message-ID: <134.4c8b5fd.29295edf@aol.com> In a message dated 11/18/01 9:04:45 AM Central Standard Time, grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: > An article on "The Selling of Billy Collins" available at the New York Times > web site: > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/nyregion/thecity/18COLL.html?searchpv=nytT > oday > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > I think this is great, but watch--jealousy will rear its ugly head. There are those of us on this list who can't *stand* a successful poet. Watch: JLN Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JackKerouac25 Sun Nov 18 16:23:10 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 16:23:10 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll Message-ID: <68.175a4b3d.292980be@aol.com> All righty folks, A collegue and I are trying to put together a literature course with rock 'n roll as the theme. The course is freshman/sophomore level, essentially and intro to lit course, just jazzed up a bit with the inclusion of a theme. However, as much as I've tried, I can't seem to think of anything that deals with rock 'n roll. There are plenty of poems, books, short stories, and even plays out there about jazz and the blues, but I can't think of anything that deals with rock 'n roll. If anybody has any suggestions, I would surely appreciate them. I'm looking for novels, short stories, and poems specifically. The time period doesn't matter, so the piece can cover everything from The Beatles and Elvis to Kurt Cobain and Kid Rock. Suggestions? Thanks, Jeff Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida From spacks Sun Nov 18 16:46:05 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 13:46:05 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll In-Reply-To: <68.175a4b3d.292980be@aol.com> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011118134605.007fe950@snowcrest.net> At 04:23 PM 11/18/01 EST, Jeff wrote: a literature course with rock 'n roll as the theme. Jeff, a poet-friend of mine, David Starkey, has taught similar courses (he even rocked with his own primitive guitar when he came to give a guest reading to my summer poetry-writing group a few months ago). I'm forwarding your post to him & hope he can give you some leads. Barry From halvard Sun Nov 18 16:44:53 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 16:44:53 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll In-Reply-To: <68.175a4b3d.292980be@aol.com> Message-ID: Nothing in Rick Peabody's anthology *Mondo Elvis*? Don't have it at hand, but it's out there somewhere. Or how about this (asterisks signify boldface, not italics, here): Motown/Smokey Robinson by Jessica Hagedorn hey girl, how long you been here? did you come with yr daddy in 1959 on a second-class boat cryin' all the while cuz you didn't want to leave the barrio the girls back there who wore their hair loose lotsa orange lipstick and movies on sundays quiapo market in the morning, yr gramdma chewin' red tobacco roast pig? . . . yeah, and it tasted good . . . hey girl, did you haveta live in stockton with yr daddy and talk to old farmers who immigrated in 1941? did yr daddy promise you to a fifty-eight-year-old bachelor who stank of cigars . . . and did you run away to san francisco / go to poly high / rat your hair / hang around woolworth's / chinatown at three in the morning go to the cow palace and catch SMOKEY ROBINSON cry and scream at his gold jacket *Dance* every friday night in the mission / go steady with ruben? (yr daddy can't stand it cuz he's a spik.) and the sailors you dreamed of in manila with yellow hair did they take you to the beach to ride the ferris wheel? *Life's never been so fine!* you and carmen harmonize "be my baby" by the ronettes and 1965 you get laid at a party / carmen's house and you get pregnant and ruben marries you and you give up harmonizing . . . hey girl, you sleep without dreams and remember the barrios and how it's all the same: manila / the mission / chinatown / east l.a. / harlem / fillmore st. and you're getti' kinda fat and smokey robinson's gettin' old *so take a good look at my face / you see my smile looks outta place / if you look closer / it's easy to trace / the tracks of my tears . . . * but he still looks good!!! *i dont' want to / but i need you / seems like i'm always / thinkin' of you / though you do me wrong now / my love is strong now / you really gotta hold on me . . .* Hal "Balthus is a painter about whom nothing is known." --Balthus Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html Hal "What does a poet need an unlisted number for?" --George Costanza Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html > All righty folks, > > A collegue and I are trying to put together a literature course with rock 'n roll as the theme. The course is > freshman/sophomore level, essentially and intro to lit course, just jazzed up a bit with the inclusion of a theme. > However, as much as I've tried, I can't seem to think of anything that deals with rock 'n roll. There are plenty of > poems, books, short stories, and even plays out there about jazz and the blues, but I can't think of anything that deals > with rock 'n roll. > > If anybody has any suggestions, I would surely appreciate them. I'm looking for novels, short stories, and poems > specifically. The time period doesn't matter, so the piece can cover everything from The Beatles and Elvis to Kurt > Cobain and Kid Rock. > > Suggestions? > > Thanks, > > Jeff Newberry > Adjunct Instructor > Department of English and Foreign Languages > University of West Florida > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From CobbCoStudioArts Sun Nov 18 16:52:22 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 13:52:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll Message-ID: <20011118215222.CAC872756@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From barr Sun Nov 18 16:58:15 2001 From: barr (Brandon Barr) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 16:58:15 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll In-Reply-To: <68.175a4b3d.292980be@aol.com> References: <68.175a4b3d.292980be@aol.com> Message-ID: Not non-fiction, but Lester Bangs would seem an essential baseline. Try _Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung._ I haven't read it, but there is an anthology of short stories called _It's Only Rock and Roll: An Anthology of Rock and Roll Short Stories_. _The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test_ seems to fit into the mix, at least as cultural background to psychodelic rock. Debra Marquart's _The Hunger Bone_ has 20+ short stories following travelling rock musicians. Movies: _Mystery Train_ and _Almost Famous_ would provoke nice discussions. Several musicians also have books of poetry. Besides (yuck!) Jewel, there are some by well crafted songwriters like Leonard Cohen. _The Haiku Year_ is a book of haiku by several musicians, written collaboratively during R.E.M.'s Monster tour. I would also recommend using rock lyrics and studying them as poetry. Artisits I've had success with: Cohen, Dylan, Sting, and R.E.M. Whew. Sound like a fun course that will up your hip factor. :) Brandon Barr University of Rochester >All righty folks, > >A collegue and I are trying to put together a literature course with >rock 'n roll as the theme. The course is freshman/sophomore level, >essentially and intro to lit course, just jazzed up a bit with the >inclusion of a theme. However, as much as I've tried, I can't seem >to think of anything that deals with rock 'n roll. There are plenty >of poems, books, short stories, and even plays out there about jazz >and the blues, but I can't think of anything that deals with rock 'n >roll. > >If anybody has any suggestions, I would surely appreciate them. I'm >looking for novels, short stories, and poems specifically. The time >period doesn't matter, so the piece can cover everything from The >Beatles and Elvis to Kurt Cobain and Kid Rock. > >Suggestions? > >Thanks, > >Jeff Newberry >Adjunct Instructor >Department of English and Foreign Languages >University of West Florida >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From ade3 Sun Nov 18 16:59:28 2001 From: ade3 (Andrew Epstein) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 16:59:28 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll Message-ID: <002001c1707c$4c4aa320$27a6fc18@cc296654-a.thrp1.fl.home.com> Jeff, There's an anthology that might help you out -- *Sweet Nothings: An Anthology of Rock and Roll in American Poetry* edited by Jim Elledge (Indiana UP). I got the contents list (below) from Amazon. Take care, Andrew Epstein ************ Rock N' Roll by Peter Balakian The Back-up Singer by Dorothy Barresi How It Comes by Dorothy Barresi Late Summer News by Dorothy Barresi Nine Of Clubs, Cleveland, Ohio by Dorothy Barresi Vacation, 1969 by Dorothy Barresi Venice Beach: Brief Song by Dorothy Barresi The Purest Rage by Charles Baxter Salad Days by Bruce Berger Dancing At The Track Singers At The Nightclub by Judith Berke Fifties Rock Party, 1985 by Judith Berke Elegy For Elvis by Richard A. Blessing Homage To Lester Flatt by David Bottoms On The Elvis Mailing List by Neal Bowers Mary's Dream by Van K. Brock Sphinx by Van K. Brock On Living With A Fat Woman In Heaven by Sidney Burris Very True Confessions by Sidney Burris Late Afternoon At The Arboretum by Kelly Cherry Seizing The Day by Judith Ortiz Cofer 'dream Lover' by Mark Defoe Forgetting The Sixties by Mark Defoe Hully Gully by Rita Dove Hully Gully by Rita Dove Duckling, Swan by Jim Elledge Household Gods by Jim Elledge Strangers: An Essay by Jim Elledge 'their Hats Is Always White' by Jim Elledge Over Voice Of America by Dennis Finnell Playland by Richard Foerster Letter To Russell Barron by Robert Gibb Paul Butterfield, Dead At 44 by Robert Gibb Chosen To Be Water by Christopher Gilbert Enclosure by Christopher Gilbert Time With Stevie Wonder In It by Christopher Gilbert Cruising With The Beachboys by Dana Gioia People Are Dropping Out Of Our Lives by Albert Goldbarth Father Of The Man by David Graham Jesus Never Sleeps by David Graham Painkillers by Thomson William Gunn The Victim by Thomson William Gunn 'when You Wish Upon A Star That Turns Into A Plane' by James Harms Midnight Reports by Lynda Hull Night Waitress by Lynda Hull Joni Mitchell by Joseph Hutchinson Eight Ball by Richard Jackson The Supremes by Mark Jarman Heat by Denis Johnson After Supper by David Keller The Man Who Knew The Words To Louie, Louie by David Keller Hanoi Hannah by Yusef Komunyakaa Tu Do Street by Yusef Komunyakaa The One White Face In The Place by Sydney Lea Tempted By The Classical On Returning From The Store ... by Sydney Lea Decrescendo by Larry Levis Tumbling Dice by Rachel Loden What's So Funny 'bout Peace, Love And Understanding by Robert Long Bryan Ferry by B. D. Love Ancestral Echoes / Rap Music by Charles Lynch In 1969 by Katharyn Howd Machan Betty by Paul Mariani An Elegy For Bob Marley by William Matthews The Penalty For Bigamy Is Two Wives by William Matthews Honky-tonky Blues by Walter Robert Mcdonald First Radio by Michael Alan Mcfee Performance by Paul Mcray On The Otis Redding Bridge by Judson Mitcham The Deaf Dancing To Rock by Lisel Mueller Eighties Meditation by Kay Ann Murphy The Girl With The Bad Rep by Kay Ann Murphy 'california Dreaming' by Rochelle Nameroff Elvis Presley by Rochelle Nameroff The Day Lady Died by Frank O'hara Waiting On Elvis, 1956 by Joyce Carol Oates The Death Of Janis Joplin by Robert Schaeffer Phillips It Was Fever That Made The World by Jim Powell Class Bully by Thomas Reiter A Challenge To The Reader by Tad Richards Video Mama by Jack Rogers Ridl Consolation by David Rivard Cures by David Rivard Epithalamion by Nancy Schoenberger Audubon Drive, Memphis by James Seay Johnny B. Goode by James Seay The Hours Musicians Keep by Aleda Shirley 'all Shook Up' by Dan Sicoli To Marie Osmond by Jack Skelley The Everly Brothers by Floyd Skloot The Year The Space Age Was Born by Floyd Skloot How Garnett Mims And The Chanters Came Into Your Life by Bruce Smith Heaven by Gary Soto Heartbreak Hotel Piano-bar by Richard Speakes Mama Loves Janis Joplin by Richard Speakes Patsy Cline by Richard Speakes California by David St. John Homage To Robert Johnson by David St. John First Performance Of The Rock 'n' Roll Band Puce Exit by Kevin Stein Upon Finding A Black Woman's Door Sprayed With Swastikas by Kevin Stein World Without End by Kevin Stein Rocket To Russia (1) by Alison Stone Spofford Hall by Alison Stone I Wannabe Your Queen by Susan Swartwout Meet The Supremes by David Trinidad Monday, Monday by David Trinidad Nursing The Sunburn by Judith Vollmer Wildsisters Bar by Judith Vollmer Smoking by Ronald W. Wallace Sound Systems by Ronald W. Wallace The Summer The Beatles Went Over Seven Minutes On A Single by Doyle Wesley Walls American Bandstand by Michael Waters The Burden Lifters by Michael Waters Christ At The Apollo, 1962 by Michael Waters Jungle Music by Warren Woessner Buddy Holly by David Wojahn Necromancy: The Last Days Of Brian Jones, 1968 by David Wojahn Song Of The Burning by David Wojahn Woody Guthrie Visited By Bob Dylan by David Wojahn Fans by Baron Wormser Soul Music by Baron Wormser For The Last Summer by Robert Wrigley The Prophecy by Robert Wrigley How Near Vietnam Came To Us by Paul Zarzyski Hurley High by Paul Zarzyski -----Original Message----- From: JackKerouac25 at aol.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Date: Sunday, November 18, 2001 4:24 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll >All righty folks, > >A collegue and I are trying to put together a literature course with rock 'n roll as the theme. The course is freshman/sophomore level, essentially and intro to lit course, just jazzed up a bit with the inclusion of a theme. However, as much as I've tried, I can't seem to think of anything that deals with rock 'n roll. There are plenty of poems, books, short stories, and even plays out there about jazz and the blues, but I can't think of anything that deals with rock 'n roll. > >If anybody has any suggestions, I would surely appreciate them. I'm looking for novels, short stories, and poems specifically. The time period doesn't matter, so the piece can cover everything from The Beatles and Elvis to Kurt Cobain and Kid Rock. > >Suggestions? > >Thanks, > >Jeff Newberry >Adjunct Instructor >Department of English and Foreign Languages >University of West Florida >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From shep236 Sun Nov 18 17:09:47 2001 From: shep236 (shep236) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 14:09:47 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll In-Reply-To: <68.175a4b3d.292980be@aol.com> References: <68.175a4b3d.292980be@aol.com> Message-ID: Harder than I would have thought to come up with literature on this theme, but here's three, none of which is exactly on target. -shep Kamikaze L'amour - a sci-fi novel by Richard Kadrey Eternal Circle - song/poem by Bob Dylan The Tooth of Crime - a play by Sam Shepard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman Sun Nov 18 17:22:54 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 17:22:54 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy References: <134.4c8b5fd.29295edf@aol.com> Message-ID: <3BF834BE.58A6@nut-n-but.net> I've said my say about Billy Collins, so won't say more. I have a question, though: how do you tell a poet who criticizes Collins's work because the person sincerely finds it lacking in some way from a person who criticizes Collins's work because the person is jealous of Collins? --Bob G. > I think this is great, but watch--jealousy will rear its ugly head. > There are those of us on this list who can't *stand* a successful > poet. > > Watch: > > > Jeffrey L. Newberry From gmcvay Sun Nov 18 18:24:06 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 18:24:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll In-Reply-To: <20011118215222.CAC872756@sitemail.everyone.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 18 Nov 2001, Robert R.Cobb wrote: > How about "American Pie?" > > Bob C. > I vastly prefer the Weird Al Yankovic version of that song, a homage to Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, whose refrain is: My, my, this here Anakin guy May be Vader some day later, now he's just a small fry He left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye Singin' "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi".... From tadrichards Sun Nov 18 18:41:01 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 18:41:01 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll References: <68.175a4b3d.292980be@aol.com> Message-ID: <002301c1708a$7b7138e0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie The Commitments by Roddy Doyle David Graham and I are both in "Sweet Nothings." I taught a course once called "Music and Literature" -- Rock 'n Roll was a component of it, but not the whole thing. If you're going to teach a lit course in rock 'n roll, you should spend some time on the great writers in the rock 'n roll field, like Chuck Berry, Leiber and Stoller, Bob Dylan. What about "Hair"? Tad Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2001 4:23 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll > All righty folks, > > A collegue and I are trying to put together a literature course with rock 'n roll as the theme. The course is freshman/sophomore level, essentially and intro to lit course, just jazzed up a bit with the inclusion of a theme. However, as much as I've tried, I can't seem to think of anything that deals with rock 'n roll. There are plenty of poems, books, short stories, and even plays out there about jazz and the blues, but I can't think of anything that deals with rock 'n roll. > > If anybody has any suggestions, I would surely appreciate them. I'm looking for novels, short stories, and poems specifically. The time period doesn't matter, so the piece can cover everything from The Beatles and Elvis to Kurt Cobain and Kid Rock. > > Suggestions? > > Thanks, > > Jeff Newberry > Adjunct Instructor > Department of English and Foreign Languages > University of West Florida > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From tadrichards Sun Nov 18 18:45:48 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 18:45:48 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll References: <68.175a4b3d.292980be@aol.com> Message-ID: <002701c1708b$265eda00$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Oh, and High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. Salman Rushdie's new one...I haven't read it, but I understand it has rock 'n roll as a theme Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2001 4:23 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll > All righty folks, > > A collegue and I are trying to put together a literature course with rock 'n roll as the theme. The course is freshman/sophomore level, essentially and intro to lit course, just jazzed up a bit with the inclusion of a theme. However, as much as I've tried, I can't seem to think of anything that deals with rock 'n roll. There are plenty of poems, books, short stories, and even plays out there about jazz and the blues, but I can't think of anything that deals with rock 'n roll. > > If anybody has any suggestions, I would surely appreciate them. I'm looking for novels, short stories, and poems specifically. The time period doesn't matter, so the piece can cover everything from The Beatles and Elvis to Kurt Cobain and Kid Rock. > > Suggestions? > > Thanks, > > Jeff Newberry > Adjunct Instructor > Department of English and Foreign Languages > University of West Florida > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From duemer Sun Nov 18 19:05:35 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 19:05:35 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll References: <68.175a4b3d.292980be@aol.com> Message-ID: <000e01c1708d$e9f91780$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Anything by Griel Marcus. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From duemer Sun Nov 18 19:16:28 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 19:16:28 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy References: <134.4c8b5fd.29295edf@aol.com> <3BF834BE.58A6@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <001f01c1708f$6ed56e80$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Bob G writes: "I've said my say about Billy Collins, so won't say more. I have a question, though: how do you tell a poet who criticizes Collins's work because the person sincerely finds it lacking in some way from a person who criticizes Collins's work because the person is jealous of Collins?" Bob, good question. The assumption of bad faith is troubling, especially in one who instructs the young, advertising this fact by appending his title, "Adjunct Instructor," to each & every email he sends out. Collins might just be a hack who attracts hacks (David Graham excluded: actual poets are entitled to the occasional perverse judgment.) For what it's worth, I have been disdainful of Billy Collins (& Dana Gioia) even before they were famous. Which makes me an old man, a curmudgeon & . . . name your epithet. I just keep thinking of Marcuse's phrase "happy consciousness," which is, says Marcuse, is an intellect suffused with the joys of "a ride on a speedboat." Fun Fun Fun. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From CobbCoStudioArts Sun Nov 18 19:40:25 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 16:40:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll Message-ID: <20011119004025.DBE162755@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From JforJames Sun Nov 18 20:01:43 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 20:01:43 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Mudlark Poster No. 36 (2001) Message-ID: <40.14862c30.2929b3f7@aol.com> Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 23:33:56 -0500 From: William Slaughter Subject: Notice: Mudlark NEW AND ON VIEW Mudlark Poster No. 36 (2001) Joe Millar The Hurricane Whirlwind Gone, Come Nothing Water You Know How It Feels To Inherit Tragedy A Condensed Meditation on Love On a Peninsula Bank of the St. Johns River Arbor Day, Florida Joe Millar is working as the Graduate Director of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival while attending The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has most recently published in the GREENSBORO REVIEW, NEW REVIEW, COLUMBIA REVIEW and COLD MOUNTAIN REVIEW. Spread the word. Far and wide, William Slaughter _________________ MUDLARK An Electronic Journal of Poetry & Poetics Never in and never out of print... E-mail: mudlark at unf.edu URL: http://www.unf.edu/mudlark From grahamd Sun Nov 18 20:16:44 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 19:16:44 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re:Rock and Roll Message-ID: <200111190116.fAJ1G3a54576@mx9.mx.voyager.net> Since Tad and I have both been outed as contributors to the *Sweet Nothings*, I don't mind tooting that horn a little further. My work aside, it really is a sweet book, I think. But beware teaching from it without doing some groundwork. I tried it twice, thinking that my students might naturally find the subject matter appealing. Well, not exactly. The poets included are mostly, like myself, of a certain age. . . . meaning that the poems often concern antiquarian figures like Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Janis Joplin, and even that geezer Ray Charles--not to mention ancient events such as Vietnam & Selma, and obscurities like Ed Sullivan or Wolfman Jack. I rapidly discovered that much of the book was simply nonsense to my students, who had never heard "Johnny B. Goode," had hazy ideas at best about what Motown might be, and thought of Ray Charles as that guy who once sold soda on TV. Figures they *had* heard of, such as The Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones, were mostly eye-rolling examples of Mom's and Dad's awful taste or the hilarity of Oldies radio. There were exceptions, of course, but by and large the course soon turned into a history class. That was fine, but I did have to do some selling of the material. David Graham _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: "Andrew Epstein" >To: >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll >Date: Sun, Nov 18, 2001, 3:59 PM > >Jeff, > >There's an anthology that might help you out -- *Sweet Nothings: An >Anthology of Rock and Roll in American Poetry* edited by Jim Elledge >(Indiana UP). I got the contents list (below) from Amazon. > >Take care, >Andrew Epstein > >************ >Rock N' Roll by Peter Balakian >The Back-up Singer by Dorothy Barresi >How It Comes by Dorothy Barresi >Late Summer News by Dorothy Barresi >Nine Of Clubs, Cleveland, Ohio by Dorothy Barresi >Vacation, 1969 by Dorothy Barresi >Venice Beach: Brief Song by Dorothy Barresi >The Purest Rage by Charles Baxter >Salad Days by Bruce Berger >Dancing At The Track Singers At The Nightclub by Judith Berke >Fifties Rock Party, 1985 by Judith Berke >Elegy For Elvis by Richard A. Blessing >Homage To Lester Flatt by David Bottoms >On The Elvis Mailing List by Neal Bowers >Mary's Dream by Van K. Brock >Sphinx by Van K. Brock >On Living With A Fat Woman In Heaven by Sidney Burris >Very True Confessions by Sidney Burris >Late Afternoon At The Arboretum by Kelly Cherry >Seizing The Day by Judith Ortiz Cofer >'dream Lover' by Mark Defoe >Forgetting The Sixties by Mark Defoe >Hully Gully by Rita Dove >Hully Gully by Rita Dove >Duckling, Swan by Jim Elledge >Household Gods by Jim Elledge >Strangers: An Essay by Jim Elledge >'their Hats Is Always White' by Jim Elledge >Over Voice Of America by Dennis Finnell >Playland by Richard Foerster >Letter To Russell Barron by Robert Gibb >Paul Butterfield, Dead At 44 by Robert Gibb >Chosen To Be Water by Christopher Gilbert >Enclosure by Christopher Gilbert >Time With Stevie Wonder In It by Christopher Gilbert >Cruising With The Beachboys by Dana Gioia >People Are Dropping Out Of Our Lives by Albert Goldbarth >Father Of The Man by David Graham >Jesus Never Sleeps by David Graham >Painkillers by Thomson William Gunn >The Victim by Thomson William Gunn >'when You Wish Upon A Star That Turns Into A Plane' by James Harms >Midnight Reports by Lynda Hull >Night Waitress by Lynda Hull >Joni Mitchell by Joseph Hutchinson >Eight Ball by Richard Jackson >The Supremes by Mark Jarman >Heat by Denis Johnson >After Supper by David Keller >The Man Who Knew The Words To Louie, Louie by David Keller >Hanoi Hannah by Yusef Komunyakaa >Tu Do Street by Yusef Komunyakaa >The One White Face In The Place by Sydney Lea >Tempted By The Classical On Returning From The Store ... by Sydney Lea >Decrescendo by Larry Levis >Tumbling Dice by Rachel Loden >What's So Funny 'bout Peace, Love And Understanding by Robert Long >Bryan Ferry by B. D. Love >Ancestral Echoes / Rap Music by Charles Lynch >In 1969 by Katharyn Howd Machan >Betty by Paul Mariani >An Elegy For Bob Marley by William Matthews >The Penalty For Bigamy Is Two Wives by William Matthews >Honky-tonky Blues by Walter Robert Mcdonald >First Radio by Michael Alan Mcfee >Performance by Paul Mcray >On The Otis Redding Bridge by Judson Mitcham >The Deaf Dancing To Rock by Lisel Mueller >Eighties Meditation by Kay Ann Murphy >The Girl With The Bad Rep by Kay Ann Murphy >'california Dreaming' by Rochelle Nameroff >Elvis Presley by Rochelle Nameroff >The Day Lady Died by Frank O'hara >Waiting On Elvis, 1956 by Joyce Carol Oates >The Death Of Janis Joplin by Robert Schaeffer Phillips >It Was Fever That Made The World by Jim Powell >Class Bully by Thomas Reiter >A Challenge To The Reader by Tad Richards >Video Mama by Jack Rogers Ridl >Consolation by David Rivard >Cures by David Rivard >Epithalamion by Nancy Schoenberger >Audubon Drive, Memphis by James Seay >Johnny B. Goode by James Seay >The Hours Musicians Keep by Aleda Shirley >'all Shook Up' by Dan Sicoli >To Marie Osmond by Jack Skelley >The Everly Brothers by Floyd Skloot >The Year The Space Age Was Born by Floyd Skloot >How Garnett Mims And The Chanters Came Into Your Life by Bruce Smith >Heaven by Gary Soto >Heartbreak Hotel Piano-bar by Richard Speakes >Mama Loves Janis Joplin by Richard Speakes >Patsy Cline by Richard Speakes >California by David St. John >Homage To Robert Johnson by David St. John >First Performance Of The Rock 'n' Roll Band Puce Exit by Kevin Stein >Upon Finding A Black Woman's Door Sprayed With Swastikas by Kevin Stein >World Without End by Kevin Stein >Rocket To Russia (1) by Alison Stone >Spofford Hall by Alison Stone >I Wannabe Your Queen by Susan Swartwout >Meet The Supremes by David Trinidad >Monday, Monday by David Trinidad >Nursing The Sunburn by Judith Vollmer >Wildsisters Bar by Judith Vollmer >Smoking by Ronald W. Wallace >Sound Systems by Ronald W. Wallace >The Summer The Beatles Went Over Seven Minutes On A Single by Doyle Wesley >Walls >American Bandstand by Michael Waters >The Burden Lifters by Michael Waters >Christ At The Apollo, 1962 by Michael Waters >Jungle Music by Warren Woessner >Buddy Holly by David Wojahn >Necromancy: The Last Days Of Brian Jones, 1968 by David Wojahn >Song Of The Burning by David Wojahn >Woody Guthrie Visited By Bob Dylan by David Wojahn >Fans by Baron Wormser >Soul Music by Baron Wormser >For The Last Summer by Robert Wrigley >The Prophecy by Robert Wrigley >How Near Vietnam Came To Us by Paul Zarzyski >Hurley High by Paul Zarzyski > > > >-----Original Message----- >From: JackKerouac25 at aol.com >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Date: Sunday, November 18, 2001 4:24 PM >Subject: [New-Poetry] Rock and Roll > > >>All righty folks, >> >>A collegue and I are trying to put together a literature course with rock >'n roll as the theme. The course is freshman/sophomore level, essentially >and intro to lit course, just jazzed up a bit with the inclusion of a theme. >However, as much as I've tried, I can't seem to think of anything that deals >with rock 'n roll. There are plenty of poems, books, short stories, and >even plays out there about jazz and the blues, but I can't think of anything >that deals with rock 'n roll. >> >>If anybody has any suggestions, I would surely appreciate them. I'm >looking for novels, short stories, and poems specifically. The time period >doesn't matter, so the piece can cover everything from The Beatles and Elvis >to Kurt Cobain and Kid Rock. >> >>Suggestions? >> >>Thanks, >> >>Jeff Newberry >>Adjunct Instructor >>Department of English and Foreign Languages >>University of West Florida From jdavis Sun Nov 18 20:36:19 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 20:36:19 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] traditionally unpoetic In-Reply-To: <001f01c1708f$6ed56e80$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: The thing about literary journalism as practiced by the Times, see, is that it conscientiously refuses to give people much to sink their teeth into. > His poems, which delve into traditionally unpoetic subjects like pesky > neighborhood dogs and the pleasures of a good meal, are deceptively simple. What does "traditionally unpoetic" mean? That Collin's poems look simple and unpoetic in a way we recognize as belonging to modern poetry after WCW, but there's some trick in there (cracker jack box) that makes them, you know, better? Is there any sense that the reporter knows that Billy Collins probably couldn't be quite so deceptively simple without the examples of Ron Padgett, Tony Towle, and Paul violi? And Joe - > just keep thinking of Marcuse's phrase "happy consciousness," which is, says > Marcuse, is an intellect suffused with the joys of "a ride on a speedboat." > Fun Fun Fun. I'm a partisan of the speedboats - remember, the abyss may be looking into Marcuse too - Jordan From duemer Sun Nov 18 20:45:03 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 20:45:03 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] traditionally unpoetic References: Message-ID: <003201c1709b$cee76ec0$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Jordan, I like the Beachboys, but it's a limited metaphysics. I'm all for happiness & even happy language a la K. Koch, but the denatured suburban sketches of poets like Collins amount to a tissue of lies that seek to paper over the abyss. As for the Times reporter, I would only note that there are a number of 18th century poems about "the pleasures of a good meal" that are highly "poetic." The Times, as you imply, has a fairly narrow view--& not a very consistent one--of the meaning of the word "poetic." jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From duemer Sun Nov 18 20:46:44 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 20:46:44 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] traditionally unpoetic References: Message-ID: <003301c1709c$0afac420$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Jordan, did you grow up in NY? I grew up on the West Coast, which may explain our different takes on the proper language for confronting the abyss. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From grahamd Sun Nov 18 21:08:12 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 20:08:12 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rock and Roll Message-ID: <200111190209.fAJ29bX35878@mx7.mx.voyager.net> I like David Wojahn's sonnet sequence "Mystery Train," in the book of that title. Like many of the poems in *Sweet Nothings*, however, it would need nearly as much footnoting as Alexander Pope does for today's undergraduates. _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ From aprentiss Sun Nov 18 21:11:31 2001 From: aprentiss (Prentiss, Amber) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 21:11:31 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Chaucer, medievalist stuff... Message-ID: I'm working on some sort of poetry involving the Canterbury Tales. As I'm not a medievalist by training, I was wondering where I could find some good resources on life in medieval England around the period. -Amber From aprentiss Sun Nov 18 21:18:04 2001 From: aprentiss (Prentiss, Amber) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 21:18:04 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Chaucer, medievalist stuff... Message-ID: To be less vague, I'm particularly interested in the daily life of the period. A history, of course, would always be nice. Thanks a lot. -Amber -----Original Message----- From: Prentiss, Amber To: 'new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu' Sent: 11/18/2001 9:11 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Chaucer, medievalist stuff... I'm working on some sort of poetry involving the Canterbury Tales. As I'm not a medievalist by training, I was wondering where I could find some good resources on life in medieval England around the period. -Amber _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From FanwoodJEL Sun Nov 18 21:48:39 2001 From: FanwoodJEL (FanwoodJEL at aol.com) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 21:48:39 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Chaucer, medievalist stuff... Message-ID: <170.4255546.2929cd07@aol.com> Amber, I have forwarded your inquiry to a friend of mine who is both a poet and a(n) historian. What more could a body ask? Jeffrey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grahamd Sun Nov 18 22:08:22 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 21:08:22 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: traditionally unpoetic Message-ID: <200111190307.fAJ37J529660@mx14.mx.voyager.net> Yes, this is a Times puzzler. Since at least WCW, subjects like pesky neighborhood dogs have been all over American poetry. For that matter, you can go back to Whitman and Dickinson, I suppose. The tradition referenced in "traditionally unpoetic" seems to be the same one Pound railed against nearly a century ago--the emotional slither of high Victorianism, in other words. We need to send the Times a reading list, obviously. Before they can do justice to Billy Collins, they need to catch up on such traditionally unpoetic pieces as Eliot's "Preludes," Stevens's "Bantams in Pine-Woods," Frost's "The Wood-Pile," and of course WCW's "To a Dog Injured in the Street." But we should probably save Hughes, Bishop, Dugan, Ignatow, Swenson, O'Hara, Koch et al. for next semester, don't you think? I've even heard a rumor that John Ashbery, boldly moving into the antipoetic territory opened up by Billy Collins, has published a poem called "The Instruction Manual." How unpoetic can you get? Wonder what he'll think of next. . . . _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: Jordan Davis >To: >Subject: [New-Poetry] traditionally unpoetic >Date: Sun, Nov 18, 2001, 7:36 PM > >The thing about literary journalism as practiced by the Times, see, is that >it conscientiously refuses to give people much to sink their teeth into. > >> His poems, which delve into traditionally unpoetic subjects like pesky >> neighborhood dogs and the pleasures of a good meal, are deceptively simple. > >What does "traditionally unpoetic" mean? That Collin's poems look simple and >unpoetic in a way we recognize as belonging to modern poetry after WCW, but >there's some trick in there (cracker jack box) that makes them, you know, >better? Is there any sense that the reporter knows that Billy Collins >probably couldn't be quite so deceptively simple without the examples of Ron >Padgett, Tony Towle, and Paul violi? > >And Joe - > >> just keep thinking of Marcuse's phrase "happy consciousness," which is, says >> Marcuse, is an intellect suffused with the joys of "a ride on a speedboat." >> Fun Fun Fun. > >I'm a partisan of the speedboats - remember, the abyss may be looking into >Marcuse too - > > >Jordan From mackechnie Sun Nov 18 22:31:34 2001 From: mackechnie (Russ MacKechnie) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 22:31:34 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy In-Reply-To: <001f01c1708f$6ed56e80$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: Joe Duemer writes, in part: > Collins might just > be a hack who attracts hacks (David Graham excluded: actual poets are > entitled to the occasional perverse judgment.) For what it's > worth, I have > been disdainful of Billy Collins (& Dana Gioia) even before they were > famous. Which makes me an old man, a curmudgeon & . . . name > your epithet. No epithets, Joe. Let us just say that your prehistory of Collins- and Gioia-bashing simply reflect the strong possibility that questionable taste and elitist prejudice can prove immune to even the strong pressures of a celebrity-crazed culture. It is sad, though, that feel compelled to display your disdain like a badge. "I despised them even before it became fashionable" blazoned on your High Literature T-Shirt. . . . No Oprah show for Joe. A perverse state of affairs, too, from the man who touts "anything by Griel Marcus" for a literature and rock syllabus. Marcus's "Invisible Republic" might be more usefully retitled "Risible Twaddle." Dylan used to write lyrics by the vinegary barrelful about pretentious logorrhea of Marcus's ilk. And Griel the Garrulous Guru's recent review in the New York Times of Dylan's just-released "Love and Theft" makes Gioia and Collins very serious Nobel contenders by comparison. No epithets, Joe. Your taste is, as Dylan might say, simply not my cup of meat. . . . Russ MacKechnie From spacks Sun Nov 18 23:00:46 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 20:00:46 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy In-Reply-To: References: <001f01c1708f$6ed56e80$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011118200046.008153d0@snowcrest.net> At 10:31 PM 11/18/01 -0500, you wrote: >Russ writes, in part: compelled to display your disdain like a badge. sounds like an OED definition of snobbery (disdain is survivable, but pride-in-disdain...?) From duemer Mon Nov 19 07:05:05 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 07:05:05 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy References: Message-ID: <001001c170f2$6d24a840$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Russ MacKechnie quotes me as saying: <<"I despised them even before it became fashionable">> What I actually wrote was: "For what it's worth, I have been disdainful of Billy Collins (& Dana Gioia) even before they were famous." This recasting of my words significantly distorts my meaning. And "elitist" is certainly an "epithet"--one I heartily embrace if it denotes one who has the intellectual honesty to quote accurately. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From duemer Mon Nov 19 07:11:18 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 07:11:18 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Chaucer, medievalist stuff... References: Message-ID: <001f01c170f3$4b6ec900$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Amber, I don't have the book at home, so I can't give you the details, but there is a book called Daily Life in the Middle Ages that I used as background when teaching one of the tales to freshmen a few years back. Wait! I'll check Amazon. OK, I don't see the exact book I'm talking about, but several books turn up that you may find useful when I search under "daily life middle ages' jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From tchandle Mon Nov 19 08:21:21 2001 From: tchandle (Tom Chandler) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 08:21:21 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy References: <001001c170f2$6d24a840$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <000901c170fd$14e9fbc0$7fdfd49b@users> Enough, already, of the obvious jealousy implied by such "disdain". We ought to celebrate the fact that Billy Collins is our national poet, then move on. Tom Chandler ----- Original Message ----- From: Joseph Duemer To: Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 7:05 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy > Russ MacKechnie quotes me as saying: > <<"I despised them even before it became fashionable">> > > What I actually wrote was: > "For what it's worth, I have been disdainful of Billy Collins (& Dana Gioia) > even before they were famous." > > This recasting of my words significantly distorts my meaning. > > And "elitist" is certainly an "epithet"--one I heartily embrace if it > denotes one who has the intellectual honesty to quote accurately. > > jd > ====================== > Joseph Duemer > School of Liberal Arts, 5750 > Clarkson University > Potsdam NY 13699 > 315.268.3967 > website http://web.northnet.org/duemer > journal http://rw/blogspot.com > ====================== > > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From JforJames Mon Nov 19 08:48:30 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 08:48:30 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy Message-ID: In a message dated 11/19/01 8:22:25 AM Eastern Standard Time, tchandle at bryant.edu writes: > Enough, already, of the obvious jealousy implied by such "disdain". We ought > to celebrate the fact that Billy Collins is our national poet, then move on. Tom, I'm not going to speak for any one else, but, as I've said before, jealousy has nothing to with my criticism of Collins' _work_. I emphasize "work." You can go back and look at the posts...the reasons for my reservations were always outlined. I don't think I was ever disdainful of Collins...but certainly there is room for "disdain" in criticism. One hopes that reasons will be given...that strongly held positions will be supported. One hopes, particularly in case of Collins where it would hard to imagine anything but a benign influence, that the disdain would be confined to the poetry, not the person. Jeff Newberry was wrong to pre-emptively suggest that NYT aritcle would arouse "jealousy." I could say that Billy Collins should be jealous of me... because I have more hair than he does. But that would really beside the point. Finnegan From JforJames Mon Nov 19 10:57:57 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 10:57:57 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Kenneth Koch awarded prize Message-ID: <99.1de43b6f.292a8605@aol.com> Friday November 16 3:13 PM ET Columbia Professor Wins Poetry Prize WASHINGTON (AP) - Kenneth Koch, professor of English at Columbia University, received the first poetry prize Friday awarded by Phi Beta Kappa, the academic honor society, for his book ``New Addresses.'' He will get $10,000 and a bronze medal. The prize, to be given annually, was established in memory of Joseph Winston, a lawyer and frequent host of literary salons, and his wife May Winton, by their sons Allen and David. Koch, 76, was identified early with a New York school of poetry, inspired by some of the best known American painters of the late 20th century, including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. He has collaborated with painters at exhibitions in New York and Ipswich, England. Nearly 200 poets competed for the prize, awarded to Koch over four other finalists. The judge was John Ashbery, a Pulitzer prize winning poet. From GrahamD Mon Nov 19 11:07:57 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 10:07:57 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry 180 Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BE028@mail.ripon.edu> More Billy Collins in the news, for our delight & disdain (not exactly *dulce et utile*, but I guess we live in a debased culture. . . ). It's an article in the Chicago Tribune, titled with a remark by Billy Collins: "83 Percent of Poetry Is Not Worth Reading": http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0111140002nov14.story?c oll=chi%2Dleisuretempo%2Dhed I must say I enjoy Billy Collins's "Poetry 180" initiative just about as much as I am leery of it. Putting poetry out there in high schools, as an art to be enjoyed, not simply studied, seems a sensible and noble thing. But I would certainly like it if our Laureate, who teaches literature for a living, might not be quite so disdainful himself over the value of literary studies. So: as a corrective to bludgeoning kids with poetry, making them feel dumb when they can't immediately intuit the answers to the teacher's questions, yes yes yes. But to the extent Collins's project will be understood as opposing poetry which is challenging, not to mention encouraging scorn for the enterprise of literary scholarship and learning--well, that's a weary thought. =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== From JforJames Mon Nov 19 11:09:33 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 11:09:33 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] YOUNGER AMERICAN POETS - Verse Press Message-ID: We are happy to announce the launch of the YOUNGER AMERICAN POETS section of our website , as well as our new and upcoming titles. Verse Press is a non-profit publisher, specializing in poetry by younger American poets, poetry in translation, and creative prose by poets. CURRENTLY AVAILABLE: Titles currently available directly from Verse Press as well as from Small Press Distribution and your local bookstore: Terrain Vague, by RICHARD MEIER (winner of the 2000 Verse Prize, selected by Tomaz Salamun). $12 Something I Expected to be Different, by JOSHUA BECKMAN (winner of the 1998 APR Honickman prize for his book, Things are Happening). $12 Satellite, by MATTHEW ROHRER (winner of the 1994 National Poetry Series Award for his book, A Hummock in the Malookas). $12 Oubliette, by PETER RICHARDS (with an introduction by TOMAZ SALAMUN). $12 Letters to Wendy's by JOE WENDEROTH (available with a promotional cd of readings of the Letters by James Urbaniak, available only on the Verse Press website). $14 AVAILABLE DECEMBER 1st Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee: Stories by JAMES TATE. $23 (hardcover) Hat on a Pond by DARA WIER. $13 AVAILABLE ONLY FROM THE VERSE PRESS WEBSITE The first 500 orders of Joe Wenderoth?s Letter?s to Wendy?s come a with promotional CD of selections of the Letters read by James Urbaniak, star of the Hal Hartley's film Henry Fool. CD available only when ordered on the website. $14 JOE WENDEROTH?s chapbook The Endearment. $10 NEW ON THE WEBSITE: THE VERSE PRESS YOUNGER AMERICAN POETS FEATURE This section of the website will feature poems (text and audio) by younger American poets, including Eleni Sikelianos, Katy Lederer, Ross Martin, Tessa Rumsey, Karen Volkmann, Geoffrey Nutter, Cort Day, Rebecca Wolff, and others. FORTHCOMING 2002 TITLES Winter Sex by KATY LEDERER A Beaker: New and Selected Poems by CAROLINE KNOX Given by ARIELLE GREENBERG The Yellow Hotel by DIANE WALD Monkey Time by PHILIP NIKOLAEV (winner of the 2001 Verse Prize, selected by LYN HEJINIAN) Please check the website for further details about release dates, and readings by all Verse Press authors. From GrahamD Mon Nov 19 11:25:22 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 10:25:22 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Kenneth Koch awarded prize Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BE029@mail.ripon.edu> Nothing at all against Koch, whose work I enjoy more with each passing year and who richly deserves a prize--but how prestigious is a prize when it's simply handed to you on a platter by one of your oldest pals? How honest are we being here? Just sour grapes, of course. I will mention that for the past 20 years, I have been the winner 20 times of the Dennis Finnell Prize in Poetry. Coincidentally, Dennis Finnell has been awarded the David Graham Award during the same period. Somehow the press has ignored our achievements, however. . . . I do wonder who those other finalists were, and whether the phrase "nearly 200 poets competed for the prize" means that those schmucks sent in their work in good faith, little knowing that the fix was in. . . . David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: JforJames at aol.com > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 9:57 AM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: [New-Poetry] Kenneth Koch awarded prize > > Friday November 16 3:13 PM ET > Columbia Professor Wins Poetry Prize > > WASHINGTON (AP) - Kenneth Koch, professor of English at Columbia > University, > received the first poetry prize Friday awarded by Phi Beta Kappa, the > academic honor society, for his book ``New Addresses.'' > > He will get $10,000 and a bronze medal. The prize, to be given annually, > was > established in memory of Joseph Winston, a lawyer and frequent host of > literary salons, and his wife May Winton, by their sons Allen and David. > > Koch, 76, was identified early with a New York school of poetry, inspired > by > some of the best known American painters of the late 20th century, > including > Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. He has collaborated with painters > at > exhibitions in New York and Ipswich, England. > > Nearly 200 poets competed for the prize, awarded to Koch over four other > finalists. The judge was John Ashbery, a Pulitzer prize winning poet. > > From halvard Mon Nov 19 11:30:18 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 11:30:18 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kenneth Koch awarded prize In-Reply-To: <99.1de43b6f.292a8605@aol.com> Message-ID: I'll bet those were all blind submissions, too, weren't they? Hal "Quis ipsos custodes custodiet?" --Juvenal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html > Friday November 16 3:13 PM ET > Columbia Professor Wins Poetry Prize > > WASHINGTON (AP) - Kenneth Koch, professor of English at Columbia University, > received the first poetry prize Friday awarded by Phi Beta Kappa, the > academic honor society, for his book ``New Addresses.'' > > He will get $10,000 and a bronze medal. The prize, to be given annually, was > established in memory of Joseph Winston, a lawyer and frequent host of > literary salons, and his wife May Winton, by their sons Allen and David. > > Koch, 76, was identified early with a New York school of poetry, inspired by > some of the best known American painters of the late 20th century, including > Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. He has collaborated with painters at > exhibitions in New York and Ipswich, England. > > Nearly 200 poets competed for the prize, awarded to Koch over four other > finalists. The judge was John Ashbery, a Pulitzer prize winning poet. > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From TerryP17 Mon Nov 19 13:20:15 2001 From: TerryP17 (TerryP17 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 13:20:15 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Chaucer, medievalist stuff... Message-ID: <161.4287b05.292aa75f@aol.com> Amber and Joe-- Back for one day before heading for Houston and catching up on emails. I believe the book you all are searching for is "Medieval People" by Eileen Power. The book has been around for awhile, and I think was reissued in pb in Y2K. I think there is now a companion volume about medieval women as well. As I recall, the original book traces the lives of several ordinary medieval folk, providing lots of detail and background. Useful stuff for readers sick of kings and queens and interested in how the working stiffs lived. Hope this helps, --Terry P From DICK Mon Nov 19 13:57:15 2001 From: DICK (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 01 13:57:15 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] blind submissions Message-ID: <200111191904.fAJJ4IU06902@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Hal Johnson wrote: >>I'll bet those were all blind submissions, too, weren't they? What's the chance that Ashbery wouldn't recognize Koch's submission, whether or not his name were on it. How many judges of poetry contests know to whom they're granting the award, however "blind" the submissions? Richard From gmcvay Mon Nov 19 14:22:04 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 14:22:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] blind submissions In-Reply-To: <200111191904.fAJJ4IU06902@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: (with a sense of deja-vu) Jorie Graham has a simply remarkable ability to coincidentally, psychically, by blind total random chance, award major prizes she judges to recent thesis students of hers. I wonder why she doesn't play Powerball. Gwyn (or maybe she does, and that's why she can afford to trample velvet pants in the mud, as described in the New Yorker profile of several years ago) From jdavis Mon Nov 19 14:46:02 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 14:46:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] ladies and gentlemen of the poetry jury In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I submit to you the call for entries for the Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Prize: Established in 1999 by Allan and David Winston to honor their late father and mother, Joseph and May Winston, the Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award is presented annually for the best book of poems published in the United States within a given year. The Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award aims to make a unique, memorable contribution that honors both the mission of Phi Beta Kappa and the intent of the Winston Foundation to foster excellence in the liberal arts. The single award of $10,000 stands as a testament to the spirit of excellence represented both by Phi Beta Kappa and the Winston Foundation. Eligibility The work submitted must be a book published between June 1, 2000 and May 31, 2001. Work must be original poetry written in English by a poet who is a citizen or legal resident alien of the United States. The work may be submitted by its author or, with the poets consent, by a publisher, agent, or other representative. Poets who wish to be eligible for the award must agree at the outset to: Grant permission to reproduce portions of the work honored in publicizing the award and/or in Phi Beta Kappa publications. Attend the 2001 awards presentation in Washington D.C. and read from their work. Produce a commissioned original piece for The American Scholar. Grant permission to have the work honored bear the sticker of the Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award medal. Judging A single, eminent poet will choose the winner from submissions postmarked on or before June 30, 2001. The judge for the 2001 Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award is John Ashbery. The decision of the judge is final. Competition results will be mailed to all entrants. Questions, comments, and entries for the current year may be submitted to: Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award The Phi Beta Kappa Society 1785 Massachusetts Ave, NW Fourth Floor Washington, DC 20036 --- The issue of blind submissions is moot - this is a book prize. Gwyn, forgive me, but I don't think the comparison to J-Gram is fair, here; her picking Mark Levine (or whomever) was much more like Auden picking Ashbery for the Yale. There must be such a thing as genuine and valuable moralizing (and, fair disclosure, I've been working with Kenneth for going on twelve years now), and truly the honor of poetry competitions is long overdue for rescue, but I rather think _New Addresses_ the best book of the five finalists. Whether it was the best book of poems published between June 1, 2000 and May 31, 2001 (the Pulitzer, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle have thought otherwise) I won't presume to say, but apparently John Ashbery thought so. I rest my case. Jordan From GrahamD Mon Nov 19 14:59:38 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 13:59:38 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] blind submissions Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BE02D@mail.ripon.edu> Jordan's sufficiently answered my question about whether this was an actual contest, with aspirants being sucker-punched into forking over submission fees to a rigged jury. Good to know things were on the up-and-up in this case--that it wasn't a competition in the sense that the AWP Awards are. Still, those 200 poets (or their publishers) who "competed" for this award must have been starry-eyed indeed if they thought they had a chance against Koch in this case. I like it when the judge's name is announced in advance--I've saved many a submission fee that way, knowing that (for one ready example) sister Jorie is never going to pick *my* work out of any slush pile. (Nor would I pick hers, but there's zero chance of my being asked.) Personally, I know for sure of at least two fraudulent awards--in which a manuscript not even in the contest pool was "selected" by the judge via solicitation, while the rest of us poor fools wasted our submission fees. I'm sure it happens all the time. On the other hand, I've managed to get myself out of the slush pile and into print several times without any such connections, so I know that that happens, too. David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Gwyn McVay > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 1:22 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] blind submissions > > (with a sense of deja-vu) Jorie Graham has a simply remarkable ability to > coincidentally, psychically, by blind total random chance, award major > prizes she judges to recent thesis students of hers. I wonder why she > doesn't play Powerball. > > Gwyn (or maybe she does, and that's why she can afford to trample velvet > pants in the mud, as described in the New Yorker profile of several years > ago) > > From GrahamD Mon Nov 19 15:08:22 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 14:08:22 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] New Addresses Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BE02E@mail.ripon.edu> By the way, I'd like to take this chance to underline what I said earlier about Koch: his poetry really does deserve an award. *New Addresses* was one of the liveliest reads I've had this past year. There's no one quite like him, and damn few poets in their 70s still writing as well. You can sneak a peak at some of his poems from this book at the following sites: http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/koch-addresses.html http://www.poems.com/tooldkoc.htm http://www.aprweb.org/issues/may00/koch.html =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== From bobgrumman Mon Nov 19 16:10:18 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 16:10:18 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry 180 References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BE028@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <3BF9753A.65AF@nut-n-but.net> I thought I was through with Billy Collins, but . . . Actually, this is not so much about Billy Collins as it is about the Mass Media. What irks me greatly is that Collins gets a chance to sound off so often and widely--and just about no other poet does. Am I jealous that he does rather than I? Sure. But really what bothers me is not that HE does but that SOME SINGLE VIEW OF AMERICAN POETRY gets a near-monopoly. I would feel this way even if it were Richard Kostelanetz, a friend of mine with similar tastes, who were in Collins's place. With that, I truly hope I've finished with Billy Collins. (Amusingly, in my crowd it's us versus the language poets; the new formalists and the free-versers hardly ever come up.) --Bob G. From bobgrumman Mon Nov 19 16:12:13 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 16:12:13 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kenneth Koch awarded prize References: Message-ID: <3BF975AD.5CF1@nut-n-but.net> Blind submission? Oh, you mean with the author's name not on the work but in it. --Bob G. From roger Mon Nov 19 16:14:19 2001 From: roger (roger day) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 21:14:19 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Chaucer, medievalist stuff... References: Message-ID: <008501c1713f$2736ddb0$38f287d9@BYRON> Barbara Tuchman - "A Distant Mirror" deals mostly with a middle-order French nobleman, but there's a lot of detail in it about England - 100 years war and all that. It briefly mentions Chaucer in his guise of diplomat. England and France were still the same nation at that stage so it might be relevant to your quest. Roger. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Prentiss, Amber" To: Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 02:18 Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] Chaucer, medievalist stuff... > To be less vague, I'm particularly interested in the daily life of the > period. A history, of course, would always be nice. Thanks a lot. > > -Amber > > -----Original Message----- > From: Prentiss, Amber > To: 'new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu' > Sent: 11/18/2001 9:11 PM > Subject: [New-Poetry] Chaucer, medievalist stuff... > > I'm working on some sort of poetry involving the Canterbury Tales. As > I'm > not a medievalist by training, I was wondering where I could find some > good > resources on life in medieval England around the period. > > -Amber > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > From bobgrumman Mon Nov 19 16:14:17 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 16:14:17 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] blind submissions References: Message-ID: <3BF97629.5B18@nut-n-but.net> Gwyn McVay wrote: > > (with a sense of deja-vu) Jorie Graham has a simply remarkable ability to > coincidentally, psychically, by blind total random chance, award major > prizes she judges to recent thesis students of hers. I wonder why she > doesn't play Powerball. > > Gwyn (or maybe she does, and that's why she can afford to trample velvet > pants in the mud, as described in the New Yorker profile of several years > ago) Gwyn must be jealous of Jorie, right? And her thesis students. --Bob G. From JforJames Mon Nov 19 16:18:47 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 16:18:47 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Prose Poem Anthology-Tupelo Press Message-ID: <169.431858f.292ad137@aol.com> clipped from POETRYETC list... Subject: FW: Prose Poem Anthology-Tupelo Press In-Reply-To: <14a.421c8a6.2926d37c at aol.com> Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Forwarding this item from the WOM-PO list with Jeffrey Levine's permission. Please contact him directly if you're interested in contributing or want to suggest other potential contributors. Thanks--Candice Tupelo Press will be publishing, in late 2002 or early 2003, an anthology of prose poems by 20 poets, both the already famous and the emerging. Ray Gonzalez is the editor. We are developing a list of contributors and would like to see greater representation by women, especially women who are emerging poets (I'd say, between none and three books). So, I'm looking for suggestions -- front channel, if you want to follow this thread and talk about emerging women poets who write prose poems -- back channel, if you *merely* want to make suggestions. Beyond that, feel free to suggest ANY women prose poemers, and please don't be shy about suggesting your own work. (When I refer to poets who write prose poems, I do not necessarily mean those who work only in that genre, and, for purposes of this anthology, our definition of prose poem includes just about any hybrid -- lyric essays, part prose/part verse -- whatever you care to name.) From kellogg Mon Nov 19 16:39:03 2001 From: kellogg (David Kellogg) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 16:39:03 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Chaucer, medievalist stuff... References: <008501c1713f$2736ddb0$38f287d9@BYRON> Message-ID: <3BF97BF6.892529E3@duke.edu> I remember reading Donald R. Howard's "Chaucer: His Life, His, Works, His World" about 10 years ago and enjoying it. But I think the book you're looking for it "Daily Life in Chaucer's England," by Jeffrey Singman and Will McLean. roger day wrote: > Barbara Tuchman - "A Distant Mirror" deals mostly with a middle-order French nobleman, but there's a lot of detail in it about England - 100 years war and all that. It briefly mentions Chaucer in his guise of diplomat. England and France were still the same nation at that stage so it might be relevant to your quest. > > Roger. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Prentiss, Amber" > To: > Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 02:18 > Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] Chaucer, medievalist stuff... > > > To be less vague, I'm particularly interested in the daily life of the > > period. A history, of course, would always be nice. Thanks a lot. > > > > -Amber > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Prentiss, Amber > > To: 'new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu' > > Sent: 11/18/2001 9:11 PM > > Subject: [New-Poetry] Chaucer, medievalist stuff... > > > > I'm working on some sort of poetry involving the Canterbury Tales. As > > I'm > > not a medievalist by training, I was wondering where I could find some > > good > > resources on life in medieval England around the period. > > > > -Amber > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -- David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing Duke University (919) 668-1615; FAX (919) 681-0637 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg From gmcvay Mon Nov 19 16:47:19 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 16:47:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] blind submissions In-Reply-To: <3BF97629.5B18@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: > Gwyn must be jealous of Jorie, right? And her thesis students. > > --Bob G. While I admit it would be rather nice to have a publisher who will print anything you sneeze and a nice job at Hahvahd, I think ultimately I could live without being written up in the New Yorker in an allegedly admiring way that basically describes you as a walking cloud of hair. Gwyn, who IS jealous of Lucie Brock-Broido's BLONDE hair From Rsgwynn1 Mon Nov 19 16:55:05 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 16:55:05 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: DUH..... Message-ID: <133.4d83b3e.292ad9b9@cs.com> In a message dated 11/17/2001 1:34:44 PM Central Standard Time, cstroffo at earthlink.net writes: > > So, uh, it isn't about racism, .... > > "the white chickens"? > I think it has more to do with the Russian Revolution. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Mon Nov 19 16:58:57 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 16:58:57 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Chaucer, medievalist stuff... Message-ID: <127.75a1e3e.292adaa1@cs.com> In a message dated 11/18/2001 8:10:45 PM Central Standard Time, aprentiss at agnesscott.edu writes: > I'm working on some sort of poetry involving the Canterbury Tales. As I'm > not a medievalist by training, I was wondering where I could find some good > resources on life in medieval England around the period. > I have a book in my office called Medieval People. It's exactly what you're looking for. Check the library. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman Mon Nov 19 17:00:37 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 17:00:37 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] blind submissions References: Message-ID: <3BF98105.3571@nut-n-but.net> Gwyn McVay wrote: > > > Gwyn must be jealous of Jorie, right? And her thesis students. > > > > --Bob G. > > While I admit it would be rather nice to have a publisher who will print > anything you sneeze and a nice job at Hahvahd, I think ultimately I could > live without being written up in the New Yorker in an allegedly admiring > way that basically describes you as a walking cloud of hair. > > Gwyn, who IS jealous of Lucie Brock-Broido's BLONDE hair See how an idle attempt at a joke can spark a response of Historical Importance, everyone! Moral: don't disparage apparently dumb posts. --Bob G., jealous of anyone's hair From Thom424 Mon Nov 19 17:43:16 2001 From: Thom424 (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 17:43:16 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Creative Writing in COLLEGE ENGLISH Message-ID: <64.16723cf6.292ae504@aol.com> Speaking of Kostelanetz?interesting essays & exchanges in the recent issue of COLLEGE ENGLISH Volume 64 Number 2. November 2001: Special Focus: Pedagogy,Training, And Professionalism In Creative Writing "Materializing the Sublime Reader: Cultural Studies,Reader Response, and Community Service in theCreative Writing Workshop" by Chris Green "Re-Writing the Subject: Psychoanalytic Approaches to Creative Writing and Composition Pedagogy" by Judith Harris "Professional Writers/Writing Professionals: Revamping Teacher Training in Creative Writing Ph.D. Programs" by Kelly Ritter OPINION: "Teaching and the 'Alternative' Writer" by Richard Kostelanetz COMMENT: "Someone Else Can Do It Better: In Response to Richard Kostelanetz" by Ron Hansen COMMENT: "Kostelanetz?s Rhetoric of Isolation: Or,Sometimes I Feel Lonely Too" by Patrick Bizzaro Thom Tammaro Moorhead, MN From cstroffo Mon Nov 19 19:37:41 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 16:37:41 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] blind submissions References: Message-ID: <3BF9A5D5.87823F31@earthlink.net> Rave on Gwyn; it becomes you well.... Gwyn McVay wrote: > > Gwyn must be jealous of Jorie, right? And her thesis students. > > > > --Bob G. > > While I admit it would be rather nice to have a publisher who will print > anything you sneeze and a nice job at Hahvahd, I think ultimately I could > live without being written up in the New Yorker in an allegedly admiring > way that basically describes you as a walking cloud of hair. > > Gwyn, who IS jealous of Lucie Brock-Broido's BLONDE hair > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From bobgrumman Mon Nov 19 20:23:05 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 20:23:05 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] The Latest Issue of Light References: <64.16723cf6.292ae504@aol.com> Message-ID: <3BF9B079.23EA@nut-n-but.net> Someone else has probably brought this to new-poetry's notice and I missed it, but in case not, let me report that the latest issue of Light ("A Quarterly of Light Verse") has a good favorable review of RS Gwynn's No Word of Farewell by Richard Wakefield. --Bob G. From JackKerouac25 Mon Nov 19 21:36:41 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 21:36:41 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy Message-ID: <4f.14921e26.292b1bb9@aol.com> In a message dated 11/18/01 6:26:53 PM Central Standard Time, duemer at clarkson.edu writes: > Bob, good question. The assumption of bad faith is troubling, especially in > one who instructs the young, advertising this fact by appending his title, > "Adjunct Instructor," to each & every email he sends out. Collins might > just > be a hack who attracts hacks (David Graham excluded: actual poets are > entitled to the occasional perverse judgment.) For what it's worth, I have > been disdainful of Billy Collins (& Dana Gioia) even before they were > famous. Which makes me an old man, a curmudgeon & . . . name your epithet. > I > just keep thinking of Marcuse's phrase "happy consciousness," which is, > says > Marcuse, is an intellect suffused with the joys of "a ride on a speedboat." > Fun Fun Fun. > > jd > ====================== > Joseph Duemer > School of Liberal Arts, 5750 > Clarkson University > Potsdam NY 13699 > 315.268.3967 > website http://web.northnet.org/duemer > journal http://rw/blogspot.com > ====================== > > Interesting reply from a blow-hard who himself includes a sig with his info on it. Sorry if my signature annoys you Joe Duemer. There's such a thing as a damn delete button. JLN Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JackKerouac25 Mon Nov 19 21:46:21 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 21:46:21 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Selling Billy Message-ID: <4c.1f8d627.292b1dfd@aol.com> In a message dated 11/19/01 7:50:15 AM Central Standard Time, JforJames at aol.com writes: > Jeff Newberry was wrong to pre-emptively suggest that NYT aritcle would > arouse "jealousy." I could say that Billy Collins should be jealous of > me... > because I have more hair than he does. But that would really beside the > point. > Finnegan > I've got more hair than Collins, too. I wonder if he hates me? In addition, I think that my post was misconstrued. I meant it as a jest, certainly something I'll never do on this list again. JLN Jeffrey L. Newberry --REMOVED FOR JOE DUEMER-- Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard Mon Nov 19 22:54:01 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 22:54:01 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] blind submissions In-Reply-To: <200111191904.fAJJ4IU06902@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: Oops, I should have raised the irony/sarcasm flag on that message, I see. Hal > Hal Johnson wrote: > > > >>I'll bet those were all blind submissions, too, weren't they? > > What's the chance that Ashbery wouldn't recognize Koch's > submission, whether or not his name were on it. > > How many judges of poetry contests know to whom they're > granting the award, however "blind" the submissions? > > Richard > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From gmcvay Mon Nov 19 23:49:23 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 23:49:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] blind submissions In-Reply-To: <3BF98105.3571@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: Bob G., Disparage away. What I read between your lines moves me to comment also that as much as I am a MAJOR fan of Ashbery, I still think it was cheesy verging on Velveeta that he gave his pal the prize. Not, as others have said, that Koch doesn't fully deserve major public honors. But there's just Velveeta leaking all over. Backchannel me and I'll provide references for my apparently dumb post. Gwyn, who retrospectively admires Marianne Moore's stylin' crown of braids From CobbCoStudioArts Tue Nov 20 08:15:12 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 05:15:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] blind submissions Message-ID: <20011120131512.4267336F9@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From halvard Tue Nov 20 12:28:26 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 12:28:26 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Cage & noises Message-ID: > High school is a cage, too. At sixteen, seventeen, > eighteen, nineteen, the body is loud. > > R. Except when there are louder noises outside the body. This morning's NYTimes included a magazine supplement that turned out be "an updated reprint" of the Oct. 2 issue of *The Spectator,* a newspaper produced entirely by students at Stuyvesant High School here in NYC (a stone's throw from Ground Zero, I might add). The publication doesn't seem to be up on the NYT website, but it's available for $3 from The Spectator, 345 Chambers St., NY, NY 10282. It contains articles by staffers, and personal accounts by students and faculty, along with photos by a Stuy senior and a couple poems. Here's one: Endings by Alison Shapiro The plane has gouged a mouth into the side of the building. The mouth exhales tidal waves of deep gray smoke that curl around the building's sharp steel angles like the way the smoke from the heroine's cigarette always curls perfectly around her face in old movies. People fall like meteors alongside the debris. The first guy I ever really loved somehow ends up holding me. It is the first time we have touched in over a year. I am no heroine. I walk uptown chainsmoking while downtown people are dying from breathing smoke. I hear a mother singing the end of the song: Life is but a dream. Her daughter cries. I think about things I never told people. I think about the horrible beauty in the collapse of a mountain, and how graceful some things can be, falling apart. Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From jdavis Tue Nov 20 13:51:43 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 13:51:43 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Update: Penguin Book of the Sonnet Reception (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 11:31:50 -0500 From: Darlene Gold, Teachers & Writers New York City: You are cordially invited to join Phillis Levin on Tuesday November 27th, 2001 for a reading and reception to celebrate the publication of The Penguin Book of the Sonnet Edited by Phillis Levin with a reading by James Lasdun Phillis Levin Paul Muldoon Marie Ponsot Jason Schneiderman Tom Sleigh Jean Valentine Tuesday, November 27, 2001 Reception from 6pm to 8pm Reading of Sonnets begins at 8 pm The National Arts Club 15 Gramercy Park South (20th Street, between Park & Irving) New York, NY 10003 sponsored by Penguin Books and The PAGE Reading Series of The National Arts Club From JforJames Tue Nov 20 18:17:38 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 18:17:38 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Kate Daniels reading report & "Love Pig" Message-ID: <5a.206ddc0.292c3e92@aol.com> I heard Kate Daniels read last week at Wesleyan U. She read a number of poems from a ms. called _My Poverty_. Poems dealing with growing up working-class poor. On the positive side, the poems moved readily from personal family detail to addressing, directly and indirectly, various social/class issues. However, at other times, the material of these new poems seemed better suited for a prose essay/memoir. Then she read some poems from her last published collection, _Four Testimonies_. The last cycle of poems in the book is entitled "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Mother." Often these poems were earthy and visceral in their details. She introduced this section by saying that it was very liberating for her to be able to address motherhood directly in her poetry. She said that she'd been educated at the U. of Virginia by English professors schooled in New Criticism, and that for many years whenever she'd considered making poems from the material of her daily, motherly existence (a time during which her ability to make poems was largely stifled) she could hear her professors disapproving of this material as being "unsuitable subject matter" for poetry. Here's one she read...falling into that all too rare category of contemporary poetry, that of celebration & relish: Love Pig You, too, will love her thighs. The fat sweatiness of them, the toe-curling odor. The bracelets, the biscuits of baby-flesh washed in urine and milk. The neck is next best. Fat, too, bejeweled with dried spit, old food, gray gyres of tears and sweat. If you like, I will let you borrower her for awhile and you can burrow down deep in her sweet and her sourness, her soft and her softer. Belly up to the buffet of her body, and grow corpulent like us, guzzling sweet draughts of baby breath, gobbling mouthfuls of sticky, tender cheek, gorging ourselves on our own baby girl. --Kate Daniels (_Four Testimonies, LSU Press, 1998) Not that the whole book is revelry in such earthy delights...she also tackles things more philosophical and historical in their perspective. She read just small section of the first poem in the book, which is a long monologue in the voice of Simone Weil (involving as well Atget's photographs of Paris). Finnegan From Thom424 Wed Nov 21 09:00:33 2001 From: Thom424 (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 09:00:33 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Billy Collins Message-ID: <7d.1e48a03b.292d0d81@aol.com> More from BC: http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i13/13b00501.htm Thom Tammaro Moorhead, MN From JforJames Wed Nov 21 09:22:19 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 09:22:19 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Call for Submissions, Anomaly Magazine Message-ID: <4a.212ee15.292d129b@aol.com> Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 09:10:10 -0800 From: kathryn graham Subject: Call for Submissions, Anomaly Magazine Call for Submissions, Anomaly Magazine Anomaly magazine seeks submissions of work other than poetry, such as reviews, essays, interviews, dialogues, experimental fiction...interested contributors should contact the editor via email or mail work to the snail mail addresses below. The deadline for the Spring 2002 issue is February 1, 2002. Please direct inquiries to Lorraine Graham at yakub_etc at yahoo.com, who looks forward to talking with you and reading your work. ---------------------------------------------------- Anomaly is a print magazine of innovative/experimental writing with a focus on poetry in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The history of innovative poetry in DC is surprisingly long and varied, and the poetry unexpected and diverse. There is no "Washington, DC school of poetry", and no major artistic academic institution associated with the city. Yet, poets interested in innovative writing have been coming to and living in the area since the early 70s. The goal of Anomaly is to be a means of creating dialogue, not only between writers in the DC area, but also between writers in DC and elsewhere. Thus, while a major focus of Anomaly is innovative poetry in the Washington, DC metropolitan region, Anomaly actively seeks contributions from writers throughout the world. Each issue contains poetry, reviews, and at least one essay or theoretical object. Anomaly is interested in collaborations, interdisciplinary work, in any work that is a deviation from the normal form/order/rule (personal, academic, political, social, aesthetic?), and work that is irregular and difficult to classify. All poetry for the upcoming issue is by solicitation only (subsequent issues will accept open poetry submissions, which the editor looks forward to reading). If you are interested in contributing work other than poetry, such as a review, an essay, an interview, a dialogue, experimental fiction...please contact the editor via email or mail your work to the snail mail addresses below. The deadline for the Spring 2002 issue is February 1, 2002. Please send submissions to: Anomaly Magazine c/o Lorraine Graham 1500 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Apt. 252 Washington, DC 20005 Questions/comments/etc can be sent to Lorraine Graham at yakub_etc at yahoo.com From JforJames Wed Nov 21 13:26:10 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 13:26:10 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] & the red wheelbarrow rolls on Message-ID: <4e.2155baa.292d4bc2@aol.com> From GrahamD Wed Nov 21 16:17:17 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 15:17:17 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Billy Collins Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BE03F@mail.ripon.edu> Having complained here recently that Collins's Poetry 180 project may be used to advance an anti-intellectual agenda, I have to say that I really enjoyed the article Thom posted. "The Companionship of a Poem" nicely summarizes one important role poetry can have in the academy, I thought. Collins's remarks about the usefulness of poetry's form strike me as well put: "Further, to see how poetry fits language into the confines of form is to experience the packaging of knowledge, the need for information to be shaped and contoured to be intelligible. It is to understand that form is a way of thinking, an angle of approach. Other parallels between poetry and learning have also intrigued me, including those that relate to speed. As the poet William Matthews once wrote, one of the most basic appeals of poetry is its ability to slow us down. To begin reading a poem is to feel a resistance in the poem's language and its distinct meter, its compression of meaning, and its insistence on conveying itself one line at a time. Such features will not allow us to rush as we would hurry through the morning newspaper. The formal arrangement of a poem checks our haste. It is no accident that probably the best-known poem by an American poet is Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," a poem about the need to slow down and, eventually, to stop in our tracks" __________________ These comments remind me of one of my favorite passages in Wendell Berry's essays: "One of the great practical uses of the literary disciplines, of course, is to resist glibness--to slow language down and make it thoughtful. This accounts, particularly, for the influence of verse, in its formal aspect, within the dynamics of the growth of language: verse checks the merely impulsive flow of speech, subjects it to another pulse, to measure, to extralinguistic consideration; by inducing the hesitations of difficulty, it admits into language the influence of the Muse and of musing. " David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Thom424 at aol.com > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 8:00 AM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: [New-Poetry] Billy Collins > > More from BC: > > http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i13/13b00501.htm > > > > > > Thom Tammaro > Moorhead, MN > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > From grahamd Sun Nov 25 13:18:56 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 12:18:56 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Scorched Billy Message-ID: <200111251819.fAPIJRC00510@mx6.mx.voyager.net> Rather scathing review of Billy Collins's selected poems in the LA Times: http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Books-X!ArticleDetail-47445 ,00.html Obviously, Collins continues to polarize. Personally, I am eagerly awaiting the first review of Collins's work that doesn't emphasize his sales figures. (Usually in the lead paragraph.) At least this review does look at some poems. I do wonder, though, how many poets would *not* be vulnerable to this sort of summary dismissal via reductive description. Compare: "Collins' success lies in a simple formula: an anecdotal, discursive poem about a self-enclosed event that revolves around a solipsist who is whimsical, timid and occasionally impertinent. The result is a banal domestic surrealism." "Dickinson's success lies in a simple formula: a breathless, melodramatic poem in lockstep meter about the vaguely sketched anxieties of an apolitical person who is alternately cool and coy, whimsical and portentous about abstractions like Truth or Beauty. The result is hyperventilated pseudo-philosophy." _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ From tadrichards Sun Nov 25 14:35:44 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 14:35:44 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Scorched Billy References: <200111251819.fAPIJRC00510@mx6.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <005501c175e8$67387420$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> David's been doing a good enough job defending Billy that I don't really have a lot to add, so I'll content myself with mentioning that his poems give me a lot of pleasure, and there's a lot to be said for that. Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Graham" To: Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2001 1:18 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Scorched Billy > Rather scathing review of Billy Collins's selected poems in the LA Times: > > http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Books-X!ArticleDetail-47445 > ,00.html > > Obviously, Collins continues to polarize. Personally, I am eagerly awaiting > the first review of Collins's work that doesn't emphasize his sales figures. > (Usually in the lead paragraph.) At least this review does look at some > poems. I do wonder, though, how many poets would *not* be vulnerable to > this sort of summary dismissal via reductive description. > > Compare: > > "Collins' success lies in a simple formula: an anecdotal, discursive poem > about a self-enclosed event that revolves around a solipsist who is > whimsical, timid and occasionally impertinent. The result is a banal > domestic surrealism." > > "Dickinson's success lies in a simple formula: a breathless, melodramatic > poem in lockstep meter about the vaguely sketched anxieties of an apolitical > person who is alternately cool and coy, whimsical and portentous about > abstractions like Truth or Beauty. The result is hyperventilated > pseudo-philosophy." > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From wasanthony Sun Nov 25 18:46:49 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 15:46:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Scorched Billy In-Reply-To: <200111251819.fAPIJRC00510@mx6.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <20011125234649.22593.qmail@web12102.mail.yahoo.com> I get this from that link: "Sorry, the page you requested is not available." Does the poet laureate have that much pull? Would love to see those quotes below on book jackets! - Jim --- David Graham wrote: > Rather scathing review of Billy Collins's selected poems in the LA > Times: > > http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Books-X!ArticleDetail-47445 > ,00.html > > Obviously, Collins continues to polarize. Personally, I am eagerly > awaiting > the first review of Collins's work that doesn't emphasize his sales > figures. > (Usually in the lead paragraph.) At least this review does look at > some > poems. I do wonder, though, how many poets would *not* be vulnerable > to > this sort of summary dismissal via reductive description. > > Compare: > > "Collins' success lies in a simple formula: an anecdotal, discursive > poem > about a self-enclosed event that revolves around a solipsist who is > whimsical, timid and occasionally impertinent. The result is a banal > domestic surrealism." > > "Dickinson's success lies in a simple formula: a breathless, > melodramatic > poem in lockstep meter about the vaguely sketched anxieties of an > apolitical > person who is alternately cool and coy, whimsical and portentous > about > abstractions like Truth or Beauty. The result is hyperventilated > pseudo-philosophy." > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1 From paul.lake Sun Nov 25 07:34:45 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 06:34:45 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kate Daniels reading report & "Love Pig" In-Reply-To: <5a.206ddc0.292c3e92@aol.com> Message-ID: on 11/20/01 5:17 PM, JforJames at aol.com at JforJames at aol.com wrote: > I heard Kate Daniels read last week at Wesleyan U. She read > a number of poems from a ms. called _My Poverty_. Poems dealing > with growing up working-class poor. On the positive side, the poems > moved readily from personal family detail to addressing, directly > and indirectly, various social/class issues. However, at other times, > the material of these new poems seemed better suited for a prose > essay/memoir. > > Then she read some poems from her last published collection, > _Four Testimonies_. The last cycle of poems in the book > is entitled "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Mother." Often these > poems were earthy and visceral in their details. She introduced > this section by saying that it was very liberating for her to be > able to address motherhood directly in her poetry. She said > that she'd been educated at the U. of Virginia by English > professors schooled in New Criticism, and that for many years > whenever she'd considered making poems from the material > of her daily, motherly existence (a time during which her ability > to make poems was largely stifled) she could hear her professors > disapproving of this material as being "unsuitable subject > matter" for poetry. > > Here's one she read...falling into that all too rare category > of contemporary poetry, that of celebration & relish: > > Love Pig > > You, too, will love > her thighs. The fat > sweatiness of them, > the toe-curling odor. > The bracelets, the biscuits > of baby-flesh washed > in urine and milk. > The neck is next best. > Fat, too, bejeweled with dried > spit, old food, gray > gyres of tears and sweat. > If you like, I will let you > borrower her for awhile > and you can burrow > down deep in her sweet > and her sourness, her soft > and her softer. Belly up > to the buffet of her body, and grow > corpulent like us, guzzling > sweet draughts of baby breath, > gobbling mouthfuls of sticky, > tender cheek, gorging ourselves > on our own baby girl. > > --Kate Daniels > (_Four Testimonies, LSU Press, 1998) > > Not that the whole book is revelry in such earthy > delights...she also tackles things more philosophical > and historical in their perspective. She read just small > section of the first poem in the book, which is a long > monologue in the voice of Simone Weil (involving > as well Atget's photographs of Paris). > > Finnegan > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > Thanks, Jim. I liked "Love Pig." Everything should find its way into poetry, including the delights of parenting. Do you happen to know if and where Kate Daniel's teaches? I want to send her an essay on motherhood and poetry. Paul Lake From grahamd Sun Nov 25 19:21:08 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 18:21:08 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Scorched Billy Message-ID: <200111260023.fAQ0NPc05646@mx2.mx.voyager.net> The URL I sent is a long one, Jim, so I'm guessing it probably took up more than one line on your email screen. Have a look & see if perhaps there's more URL after a line-break--hotlink interrupted by a carriage return, in other words. Here 'tis again: http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Books-X!ArticleDetail-47445 ,00.html _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: jcervantes >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Scorched Billy >Date: Sun, Nov 25, 2001, 5:46 PM > >I get this from that link: "Sorry, the page you requested is not >available." Does the poet laureate have that much pull? > >Would love to see those quotes below on book jackets! > >- Jim > >--- David Graham wrote: >> Rather scathing review of Billy Collins's selected poems in the LA >> Times: >> >> >http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Books-X!ArticleDetail-47445 >> ,00.html >> From jdavis Mon Nov 26 00:20:19 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 00:20:19 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Palattella's reviews In-Reply-To: <200111251819.fAPIJRC00510@mx6.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: David - I take your point about the reductive description, but didn't you think that review looked like the kind of review - at least in terms of thoughtfulness and breadth of reference - that one would want for one's own work? I mean, that, plus a predisposition to find ingenious defenses of lavish praise for one's work, and not the lackluster stream-of-assertion that passes for criticism nowadays? Peter Schjeldahl once pointed out that an attack by some other critic (Hughes?) would actually be a quite praiseful description if two or three key words were reversed. The words "anecdotal" "self-contained" "discursive" and "revolves" aren't negatively charged, though that sentence tailspins into over-criticism with "solipsist" "whimsical" and "timid"; "occasionally impertinent" is one too many spoonfuls of peanut butter. But he had to balance the first half of the sentence, didn't he. Oh the traps of letting the language do the writing for you. There's no way to escape from the three term phrase at the end of the next sentence - but it could have been more balanced - as in "a balanced surrealish domesticity." Anybody familiar with Palattella, know his work from Lingua Franca or the LRB? Jordan PS Of course one would *really* hope that, since Collins so clearly wants to be viewed in at least one other context besides poetry-history, a review would mention Joshua Slocum - From bobgrumman Mon Nov 26 06:16:10 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 06:16:10 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Scorched Billy References: <200111251819.fAPIJRC00510@mx6.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <000c01c1766b$d272c640$cf04fea9@y3b2r8> At least the LA Times actually reviewed a book of poetry. But I, needless to say, have my usual gripe about reviews of poetry where the general public can see them are only about a few publicized mainstreamers. I thought the Collins review good for the same reasons Jordan did. I think the final line quite unfair, though--Collins's isn't making jokes but making wry comments on life, like Frost often did. I think Collins better than Palatella does, but not by much--and I think Palatella fair, considering how little space he was given. --Bob G. From davisa Mon Nov 26 12:45:32 2001 From: davisa (Alan Davis) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 11:45:32 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Collins In-Reply-To: <200111261701.fAQH12Z32559@wiz.cath.vt.edu> Message-ID: Billy C. is a hell of a poet. The fact that he's accessible and self-effacing shouldn't be held against him. The fact that he's not heavyweight shouldn't, either. It's poetry - I don't have to choose between Collins and someone else. As a reader, I can have both. Collins is a welcome addition to the literary landscape. His whimsy obviously isn't to everyone's taste, but he's a hell of a poet. I look forward to his tenure as PL. He's just the one to write occasional poems. "Poem to Celebrate Dubya's Low Cholesteral and Slim Waist," "Poem for a Texas BarBQ, "Bringing Down the Taliban, "Eating Cous Cous in Kabul." From DICK Mon Nov 26 13:30:49 2001 From: DICK (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 01 13:30:49 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Poet Laureate Message-ID: <200111261835.fAQIZTU24672@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Who was it a while ago that objected to the phrase "Billy-bashing?" >> >>I get this from that link: "Sorry, the page you requested is not >>available." Does the poet laureate have that much pull? >> >>Would love to see those quotes below on book jackets! >> >>- Jim >> Richard From JforJames Mon Nov 26 14:53:14 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 14:53:14 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Scorched Billy Message-ID: <69.1e956cef.2933f7aa@aol.com> "Collins' success lies in a simple formula: an anecdotal, discursive poem about a self-enclosed event that revolves around a solipsist who is whimsical, timid and occasionally impertinent. The result is a banal domestic surrealism." .... "Clearly, Collins' surrealism is unlike Andre Breton's bundle of manifestoes and dreams or Frank O'Hara's blend of chance and desire." --- These comments in Palattella's review show a misunderstanding of the difference between Collins' flights of fancy and what surrealism does. Collins isn't a surrealist, domestic, banal or otherwise. (Nor was Frank O'Hara, in the main, for that matter..) At times James Tate veers towards or verges on surrealism....but we have very few truly surrealist poets working in contemporary poetry. I think it's worth drawing some distinctions between surrealism, dada, dream poetry, magical realism, stream of consciousness, absurdist poetry, fancy/whimsy, etc. "Overall, he is more interested in using language to maintain a steady forward thrust..." Here Palattella has had some insight into what Billy Collins stated (in that recent Paris Review interview) was his method of composing a poem. Finnegan From GrahamD Mon Nov 26 15:24:53 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 14:24:53 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Worm Alert Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BE042@mail.ripon.edu> Just a word of warning--last night I received a piece of suspicious email in response to one of my NewPo posts. As I suspected, it was infected--with a worm, not a virus, whatever that means. The sender was Jaimes Alsop, though of course he didn't actually send it. Anyway, I've also heard of others who were hit with this particular worm, so beware & don't open attachments unless you're sure. . . . David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== From bobgrumman Mon Nov 26 15:46:51 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 15:46:51 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Scorched Billy References: <69.1e956cef.2933f7aa@aol.com> Message-ID: <000f01c176bb$8ce0f700$cf04fea9@y3b2r8> > Collins isn't a surrealist, domestic, banal or otherwise. I disagree. See below to find out why. > I think it's worth drawing some distinctions between surrealism, dada, > dream poetry, magical realism, stream of consciousness, absurdist poetry, > fancy/whimsy, etc Ironically, I--Mr. Taxonomy--disagree, for the most part. I think we should go with a simple, general definition of surrealism, as--well, in my formal taxonomy surrealistic poetry is a subcategory of Xenological Poetry (1) surrealistic poetry, in which incongruous images are juxtaposed (2) jump-cut poetry, in which narrational sequence is meddled with. Of course, a poem can be partially surrealistic without being a surrealistic poem. Collins seems to me a plaintext poet who uses surrealism. And I believe that some of the categories of poetry James mentons could probably be junked--or considered subcategories of surrealistic poetry. See my taxonomy at Comprepoetica for further details. --Bob G. -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: sig.txt URL: From JforJames Mon Nov 26 17:40:39 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 17:40:39 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Scorched Billy Message-ID: <7c.1f2fa734.29341ee7@aol.com> Absurd (not surrealist) poem by Hal Sirowitz Chopped-Off Arm (from _Mother Said_) Don't stick your arm out of the window, Mother said. Another car can sneak up behind us, & chop it off. Then your father will have to stop, stick the severed piece in the trunk, & drive you to the hospital. It's not like the parts of your telescope that snap back on. A doctor will have to sew it. You won't be able to wear short sleeves. You won't want anyone to see the stitches. From bobgrumman Mon Nov 26 18:51:39 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 18:51:39 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Scorched Billy References: <7c.1f2fa734.29341ee7@aol.com> Message-ID: <003301c176d5$5dcb4a00$cf04fea9@y3b2r8> > Absurd (not surrealist) poem by Hal Sirowitz > > Chopped-Off Arm > (from _Mother Said_) > > > Don't stick your arm out > of the window, Mother > said. Another car can sneak > up behind us, & chop > it off. Then your father > will have to stop, stick > the severed piece in the > trunk, & drive you to the > hospital. It's not like > the parts of your > telescope that snap back > on. A doctor will have to > sew it. You won't be able > to wear short sleeves. > You won't want anyone to > see the stitches. I don't see why anyone would think the above surrealistic (if you were using it to argue for a taxonomic distinction between absurd and surrealistic poems. It's simply a plaintext poem about a family outing. The mother's speech is a little silly/absurd but not the poem, which is very realistic. Or am I missing something (no sarcasm intended). - -Bob G. From MillB Mon Nov 26 22:13:36 2001 From: MillB (MillB at aol.com) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 22:13:36 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Good News Message-ID: <139.545b414.29345ee0@aol.com> Greetings: I received some good news today and wanted to share it with "the group." When I opened my mail this evening, I found a congratulations from the Money for Women, Barbara Deming Foundation in NY (feminist fund). . .and I've been awarded $1,000 for my collection, Ordinary Fears!!!! I hope everyone had a pleasant "Givings Day" Cheers, Mill From Rsgwynn1 Mon Nov 26 22:42:14 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 22:42:14 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Good News Message-ID: In a message dated 11/26/2001 9:15:22 PM Central Standard Time, MillB at aol.com writes: > Greetings: > > I received some good news today and wanted to share it with "the group." > > When I opened my mail this evening, I found a congratulations from the > Money > for Women, Barbara Deming Foundation in NY (feminist fund). . .and I've > been > awarded $1,000 for my collection, Ordinary Fears!!!! > > I hope everyone had a pleasant "Givings Day" > > Cheers, > > > Mill > Congratulations, Mill! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tadrichards Tue Nov 27 00:14:06 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 00:14:06 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Good News References: <139.545b414.29345ee0@aol.com> Message-ID: <007001c17702$56f325e0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Mill, This is great news. Barbara Deming was a major figure in the pacifist movement, and deserves to be remembered. And I'm glad that you've recieved this honor...well deserved. Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 10:13 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Good News > Greetings: > > I received some good news today and wanted to share it with "the group." > > When I opened my mail this evening, I found a congratulations from the Money > for Women, Barbara Deming Foundation in NY (feminist fund). . .and I've been > awarded $1,000 for my collection, Ordinary Fears!!!! > > I hope everyone had a pleasant "Givings Day" > > Cheers, > > > Mill > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From jdavis Tue Nov 27 09:33:34 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 09:33:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Anne Porter poem In-Reply-To: <7c.1f2fa734.29341ee7@aol.com> Message-ID: FOR MY SON JOHNNY July 11th, 1980 The maker of worlds and tender father of sparrows Who told us what's done to the smallest is done to him, Told us also, the least will be greatest in heaven, And since it was he who told us we know it's true. So Johnny, now you're one of the greatest, Because here on earth you were certainly one of the least. You called yourself "a man without money or power," You seemed only to ask to drink countless cans of soda, Though it did have to be one special brand. You seemed only to ask To tell your difficult puns with a delighted smile To friends and acquaintances and even strangers, And to stand in front of your house and rock and wave your arms And sing, varying it with whoops and growls Of wild ecstatic joy, And later to inquire of shopkeepers and policemen If they could hear you at the other end of town. You seemed to ask only to spend hours in the woods and fields Alone, "talking to God." But you also loved to go swimming Especially in thunderstorms, Especially in autumn "under the colored leaves" And if the leaves weren't there you pretended they were there. You loved napping in the "messy attic With filing cabinets and old comic books And empty cartons saying B&M BAKED BEANS." And passionately you loved the thunder With all its "fancy sounds" In which you detected all kinds of subtleties. "Did it sound like a subway train? Did it say Relinquish Relinquish? Did it shake the ground?" And you loved women, most of whom you admired Quite regardless of age, And whom you hugged with great abandon, Particularly the ones in flowered dresses And the ones with curly hair, Knowing you'd never marry because "A wife might be hard to please." This may have hurt. Perhaps that's why you asked to be excused from weddings, Saying that they were boring. A little girl once asked you, "Johnny, How does it feel to be retarded?" And you answered gently, "I don't know dear, I'm not retarded." Which you were not. Though light-heartedly you described your outbursts of temper As "just a little jump and a babyish roar," Far oftener, your scruples attacked you: "Am I the worst person in the world?" Though your shoelaces were hardly ever tied And you seldom wore matching socks You tried to behave with dignity in the village "So as not to embarrass my little sisters." There was a father in you too somewhree Though you never corrected other people's children "I don't want to act like a staff member!" If you saw a baby in town you'd smile And with just the tip of one finger You'd carefully touch the tiny hands and feet. With the Child in the Christmas manger you did the same. You told us that "In heaven the angels kid and joke." Quite casually you'd mention seeing St. Michael the Archangel, "That's who I just waved to." We couldn't see him, so we asked what he was like. You told us, "Just a friendly man in a business suit," And said "Next time I see an Archangel Would it be all right to ask him his name?" Often you visited our parish church, First splashing on much holy water. Inside the church you went down hard on both knees And then, dropping a lot of flaming matches, You lighted almost a full row of candles To pray for "blind and deaf and crippled children." "And when the church is locked," you said, "I just go up to it and touch the wall." Your family sent you away to live on a farm in Vermont, And for years your times at home were so short and so far apart That hearing them once called "visits" you turned white, So deep was your speechless fear That you might be only a guest at home, and have no home. But in your humility you knew how to forgive, Growing kinder and kinder as you grew older. "I'm not afraid of daying," you said, "just of getting hurt." Johnny, now you're a staff member! And now you're home. Now you're with Mary, whose starry veil you loved, And of whom you said, "She won't get bored with my puns," And, "She won't mind if I touch her dress." While your mother, who sometimes did get bored with your puns, Cries here on earth And asks you, now that you're one of the greatest, To grant her a portion of your littleness. --Anne Porter _An Altogether Different Language, Poems 1934-1994_ (Boston, Zoland) From GrahamD Tue Nov 27 11:19:48 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 10:19:48 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Palattella's reviews Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BE04A@mail.ripon.edu> Jordan writes, of Palattella's review of Billy Collins: "The words 'anecdotal' 'self-contained' 'discursive' and 'revolves' aren't negatively charged, though that sentence tailspins into over-criticism with 'solipsist' 'whimsical' and 'timid'; 'occasionally impertinent' is one too many spoonfuls of peanut butter." Interesting take on this. I would have said that "anecdotal" is very much negatively charged, even out of context. And the rest of the review seems to bear me out. While I think there's nothing particularly wrong with the anecdotal as a mode (or the discursive, etc.), it does seem that in current criticism these terms (like "confession") have long since entered the realm of bad-unless-specified-otherwise. Jordan, I'll admit your reference to Joshua Slocum sent me to my reference shelf, where I soon smiled. David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Jordan Davis > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2001 11:20 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: [New-Poetry] Palattella's reviews > > David - > > I take your point about the reductive description, but didn't you think > that > review looked like the kind of review - at least in terms of > thoughtfulness > and breadth of reference - that one would want for one's own work? I mean, > that, plus a predisposition to find ingenious defenses of lavish praise > for > one's work, and not the lackluster stream-of-assertion that passes for > criticism nowadays? > > Peter Schjeldahl once pointed out that an attack by some other critic > (Hughes?) would actually be a quite praiseful description if two or three > key words were reversed. The words "anecdotal" "self-contained" > "discursive" > and "revolves" aren't negatively charged, though that sentence tailspins > into over-criticism with "solipsist" "whimsical" and "timid"; > "occasionally > impertinent" is one too many spoonfuls of peanut butter. But he had to > balance the first half of the sentence, didn't he. Oh the traps of letting > the language do the writing for you. There's no way to escape from the > three > term phrase at the end of the next sentence - but it could have been more > balanced - as in "a balanced surrealish domesticity." > > Anybody familiar with Palattella, know his work from Lingua Franca or the > LRB? > > Jordan > > PS Of course one would *really* hope that, since Collins so clearly wants > to > be viewed in at least one other context besides poetry-history, a review > would mention Joshua Slocum - > > From jdavis Tue Nov 27 12:01:03 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 12:01:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Anne Porter poem In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Well obviously the line was "I'm not afraid of dying..." Thought I typed that too quickly. Thanks, Jim, for Hal's poem - I often think of Hal as a demented Hank Williams of Queens. Jordan From JforJames Tue Nov 27 12:06:43 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 12:06:43 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] David Gascoyne Message-ID: <81.13bb9ea9.29352223@aol.com> David Gascoyne obit: Poetic champion of surrealism whose vision survived insanity to flourish again in later life http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4308072,00.html From paul.lake Tue Nov 27 02:30:59 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 01:30:59 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Good News In-Reply-To: <139.545b414.29345ee0@aol.com> Message-ID: on 11/26/01 9:13 PM, MillB at aol.com at MillB at aol.com wrote: > Greetings: > > I received some good news today and wanted to share it with "the group." > > When I opened my mail this evening, I found a congratulations from the Money > for Women, Barbara Deming Foundation in NY (feminist fund). . .and I've been > awarded $1,000 for my collection, Ordinary Fears!!!! > > I hope everyone had a pleasant "Givings Day" > > Cheers, > > > Mill > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > Congrats, Mill. Your good news is encouraging to all. Paul Lake From antrobin Tue Nov 27 16:10:51 2001 From: antrobin (Anthony Robinson) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 13:10:51 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] collaborative poems References: <200111251819.fAPIJRC00510@mx6.mx.voyager.net> <000c01c1766b$d272c640$cf04fea9@y3b2r8> Message-ID: <012c01c17788$679721e0$a0aeefd8@0021936706> Anybody writing any? Here's a piece "assembled" by Janice Pang from fragments authored and/or found by the both of us. It's a bit new, but I think it's an interesting piece. Comments welcome. Tony Anniversary Poem You are here-a point on a page long ago swept clean by others' suffering. Not car talk, but truck talk: retrograde, renegade, treading through the wet-leaf streets. You, at the time, loved lamb in all its curry consistencies. I knew what Plato knew, that art-- a child's scrawl, a hand's worth of flapping V's, five-- had become a dangerous necessity, something we could only carry beneath our lunch trays, out of sight of the popular kids. At the movies, we battled over greasy kid parts. Whose cowlick licked whose? Time, though, cannot be trapped on a flat surface. The trucks roared. We waited at the stoplight to cross. The green winked at us. Across town, autumn backflipped into house after house, cutting loose the leaves, a garbage shakedown. We decided I was too nearsighted to be arch villain. You took the cape, the squeaky red boots; behind the pane, autumn rattled the window open. Then the sill was empty. I hollered at the trees, and the crows answered back, black wings rising like __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger From wasanthony Tue Nov 27 20:18:27 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 17:18:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] collaborative poems In-Reply-To: <012c01c17788$679721e0$a0aeefd8@0021936706> Message-ID: <20011128011827.71125.qmail@web12101.mail.yahoo.com> --- Anthony Robinson wrote: > > Anybody writing any? Here's a piece "assembled" by Janice Pang from > fragments authored and/or found by the both of us. It's a bit new, > but I > think it's an interesting piece. Comments welcome. > > Tony > > > Anniversary Poem > > You are here-a point on a page > long ago swept clean by others' > suffering. Not car talk, but truck talk: > > retrograde, renegade, treading through > the wet-leaf streets. > > You, at the time, loved lamb > in all its curry consistencies. > I knew what Plato knew, that art-- > > a child's scrawl, > a hand's worth of flapping V's, > five-- > > had become a dangerous > necessity, something we could only carry > beneath our lunch trays, > out of sight of the popular kids. > > At the movies, we battled > over greasy kid parts. Whose cowlick > licked whose? Time, though, > cannot be trapped on a flat surface. > > The trucks roared. > We waited at the stoplight to cross. > The green winked at us. > > Across town, autumn backflipped > into house after house, > cutting loose the leaves, > a garbage shakedown. > > We decided I was too nearsighted > to be arch villain. You took the cape, > the squeaky red boots; behind the pane, > autumn rattled the window open. Then the sill > was empty. I hollered at the trees, > and the crows answered back, > > black wings rising like blackboard, like hero dreams ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1 From halvard Tue Nov 27 20:24:46 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 20:24:46 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Anne Porter poem In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Well obviously the line was "I'm not afraid of dying..." > > Thought I typed that too quickly. > > Thanks, Jim, for Hal's poem - I often think of Hal as a demented Hank > Williams of Queens. > > Jordan Queens, eh? Hmmm. Well, something's going on here that I'm not privy to, so, what the hell, I'm not gonna take umbrage yet. Hal "We don't serve fine wine in half-pints, buddy." --Robert Ashley Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From halvard Tue Nov 27 20:43:12 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 20:43:12 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] RIP Spencer Holst Message-ID: Spencer Holst died last Thursday. He, as you may know, is a Village writer, who lived in this very building in NYC that shelters my wife Lynda and me. His most recent book *Brilliant Silence* was published by Station Hill. One section of that book is called *Pleasures of the Imagination-- 64 Beginnings* and is dedicated to Sally Gross, a dancer who lives right across the hall from us. This section consists of the beginnings of 64 stories that never went further. He gave them titles, just as though they were full-fledged stories. Here's a taste: The Flabbergasted Reader The flabbergasted reader closed the book but held it in his hands, turning the book this way and that, studying the edges of the pages almost as if he were reading the title on the binding, all the while musing, pursing his lips, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, full of thoughts, he touched his forehead, and outside the summer-evening silence began to shimmer with the sweetly insistent sound of giant raindrops. Five Hundred Yellow Cabs The intersection filled with yellow cabs. The garage of the cab company was on fire and the news had flitted from taxi radio to radio and cabs came from all over the city out of curiosity and, like bewildered insects whose nest had been destroyed, they gathered and moved around the huge burning building, blocking the way of fire trucks, some vehicles abandoned in the middle of the street as drivers got out and gathered in groups to chat where they could get a better view, and as two floors collapsed with a tremendous crash and fire filled the windows with renewed fury and the black smoke of grease and gasoline put a plume into the stratosphere, the drivers began to blow their horns as cab drivers under stress are wont to do, and that mourning music, such vibrant brass, of five hundred taxi drivers blowing their horns could be heard across the river. Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From JforJames Wed Nov 28 09:30:51 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 09:30:51 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Wang Ping poem Message-ID: <37.1ea4d695.29364f1b@aol.com> Punctual Arrival When a new life cries And the neighbor comes over with a lantern, My heart feels heavy As if witnessing a wedding Unable to consider its own ending. Before we lie down In the earth, We cannot avoid any misgiving. Winter is blowing its horn. You set off, bare-handed. The fields extend-- A scroll of calligraphy. No matter how our eyes see things, Their importance does not depend on our existence. No reason To blame the weather for my arthritis. I refuse to let my mother Read my palms. Wind has torn The last button off my shirt. Desire burns Through the exposed skin. I still love to look up at the sky Even though there's no bird flying. In front of the crying baby, I can only say: "Send me a postcard from your journey." --Wang Ping --------------------------------- copyright (c) 1998. From Of Flesh & Spirit, published by Coffee House Press(http://www.coffeehousepress.org). From JforJames Wed Nov 28 15:40:45 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 15:40:45 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] RIP Spencer Holst Message-ID: <147.55e0973.2936a5cd@aol.com> Hal, I liked the second piece best.The author went a little too far with that plume of smoke going into the stratosphere. But the turn back to the human, away from the insect metaphor, with, "the drivers began to blow their horns as cab drivers under stress are wont to do," was very deft and really enlarged the piece. I'm not certain why Spencer Holt introduced them as the "beginnings of 64 stories," since they stand alone fairly well and often shorties are said "to start in the middle of things," thus being incomplete before they start. And with the current love affair with the fragmentary, and the elliptical, and a suspicion of "closure," are beginnings, middles or ends, in any permutation necessary these days? Prose poem or short-short story -- flash fiction or prose poem? Only the author gets to say, I guess, in this genre ne(i)therworld. Finnegan > Five Hundred Yellow Cabs > > The intersection filled with yellow cabs. > The garage of the cab company was on fire and the > news had flitted from taxi radio to radio and cabs came from > all over the city out of curiosity and, like bewildered insects > whose nest had been destroyed, they gathered and moved > around the huge burning building, blocking the way of fire > trucks, some vehicles abandoned in the middle of the street > as drivers got out and gathered in groups to chat where they > could get a better view, and as two floors collapsed with a > tremendous crash and fire filled the windows with renewed > fury and the black smoke of grease and gasoline put a > plume into the stratosphere, the drivers began to blow their > horns as cab drivers under stress are wont to do, and that > mourning music, such vibrant brass, of five hundred taxi > drivers blowing their horns could be heard across the river. From JforJames Wed Nov 28 15:59:39 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 15:59:39 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Award Bump Message-ID: From: Herb Levy Subject: FYI: prizes In the midst of a NY Times story about the effect of the National Book Awards on sales, now that UPC scanners are used in more retail settings, sales figures for Alan Dugan's Poems Seven: week ending Oct 28 - 60 copies sold week ending Nov 4 - 10 copies sold week ending Nov 11 - 20 copies sold week ending Nov 18 - 250 copies sold Monthly sales of 340 copies of a poetry book (which I assume is not yet being used in classes, though that 60 copy week may show otherwise) seems pretty good, but note, the winner in the children's book category sold roughly half again as many copies in the same period (470), the non-fiction winner sold about 14-15 times as many (4,900), and in any ONE of these four weeks, the fiction winner sold about a hundred times as many copies as the Dugan book did in the four weeks total. The chart in the print edition of the paper is, unfortunately, apparently not online: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/26/business/media/26SCAN.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- From JforJames Wed Nov 28 16:18:24 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 16:18:24 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Qui Parle: The Poetics of New Meaning Message-ID: <5f.1e86a733.2936aea0@aol.com> Subject: Qui Parle: The Poetics of New Meaning PRESS RELEASE: qui parle: literature, philosophy, visual arts, history is pleased to announce the publication of Volume 12, Issue 2: A Special Issue on the Poetics of New Meaning Guest-Edited by Barrett Watten The essays presented in this issue are researches into the poetics of the new, investigations of the literary and cultural status of new meaning. Written by innovative poets and critics who have weighed the present horizon of their work with the claims to innovation of earlier historical periods, each asks: Is innovation still a primary goal, or is the new at this late date a nightmare of precedence, a mere renewal of earlier possibility, or a cataclysmic break? How do we recognize a paradigm shift, and if one is granted, what are its implications for our position in relation to it? is new meaning always outside us, or is it only "us"? Contents: Introduction: Barrett Watten The Poetics of New Meaning Articles: Sianne Ngai Moody Subjects/Projectile Objects: Anxiety and Intellectual Displacement in Hitchcock, Heidegger, and Melville Steve Evans "A World Unsuspected": The Dynamics of Literary Change in Hegel, Bourdieu, and Adorno Benjamin Friedlander A Short History of Language Poetry/According to "Hecuba Whimsy" Lytle Shaw Proximity's Plea: O'Hara's Art Writing Lisa Samuels If Meaning, Shaped Reading, and Leslie Scalapino's way Review Essay: Vincent Cannon Spectres of Christ: Love, Christianity, and the Political in Slavoj Zizek's The Fragile Absolute Twice a year qui parle publishes provocative interdisciplinary articles covering a range of innovative theoretical and critical work in the humanities. Past issues have featured authors such as Giorgio Agamben, Judith Butler, Anne Cheng, Jacques Derrida, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Avital Ronell, Kaja Silverman, Gianni Vattimo, and Slavoj Zizek. Founded in 1986 at the University of California at Berkeley, qui parle is dedicated to expanding the dialogues that take place between the disciplines, and that challenge received notions about reading and scholarship in the university. The issue can be ordered via our website, http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~quiparle/ or by sending $8, along with a request for issue 12.2 and shipping address, to Qui Parle Attn: Editors The Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities 220 Stephens Hall University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-2340 Subscription guidelines may be found at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~quiparle/qp-submit.html Questions? Contact us via e-mail: quiparle at socrates.berkeley.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- From JforJames Thu Nov 29 17:44:50 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 17:44:50 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] SurReally, now? Message-ID: <15b.4ec32bf.29381462@aol.com> In a message dated 11/26/01 3:57:38 PM Eastern Standard Time, bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: > Collins isn't a surrealist, domestic, banal or otherwise. > > I disagree. See below to find out why. > > > I think it's worth drawing some distinctions between surrealism, dada, > > dream poetry, magical realism, stream of consciousness, absurdist poetry, > > fancy/whimsy, etc > > Ironically, I--Mr. Taxonomy--disagree, for the most part. I think we > should go with a simple, general definition of surrealism, as--well, in > my formal taxonomy surrealistic poetry is a subcategory of > > Xenological Poetry > > (1) surrealistic poetry, in which incongruous images are juxtaposed > > (2) jump-cut poetry, in which narrational sequence is meddled with. > > Of course, a poem can be partially surrealistic without being a > surrealistic poem. Collins seems to me a plaintext poet who uses > surrealism. And I believe that some of the categories of poetry > James mentons could probably be junked--or considered subcategories of > surrealistic poetry. See my taxonomy at Comprepoetica for further details. > > --Bob G. Bob, just now I'm getting around to answering you. You're welcome to slice & dice the world of poetry as you see fit...but I see very large differences in the writing categories I mentioned. It pains me when critics like Palattella get their terms so wrong. Collins is nothing like a surrealist...fanciful musings about mice getting their tails chopped off while listening to Art Blakely is not surrealism...not in any way, shape or form. Absurdist poems differ from surrealism in two key ways: (1) they are almost by definition comic (tho the humor may be black); and (2) they are largely drawn narratively from commonplace experience... but then things go awry. For example: "I asked the butcher for a pound of hamburger. He wrapped up a hamhock and handed it to me. I said I wanted hamburger. He said hamhocks are better for you. I sputtered but they don't go well in spaghetti. He said then why don't try hamhocks with zitti." (Well you get the idea.) This is absurd, but it's not surreal. Surrealism can be comic at times...but may also be violently arresting. Your definition says that surrealism involves "juxtaposition," yes, it might...but more than that it involves imagistic "substitution", or what Magritte termed "elective affinity": A belt might _become_ a rattlesnake. It's not that a belt is juxtaposed with a rattlesnake; it _is_ a rattlesnake. Stream of consciousness is not surrealism...it can create a dizzying cavalcade of thoughts and images, but that is not the same as surrealism. Proustian reveries are not surrealism. Dada (pure) is an altogether different undertaking...or "undermining," if you will, of our expected experience with language. Again, it's not surrealism. A dream poem may be surreal or it may not be. I venture to say that most dreams are not surreal...they are very real, involving real events and people of our day, but made different by the subconscious. Fuzzy notions of what surrealism _is_cheapen what was a very important art movement of the past century. Finnegan From bobgrumman Thu Nov 29 18:38:56 2001 From: bobgrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 18:38:56 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] SurReally, now? References: <15b.4ec32bf.29381462@aol.com> Message-ID: <006e01c1792f$0442e040$cf04fea9@y3b2r8> I said: > > > I think it's worth drawing some distinctions between surrealism, dada, > > > dream poetry, magical realism, stream of consciousness, absurdist poetry, > > > fancy/whimsy, etc > > > > Ironically, I--Mr. Taxonomy--disagree, for the most part. I think we > > should go with a simple, general definition of surrealism, as--well, in > > my formal taxonomy surrealistic poetry is a subcategory of > > > > Xenological Poetry > > > > (1) surrealistic poetry, in which incongruous images are juxtaposed > > > > (2) jump-cut poetry, in which narrational sequence is meddled with. > > > > Of course, a poem can be partially surrealistic without being a > > surrealistic poem. Collins seems to me a plaintext poet who uses > > surrealism. And I believe that some of the categories of poetry > > James mentons could probably be junked--or considered subcategories of > > surrealistic poetry. See my taxonomy at Comprepoetica for further details. > > > > --Bob G. > Bob, > just now I'm getting around to answering you. You're welcome to slice > & dice the world of poetry as you see fit...but I see very large > differences in the writing categories I mentioned. It pains me when > critics like Palattella get their terms so wrong. Collins is nothing > like a surrealist...fanciful musings about mice getting their tails chopped > off while listening to Art Blakely is not surrealism...not in any way, > shape or form. You may be right, but I remember thinking as I read Collins that he was using what I took to be surrealistic combinations of images. No time to verify, sorry. > Absurdist poems differ from surrealism in two key ways: (1) they > are almost by definition comic (tho the humor may be black); and > (2) they are largely drawn narratively from commonplace experience... > but then things go awry. For example: > "I asked the butcher for a pound of hamburger. > He wrapped up a hamhock and handed it to me. > I said I wanted hamburger. He said hamhocks are better > for you. I sputtered but they don't go well in spaghetti. > He said then why don't try hamhocks with zitti." > (Well you get the idea.) This is absurd, but it's not surreal. Sure, absurdism need not be surrealistic. How about, "I asked the butcher for a pound of hamburger. He wrapped up a CLOCK and handed it to me. I said I wanted hamburger. He said CLOCKS are better for you. I sputtered but they don't go well in spaghetti. He said then why don't try CLOCKS with zitti." To me this would be absurdist surrealism. > Surrealism can be comic at times... and absurdism can be surrealistic--and, I believe, IS, at its best. > but may also be violently > arresting. Your definition says that surrealism involves "juxtaposition," > yes, it might...but more than that it involves imagistic "substitution", > or what Magritte termed "elective affinity": A belt might _become_ > a rattlesnake. It's not that a belt is juxtaposed with a rattlesnake; > it _is_ a rattlesnake. I would say the rattlesnake is juxtaposed with the man wearing it as a belt. Absurd and surrealistic. But it seems poetically appropriate, so is effective surrealism. (There does seem to me to be a borblur between metaphors and surrealistic juxtapositionings; determining when a rattlesnake is a metaphor, when surrealistic is probably subjective--certainly it's a question of how "natural" it is.) > Stream of consciousness is not surrealism...it can create a > dizzying cavalcade of thoughts and images, but that is not > the same as surrealism. Proustian reveries are not surrealism. Agreed. But would anyone say it is? > Dada (pure) is an altogether different undertaking...or "undermining," > if you will, of our expected experience with language. Again, it's not > surrealism. Dada is a mishmash; sometimes it IS surrealism. It's too general a term to mean very much, really. > A dream poem may be surreal or it may not be. I venture to say > that most dreams are not surreal...they are very real, involving > real events and people of our day, but made different by the > subconscious. Right. But as a taxonomist, I would put dream poems, absurdist poems and the like at a much lower level of categorization than surrealistic poems. Dream poems differ from other poems in content only, absurdist in outlook; surrealistic poems differ in technique, which to me is central to effective classification. > Fuzzy notions of what surrealism _is_cheapen what was a > very important art movement of the past century. > Finnegan It seems to me there have never been unfuzzy notions about what was and continues to be a very important way of doing art. That's why I take what I think is central to surrealism, the juxtapositioning of decidedly incongruous images, as its defining quality. What else is there? Note: the above is an informal response, not intended to be especially consistent and well-expressed, though I've tried my best to make it both. I say that for the nit-pickers who may read this, not for you, Mr. F. --Bob G. From antrobin Thu Nov 29 18:42:30 2001 From: antrobin (Anthony Robinson) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 15:42:30 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions References: <15a.37a6ea3.291801dd@aol.com> Message-ID: <003e01c1792f$83dff180$7caeefd8@0021936706> Why is it so much easier for some (most?) people to separate the speaking voice of a novel or short story from the persona of the author than it is to separate the speaking voice of a poem from the poet? Is the moral responsibility of a poem different than that of fiction? Despite the use of words like "speaker" or "narrator" when discussing a poem, do we naturally assume that the narrative voice *is* the voice of the author? Is the persona of the poem always a mask for a *real person*, i.e. the poet? Okay...so the answers here may seem obvious. But they may not. I'm struggling with some issues here. Any answers? Tony __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger From duemer Thu Nov 29 18:59:01 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 18:59:01 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions References: <15a.37a6ea3.291801dd@aol.com> <003e01c1792f$83dff180$7caeefd8@0021936706> Message-ID: <000801c17931$d18e3200$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> <> God, I hope not! Which is to say, speaking from the poet not the reader's perspective, that every poem is composed in a "voice." Berryman famously said, "Henry is not the poet, not me" & nobody believed him. Which is to answer, yes--& no. The assumption that a lyric poem is a personal effusion, an expression of the writer's innermost self, derives from Romantic theories of poetry; with Modernism, especially Yeats, the idea of the mask is added: the poet speaks through a character, but in order to express his or her innermost self. These days, from what I can tell, some poets write in their "own" voice, some consciously adopting masks & voices other than their own voice (not quite the same thing). But these ideas are culturally particular--last year living in Hanoi, all the young poets I met wrote in what I would call "the voice of poetry." They all knew what it was & they all worked their individual turns on it, but it was poetry speaking more than individual poets (with a couple of interesting exceptions). innerestin . . . jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From pihel_e Thu Nov 29 19:31:25 2001 From: pihel_e (Erik Pihel) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 19:31:25 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions In-Reply-To: <000801c17931$d18e3200$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <000601c17936$589db550$e245f6d1@aoidos> No one believed Berryman because Henry and Berryman shared the same profession (teacher/poet), the same wife, the same friends, and the same, well, everything. But yes, for whom the poet speaks is certainly culturally specific: Homeric poets and Jewish prophets spoke for gods, Robert Browning spoke for his characters a la the traditional novel, and the "I" found in US poems in the 1950s and 1960s was more often than not John Berryman, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, or whatever name was on the front cover. Erik Pihel pihel_e at pipeline.com -----Original Message----- From: new-poetry-admin at wiz.cath.vt.edu [mailto:new-poetry-admin at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph Duemer Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 6:59 PM To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] questions <> God, I hope not! Which is to say, speaking from the poet not the reader's perspective, that every poem is composed in a "voice." Berryman famously said, "Henry is not the poet, not me" & nobody believed him. Which is to answer, yes--& no. The assumption that a lyric poem is a personal effusion, an expression of the writer's innermost self, derives from Romantic theories of poetry; with Modernism, especially Yeats, the idea of the mask is added: the poet speaks through a character, but in order to express his or her innermost self. These days, from what I can tell, some poets write in their "own" voice, some consciously adopting masks & voices other than their own voice (not quite the same thing). But these ideas are culturally particular--last year living in Hanoi, all the young poets I met wrote in what I would call "the voice of poetry." They all knew what it was & they all worked their individual turns on it, but it was poetry speaking more than individual poets (with a couple of interesting exceptions). innerestin . . . jd From duemer Thu Nov 29 19:44:00 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 19:44:00 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions References: <000601c17936$589db550$e245f6d1@aoidos> Message-ID: <001101c17938$1aa2f060$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Eric Phiel writes: <> Could you quote the lines in which Henry is revealed to be a professor or a poet or married to one of Berryman's wives? Doesn't the mask of Henry give Berryman some aesthetic distance, some irony, with which to triangulate? Doesn't he put himself into a series of vaudeville routines? Compare the earlier sequence _Sonnets to Chris_, which are excruciatingly personal (& dreary), with the Dream Songs. The very fact that they are _dream_ songs both distances the language & makes it more personal, more "authentic." I'm not as interested in disputing your characterization of Lowell, Ginsberg & Sexton, but is Lady Lazarus really Sylvia Plath, or a mask that allows the poet to speak truths about the self that the self dare not speak? jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From antrobin Thu Nov 29 20:29:16 2001 From: antrobin (Anthony Robinson) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 17:29:16 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] more questions References: <15a.37a6ea3.291801dd@aol.com> <003e01c1792f$83dff180$7caeefd8@0021936706> <000801c17931$d18e3200$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <006f01c1793e$6ea62500$7caeefd8@0021936706> Joe, Interesting discussion here, and I basically concur with you. The question(s) I asked are questions that I ponder frequently, but I've noticed that in the particular poetic milieu in which I reside (peopled by many "new," i.e. young MFA types), the assumption that the author *is* the speaker or at least articulates a conscious (and, thus has a moral responsibility toward) ethos within his or her poems is prevalent. Also tied up in this belief is the corollary that since the speaker of a poem must be in some sense one of the author's "selves," that actions undertaken or beliefs articulated by the speaker of a poem must "fall in line" with the expected morality of the poet. This expected behavior must in turn conform to the "true identity" of the poet as well. By "true identity" here, I mean an essentialized version of what a person of a particular gender, age, ethnic group, sex, sexuality, etc. must/should be concerned with. For example, let's say you are reading a poem by a poet named "John Smith." In the poem, the speaker, who we assume to be male and white (and why do we assume this? because the poet is named John Smith..of course there are other clues in the poem...but...) engages in what might be seen as a morally questionable act. The poem itself (that is the "voice of the poet") doesn't directly comment upon the action, that is, does not apply an explicit moral judgment to the actions of his speaker. Now, is this a morally irresponsible poem? Would our reaction to the poem be any different if the poet were female? Does a poet's "right" to adopt certain "masks" depend upon his or her essentialized identity? And to complicate things, if we're dealing with a poet whom we're unfamiliar with, how can we make such judgments based on the name attached to the poem? Further...in fiction, it seems, we allow more distance. We acknowledge that the character is a creation, NOT an expression of the "true self" of the writer, don't we? I know many people who would have no problem with Humbert Humbert, as he is merely a character created by Nabokov. However, if a presumably white male poet were to write a poem in which the speaker commits unspeakable or distasteful acts, the same people who would defend Nabokov's right to write "Lolita" would condemn the presumably white male speaker for using the poem to air his own perversions. However, if someone, say Ai, writes poems in voices that are obviously not those of the poet, the standard is different. An Asian American friend of mine recently objected to a buddhist poem as being "orientalist." The poem itself was a fairly straightforward narrative of a man stepping out onto his porch and watching birds at the feeder, the speaker "sees Buddha" in the birds and their actions. Discussion of the merits of the poem at this point became very difficult, because with one word, my friend had condemned the intent of the poet. That said, we know nothing of the poet's intent. We only know the poet's name, which from we gathered that the poet was a white American. If the poem was, say, a translation from the Chinese, or had it been attached to an asian name, would his reaction have been different? I don't know. Is this fair? Is this reckless political correctness? I don't know. I'm sorry I'm not being more clear, but I want to avoid naming names, poets, poems, etc.... Tony __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger From antrobin Thu Nov 29 20:36:27 2001 From: antrobin (Anthony Robinson) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 17:36:27 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions References: <15a.37a6ea3.291801dd@aol.com> <003e01c1792f$83dff180$7caeefd8@0021936706> <000801c17931$d18e3200$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <007f01c1793f$6f2ff900$7caeefd8@0021936706> Joe Duemer wrote: >But these ideas are culturally > particular--last year living in Hanoi, all the young poets I met wrote in > what I would call "the voice of poetry." They all knew what it was & they > all worked their individual turns on it, but it was poetry speaking more > than individual poets (with a couple of interesting exceptions). So, then, is it possible for a contemporary american poet to write in "the voice of poetry"? Can you think of an examples of poets who do this? I've also noticed in discussions with my colleagues and friends, the tendency to view the absence of an identifiable speaking voice traceable to a "real persona" as a defect in particular poems. Thus, the comment "I can't get a sense of who the speaker is here, therefore it's not working" addressed to a poem that obviously intends no "real speaker" in the sense that the "person" speaking the poem is someone real--either the poet, or the mask of the poet. Who is the speaker in many of Stevens' poems? When we read "The Snowman" for instance, do we presume to know who is speaking, or do we concentrate on the poem itself and not "where it comes from"? Tony From duemer Thu Nov 29 20:41:52 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 20:41:52 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions References: <15a.37a6ea3.291801dd@aol.com> <003e01c1792f$83dff180$7caeefd8@0021936706> <000801c17931$d18e3200$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> <007f01c1793f$6f2ff900$7caeefd8@0021936706> Message-ID: <001801c17940$3003ae60$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Anthony, you shower me with questions! Good ones, but let me think this over. Stevens, by the way, may be the one American poet who writes in "the voice of poetry" & I think your Asian-American friend (I say this as someone who has spent a lot of time in SE Asia) is speaking from an ideological position rather than an analytical one. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From Rsgwynn1 Thu Nov 29 21:09:22 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 21:09:22 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] questions Message-ID: In a message dated 11/29/2001 5:51:07 PM Central Standard Time, antrobin at clipper.net writes: > Why is it so much easier for some (most?) people to separate the speaking > voice of a novel or short story from the persona of the author than it is to > separate the speaking voice of a poem from the poet? > > Is the moral responsibility of a poem different than that of fiction? > > Despite the use of words like "speaker" or "narrator" when discussing a > poem, do we naturally assume that the narrative voice *is* the voice of the > author? Is the persona of the poem always a mask for a *real person*, i.e. > the poet? > Even though the basis of poetry is the narrative/epic tradition, the lyric voice has such a long history that most people make the assumption you note. The tradition of the lyric "I" is so strong that most people make that assumption when reading a new poem. I always tell my students that it's better to assume that the speaker is *not* the poet until the poem provides some evidence either pro or con. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From duemer Thu Nov 29 21:09:27 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 21:09:27 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions References: Message-ID: <002101c17944$0b220340$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> <> Sam, are you saying the lyric voice is somehow subsidiary to narrative & epic? Or derived from it? What about the Song of Songs? What about the ancient non-narrative traditions of China & India? Or are you not making universal claims? jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grahamd Thu Nov 29 21:41:27 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 20:41:27 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: questions Message-ID: <200111300240.fAU2emk26927@mx9.mx.voyager.net> You guys can't expect to bat around these questions about the Lyric I, autobiography, and persona without causing me to jump in. . . . I'm afraid that modesty does not prevent me from mentioning (again) that all these questions and more are treated extensively in a new anthology of essays called *After Confession: Poetry as Autobiography*, from Graywolf. Table of contents and introduction are available for browsing at the Graywolf web site: http://www.graywolfpress.org/resources/excerpts/excerpts-afterconfession.htm l _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- From: "Joseph Duemer" To: Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] questions Date: Thu, Nov 29, 2001, 8:09 PM <> Sam, are you saying the lyric voice is somehow subsidiary to narrative & epic? Or derived from it? What about the Song of Songs? What about the ancient non-narrative traditions of China & India? Or are you not making universal claims? jd -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wjbat Fri Nov 30 01:26:28 2001 From: wjbat (Wendy Battin) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 22:26:28 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions In-Reply-To: <000801c17931$d18e3200$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <20011129222628.012659@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> Joseph Duemer wrote: >last year living in Hanoi, all the young poets I met wrote in >what I would call "the voice of poetry." They all knew what it was & they >all worked their individual turns on it, but it was poetry speaking more >than individual poets (with a couple of interesting exceptions). Now that's useful. Did they give a term of their own for it, Joe? Was that "voice of poetry" an articulated convention? Wendy From grahamd Thu Nov 29 23:49:09 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 22:49:09 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: questions Message-ID: <200111300449.fAU4mx799376@mx5.mx.voyager.net> Tony Robinson asks: >Is the moral responsibility of a poem different than that of fiction? > >Despite the use of words like "speaker" or "narrator" when discussing a >poem, do we naturally assume that the narrative voice *is* the voice of the >author? Is the persona of the poem always a mask for a *real person*, i.e. >the poet? Ted Kooser in his essay "Lying for the Sake of Making Poems" takes the stand that it *is* morally wrong to present a persona or a fictionalized "I" without identifying it as such, particularly if the poem tends to elicit sympathy for the speaker. Here's a snippet of his essay: _____________________ I am most concerned about poems in which "autobiographical" information is presented in such a way as to affect the reader's feelings *about the poet*. In such poems, the speaker, calling himself or herself "I" (and without forewarning the reader in any way), builds a poem around what *appears* to be autobiographical information, but that is untrue. A childless man writes with great skill and tenderness about a schoolyard experience with his small son, engendering sympathy in the audience. Another poet writes with touching sadness about the suicide of a brother, and we pity her until we chance to learn from some other source that she has no brother. Hundreds of readers may be moved by these fabrications, moved to pity the poet, moved to praise his or her courage and candor. Poets defending this kind of poem sometimes take the position that they are writing "dramatic" poems, thus sidestepping the ethical questions. Just the same, I prefer that the poet prepare me. If a poem is framed in such a way as to inform its reader at its onset that the situation presented is a fictional dramatic monologue, that seems to me to be honest and forthright. If a poet named Melissa writes a poem entitled, "Rebecca Speaks to the Elders," we know this to be a "persona" or "dramatic" poem. We'd all agree the bishop in "The Bishop Orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's" cannot be confused with Robert Browning. Or if a poem is contained in quotation marks, we know that someone other than the poet is speaking. There are all kinds of ways to prepare a reader for a dramatic poem, and I think poets are obliged to do so. I was recently asked to review a collection of poems, some of which were good examples of the kind of deception I am concerned about. I know a good deal about this particular poet's life, and I knew that the "autobiographical" information was fabricated. When I expressed my concerns about this issue to an acquaintance she said, "I don't have a problem with that. I've written a poem in which I talk about my disabled son, and I've never had a disabled son." She continued, "People sometimes come up to me and say that they are sorry for me, and I have to tell them that I made it all up." She went on to say that, curiously, those readers seem taken aback. Clearly, those readers have been cheated and deceived, and they have a right to be taken aback. --Ted Kooser, fr. "Lying for the Sake of Making Poems" _______________________ _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ From halvard Fri Nov 30 00:01:26 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 00:01:26 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: questions In-Reply-To: <200111300449.fAU4mx799376@mx5.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: > Tony Robinson asks: > > >Is the moral responsibility of a poem different than that of fiction? > > > >Despite the use of words like "speaker" or "narrator" when discussing a > >poem, do we naturally assume that the narrative voice *is* the voice of the > >author? Is the persona of the poem always a mask for a *real person*, i.e. > >the poet? > > Ted Kooser in his essay "Lying for the Sake of Making Poems" takes the stand > that it *is* morally wrong to present a persona or a fictionalized "I" > without identifying it as such, particularly if the poem tends to elicit > sympathy for the speaker. > > Here's a snippet of his essay: > > _____________________ > I am most concerned about poems in which "autobiographical" information is > presented in such a way as to affect the reader's feelings *about the poet*. > In such poems, the speaker, calling himself or herself "I" (and without > forewarning the reader in any way), builds a poem around what *appears* to > be autobiographical information, but that is untrue. A childless man writes > with great skill and tenderness about a schoolyard experience with his small > son, engendering sympathy in the audience. Another poet writes with touching > sadness about the suicide of a brother, and we pity her until we chance to > learn from some other source that she has no brother. Hundreds of readers > may be moved by these fabrications, moved to pity the poet, moved to praise > his or her courage and candor. > > Poets defending this kind of poem sometimes take the position that they are > writing "dramatic" poems, thus sidestepping the ethical questions. Just the > same, I prefer that the poet prepare me. If a poem is framed in such a way > as to inform its reader at its onset that the situation presented is a > fictional dramatic monologue, that seems to me to be honest and forthright. > If a poet named Melissa writes a poem entitled, "Rebecca Speaks to the > Elders," we know this to be a "persona" or "dramatic" poem. We'd all agree > the bishop in "The Bishop Orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's" cannot be > confused with Robert Browning. Or if a poem is contained in quotation marks, > we know that someone other than the poet is speaking. There are all kinds of > ways to prepare a reader for a dramatic poem, and I think poets are obliged > to do so. > > I was recently asked to review a collection of poems, some of which were > good examples of the kind of deception I am concerned about. I know a good > deal about this particular poet's life, and I knew that the > "autobiographical" information was fabricated. When I expressed my concerns > about this issue to an acquaintance she said, "I don't have a problem with > that. I've written a poem in which I talk about my disabled son, and I've > never had a disabled son." She continued, "People sometimes come up to me > and say that they are sorry for me, and I have to tell them that I made it > all up." She went on to say that, curiously, those readers seem taken aback. > Clearly, those readers have been cheated and deceived, and they have a right > to be taken aback. > --Ted Kooser, fr. "Lying for the Sake of Making Poems" > _______________________ > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Right! Now I know why I was so pissed when I learned that Frost saw those woods filling up with snow and kept right on trotting home. Clearly, poems need those "no-resemblance- to-any-person-living-or-dead" warnings that are posted in movies--at the very end usually, I might add, when it's too damn late to withdraw one's sympathies from all concerned. Hal "Walk your horses." --Mystic, Connecticut, drawbridge Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From antrobin Fri Nov 30 03:07:10 2001 From: antrobin (Anthony Robinson) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 00:07:10 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: questions References: <200111300449.fAU4mx799376@mx5.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <005501c17976$04c66fe0$68aeefd8@0021936706> Thanks for this, David. I disagree with Kooser. If Kooser also feels the same about fiction, then we can assume that this is an ideological/moral position and I won't be inclined to argue. However, in my experience, those who espouse the same feelings about poetry as Kooser tend to be less likely to have the same attitude toward fiction. To me, this is incredibly puzzling. Does Kooser address this? So, poets lie. So do fiction writers. Plato wanted to ban poets from the Republic, but of course, "poetry" to Plato is not what "poetry" is to us. We've made the distinction between "poetry" and "fiction" for better or worse. So, why is it a crime to be "deceitful" in a poem but not in a piece of fiction? Tony __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Graham" To: Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 8:49 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: questions > Tony Robinson asks: > > >Is the moral responsibility of a poem different than that of fiction? > > > >Despite the use of words like "speaker" or "narrator" when discussing a > >poem, do we naturally assume that the narrative voice *is* the voice of the > >author? Is the persona of the poem always a mask for a *real person*, i.e. > >the poet? > > Ted Kooser in his essay "Lying for the Sake of Making Poems" takes the stand > that it *is* morally wrong to present a persona or a fictionalized "I" > without identifying it as such, particularly if the poem tends to elicit > sympathy for the speaker. > > Here's a snippet of his essay: > > _____________________ > I am most concerned about poems in which "autobiographical" information is > presented in such a way as to affect the reader's feelings *about the poet*. > In such poems, the speaker, calling himself or herself "I" (and without > forewarning the reader in any way), builds a poem around what *appears* to > be autobiographical information, but that is untrue. A childless man writes > with great skill and tenderness about a schoolyard experience with his small > son, engendering sympathy in the audience. Another poet writes with touching > sadness about the suicide of a brother, and we pity her until we chance to > learn from some other source that she has no brother. Hundreds of readers > may be moved by these fabrications, moved to pity the poet, moved to praise > his or her courage and candor. > > Poets defending this kind of poem sometimes take the position that they are > writing "dramatic" poems, thus sidestepping the ethical questions. Just the > same, I prefer that the poet prepare me. If a poem is framed in such a way > as to inform its reader at its onset that the situation presented is a > fictional dramatic monologue, that seems to me to be honest and forthright. > If a poet named Melissa writes a poem entitled, "Rebecca Speaks to the > Elders," we know this to be a "persona" or "dramatic" poem. We'd all agree > the bishop in "The Bishop Orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's" cannot be > confused with Robert Browning. Or if a poem is contained in quotation marks, > we know that someone other than the poet is speaking. There are all kinds of > ways to prepare a reader for a dramatic poem, and I think poets are obliged > to do so. > > I was recently asked to review a collection of poems, some of which were > good examples of the kind of deception I am concerned about. I know a good > deal about this particular poet's life, and I knew that the > "autobiographical" information was fabricated. When I expressed my concerns > about this issue to an acquaintance she said, "I don't have a problem with > that. I've written a poem in which I talk about my disabled son, and I've > never had a disabled son." She continued, "People sometimes come up to me > and say that they are sorry for me, and I have to tell them that I made it > all up." She went on to say that, curiously, those readers seem taken aback. > Clearly, those readers have been cheated and deceived, and they have a right > to be taken aback. > --Ted Kooser, fr. "Lying for the Sake of Making Poems" > _______________________ > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From cstroffo Fri Nov 30 06:46:23 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 03:46:23 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Prose Writers..... References: Message-ID: <3C07718F.C308BF86@earthlink.net> Speaking of, curious if anyone here also considers certain prose writers to be more, er, (for lack of better word?), poetic-- than a lot of poetry....of the contemporary variety-- not in terms of verse, per se, but in terms of metaphor, or vision, or personae, or passion, or language, I guess on one level, I might be just thinking of some of the concerns that might have "prompted" Ashbery to write Three Poems, or Riding to write The Telling (both published in '72), or, since Joseph brought up Berryman, that comment he made about Blake in his "Professor's Song" (which I talk about more in my prose Spin Cycle....) but also I just in the last year discovered Donald Barthelme, who, at times, really seems to be a poet in the best sense of the word.... Curious if any body here has had any thoughts on any others.... Chris From wasanthony Fri Nov 30 07:27:26 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 04:27:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] questions In-Reply-To: <002101c17944$0b220340$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <20011130122726.57728.qmail@web12104.mail.yahoo.com> There's a lucid essay on this topic, "Staying News: A Defense of the Lyric," by Joan Aleshire in _After Confession: Poetry as Autobiography_, ed. by Kate Sontag and David Graham (know him?). Essentially, it says, yes, the lyric and personal lyric, grew out of the narrative/epic tradition. And of course the essay gives examples and explains the how and why. - Jim --- Joseph Duemer wrote: > < the lyric voice has such a long history . . .>> > > Sam, are you saying the lyric voice is somehow subsidiary to > narrative & epic? Or derived from it? What about the Song of Songs? > What about the ancient non-narrative traditions of China & India? Or > are you not making universal claims? > > jd > ====================== > Joseph Duemer > School of Liberal Arts, 5750 > Clarkson University > Potsdam NY 13699 > 315.268.3967 > website http://web.northnet.org/duemer > journal http://rw/blogspot.com > ====================== > > > ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1 From lattaj Fri Nov 30 08:44:39 2001 From: lattaj (John Latta) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 08:44:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Prose Writers..... In-Reply-To: <3C07718F.C308BF86@earthlink.net> Message-ID: Chris, I found Marguerite Young's _Harp Song for a Radical_ one long lyric outburst and orison. More gorgeous, fulsome, and ambitious than most anything I can name in poetry 'proper.' And I'm not generally much of an enthusiast. John From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 30 09:27:50 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 09:27:50 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions In-Reply-To: <003e01c1792f$83dff180$7caeefd8@0021936706> References: <15a.37a6ea3.291801dd@aol.com> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011130092351.00a99930@postoffice.brown.edu> Have you heard the one about Ted Kooser and the encyclopedia salesman? After he bought the set, he sued the publisher, claiming that when the salesman came to his front door and made his pitch, "his voice and manner were so real and convincing, I thought it was a poem." Henry (this is just a story) Gould From duemer Fri Nov 30 09:19:54 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 09:19:54 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions References: <20011129222628.012659@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> Message-ID: <003001c179aa$1539df40$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Wendy, it is too pervasive to be completely articulated. VN poetry has a 2000 year tradition of "impersonality" that produces a recognizable diction even when poets write under the influence of the New Poetry Movement, which introduced free verse & European models to VN in the 1930. Even the lyric I is enveloped in this diction. There are a couple of poets, Hoang Hung & Ly Lan, who run counter to this "voice of poetry"--largely, I think, because their poetry is not only personal but political in a broad sense. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From grahamd Fri Nov 30 10:27:18 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 09:27:18 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Questions/Kooser Message-ID: <200111301526.fAUFQH223135@mx8.mx.voyager.net> Tony, no, Kooser doesn't take up the fiction/poetry question specifically. But I think his attitude would be that there is a rhetorical convention that a novel or story is fictive, while there is an expectation that the lyric I (unless otherwise indicated) is to be taken as roughly autobiographical. He has no trouble with fictionalizing in poetry, so long as the poet doesn't play such games in effort to gain sympathy personally. I tend to disagree with him, too, though he raises important issues. More precisely, I guess I think things are a bit more complex than his brief essay indicates. Also, I differ in my conclusions. Yes, it's true that poetry is just as fictive as prose fiction, and it's silly to try and erect sturdy lines between the autobiographical and the made-up. But I don't think the ethical issues evaporate completely once one makes such a commonsense concession. As Carol Frost once put it, wouldn't we all be pissed if we learned that Alicia Ostriker, author of "The Mastectomy Poems," had in fact never suffered from breast cancer? Or that Sharon Olds's father was *not* an alcoholic at all? Or that Komunyakaa spent the Vietnam years in Vancouver? If so, on what basis? If not, why not? Isn't it true that certain poems make implied truth claims about their authors--a claim of authority, in fact? Or, at least, that most readers understand things that way? I tend to agree with Kooser that things may get troubling when authors allow themselves to receive credit and sympathy, personally, for fictive sufferings. In other words, there may be a distinction to be made between publishing a fictive piece and reading it in public and letting people assume things about you, or even encouraging the mistake. Not sure how often such a thing occurs. If one agrees that there *is* some sort of ethical shadyland into which it is risky to venture, then of course the real problem begins: how do you define where the line is between acceptable shapenings, heightenings, and other distortions, and the realm of outright untruth? (Not so incidentally, Billy Collins takes up these issues a bit in his essay "My Grandfather's Tackle Box," and so does Carol Frost in her "Self-Pity". And Kate Sontag in "Writing With Love," and Andrew Hudgins in "The Lies of the Autobiographer," and Stephen Dunn in "Degrees of Fidelity". . . My, my: sure would be good to have all these essays collected in one place, now, wouldn't it? ;) ) David Graham _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: "Anthony Robinson" >To: >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: questions >Date: Fri, Nov 30, 2001, 2:07 AM > >Thanks for this, David. > >I disagree with Kooser. If Kooser also feels the same about fiction, then >we can assume that this is an ideological/moral position and I won't be >inclined to argue. However, in my experience, those who espouse the same >feelings about poetry as Kooser tend to be less likely to have the same >attitude toward fiction. To me, this is incredibly puzzling. > >Does Kooser address this? > >So, poets lie. So do fiction writers. Plato wanted to ban poets from the >Republic, but of course, "poetry" to Plato is not what "poetry" is to us. >We've made the distinction between "poetry" and "fiction" for better or >worse. So, why is it a crime to be "deceitful" in a poem but not in a piece >of fiction? > >Tony From acgold01 Fri Nov 30 10:38:16 2001 From: acgold01 (Alan C. Golding) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 10:38:16 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] "Romantic theories of poetry" Message-ID: When Joe Duemer writes that the idea of poetry as personal lyric effusion derives from "Romantic theories of poetry," I'm inclined to stress the term "theories." That is, poetry as personal effusion seems to derive as much (or more) from Romantic *theories*--most notoriously, Wordsworth's spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings--as from Romantic *practice*. Granted the obvious exceptions, all those moments of ceasing upon the midnight with no pain and falling upon the thorns of life, the major Romantics wrote a huge amount of poetry that could not be meaningfully circumscribed by terms like "personal," "lyric," or "effusive" (which circumscription Joe was not intending, I realize). On writing in "the voice of poetry": how do we distinguish this from the idea of a period style? In the 1960s, for instance, Merwin (in The Lice) or Wright or Bly seemed to a lot of people to be writing in the voice of poetry, when they were actually writing in a period style that they themselves had established and that fairly quickly became dated or recognizable as such. Alan Golding From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 30 10:42:30 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 10:42:30 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions In-Reply-To: <003e01c1792f$83dff180$7caeefd8@0021936706> References: <15a.37a6ea3.291801dd@aol.com> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011130101538.00a9e400@postoffice.brown.edu> At 03:42 PM 11/29/01 -0800, Anthony wrote: >Why is it so much easier for some (most?) people to separate the speaking >voice of a novel or short story from the persona of the author than it is to >separate the speaking voice of a poem from the poet? Well, partly for the simple reason that we are trained to hear fiction as the voice of the narrator; even first-person narration falls into this category. The narrator is "making up a story", & we assume this even if the narrator says, "this is a true story." It's become customary, generic. On the other hand, we are trained to hear a lyric poem as the dramatic utterance of a person (or a persona), and because the narrator function is absent, listeners are more directly confronted with the ambiguity inherent in art's fictive "truth". >Is the moral responsibility of a poem different than that of fiction? The moralism exhibited by Kooser et al. seems simplistic in the extreme. It hasn't heard Plato's (& Freud's) critique of art in general - as irrevocably allied with illusion, sophism, illness - the neurotic consolations of egos unable or unwilling to confront Nature, necessity, truth. I just happened to be reading Iris Murdoch's terrific long essay "The Fire & the Sun", which is a wonderful summary & introduction to these philosophical walnuts. Recommended by the real me! But this is an interesting question in terms of technique & literary history. Long ago poetry melded lyric, epic, dramatic within myth & storytelling. Prose trumped narrative, stole it from poetry, with Don Quixote, maybe. So some poets find a kind of moral imperative to counter fiction with poetic-autobiographical truth-telling. The dramatic presence of the "lyric I" is a technical aid here. The 19th century still had popular narrative poets, but the Modernists apparently ceded that ground formally (see Pound on Henry James, etc.). The hyperventilated quarrels over technique in the 20th century (does the lyric I exist? must poetry have rhyme & meter? etc.) seem in part a consequence of that literary- diplomatic maneuver. Henry ******************************************************** HG afloat: www.nedgemagazine.com * www.xlibris.com/HenryGould.html www.spuytenduyvil.net * www.jacket.zip.com.au * www.unf.edu/mudlark "Read it back to me, quietly, quietly." - O. Mandelstam From pihel_e Fri Nov 30 11:25:42 2001 From: pihel_e (Erik Pihel) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 11:25:42 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions In-Reply-To: <001101c17938$1aa2f060$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <000001c179bb$a8b53e20$b14e9a40@aoidos> If Henry is not a professor, he certainly spends a lot of time lecturing in classrooms (DS 24) and hanging out at the MLA (DS 35). And if he's not a poet, he certainly spends much of his life singing (DS 1, etc.) and talking about poets and poetry (DS 18, 35-39, 90, 172, etc., etc.). The aesthetic mask is not always used the way Yeats used it, as a way to break out of the confines of the self, confront the anti-self, and move forward in a Hegelian synthesis toward better poetry. In order to write things that are painful to reveal or painful for others if you reaveal them, the aesthetic mask is a convenient indirection. It's convenient for Berryman to claim aesthetic distance ("Henry is not me") when he wants to write "his wife is a complete nothing" (DS 5), or, shifting from Berryman, Eliot masking the breakup of his marriage with a barrage of quotes. Erik Pihel pihel_e at pipeline.com -----Original Message----- From: new-poetry-admin at wiz.cath.vt.edu [mailto:new-poetry-admin at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph Duemer Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 7:44 PM To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] questions Could you quote the lines in which Henry is revealed to be a professor or a poet or married to one of Berryman's wives? Doesn't the mask of Henry give Berryman some aesthetic distance, some irony, with which to triangulate? Doesn't he put himself into a series of vaudeville routines? Compare the earlier sequence _Sonnets to Chris_, which are excruciatingly personal (& dreary), with the Dream Songs. The very fact that they are _dream_ songs both distances the language & makes it more personal, more "authentic." I'm not as interested in disputing your characterization of Lowell, Ginsberg & Sexton, but is Lady Lazarus really Sylvia Plath, or a mask that allows the poet to speak truths about the self that the self dare not speak? jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From JforJames Fri Nov 30 11:32:48 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 11:32:48 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Questions/Kooser Message-ID: In a message dated 11/30/01 10:28:14 AM Eastern Standard Time, grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: > > (Not so incidentally, Billy Collins takes up these issues a bit in his essay > "My Grandfather's Tackle Box, Also in that essay, Collins too blames the Romantic poets for the excesses of the lyric-I. Without its theoretical underpinnings perhaps, the emotionally effusive lyric-I was alive well with our earliest poetry...the Greek anthology, "lacunaed" as it may be, has plenty of o-me-o-my-o. Finnegan From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 30 11:35:12 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 11:35:12 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions In-Reply-To: <000001c179bb$a8b53e20$b14e9a40@aoidos> References: <001101c17938$1aa2f060$ef714342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011130113352.00a9d9a0@postoffice.brown.edu> At 11:25 AM 11/30/01 -0500, you wrote: >If Henry is not a professor, he certainly spends a lot of time lecturing >in classrooms (DS 24) and hanging out at the MLA (DS 35). And if he's >not a poet, he certainly spends much of his life singing (DS 1, etc.) >and talking about poets and poetry (DS 18, 35-39, 90, 172, etc., etc.). Actually, I'm both/neither. Really. The mask is just a part of lyric subjectivity (as you said). Henry ******************************************************** HG afloat: www.nedgemagazine.com * www.xlibris.com/HenryGould.html www.spuytenduyvil.net * www.jacket.zip.com.au * www.unf.edu/mudlark "Read it back to me, quietly, quietly." - O. Mandelstam From aprentiss Fri Nov 30 12:53:38 2001 From: aprentiss (Prentiss, Amber) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 12:53:38 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: questions Message-ID: I can't speak for the rest of the world, but when I read a poem in which the speaker instigates acts of highly questionable morality, I'm more likely to assume that the speaker isn't the poet. I don't see how it would be any more obvious that a white male poet does not really want to, say, gag and bind his supposedly nagging girlfriend than a female poet does not really want to shoot and kill her boyfriend's supposedly lying, cheating behind. This is both out of the benefit of the doubt and because many, if not most, acts of the kind of questionable morality you seem to talk of are seriously illegal, and the poet probably wouldn't want to air them unless that person looks forward to some prison time. For example, a poet probably wouldn't want to write about slinging drugs on the corner of MLK and Fifth if that's what the poet really does for a living for the simple reason that it probably wouldn't help much in court. Now, if we talk about how the actions of the speaker indicate the sentiments (but not actions), of the poet about certain sorts of people, things get significantly more complicated. Is the poet really concerned about the dark side of the soul, or does that person really have a strong 'ism against a certain group? Does she really hate men, or has she just been severely jilted a lot? Trying to understand those sorts of questions would probably involve more context than a typical journal selection of poems from a single person. And even then, you still wouldn't get very far. The problem with being a poet is that the occupation is tied up in morality. Poets are supposed to be more sensitive and discerning people. Singers and rappers can talk about bitches and hoes until the cash cows come home, but poets are held more responsible for their words. Perhaps that's because poets tend to have a good bit of formal and/or informal education or because poets are supposed to be better at paying attention and understanding individuality and folly better than everyone else. Perhaps it's because poetry is seen as a more journalistic occupation than writing fiction. Poetry often convinces people that what it says is life, and it's not a big leap for people to assume that it comes from the life of the poet. Or something. I don't even know where I'm going here, and I've got to go dream up a thesis or three. -Amber -----Original Message----- From: Anthony Robinson To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: 11/29/2001 8:29 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] more questions Joe, Interesting discussion here, and I basically concur with you. The question(s) I asked are questions that I ponder frequently, but I've noticed that in the particular poetic milieu in which I reside (peopled by many "new," i.e. young MFA types), the assumption that the author *is* the speaker or at least articulates a conscious (and, thus has a moral responsibility toward) ethos within his or her poems is prevalent. Also tied up in this belief is the corollary that since the speaker of a poem must be in some sense one of the author's "selves," that actions undertaken or beliefs articulated by the speaker of a poem must "fall in line" with the expected morality of the poet. This expected behavior must in turn conform to the "true identity" of the poet as well. By "true identity" here, I mean an essentialized version of what a person of a particular gender, age, ethnic group, sex, sexuality, etc. must/should be concerned with. For example, let's say you are reading a poem by a poet named "John Smith." In the poem, the speaker, who we assume to be male and white (and why do we assume this? because the poet is named John Smith..of course there are other clues in the poem...but...) engages in what might be seen as a morally questionable act. The poem itself (that is the "voice of the poet") doesn't directly comment upon the action, that is, does not apply an explicit moral judgment to the actions of his speaker. Now, is this a morally irresponsible poem? Would our reaction to the poem be any different if the poet were female? Does a poet's "right" to adopt certain "masks" depend upon his or her essentialized identity? And to complicate things, if we're dealing with a poet whom we're unfamiliar with, how can we make such judgments based on the name attached to the poem? Further...in fiction, it seems, we allow more distance. We acknowledge that the character is a creation, NOT an expression of the "true self" of the writer, don't we? I know many people who would have no problem with Humbert Humbert, as he is merely a character created by Nabokov. However, if a presumably white male poet were to write a poem in which the speaker commits unspeakable or distasteful acts, the same people who would defend Nabokov's right to write "Lolita" would condemn the presumably white male speaker for using the poem to air his own perversions. However, if someone, say Ai, writes poems in voices that are obviously not those of the poet, the standard is different. An Asian American friend of mine recently objected to a buddhist poem as being "orientalist." The poem itself was a fairly straightforward narrative of a man stepping out onto his porch and watching birds at the feeder, the speaker "sees Buddha" in the birds and their actions. Discussion of the merits of the poem at this point became very difficult, because with one word, my friend had condemned the intent of the poet. That said, we know nothing of the poet's intent. We only know the poet's name, which from we gathered that the poet was a white American. If the poem was, say, a translation from the Chinese, or had it been attached to an asian name, would his reaction have been different? I don't know. Is this fair? Is this reckless political correctness? I don't know. I'm sorry I'm not being more clear, but I want to avoid naming names, poets, poems, etc.... Tony __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From JforJames Fri Nov 30 13:45:39 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 13:45:39 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Zoo Press Announces Message-ID: <26.1f378edb.29392dd3@aol.com> November 30th, 2001 1) DISTRIBUTION DEAL SIGNED WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS Zoo Press is pleased to announce a partnership with the University of Nebraska Press (http://nebraskapress.unl.edu/), one of the best university presses in the USA. UNP will exclusively distribute all Zoo Press's books and present Zoo's books at certain conferences and organizations. All orders should be placed through them: http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/order.html, or call 800-755-1105, or fax 800-526-2617. Requests for review copies and all other correspondence should be sent to Zoo Press | PO Box 22990 | Lincoln, NE 68542 | (402) 770-8104 | FAX (402) 614-6302 | editors at zoopress.org | http://www.zoopress.org. 2) PARNASSUS PRIZE IN POETRY CRITICISM A prize of $1000 and publication by Zoo Press will be given annually for a book of criticism that considers the subject of poetry. Herbert Leibowitz will judge. Please submit a manuscript of about 50,000 words with a $25 entry fee by December 31st, 2001. (If this deadline is too soon, we will consider extending the deadline if enough potential applicants express this concern.) Send a SASE, email, or visit our Web site for complete guidelines, http://zoopress.org. 3) PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE IN FALL, 2001 (http://www.zoopress.org/zoo_catalogue.html): To order: http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/order.html. Priscilla Becker, INTERNAL WEST, Year 2000 Winner of The Paris Review Prize in Poetry PRICE: $14.95 ISBN: 0-9708177-0-3 Available: December 23, 2001 [delayed] ?Had it with landscapes? Enough family snapshots with your poetry? Here comes Priscilla Becker with an ego so passionate and happy to be at its own center, its only possible place is in poetry. Almost too smart for love, she writes about it with an edge and sometimes writes about the edge itself.? ?Billy Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States Ross Martin, THE COP WHO RIDES ALONE PRICE: $14.95 ISBN: 0-9708177-1-1 Available: November 26, 2001 ?Ross Martin's spirit-lifting poems are smart and sophisticated. I always perk up when I encounter his name on the contents page of a periodical. 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You'll find here the artifice of reality brilliantly transcribed into taut narratives?funny, solemn, intriguing, sad?each of which affirms the wonder of how language constructs our human adventure: 'the effect is sublime.'? ?Ann Lauterbach -- ZOO PRESS PO Box 22990 | Lincoln, NE 68542 | (402) 770-8104 | FAX (402) 614-6302 editors at zoopress.org | http://www.zoopress.org ADVISORY BOARD Edward Albee, David Baker, Erin Belieu, Marvin Bell, Lucie Brock-Broido, Alfred Corn, Stanley Fish, Jonathan Galassi, Albert Goldbarth, William Harmon, Anthony Hecht, Scott Hightower, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Art Homer, Richard Howard, Mark Jarman, David Lehman, Herbert Leibowitz, Heather McHugh, Andrew Motion, Eric Ormsby, Jay Parini, George Plimpton, Marie Ponsot, Alice Quinn, James Raimes, Bin Ramke, Hilda Raz, Martha Rhodes, Michael Ryan, Sherod Santos, Lisa Russ Spaar, Grace Schulman, David St. John and C. Dale Young To be removed from this mailing, please send an email to remove at zoopress.org with REMOVE in the subject line. We apologize for any inconvenience. From JforJames Fri Nov 30 14:27:38 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 14:27:38 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Questions/Kooser Message-ID: <15b.4f98270.293937aa@aol.com> In a message dated 11/30/01 10:28:14 AM Eastern Standard Time, grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: > As Carol Frost once put it, wouldn't we all be pissed if we learned that > Alicia Ostriker, author of "The Mastectomy Poems," had in fact never > suffered from breast cancer? Or that Sharon Olds's father was *not* an > alcoholic at all? Or that Komunyakaa spent the Vietnam years in Vancouver? > If so, on what basis? If not, why not? Isn't it true that certain poems > make implied truth claims about their authors--a claim of authority, in > fact? Or, at least, that most readers understand things that way? > > I tend to agree with Kooser that things may get troubling when authors allow > themselves to receive credit and sympathy, personally, for fictive > sufferings. In other words, there may be a distinction to be made between > publishing a fictive piece and reading it in public and letting people > assume things about you, or even encouraging the mistake. David, It seems from some of the examples given that a reader only feels this pang of being taken in by the speaker when the poem evokes pathos. If a speaker "lies" to us about a great love or joyous experience in his/her life, do we feel deceived? & no one cares if the poet has fictively employed an emotionally neutral experience, do they? Finnegan From paul.lake Fri Nov 30 03:40:31 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 02:40:31 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Questions/Kooser In-Reply-To: <15b.4f98270.293937aa@aol.com> Message-ID: on 11/30/01 1:27 PM, JforJames at aol.com at JforJames at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 11/30/01 10:28:14 AM Eastern Standard Time, > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: > >> As Carol Frost once put it, wouldn't we all be pissed if we learned that >> Alicia Ostriker, author of "The Mastectomy Poems," had in fact never >> suffered from breast cancer? Or that Sharon Olds's father was *not* an >> alcoholic at all? Or that Komunyakaa spent the Vietnam years in > Vancouver? >> If so, on what basis? If not, why not? Isn't it true that certain poems >> make implied truth claims about their authors--a claim of authority, in >> fact? Or, at least, that most readers understand things that way? >> >> I tend to agree with Kooser that things may get troubling when authors > allow >> themselves to receive credit and sympathy, personally, for fictive >> sufferings. In other words, there may be a distinction to be made between >> publishing a fictive piece and reading it in public and letting people >> assume things about you, or even encouraging the mistake. > David, > It seems from some of the examples given that a reader only > feels this pang of being taken in by the speaker when the poem > evokes pathos. If a speaker "lies" to us about a great love or > joyous experience in his/her life, do we feel deceived? & no one > cares if the poet has fictively employed an emotionally neutral > experience, do they? > Finnegan > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > An interesting variation on these questions: What if--as an Australian author recently did--a writer authors a novel in the voice of a racial minority--and perhaps even assumes a fictive persona as a minority author, complete with authentic-sounding pseudonym. If the novel wins rave reviews and literary awards on the basis of its good writing and portrayal of, say, aboriginal life, and the author later turns out to be a white Anglo woman, does that invalidate the reviews? and should it be a cause for the return of literary awards on the ground of fraud? Or can the author say that all writers employ a fictive voice, and that he or she has simply been better at it than most? And what about the recent practice of certain New York editors, who call up novelists whose work they've decided they might print to see if the author really is a member of the racial minority the work in hand suggests? Paul Lake From JforJames Fri Nov 30 14:53:50 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 14:53:50 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Arthur Sze poem Message-ID: <7e.1ecf9e40.29393dce@aol.com> The Network In 1861, George Hew sailed in a rowboat from the Pearl River, China, across the Pacific ocean to San Francisco. He sailed alone. The photograph of him in a museum disappeared. But, in the mind, he is intense, vivid, alive. What is this fact but another fact in a world of facts, another truth in a vast network of truths? It is a red maple leaf flaming out at the end of its life, revealing an incredibly rich and complex network of branching veins. We live in such a network: the world is opaque, translucent, or, suddenly, lucid, vibrant. The air is alive and hums then. Speech is too slow to the mind. And the mind's speech is so quick it breaks the sound barrier and shatters glass. by Arthur Sze The Woman ? 2001 Copper Canyon Press From paul.lake Fri Nov 30 03:57:12 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 02:57:12 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Arthur Sze poem Message-ID: I'm not one of those poets who go around saying of all free verse poems that it's nothing but chopped up prose, but this Arthur Sze poem does indeed seem to be lineated prose, for the most part--except for the little rhetorical flourish at the end. The following lines seemed especially prosaic: ". . . It is a red maple leaf flaming out at the end of its life, revealing an incredibly rich and complex network of branching veins." Maybe it's that "incredibly" that makes this sound so banal. Except where it's trying self-consciously to be "poetic," this poem strikes me as rather flat. I wonder if others share this feeling. Paul Lake From Jholmes Fri Nov 30 16:23:44 2001 From: Jholmes (Janet Holmes) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 14:23:44 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Questions/Kooser Message-ID: Hi David (et al.)-- Maybe I'm simple, but no--it wouldn't bother me if Alicia Ostriker had written those poems without having had a mastectomy. I don't give a fig about Sharon Olds's personal life or the details of Komunyakaa's Vietnam years. And I don't diminish "Pure" because Carol Frost wasn't the man who shot his own son instead of a deer. (Did you know Kit Smart's cat was really named "Prince"?) The distrust of imagination is so endemic in our culture that there's almost no place for fiction any more--it's squeezed out by nonfiction and fantasy. (I think a lot of poets abandoned ship for creative nonfiction, because there are frankly fewer style issues to consider.) Personally, to respond to Tony, I never judged Frank Bidart guilty of Herbert White's actions, and Bidart's not even female. Janet Holmes (who was kidding about Geoffrey) From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 30 16:35:53 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 16:35:53 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Questions/Kooser In-Reply-To: <15b.4f98270.293937aa@aol.com> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011130162132.00a87ce0@postoffice.brown.edu> I can't seem to think of an example of good art which employs deceit. When I hear about hoaxes and so forth I just don't want to bother reading it. Am I oversimplifying? In good poetry, no matter how ambiguous or multivalent the experience or emotion conveyed might be, it's fairly clear who is saying what & how. Somehow this question of an author putting one over or pulling your leg seems kind of minor or trivial. An author writes to express some experiential truth or perception - the more skilled they are, the more carefully outlined are the relations between speaker, plot, character. A lyric poet pretending to narrate something "as if" it were biographical - well, I can only think the result would be mediocre. I mean, I have written a long biographical poem myself, but the "fictive" aspects are clearly marked (by their fantastic quality). I think even in the subtlest poems - say Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, for example - careful reading & research only clarifies & deepens the understanding - with all the ambiguities it involves. Henry >David, >It seems from some of the examples given that a reader only >feels this pang of being taken in by the speaker when the poem >evokes pathos. If a speaker "lies" to us about a great love or >joyous experience in his/her life, do we feel deceived? & no one >cares if the poet has fictively employed an emotionally neutral >experience, do they? >Finnegan >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry ******************************************************** HG afloat: www.nedgemagazine.com * www.xlibris.com/HenryGould.html www.spuytenduyvil.net * www.jacket.zip.com.au * www.unf.edu/mudlark "Read it back to me, quietly, quietly." - O. Mandelstam From DICK Fri Nov 30 17:24:28 2001 From: DICK (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 01 17:24:28 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] questions Message-ID: <200111302235.fAUMZAU32208@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Must what's said in a lyric poem be factual? What's the problem? Prose doesn't have this problem. There's fiction and there's non-fiction. Why can't writing in line-breaks use the same convention? (I know Leonard Michaels called "Sylvia" a "fictional memoir", and Capote called "In Cold Blood" something similar, but they were just being perverse.) Garrison Keillor once said that if a poem depends on being literally true for impact, it's not a good poem. If a writer-in-line-breaks wants to write autobiography or memoir or whatever, why not just say so on the cover? Why should the reader have to guess? Richard From jdavis Fri Nov 30 21:15:53 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 21:15:53 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Questions/Kooser In-Reply-To: <200111301526.fAUFQH223135@mx8.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: I never thought I'd be bringing up the spectre of Kent Johnson ... but wasn't this the sort of bad epistemology (and therefore naive aesthetics) the Yasusada hoax set out to expose among the editors of mass-circulation and avant-garde poetry magazines? Or do you have to know something to know something's beautiful? Jordan on 11/30/01 10:27 AM, David Graham at grahamd at mail.ripon.edu wrote: > Tony, no, Kooser doesn't take up the fiction/poetry question specifically. > But I think his attitude would be that there is a rhetorical convention that > a novel or story is fictive, while there is an expectation that the lyric I > (unless otherwise indicated) is to be taken as roughly autobiographical. He > has no trouble with fictionalizing in poetry, so long as the poet doesn't > play such games in effort to gain sympathy personally. > > I tend to disagree with him, too, though he raises important issues. More > precisely, I guess I think things are a bit more complex than his brief > essay indicates. Also, I differ in my conclusions. Yes, it's true that > poetry is just as fictive as prose fiction, and it's silly to try and erect > sturdy lines between the autobiographical and the made-up. But I don't > think the ethical issues evaporate completely once one makes such a > commonsense concession. > > As Carol Frost once put it, wouldn't we all be pissed if we learned that > Alicia Ostriker, author of "The Mastectomy Poems," had in fact never > suffered from breast cancer? Or that Sharon Olds's father was *not* an > alcoholic at all? Or that Komunyakaa spent the Vietnam years in Vancouver? > If so, on what basis? If not, why not? Isn't it true that certain poems > make implied truth claims about their authors--a claim of authority, in > fact? Or, at least, that most readers understand things that way? > > I tend to agree with Kooser that things may get troubling when authors allow > themselves to receive credit and sympathy, personally, for fictive > sufferings. In other words, there may be a distinction to be made between > publishing a fictive piece and reading it in public and letting people > assume things about you, or even encouraging the mistake. > > Not sure how often such a thing occurs. > > If one agrees that there *is* some sort of ethical shadyland into which it > is risky to venture, then of course the real problem begins: how do you > define where the line is between acceptable shapenings, heightenings, and > other distortions, and the realm of outright untruth? > > (Not so incidentally, Billy Collins takes up these issues a bit in his essay > "My Grandfather's Tackle Box," and so does Carol Frost in her "Self-Pity". > And Kate Sontag in "Writing With Love," and Andrew Hudgins in "The Lies of > the Autobiographer," and Stephen Dunn in "Degrees of Fidelity". . . My, > my: sure would be good to have all these essays collected in one place, > now, wouldn't it? ;) ) > > David Graham > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > > ---------- >> From: "Anthony Robinson" >> To: >> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: questions >> Date: Fri, Nov 30, 2001, 2:07 AM >> > >> Thanks for this, David. >> >> I disagree with Kooser. If Kooser also feels the same about fiction, then >> we can assume that this is an ideological/moral position and I won't be >> inclined to argue. However, in my experience, those who espouse the same >> feelings about poetry as Kooser tend to be less likely to have the same >> attitude toward fiction. To me, this is incredibly puzzling. >> >> Does Kooser address this? >> >> So, poets lie. So do fiction writers. Plato wanted to ban poets from the >> Republic, but of course, "poetry" to Plato is not what "poetry" is to us. >> We've made the distinction between "poetry" and "fiction" for better or >> worse. So, why is it a crime to be "deceitful" in a poem but not in a piece >> of fiction? >> >> Tony > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From duemer Fri Nov 30 21:36:02 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 21:36:02 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions In-Reply-To: <200111302235.fAUMZAU32208@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: I've defended Berryman, but I have a powerful distrust of the autobiographical in poetry. In the case of Berryman, I think the density of language & with create aesthetic distance (defamiliarization) for poet (& reader). But I am very suspicious of strategies such as those of Olds & Ostriker, always suspecting that it is the poet's life I am being asked to assent to rather than her art. (When Olds employed wit, as in some of her sex poems, I find the work more successful.) Actually, I would find the Ostriker cancer poems & the Olds alcoholic-father poems more interesting if they _were_ "made up." In my own stuff I try to use personal information only to mediate some broader discourse. To be specific, there are two poems in my new book that begin with me listening to the radio, but the fact that it's me listening is mostly a narrative convenience-what I'm after is an exploration of what I heard. Which is not to claim "objectivity" or that I don't have a point of view, but that my focus is outside myself. That outward focus _is_ fundamental to what I think about poetry, though. (I think Henry Gould does something like this in his own autobiographical epics.) jd From duemer Fri Nov 30 21:38:49 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 21:38:49 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Arthur Sze poem In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ". . . It is a red maple leaf flaming out at the end of its life, revealing an incredibly rich and complex network of branching veins." These lines of Arthur Sze, quoted by Paul Lake, strike me as rhythmically flat, philosophically obvious & flat-out clich?d. I can't in fact tell whether they are prose or poetry because they are really neither. "End of its life" runs perilously close to pathetic fallacy, for those who still care about such things, while "complex network . . ." is PBS science-talk at its most banal. jd From duemer Fri Nov 30 21:41:39 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 21:41:39 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] questions (correction) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't usually correct typos but this one affects the meaning. I meant to write, regarding Berryman, "In the case of Berryman, I think the density of language & wit [not _with_] create aesthetic distance . . ." jd From halvard Fri Nov 30 21:43:05 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 21:43:05 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Arthur Sze poem In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Seems to me that both prose and poetry are pretty good at invading each other's turf, so I'm not averse to the "poetic" in prose or to the "prosaic" in poetry. Surely there's plenty of prose that's unlineated poetry. Hal "Open the mirage that calls you." --Philip Lamantia Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html > I'm not one of those poets who go around saying of all free verse poems that > it's nothing but chopped up prose, but this Arthur Sze poem does indeed seem > to be lineated prose, for the most part--except for the little rhetorical > flourish at the end. The following lines seemed especially prosaic: > > ". . . It is a red maple leaf > flaming out at the end of its life, > revealing an incredibly rich and complex > network of branching veins." > > Maybe it's that "incredibly" that makes this sound so banal. Except where > it's trying self-consciously to be "poetic," this poem strikes me as rather > flat. I wonder if others share this feeling. > > Paul Lake > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From gmcvay Fri Nov 30 22:56:23 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 22:56:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Arthur Sze poem In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Maybe it's that "incredibly" that makes this sound so banal. Except where > it's trying self-consciously to be "poetic," this poem strikes me as rather > flat. I wonder if others share this feeling. > > Paul Lake > Paul, stop the presses: you and I have just agreed on something regarding poetry. It is *precisely* the word "incredibly" that is *so* annoying here. It's like bad Carl Sagan--a tone of labored special pleading. I like other poems of Sze's but this one has too many words in it. Gwyn (Yes, I know the "too many notes" quote to Mozart) From jpl3 Thu Nov 1 09:32:24 2001 From: jpl3 (Joe Lucia) Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2001 09:32:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Collins & O'Hara References: <200111010330.WAA23643@dept.english.upenn.edu> Message-ID: <3BE15CF8.555B70@lehigh.edu> I gotta chime in with a "yes" to Michael's comments, because O'Hara has a _range_ that the short anthology chestnuts don't embody in any way. "In My memory of My Feelings" is just one example. "Biotherm" and "Second Avenue" are others. They are works with sprawling ambitiousness that risk more (and perhaps fail in larger ways?) than Collins witty and rather tidy poetry. I don't by any means dislike Collins, but I go back to O'Hara's stuff in a way that I don't suspect I ever will with Collins. Just one more opinion. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: jpl3.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 342 bytes Desc: Card for Joe Lucia URL: From halvard Thu Nov 1 12:30:15 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 12:30:15 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Collins & O'Hara In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20011031154106.007d66a0@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: > Auden, to a fellow during a Q&A who asked for a rating of > favorite poets in order of quality, importance, depth, etc.: > > "Young Man, it is not a horse race." > > B. And that's wonderfully reminiscent of Stein's words to Adler. Hal "I can see that you are the kind of young man who is accustomed to winning arguments." --Gertrude Stein to Mortimer Adler Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From antrobin Thu Nov 1 18:47:09 2001 From: antrobin (Anthony Robinson) Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 15:47:09 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] u.s. navy lore References: Message-ID: <01d701c1632f$87676ec0$18aeefd8@0021936706> Hey All (apologies for cross-posting), I'm doing a research project on Naval Folklore, specifically stories, legends, practices that involve prankery, jokes, punishments, and so forth that take place/have taken place in the U.S. Navy. I'm interested in hearing from Navy veterans from any era, and will be collecting other Naval folklore as well, but this time around I'm primarily interested in common practices, punishments, hazings, etc. that are not officially sanctioned by the USN, but that commonly take place. If you'd like to share, please send your story along with your dates and places of service, and please let me know if I have permission to use your name in the final article. I'm NOT really looking for books/articles, but if you know of some that may be helpful, I'd be grateful. I'm primarily interested in first-hand accounts. Send to: antrobin at clipper.net Thanks in advance, Tony __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger From Ralph.Wessman Thu Nov 1 20:18:13 2001 From: Ralph.Wessman (Ralph Wessman) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 11:18:13 +1000 Subject: [New-Poetry] u.s. navy lore Message-ID: Hi Anthony, On another tack, have you tried US sites for navy vets? Must be a few. I know there's a good Australian site (queries, anecdotes) with a few US visitors at www.gunplot.net/ Best, Ralph >>> "Anthony Robinson" 02/11/2001 9:47:09 am >>> Hey All (apologies for cross-posting), I'm doing a research project on Naval Folklore, specifically stories, legends, practices that involve prankery, jokes, punishments, and so forth that take place/have taken place in the U.S. Navy. I'm interested in hearing from Navy veterans from any era, and will be collecting other Naval folklore as well, but this time around I'm primarily interested in common practices, punishments, hazings, etc. that are not officially sanctioned by the USN, but that commonly take place. If you'd like to share, please send your story along with your dates and places of service, and please let me know if I have permission to use your name in the final article. I'm NOT really looking for books/articles, but if you know of some that may be helpful, I'd be grateful. I'm primarily interested in first-hand accounts. Send to: antrobin at clipper.net Thanks in advance, Tony __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 2 09:11:55 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 09:11:55 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Clewell, usurper In-Reply-To: <3BE06C9B.81B6CAA7@lehigh.edu> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20011031155907.00a97a50@postoffice.brown.edu> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011102090426.00aa29a0@postoffice.brown.edu> re "Nadsonism" : ". . . the mastery of the artist does not control; it escapes, provoking the listener into pursuit rather than controlled obedience. The poet Nadson, in contrast, meets his reader face to face, and through his absolute control initiates. . . the urge to conform, but the voice of the poet does not survive this total union with the reader's consciousness. Thus it is no longer possible to discern Nadson's voice: 'Do not laugh at Nadsonism, it is the enigma of Russian culture and the essentially incomprehensible sound of it, for we do not understand and hear as they understood and heard.' Nadson's voice has been grasped and encompassed and consumed. This, for Mandelshtam, is the fate of a very lucky but inferior poet." Glazov-Corrigan, "Mandelshtam's Poetics" I don't really want to start a debate over the merits of Collins. As I said, the issue with these very accessible poets has more to do with the needs of readers than the originality of the poets. I'm more interested in this concept of a poetry that eludes a readership to some extent. Henry From grahamd Fri Nov 2 10:30:52 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 09:30:52 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins Message-ID: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> This from Henry Gould is helpful, I think. I'm also not highly interested in a debate on the merits of Collins, though I like his work more than many do. He's definitely got limitations (who doesn't?), but what he does I think he does very well, very often. I'm also happy to concede that Frank O'Hara, whose work I also like, is a poet of greater range. (I can't help noting that that range includes reams of pretty frivolous or tedious stuff as well as some intriguing experiments , in my view. And it seems pointless to deny that O'Hara's range includes a great many Collins-esque bagatelles, as any leaf-through of the collected poems soon shows.) What seems particularly intriguing to me is the fire and brimstone that Collins attracts from many quarters--he's equally reviled by staunch traditionalists like Adam Kirsch and by those interested in more progressive poetics. This seems a different phenomenon somehow from the reaction many have had, say, to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, another highly accessible poet who was quite popular once upon a time (*Coney Island of the Mind* was for many years the best selling poetry book--maybe still is?). Ferlinghetti is certainly a "real" poet, not a hack like McKuen or Leonard Nimoy, even if few would prize his work above that of such peers as Lowell, O'Hara, Levertov, Kunitz, or Your Name Here. I'd certainly put Collins *at least* in Ferlinghetti's rank (to my mind he's far more interesting). So why such passionate dislike? I don't think it's *merely* that he's so popular, especially with middlebrow readership. For popularity often provokes mere indifference or a sigh over the perpetual stupidity of popular taste. No, it probably has something to do with the fact that some certifiable eggheads (the estimable Barry Spacks, for example) seem to like Collins a lot. Blurbs on Collins's books by John Updike, William Matthews, Richard Howard, X. J. Kennedy, Stephen Dunn, Annie Proulx, and Gerald Stern indicate something of the interesting profile of his readership. The question of readership seems key, just as Henry G. suggests. And it's probably fair to put Collins in the camp (along with Ferlinghetti and thousands of others) of poets who are not particularly interested in "eluding a readership," that now-ancient modernist goal. But to my mind this still doesn't quite explain the ire that Collins attracts. David Graham _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: Henry Gould >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] RE: Clewell, usurper >Date: Fri, Nov 2, 2001, 8:11 AM > >re "Nadsonism" : > >". . . the mastery of the artist does not control; it escapes, provoking >the listener into pursuit rather >than controlled obedience. The poet Nadson, in contrast, meets his reader >face to face, and through his >absolute control initiates. . . the urge to conform, but the voice of the >poet does not survive this total >union with the reader's consciousness. Thus it is no longer possible to >discern Nadson's voice: >'Do not laugh at Nadsonism, it is the enigma of Russian culture and the >essentially incomprehensible >sound of it, for we do not understand and hear as they understood and >heard.' Nadson's voice has >been grasped and encompassed and consumed. This, for Mandelshtam, is the >fate of a very lucky but >inferior poet." Glazov-Corrigan, "Mandelshtam's Poetics" > >I don't really want to start a debate over the merits of Collins. As I >said, the issue with these very >accessible poets has more to do with the needs of readers than the >originality of the poets. I'm >more interested in this concept of a poetry that eludes a readership to >some extent. > >Henry > > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From Henry_Gould Fri Nov 2 10:41:02 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 10:41:02 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Nadsonism Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011102102450.00aa25c0@postoffice.brown.edu> The general assumption about poetry is that it is a Communication, produced by masters of immediacy, binding the reader through identification, using a kind of rhetorical superglue. Kind of a one-way message from Poet to Reader + World. An alternate view is that the poet is also the reader. What the poet "reads" is a current of energy that transforms into an imaginative, form-shaping, analogical activity. The source(s) of this creative energy may be as much a mystery to the poet as to anyone else. The effort is not so much to communicate as to grasp, formulate, echo, celebrate this basically trans-verbal impulse. Thus poetry is not a form of rhetorical control, and the poem stands somewhat independently, apart from its maker. This is perhaps a kind of (internal) test of authenticity (I mean a poet's self-test). Needless to say, people can ready themselves to be receptive & responsive to this process, but it follows an internal necessity that cannot be taught or learned in any methodical way. Henry ******************************************************** HG afloat: www.nedgemagazine.com * www.xlibris.com/HenryGould.html www.spuytenduyvil.net * www.jacket.zip.com.au * www.unf.edu/mudlark "Read it back to me, quietly, quietly." - O. Mandelstam From Rsgwynn1 Fri Nov 2 10:44:45 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 10:44:45 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins Message-ID: <12f.6e9155d.2914196d@cs.com> In a message dated 11/2/01 9:32:15 AM Central Standard Time, grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: > But to my mind > this still doesn't quite explain the ire that Collins attracts. > > David Graham > > Me either. I had no idea I'd provoke such a passionate thread by simply comparing him to O'Hara (favorably). I'll report on his reading next week. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paul.lake Thu Nov 1 23:43:16 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2001 22:43:16 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins In-Reply-To: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: on 11/2/01 9:30 AM, David Graham at grahamd at mail.ripon.edu wrote: > This from Henry Gould is helpful, I think. I'm also not highly interested > in a debate on the merits of Collins, though I like his work more than many > do. He's definitely got limitations (who doesn't?), but what he does I > think he does very well, very often. I'm also happy to concede that Frank > O'Hara, whose work I also like, is a poet of greater range. > > (I can't help noting that that range includes reams of pretty frivolous or > tedious stuff as well as some intriguing experiments , in my view. And it > seems pointless to deny that O'Hara's range includes a great many > Collins-esque bagatelles, as any leaf-through of the collected poems soon > shows.) > > What seems particularly intriguing to me is the fire and brimstone that > Collins attracts from many quarters--he's equally reviled by staunch > traditionalists like Adam Kirsch and by those interested in more progressive > poetics. > > This seems a different phenomenon somehow from the reaction many have had, > say, to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, another highly accessible poet who was quite > popular once upon a time (*Coney Island of the Mind* was for many years the > best selling poetry book--maybe still is?). Ferlinghetti is certainly a > "real" poet, not a hack like McKuen or Leonard Nimoy, even if few would > prize his work above that of such peers as Lowell, O'Hara, Levertov, Kunitz, > or Your Name Here. > > I'd certainly put Collins *at least* in Ferlinghetti's rank (to my mind he's > far more interesting). > > So why such passionate dislike? I don't think it's *merely* that he's so > popular, especially with middlebrow readership. For popularity often > provokes mere indifference or a sigh over the perpetual stupidity of popular > taste. No, it probably has something to do with the fact that some > certifiable eggheads (the estimable Barry Spacks, for example) seem to like > Collins a lot. Blurbs on Collins's books by John Updike, William Matthews, > Richard Howard, X. J. Kennedy, Stephen Dunn, Annie Proulx, and Gerald Stern > indicate something of the interesting profile of his readership. > > The question of readership seems key, just as Henry G. suggests. And it's > probably fair to put Collins in the camp (along with Ferlinghetti and > thousands of others) of poets who are not particularly interested in > "eluding a readership," that now-ancient modernist goal. But to my mind > this still doesn't quite explain the ire that Collins attracts. > > David Graham > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > > ---------- >> From: Henry Gould >> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] RE: Clewell, usurper >> Date: Fri, Nov 2, 2001, 8:11 AM >> > >> re "Nadsonism" : >> >> ". . . the mastery of the artist does not control; it escapes, provoking >> the listener into pursuit rather >> than controlled obedience. The poet Nadson, in contrast, meets his reader >> face to face, and through his >> absolute control initiates. . . the urge to conform, but the voice of the >> poet does not survive this total >> union with the reader's consciousness. Thus it is no longer possible to >> discern Nadson's voice: >> 'Do not laugh at Nadsonism, it is the enigma of Russian culture and the >> essentially incomprehensible >> sound of it, for we do not understand and hear as they understood and >> heard.' Nadson's voice has >> been grasped and encompassed and consumed. This, for Mandelshtam, is the >> fate of a very lucky but >> inferior poet." Glazov-Corrigan, "Mandelshtam's Poetics" >> >> I don't really want to start a debate over the merits of Collins. As I >> said, the issue with these very >> accessible poets has more to do with the needs of readers than the >> originality of the poets. I'm >> more interested in this concept of a poetry that eludes a readership to >> some extent. >> >> Henry >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> New-Poetry mailing list >> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > You've analyzed the problem well, David. I don't know Collins' work well, but what little I've read seems a bit facile. I guess we're all content to let mediocrity have the small audience and rewards it deserves, but when accolades and the perks of wealth and fame are bestowed on mediocrity, it makes the whole game seem a cheat. Why strive for excellence, why set high standards, when the laurels go not to the swift, but the suburban jogger? Paul Lake From lcrespi Fri Nov 2 13:15:12 2001 From: lcrespi (Linda Crespi) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 10:15:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] I'm in Snakeskin In-Reply-To: <01d701c1632f$87676ec0$18aeefd8@0021936706> Message-ID: <20011102181512.14863.qmail@web13904.mail.yahoo.com> November Snakeskin has a special section about "OUR TROBLED TIMES" including my own "War Poem" It's at www.snakeskin.org.uk Linda The Crespi Page is at: http://snakeskin.org.uk/crespi.htm New work appears usually in Snakeskin Webzine: http://snakeskin.org.uk --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume on Yahoo! Careers. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JackKerouac25 Fri Nov 2 13:39:09 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 13:39:09 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins Message-ID: <159.36b81d8.2914424d@aol.com> http://www.n2hos.com/acm/ There's a rather interesting and poorly-written review of Collins' _Sailing Alone around the Room_ at Expansive Poetry and Music online. Apparently, whoever this cat Robert Darling is, really missed the boat on Collins' work. I cannot believe his read of the pardaelle. As far as I know, it's _not_ a real form--that's the point. Besides, the word "paradelle" is very close to "parody." This guy takes Collins to task for being too simplistic; yet his review is quite simplistic. His take on "Introduction to Poetry" in the final paragraph of the review sums up his views. Darling seems to be the kind of guy who would want to "tie a poem to a chair and torture a confession out of it." If Billy Collins is telling a joke, then Robert Darling is the punchline. Jeff N. Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 From Thom424 Fri Nov 2 14:58:22 2001 From: Thom424 (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 14:58:22 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins Message-ID: <79.1d7a1428.291454de@aol.com> See the most recent issue of THE PARIS REVIEW for an interview ("The Art of Poetry LXXXIII") with Billy Collins and his discussion of the paradelle (p. 208). Thom Tammarp moorhead, MN From DICK Fri Nov 2 15:22:43 2001 From: DICK (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 01 15:22:43 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] E=N=V=Y Message-ID: <200111022024.fA2KOsM78722@sp1n189at0.watson.ibm.com> Paul Lake has explained why Collins inspires such hostility in some quarters. IT'S THE MONEY. Nobody (in po' biz, anyway) paid much attention to Billy Collins until the highly publicized dispute between Random House and U. of Pittsburgh press made the news. BIG BUCKS were in the air. And then, Collins has the effrontery to be appointed Poet Laureate. All the while, he can't be dismissed as another Rod McKuen! So he's tarred with "facile" and "mediocre" and "accessible" as a pejorative. What currently living poet's reputation could survive such a 1-2? Richard From alphavil Fri Nov 2 15:24:14 2001 From: alphavil (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 15:24:14 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Fun with Billy References: <159.36b81d8.2914424d@aol.com> Message-ID: <3BE300EE.1EBEA36D@ix.netcom.com> Billy Collins' poetry may be readily 'accessible', but Billy Collins the poet prefers not to be. The "self-contentment" of the sated diner in his poem is a set-up for, what Billy thinks, is a resonating ridicule of poetry as the "sanctuary of hunger and deprivation." Collins himself states he is only thinking of him-"self" here, the implication being that, therefore, concerns about hunger in American poetry must all be based on a false altruism because how could the plump, "self"-conscious practioners of American verse know anything about hunger even when morphed to a trope of the spirit. In other words, such themes as "hunger and deprivation" should be eliminated on the grounds that given the present circumstances of 'plenty', they are inauthentic. I know this sounds like a harsh indictment of Billy, but that's what I hear. Billy's at best a disingenuous 'craftsman'-a charlatan. Sorry, Darling. At worst, he's envious of 'something' which he can't or won't articulate cause I'm sure as hell its not the sonnet form that fuels the discontentment of this "self-contented" malcontent. What's really bothering you, Billy? Further, as one who has done elaborate studies analyzing the average caloric intake of American poets and its effect on the thematic development of contemporary American poetry (see. my Trouble With Mediocrity and Who Hired Bill Moyers To Destroy American Poetry), I, indeed, have found the lacuna in genuine pathos that Billy implies. In fact, taken historically, as the per capita caloric intake of the average American poet rose dramatically after World War II, the subject matter, generally, took on an air of "contentment", self-absorption and domesticity, virtually reversing all of the existential gains that poets like Wallace Stevens and Rainer Maria Rilke had made toward the 'other.' Even when conflict occurred it was purely chauvinistic, unconsciously couched as a food fight at the Norman Rockwell cafe like Billy's inchoate lugey at an Edward Hopper-like spiritual "hunger and deprivation." The path of Billy's "self-contentment" runs the high-ground of a surging river of blood. American poets like their fellow citizens have, even in resistance, largely been beneficiaries of this red channeling of the world's resources. Poet's don't need the smugness of a Billy Collins to remind them of this dilemma. They need something authentic. Like a consistently high caloric intake, the post of poet laureate itself is 'designed' to satiate American poetry away from such authenticity. I would insist that these gross generalizations and unsubstantiated assumptions have, at least, as much efficacy as Billy's, if not the same level of popular appeal. CP JackKerouac25 at aol.com wrote: > http://www.n2hos.com/acm/ > > There's a rather interesting and poorly-written review of Collins' _Sailing > Alone around the Room_ at Expansive Poetry and Music online. > > Apparently, whoever this cat Robert Darling is, really missed the boat on > Collins' work. I cannot believe his read of the pardaelle. As far as I > know, it's _not_ a real form--that's the point. Besides, the word > "paradelle" is very close to "parody." This guy takes Collins to task for > being too simplistic; yet his review is quite simplistic. His take on > "Introduction to Poetry" in the final paragraph of the review sums up his > views. Darling seems to be the kind of guy who would want to "tie a poem to > a chair and torture a confession out of it." > > If Billy Collins is telling a joke, then Robert Darling is the punchline. > > Jeff N. > > Jeffrey L. Newberry > Adjunct Instructor > Department of English and Foreign Languages > University of West Florida > 11000 University Parkway > Pensacola, FL 32514 > 850.474.2923 > 850.473.7330 > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From CobbCoStudioArts Fri Nov 2 15:33:07 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 12:33:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] I'm in Snakeskin Message-ID: <20011102203307.6B63836F9@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From grahamd Fri Nov 2 16:00:10 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 15:00:10 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Collins poem Message-ID: <200111022059.fA2KxjL54467@mx10.mx.voyager.net> It's futile to argue taste, I know, but that's maybe not precisely the same thing as discussing it. And it strikes me that in all the recent discussion of Collins's work, we haven't actually looked at much if any of the work specificially. And a number of folks who have weighed in on his popularity, accessibility, and so forth have admitted to being relatively unfamiliar with his poems. So for what it's worth, here's a sample poem. From *Picnic, Lightning* originally, and reprinted in the new selected edition. I'd say it's a fair enough example of a Collins poem: clear, simple in diction and premise, and quite firmly "managed," rhetorically. It's also probably a good enough sample of Collins at his best; Collins apparently thought so when choosing it for his selected poems, anyway. Like many of his poems, it's also a bit stranger as well as darker than he's sometimes assumed to be--reading "Some Days" I feel as I often feel reading Marianne Moore, struck by the oddness of the imagination that would have conceived to say such a thing at all. Still, as with Moore, there's no real opacity or slipperyness of syntax, etc. I guess I'm talking about tone--in the Paris Review interview Collins asserts that tone is central to his conception of what makes a poem a poem. Anyway, here's the poem. Some Days Some days I put the people in their places at the table, bend their legs at the knees, if they come with that feature, and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs. All afternoon they face one another, the man in the brown suit, the woman in the blue dress, perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved. But other days, I am the one who is lifted up by the ribs, then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse to sit with the others at the long table. Very funny, but how would you like it if you never knew from one day to the next if you were going to spend it striding around like a vivid god, your shoulders in the clouds, or sitting there amidst the wallpaper, staring straight ahead with your little plastic face? _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ From alphavil Sat Nov 3 05:06:37 2001 From: alphavil (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 05:06:37 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Barking dog. Berkowitz and poetry References: <200111022059.fA2KxjL54467@mx10.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3BE3C1AD.C7F982FF@ix.netcom.com> Funny, I get off the business computer and go up to my study to write and my own barking dog to yards down cranks it up. Actually, he doesn't bark so much as whimper. I call him the "whiney, muley dog." I have thought of writing a poem, actually an ode, to his canine neuroses, but the notion soon gives way to more genuine imagintative concerns which is what happens to me as regards a Billy Collins. I like to laugh, and I enjoy structured quirkiness, but I don't take Billy Collins too seriously. now a few light fragments from The Millenary's Centos If reflective of the Natural World, why this deficit with Nature? The whole Time the Kid Was primping before a chemical compound. There?s luxury condos for seventy trillion angels between quantum states. In the course of a day, a Rome plow ?plants? a thousand folk remedies. Why do ?alien? abductions play out in an operating theater? Or that movies set in an apocalyptic future are shot on location? Is technology returning earth to its flatness? The Admiral In his Profecias Predicted the millennium In 1650 Justifying the conquest As 'a great herding Of souls.' ?Willfulness conjures a potent alchemy...? Kadir The Indians were liberated from their gold For the body sold Ensured that the spirit In mutual enslavement Would be free of temptation, spared The object of the other?s sin; A damnation the Admiral eagerly chartered, So that a native hermeneutics, ?a system of logic?, set in. The Indians slaked the Spaniards? thirst with molten ore Not to alloy tribute to torture, Nor to border gilt with guilt, But to Perfect the conquistador. Homage to the alchemy of the immortal soul That Europe disposes in a statue. Pierre d?Ailly, ?medieval mythos and Kadir Scientific ethos.? Priests, tributaries, chemists fed Ochre?s mutable red. The sun forfeiting permanence By occupying the core. ?Logic is the lowest form of magic,? Cecil Taylor said. And ?Logic is the money of the mind,? Marx observed. Half the Church?s crew arrived in El Dorado II, dead With pouches and saddle bags corpulent with gold. Ammon?s mind was a kind of plasmic consomme Cooling on a galactic steam tray. But consider Kissinger in light of Cioran?s, ?The mind is the only claw a man has.? A small rodent terrified At any other?s strategy for homeostasis. The primitive sizing of praxis and punishment Reaches the sublime. Breeding meteors, a mimesis That launched a melodrama of an end-time. ?Mentalist statements, thoughts and feelings, hopes and fears,...? Bought and sold here at the arcane Board game Of the mind/body problem. Tokens, Tiny busts, of Descartes and Hume Replaced with Turing slugs ?How do I ever know you are conscious?? asserted Christof Koch. Depends on who dictates ?knowing.? As Britain discovered, Everybody?s born-again When the king won?t confess. Only an imperfect mind can desire a ?perfect sphere.? Cybernetics, complexity, chaos, Non-linear systems, genetic engineering A.I., A.L. computer modelling... The demon?s in the remake of Dante?s Hell Will have the unmistakable features of Arthur Nobel. And the epiphenomenalism of Purgatory persists Because Paradise drafted the armistice. Were the last centuries 223,000,000 killed born too late To carbon date? And if the carnage at the normal rate consumed their elect Wouldn?t the sciences be more circumspect? ?Don?t feel bad about celestial [G]arbage:... [IT] is so far the highest evidence Of our existence here.? Ammon?s Wasteland Is a fuming Heimat, But no Shell game this time. Just the money they will defend Until the bitter end. Knowing geneticists can clean A ?meat machine? Even if the ?wet ware? manages swerve to Avoid the eviscerating Logic of the Bell Curve, The courts vent the blowback From Operation RANCH HAND, the Gulf War, Bhopal, Deposing the dead looking for Epitaphs that are strictly empirical. The Caucasus are mere headstones. And the World Trade Center and the Pyramids? The wolves know That 60 years of Red Dawns Style any institution a target. And that though they bob on bombast, The sheep are armed With an Ovidian charm And more than a trace of Pythagoras. The currency was repression When staged in the mind of Nichols and McVeigh, From one of Reason?s bogeys? A ?paradiso terrestre.? An Eden of canals and furrows. So that Herman Con, Thermonuclear Whore, Seemed the odd arrival, With his brown wing tips, Operations Research, And Parable of Survival. Finding his constituency in the Knights of Columbus, The Masons and the Rotary Club. Those pillars of the community Who like Lot?s wife Aroused by the novelty of the pikadon Froze in the apocalypse of Herman Kahn. And paved with the fool?s gold of victory, The Jerusalems of Tulsa & Albany Beheld a Sodom and Gomorrah In Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From jdavis Fri Nov 2 17:04:25 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 17:04:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] 1-2 In-Reply-To: <200111022024.fA2KOsM78722@sp1n189at0.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: I don't even know if it's envy! as much as the distilled suspicion of every living practitioner of verse for all writers outside one's immediate cohort. Q. What do you think about X? A. She's all right, but it's hard to ignore the y, z, and a in her work, isn't it? Some people emphasize the "she's all right" part, others lean on the "isn't it". And there are alwayz qualities y, z, and a, because we're all still in different places. It might seem like envy because now that Collins is on the radio every other week, people who don't know what to say to us poets about poetry can try the line, "What do you think of that Billy Collins, there. Pretty good, isn't he?" Really, if he hadn't been compared to O'Hara, I would have found many pleasant things to say about him - might have even put him up with Pauls Violi and Muldoon as a capable genial weirdo, though he's no Ron Padgett, to be sure. Now that looks sexist! I wonder if there are women one might compare with Collins. Deb Garrison? Jordan Davis From halvard Fri Nov 2 17:08:57 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 17:08:57 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees Message-ID: Crime Club No butler, no second maid, no blood upon the stair. No eccentric aunt, no gardener, no family friend Smiling among the bric-a-brac and murder. Only a suburban house with the front door open And a dog barking at a squirrel, and the cars Passing. The corpse quite dead. The wife in Florida. Consider the clues: the potato masher in a vase, The torn photograph of a Wesleyan basketball team, Scattered with check stubs in the hall; The unsent fan letter to Shirley Temple, The Hoover button on the lapel of the deceased, The note: "To be killed this way is quite all right with me." Small wonder that the case remains unsolved, Or that the sleuth, Le Roux, is now incurably insane, And sits alone in a white room in a white gown, Screaming that all the world is mad, that clues Lead nowhere, or to walls so high their tops cannot be seen; Screaming all day of war, screaming that nothing can be solved. --Weldon Kees Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From spacks Fri Nov 2 17:22:56 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 14:22:56 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] E=N=V=Y In-Reply-To: <200111022024.fA2KOsM78722@sp1n189at0.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011102142256.007fe520@snowcrest.net> At 03:22 PM 11/2/01 EST, Richard wrote: >And then, Collins has the effrontery to be appointed >Poet Laureate. Yes, the poetry-wars are always with us, but ah when the attacks miss ironies & jokes, when spittle foams at the mouth of dunces Dunciad-ing, there's always a temptation to slink off and hang oneself in Afghanistan. With such rage what beauty holds a plea? Unpacking the Collins-Question we're on the brink of a subject too immense for posts of a seemly length, but at the center of many intersecting threads regarding "who then is worthy" I find most telling the distinction offered between the poet as his own reader (experimenting language-questor) and poetry understood to serve an immensely important public purpose. In this second category I confess I'm offended by fundamentalist-warriors who take up a kill or be killed stance. In Poetry's Mansion are many rooms, some passionately disarrayed to an effect of power (or incoherence), some (forgive them) gracefully decorated, some harmfully filled with Kitsch (which comes in 57 varieties, remember, from marmoreal to O'Hara-haired). Much is at stake in keeping up the gold-standard, granted, but little's to be gained from a Gott Mit Uns approach. We have our McKeons & Jewels & Edgar A. Guests to cast to the wolves of ardor, as to the rest of us I can only second St. Rodney: can't we get along? Would many, if not all, grant that the risk of obscurity does not guarantee profundity nor the risk of clarity -- even, praise god, entertainment! -- rule out depth and worth? Of course we could always really simplify and fall back on Gavin Ewart's immortal line: "The bad poets hate the good poets." Apologies for a lengthy post & for incidental (though provoked) barbs along the way; & may the Muse be with you each and every one, Barry "What's so funny about peace love and punctuation?" -- Sally Russell From TerryP17 Fri Nov 2 18:23:16 2001 From: TerryP17 (TerryP17 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 18:23:16 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Darling Message-ID: <28.1d100443.291484e5@aol.com> Jeff, FYI, Robert Darling is a Formalist poet who has taught English for many years as a professor in remote Keuka College somewhere in the uncharted wilds of New York. He's rather a decent fellow and a good friend of mine. We published a crown of sonnets by him some time ago in ECR. I confess to not having read his Collins piece on EP&M online, so I can't offer an opinion, but just thought you might like an association. Meanwhile, I agree with Paul Lake. The best way to earn a controversial rep as a poet is to make a few bucks at it! --Terry From cstroffo Fri Nov 2 19:25:15 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 16:25:15 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> Interesting Collins-Ferlinghetti comparison For me, I guess most of Collins is, er, better, than most of Ferlinghetti--- but I don't think any Collins is as good as "I Am Waiting" as a political/personal poem, and in terms of having the effect of opening poetry up--- there is a historical significance to Ferlinghetti that I used to dismiss, like "YEAH, I agree,or even a little wow, but is it as good as POETRY?" but a lot of the things he's waiting for as AT LEAST as sorely lacking in contemporary U.S. culture today as they were in 1950s, and while one may get pleasure from Collins (or O'Hara) for that matter, things are just a little lopsided that way.... Maybe we should talk about Brett Ralph's review of the new Jeffers Selected that will be in Rain Taxi....(it's not out yet; this is a teaser....if not a firecat?) Chris David Graham wrote: > This from Henry Gould is helpful, I think. I'm also not highly interested > in a debate on the merits of Collins, though I like his work more than many > do. He's definitely got limitations (who doesn't?), but what he does I > think he does very well, very often. I'm also happy to concede that Frank > O'Hara, whose work I also like, is a poet of greater range. > > (I can't help noting that that range includes reams of pretty frivolous or > tedious stuff as well as some intriguing experiments , in my view. And it > seems pointless to deny that O'Hara's range includes a great many > Collins-esque bagatelles, as any leaf-through of the collected poems soon > shows.) > > What seems particularly intriguing to me is the fire and brimstone that > Collins attracts from many quarters--he's equally reviled by staunch > traditionalists like Adam Kirsch and by those interested in more progressive > poetics. > > This seems a different phenomenon somehow from the reaction many have had, > say, to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, another highly accessible poet who was quite > popular once upon a time (*Coney Island of the Mind* was for many years the > best selling poetry book--maybe still is?). Ferlinghetti is certainly a > "real" poet, not a hack like McKuen or Leonard Nimoy, even if few would > prize his work above that of such peers as Lowell, O'Hara, Levertov, Kunitz, > or Your Name Here. > > I'd certainly put Collins *at least* in Ferlinghetti's rank (to my mind he's > far more interesting). > > So why such passionate dislike? I don't think it's *merely* that he's so > popular, especially with middlebrow readership. For popularity often > provokes mere indifference or a sigh over the perpetual stupidity of popular > taste. No, it probably has something to do with the fact that some > certifiable eggheads (the estimable Barry Spacks, for example) seem to like > Collins a lot. Blurbs on Collins's books by John Updike, William Matthews, > Richard Howard, X. J. Kennedy, Stephen Dunn, Annie Proulx, and Gerald Stern > indicate something of the interesting profile of his readership. > > The question of readership seems key, just as Henry G. suggests. And it's > probably fair to put Collins in the camp (along with Ferlinghetti and > thousands of others) of poets who are not particularly interested in > "eluding a readership," that now-ancient modernist goal. But to my mind > this still doesn't quite explain the ire that Collins attracts. > > David Graham > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > > ---------- > >From: Henry Gould > >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] RE: Clewell, usurper > >Date: Fri, Nov 2, 2001, 8:11 AM > > > > >re "Nadsonism" : > > > >". . . the mastery of the artist does not control; it escapes, provoking > >the listener into pursuit rather > >than controlled obedience. The poet Nadson, in contrast, meets his reader > >face to face, and through his > >absolute control initiates. . . the urge to conform, but the voice of the > >poet does not survive this total > >union with the reader's consciousness. Thus it is no longer possible to > >discern Nadson's voice: > >'Do not laugh at Nadsonism, it is the enigma of Russian culture and the > >essentially incomprehensible > >sound of it, for we do not understand and hear as they understood and > >heard.' Nadson's voice has > >been grasped and encompassed and consumed. This, for Mandelshtam, is the > >fate of a very lucky but > >inferior poet." Glazov-Corrigan, "Mandelshtam's Poetics" > > > >I don't really want to start a debate over the merits of Collins. As I > >said, the issue with these very > >accessible poets has more to do with the needs of readers than the > >originality of the poets. I'm > >more interested in this concept of a poetry that eludes a readership to > >some extent. > > > >Henry > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > >New-Poetry mailing list > >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From duemer Fri Nov 2 19:36:52 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 19:36:52 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <003801c163ff$a2c7d4e0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> What bothers _me_ about Collins' poetry is that it seems to merely present a thought already arrived at. All the marks of struggle--if there were any--have been erased. Like a nicely performed magic trick. The mystery a result of technical manipulation not . . . what? The illusive quality of meaning. The difficulty of making sense. And the awareness that the world extends beyond the edge of one's front lawn. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 ====================== From spacks Fri Nov 2 20:18:08 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 17:18:08 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins In-Reply-To: <003801c163ff$a2c7d4e0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011102171808.007f4100@snowcrest.net> At 07:36 PM 11/2/01 -0500, you wrote: >All the marks of struggle--if there were >any--have been erased. This once was called "the art that conceals art," a badge of care, but now, I gather, an indication of insincerity? By such logic anything "artful" falls to a demand for...what? raw experience? a DNA-sample guaranteeing quest and suffering besplottered on the page? I hear people confessing, in effect, "Me, I'm vital and large-spirited enough to prefer the Real Thing, namely that which resists the tell-tale mark of frivolity, *polish*." Could it be that the worthily "raw" poet (to use Lowell's useful contrast between raw and cooked poetry) might traffic in "the art that conceals the-art-that-conceals-art"? Oh puritans, where are the cavaliers, now we need them?! B. From duemer Fri Nov 2 20:26:11 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 20:26:11 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> <3.0.5.32.20011102171808.007f4100@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <003d01c16406$85d38da0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> The raw / cooked distinction goes back to the French anthropologist Levi-Straus. Sure there's the art-that-conceals-art & then there's facile art. In painting, look at the elegant record of struggle in the work of Richard Diebenkorn; in poetry, look at Mandelstam--or Lowell, for that matter. Or Blake or Wordsworth or Whitman or Dickinson. Or Stephen Dobyns or Susan Howe or Franz Wright. The Real Deal, jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 http://web.northnet.org/duemer/ http://rw.blogspot.com ====================== From BobGrumman Fri Nov 2 20:37:07 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 20:37:07 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3BE34A43.7F5A@nut-n-but.net> David, you keep asking why Collins is reviled. I keep telling you: he's a reasonably good poet but he's never taken an aesthetic chance in his life (as far as I know). In contrast to Ferlinghetti, in his prime, Collins has never used a poetic device not in wide use fifty or more years before he used it. Nothing wrong with that, but it annoys the many intellectuals who value newer kinds of poetry that poets like Collins become Poet Laureates and win the big grants, etc., while they and their kind mostly get nothing (until, perhaps, they are seventy or older). He's also a touch Norman Rockwellish at times, which doesn't bother me but bothers some. --Bob G. From spacks Sat Nov 3 00:46:31 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 21:46:31 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins In-Reply-To: <003801c163ff$a2c7d4e0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011102214631.007fd290@snowcrest.net> Joseph Duemer wrote: >What bothers _me_ about Collins' poetry is that it seems to merely present a thought already arrived at. All the marks of struggle--if there were any--have been erased. Like a nicely performed magic trick. The mystery a result of technical manipulation not . . . what? The illusive quality of meaning. The difficulty of making sense. And the awareness that the world >extends beyond the edge of one's front lawn. ***************** Brooding on the Collins- (let's call it) 'Diminishment' in several recent posts by various listmates, am I right to sense that we're still (or again) stuck with that old snob-Modernist high/low split? Poor Billy! The Mills of the Gods grind fine, and he's too popular even to make it up to second-class grist. (And here I thought that "The illusive quality of meaning" was his constant, various & inventive theme: go-know!). I'll be quiet now (gotta cook), B. From JackKerouac25 Sat Nov 3 02:05:23 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 02:05:23 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Darling Message-ID: <8d.ecf6ef8.2914f133@aol.com> In a message dated 11/2/01 5:24:00 PM Central Standard Time, TerryP17 at aol.com writes: > Jeff, > > FYI, Robert Darling is a Formalist poet who has taught English for many > years as a professor in remote Keuka College somewhere in the uncharted > wilds of New York. He's rather a decent fellow and a good friend of mine. > We published a crown of sonnets by him some time ago in ECR. I confess to > not having read his Collins piece on EP&M online, so I can't offer an > opinion, but just thought you might like an association. > > Meanwhile, I agree with Paul Lake. The best way to earn a controversial rep > as a poet is to make a few bucks at it! > > --Terry > Terry, Thanks for the info. I wrote that post when I was rather upset; Collins and I have a mutual friend, and I know that Billy works hard at what he does, despite what others think. I may be wrong about the paradelle thing, but I'm quite sure that he's making fun of something... Well, it's late. Cheers, Jeff Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jdavis Sat Nov 3 11:00:53 2001 From: jdavis (Jordan Davis) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 11:00:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] high immediacy? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20011102214631.007fd290@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: > old snob-Modernist high/low split? Only if you want to Reaganize your way out of a discussion. I thought we had a rather less explored split - experience v. understanding. And given that human beings still keep on being fallible, I'll go for fallible representations of experience over fallible demonstrations of understanding (pace any hardcore Lockeans out there) every time. Jordan Davis From spacks Sat Nov 3 11:14:32 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 08:14:32 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Darling (a great subject word) In-Reply-To: <8d.ecf6ef8.2914f133@aol.com> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011103081432.007f5780@snowcrest.net> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 831 bytes Desc: not available URL: From alphavil Sat Nov 3 12:13:20 2001 From: alphavil (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 12:13:20 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Keats is not referring to 'taste', but scientific 'fact' References: <3.0.5.32.20011103081432.007f5780@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <3BE425B0.394B44AB@ix.netcom.com> Keats is not referring to "tastes" but 'facts' in a historical/scientific atmosphere rhetorically rife with the possibility of soon presenting the world with one set of final causes based on the mathematical/experimental method. Keats was not a modern. Such labeling is absurd. But he was certainly cognizant of his times. In this all important regard, Mary Shelley did the most relevant and most culturally enduring work. If we are to be cognizant of our own times, we must realize that Keats' "sense of beauty" has little coinage in our current literature. Nor should it. After all, in his own time, it was an Ideal and a buoy for Keats himself against the onslaught of scientific Reason. Even our notion of the 'timelessness of beauty' has been changed by notions which lie outside of literature and perhaps might be addressed by poets with the intelligence and energy to do so. I'm not saying that we can't draw from Keats' almost hermetic notion, because the concept itself temporarily rescues poetry from the negligible position it has fallen into. But its obvious that Keats certainly didn't intend Negative Capability as an excuse for ignorance or triviality. His poetry is testament to that. CP I had not a dispute but a disquisition, with Dilke on various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason-Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration. Barry Spacks wrote: > At 02:05 AM 11/3/01 EST, Jeff L. Newberry wrote: > > I may be wrong about the paradelle thing, but I'm quite sure that he's making fun of something... > > yes; his initial paradelle is an hilarious example of > an insanely demanding set-form in the hands of > all 3 stooges (in effect). But the form can be used > with gravitas as well (I have one in the forthcoming > anthology called "A Zen Paradelle"). The Laureate > is mocking, with urbane lightness, the very > slickness of performance his critics bemoan, > following Ginsberg's riff on Keats' "negative > capability," that it's a life-giving power to function > in terms of contradictory notions (read here "tastes") > "without freaking out." The alternative, as all > surely remember, is "the irritable reaching after > fact and reason." > > respectfully, y'all, > > B. > > _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From cstroffo Sat Nov 3 13:25:34 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 10:25:34 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Negative Capability-- References: <3.0.5.32.20011103081432.007f5780@snowcrest.net> <3BE425B0.394B44AB@ix.netcom.com> Message-ID: <3BE4369D.C40D8511@earthlink.net> Ah, N.C., But when it's discussed in reference to Shakespeare, it's a little different than when it's discussed in reference to Keats---Or, to put it another way the idea of "Neagative Capability" has taken on a "life of its own" quite apart from its specific reference to Keats' rather limited (though he was getting better just before he died) poetic achievement (yeah, who isn't limited?)---so I'm more interested in that N.C. idea, which is actually several different ideas, at least as it circulates---Often it is combined with his statement ion the impersonal artist who delights as much in Iago as in Imogen (I have to find that exact quote---but hopefully you'll know what I mean), the artist who is "everything and nothing" (which Borges, among others, wrote about quite brilliantly and somewhat sardonically)... Whether or not Keats is "almost hermetic" (a self-contradictory statement if ever there was one---for what's the difference between "almost hermetic" and "hardly hermetic" in such a context?), ---and yes I too think the "Grecian Urn" poem would be better if the Urn had said, "You Must Change Your Life" for instance---, is less the question than R. Gancie/C Parelli's attempt to historicize timelessness in a way that it would be therefore invalid to consider it as possible or valid in the face of the onslaught of today's version of "progress" or "technology".... Anyway, it would be interesting to continue this discussion of N.C..... as a concept or attitude or stance, ethical, or aesthetic, regardless of Keats' per se... Chris "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" wrote: > Keats is not referring to "tastes" but 'facts' in a historical/scientific atmosphere rhetorically rife with the possibility of soon presenting the world > with one set of final causes based on the mathematical/experimental method. Keats was not a modern. Such labeling is absurd. But he was certainly > cognizant of his times. In this all important regard, Mary Shelley did the most relevant and most culturally enduring work. > > If we are to be cognizant of our own times, we must realize that Keats' "sense of beauty" has little coinage in our current literature. Nor should it. > After all, in his own time, it was an Ideal and a buoy for Keats himself against the onslaught of scientific Reason. Even our notion of the 'timelessness > of beauty' has been changed by notions which lie outside of literature and perhaps might be addressed by poets with the intelligence and energy to do > so. > > I'm not saying that we can't draw from Keats' almost hermetic notion, because the concept itself temporarily rescues poetry from the negligible position > it has fallen into. But its obvious that Keats certainly didn't intend Negative Capability as an excuse for ignorance or triviality. His poetry is > testament to that. CP > > I had not a dispute but a > disquisition, with Dilke on various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my > mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of > Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so > enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of > being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after > fact and reason-Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated > verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of > remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would > perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty > overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration. > > Barry Spacks wrote: > > > At 02:05 AM 11/3/01 EST, Jeff L. Newberry wrote: > > > > I may be wrong about the paradelle thing, but I'm quite sure that he's making fun of something... > > > > yes; his initial paradelle is an hilarious example of > > an insanely demanding set-form in the hands of > > all 3 stooges (in effect). But the form can be used > > with gravitas as well (I have one in the forthcoming > > anthology called "A Zen Paradelle"). The Laureate > > is mocking, with urbane lightness, the very > > slickness of performance his critics bemoan, > > following Ginsberg's riff on Keats' "negative > > capability," that it's a life-giving power to function > > in terms of contradictory notions (read here "tastes") > > "without freaking out." The alternative, as all > > surely remember, is "the irritable reaching after > > fact and reason." > > > > respectfully, y'all, > > > > B. > > > > _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From mmagee Sat Nov 3 13:31:35 2001 From: mmagee (Michael Magee) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 13:31:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Collins poem In-Reply-To: <200111022059.fA2KxjL54467@mx10.mx.voyager.net> from "David Graham" at Nov 2, 2001 03:00:10 pm Message-ID: <200111031831.NAA07809@dept.english.upenn.edu> David, I've got no objection to your explanation of what's to like about Collins' poetry, but, as with the O'Hara comparison which we've been entertaining, I can't agree with you in the least when you say, "as with Moore, there's no real opacity or slipperyness of syntax, etc." I mean, would Collins go anywhere near lines such as "A kind of monkey or pine lemur / not of interest to the monkey, / in a kind of Flaubert's Carthage, it defies one"??? Or, "that the piano is a free field for etching; that his 'charming / tadpole notes' / belong to the past when one had time to play them"? Thinking of today, this gestures toward the syntactical layering not of Collins but of, say, Stroffolino. I think these attempts to say "Collins is like so-and-so great poet of the past" are symptomatic of the way we've repressed the real difficulty of said poetry. Take a poem like "The Jerboa" or "Those Various Scalpels" - who, among those who put wind in Collins' laureate sails has really come to terms with their difficulty - and more than their mere difficulty, with how *different* Collins and Moore are in their intentions. Likewise, as I've said with O'Hara. They may both be interested in a day's trivia, but their motivations for such interest differ greatly, it seems to me. The poem you quoted, "Some Days" is funny, in a James Tate-lite sort of way (and I should say that I find Tate quite wonderful) but it uses the notion of the "average day" in a way not like O'Hara at all. First of all, this poem involves a predetermined conceit: the human-as-mannequin or, conversely, player with dolls in a life of domestic humdrum routine -- as a "god" one transcends that (mildly like what WC Williams does in "Danse Russe," but, jeez, much more boringly and without quite the same ironic punch); the ending wants to lend philosophical depth to the conceit. The use of trivia here (principally the setting of a table, the dinner party, and domestic space generally) is contrived: Collins doesn't seem to care about these things he just needs them to execute his idea. In contrast, O'Hara's trivia is about what happens spontaneously and any item, any *thing* he comes into contact with will potentially redirect the poem and, indeed, shape the identity of the poet. Here's what Robert Duncan said about O'Hara's "triviality" (as told by Creeley): 'Speaking of Frank O'Hara, [Duncan] noted that extraordinary poet's attempt "to keep the *demand* on the language as *operative*, so that something was at issue all the time, and, at the same time, to make it almost like chatter on the telephone that nobody was going to pay attention to before...that the language gain what was assumed before to be its *trivial* uses...So I think one can build a picture, that in all the arts, especially in America, they are *operative*. We think of art as *doing something*, taking hold of it as a *process*..." At Black Mountain these preoccupations were insistent."' So, I would agree with Duncan and suggest that there's a philosophical and aesthetic depth to what O'Hara's doing (related to the pragmatism of Williams James and John Dewey) that's just absent in Collins. Since we're trying to focus on specifics, here's part of a reading of O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died" (which in turn is part of an article coming out soon in Contemporary Literature on O'Hara, race and jazz - I'm leaving out all the stuff on Billie Holliday and the Five Spot here cause its too many pages, so nobody take this is the whole of my argument re that poem puhlleez): [The first four stanzas of O?Hara?s poem are built on a series of the most plain, present tense declarative statements: "I go...I walk...I go...I get...I do think...I stick with...I just stroll...I go." The sense of rapid movement is enhanced by his use of specific times (12:20, 4:19, 7:15) and the whole passage is a model of what James called "reactive spontaneity." "I don't know the people who will feed me," O?Hara insists, and each encounter is an entanglement in externality, a literal modification in his discursive self, the complexity of which is registered in his vernacular expressions. He buys "an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets in Ghana are doing these days," as if reading across boundaries of race and culture were as casual and egalitarian as knocking on your neighbor?s door or calling her on the telephone, and in that way the antithesis of the romantic act of "discovery" (in which the operative question is not "what are you doing?" but "who are you, what do you represent?"). Lastly, he turns around: in describing that turning, he reveals just how actively the social text is mediating the poetic text: "then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue." This is of course a joke on the racist question, "Why don?t you go back where you came from?" and O?Hara?s answer renders the question absurd - where he came from isn?t Africa or Missississippi, Massachusetts or China, Mexico or Ireland; it?s "6th Avenue." Just as "the only truth is face to face," O?Hara measures origins in blocks. The joke is a gesture in the direction of his vision of New York as a multiethnic radical democracy. Notice that with more than eighty percent of the poem gone, Holliday hasn?t even been mentioned. And yet we can read O'Hara's Personism-style games as prelude to the final stanza, or, as a return to where the games "came from."] The point of this I guess, at least in the context of our conversation, is that things-external are the motor for O'Hara's selfhood as they are for his poetry, and that O'Hara doesn't make any distinction between things and words-which-are-things - - and things, whether words or packs of cigarettes or people are always in *dynamic* relation with one another: hence nothing is actually trivial because the trivial is always in contact with and *im*pacting the "deep" and vice versa. Collins's approaches couldn't be more different as far as I can tell. -m. According to David Graham: > > It's futile to argue taste, I know, but that's maybe not precisely the same > thing as discussing it. And it strikes me that in all the recent discussion > of Collins's work, we haven't actually looked at much if any of the work > specificially. And a number of folks who have weighed in on his popularity, > accessibility, and so forth have admitted to being relatively unfamiliar > with his poems. > > So for what it's worth, here's a sample poem. From *Picnic, Lightning* > originally, and reprinted in the new selected edition. I'd say it's a fair > enough example of a Collins poem: clear, simple in diction and premise, and > quite firmly "managed," rhetorically. It's also probably a good enough > sample of Collins at his best; Collins apparently thought so when choosing > it for his selected poems, anyway. > > Like many of his poems, it's also a bit stranger as well as darker than he's > sometimes assumed to be--reading "Some Days" I feel as I often feel reading > Marianne Moore, struck by the oddness of the imagination that would have > conceived to say such a thing at all. Still, as with Moore, there's no real > opacity or slipperyness of syntax, etc. I guess I'm talking about tone--in > the Paris Review interview Collins asserts that tone is central to his > conception of what makes a poem a poem. > > Anyway, here's the poem. > > > Some Days > > Some days I put the people in their places at the table, > bend their legs at the knees, > if they come with that feature, > and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs. > > All afternoon they face one another, > the man in the brown suit, > the woman in the blue dress, > perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved. > > But other days, I am the one > who is lifted up by the ribs, > then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse > to sit with the others at the long table. > > Very funny, > but how would you like it > if you never knew from one day to the next > if you were going to spend it > > striding around like a vivid god, > your shoulders in the clouds, > or sitting there amidst the wallpaper, > staring straight ahead with your little plastic face? > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From duemer Sat Nov 3 14:37:26 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 14:37:26 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> <3.0.5.32.20011102214631.007fd290@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <001c01c1649e$f80d0de0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> <> I ain't stuck. Lines of the week, for me this week, by Townes Van Zandt, may he rest in peace: I have seen the David Seen the Mona Lisa too And I have heard Doc Watson Play "Columbus Stockade Blues." jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From grahamd Sat Nov 3 15:35:37 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 14:35:37 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Accessible Collins Message-ID: <200111032035.fA3KZNQ28278@mx6.mx.voyager.net> I love those lines, too. But as it happens they're not by the late great Townes Van Zandt, but the luckily-still-with-us Guy Clark. From his album *Dublin Blues*. _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: "Joseph Duemer" >To: >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins >Date: Sat, Nov 3, 2001, 1:37 PM > ><> > >I ain't stuck. Lines of the week, for me this week, by Townes Van Zandt, may >he rest in peace: > >I have seen the David >Seen the Mona Lisa too >And I have heard Doc Watson >Play "Columbus Stockade Blues." > >jd From tadrichards Sat Nov 3 15:39:44 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 15:39:44 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> <3.0.5.32.20011102214631.007fd290@snowcrest.net> <001c01c1649e$f80d0de0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <001701c164a7$aea2b7a0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Or the words of Bob McDill's "Good Old Boys Like Me," as sung by Don Williams" John R. and the wolfman kept me company by the light of the radio by my bed with Thomas Wolfe whispering in my head And I still hear the soft southern wind in the live oak trees those Williams boys they still mean a lot to me, Hank and Tennessee I guess we're all gonna be what we're gonna be So what do you do with good ole boys like me Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joseph Duemer" To: Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2001 2:37 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins > <> > > I ain't stuck. Lines of the week, for me this week, by Townes Van Zandt, may > he rest in peace: > > I have seen the David > Seen the Mona Lisa too > And I have heard Doc Watson > Play "Columbus Stockade Blues." > > jd > ====================== > Joseph Duemer > School of Liberal Arts, 5750 > Clarkson University > Potsdam NY 13699 > 315.268.3967 > website http://web.northnet.org/duemer > journal http://rw/blogspot.com > ====================== > > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From halvard Sat Nov 3 16:34:21 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 16:34:21 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins In-Reply-To: <001701c164a7$aea2b7a0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Message-ID: Can we remove the word "accessible" from this subject line? It's making me ill. Sounds like he's got built-in ramps and hand-rails. Does he? Hal "The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided." --Casey Stengel Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html > Or the words of Bob McDill's "Good Old Boys Like Me," as sung by Don > Williams" > > > John R. and the wolfman kept me company > by the light of the radio by my bed > with Thomas Wolfe whispering in my head > > > And I still hear the soft southern wind in the live oak trees > those Williams boys they still mean a lot to me, Hank and Tennessee > I guess we're all gonna be what we're gonna be > So what do you do with good ole boys like me > > > Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." > The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet > of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 > http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Joseph Duemer" > To: > Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2001 2:37 PM > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins > > > > <> > > > > I ain't stuck. Lines of the week, for me this week, by Townes Van Zandt, > may > > he rest in peace: > > > > I have seen the David > > Seen the Mona Lisa too > > And I have heard Doc Watson > > Play "Columbus Stockade Blues." > > > > jd > > ====================== > > Joseph Duemer > > School of Liberal Arts, 5750 > > Clarkson University > > Potsdam NY 13699 > > 315.268.3967 > > website http://web.northnet.org/duemer > > journal http://rw/blogspot.com > > ====================== > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From duemer Sat Nov 3 17:01:31 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 17:01:31 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Accessible Collins References: <200111032035.fA3KZNQ28278@mx6.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <000c01c164b3$18df5e60$18724342@twcny.rr.com> David, you're right of course. I was just listening to a version of that song on the new Live at the Bluebird Cafe, featuring Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt & Steve Earle. The album is uneven, but has several great tracks, including a nice version of that old chestnut "Poncho and Lefty." ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From spacks Sat Nov 3 17:23:21 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 14:23:21 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Picasso loved the funnypapers In-Reply-To: <001c01c1649e$f80d0de0$18724342@twcny.rr.com> References: <200111021530.fA2FUqP93503@mx2.mx.voyager.net> <3BE3396B.B176020B@earthlink.net> <3.0.5.32.20011102214631.007fd290@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011103142321.007f66c0@snowcrest.net> At 02:37 PM 11/3/01 -0500, Joseph wrote: >And I have heard Doc Watson >Play "Columbus Stockade Blues." And who with ears could ever forget it. B. I can blow high and I can blow low Hey you can't tell the difference when you're upsidedown From CobbCoStudioArts Sat Nov 3 17:51:41 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 14:51:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins Message-ID: <20011103225141.B47A436F9@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From wasanthony Sat Nov 3 18:04:09 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 15:04:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Accessible Collins In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20011103230409.82156.qmail@web12102.mail.yahoo.com> --- Halvard Johnson wrote: > Can we remove the word "accessible" from this subject > line? It's making me ill. Sounds like he's got built-in ramps > and hand-rails. Does he? Ah, new critical lingo offers a doorway so readers can look out from the window of Collins' world. - Jim ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From JforJames Sat Nov 3 20:41:01 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 20:41:01 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] E=N=V=Y Message-ID: <10.14ee23e6.2915f6ad@aol.com> As it happens this week I read both the aforementioned Paris Review Interview w/ Billy Collins and the following piece: "My Grandfather's Tackle Box: The Limits of Memory-Driven Poetry" by Bill Collins (Poetry, August 2001): "A poem about a past experience can transcend the mere circumstances of its triggering event through many different maneuvers. The poem may turn down an alley into another part of the poem's town; it may develop a disproportionate interest in some feature of itself; it may get sick of its own reminiscence and throw up its hands. Or it may bend time and space..." (he goes on to quote from Jeffrey Harrison poem). ... "But we are within our rights as readers to expect memory to act in poetry as more than agency of reminiscence. Memory is often well employed as a starting place for a poem, a springboard into zones more exhilarating than the strictly personal, zones where language, not history, is king. In poetry, recollection mixes so easily with invention that many of the maneuvers we have come to associate with modernist poetry (the unexpected "turn" or "volta," for example) are really devices designed to escape the narrow confines of memory, to fly over history on the wings of imagination." (he goes on to quote Borges) ... & something in the same vein from the Paris Review interview: "I try to convey a sense that the poem is an opportunity for travel, that poetry can make some progress into exciting imaginative territory. Many poems based on the idea of family or a loved one, which have a literal relationship to the poet's biography, never quite get off the ground; in other words they're mired in these family issues, which limits the possibilities of some kind of transcendence. I think that the poem can sweep you up and take you at least beyond the limits of psychology." Some key words and phrases from the above: "transcend" and "transcendence, "maneuvers," "bend time and space," "develop a disproportionate interest," "mixes so easily with invention," "a springboard," "devices," "to fly over...on the wings of imagination," "opportunity for travel," "get off the ground," "sweep you up and take you." This is Collins' great facility as well as his primary flaw. Imagination offers a dual opportunity: to flight or for insight. The latter takes more effort... requires us to bear down, to get our hands dirty in the soul-stuff of the poem. The easiest thing to do for the contemporary poet is move the material into the imaginative realm of flight, device, easy transcendence. It's so much harder to bear down on material at hand...to make more of it without turning away or fleeing into epiphany. To stay in the muck and keep turning over rocks until the poem reveals itself. BTW, I bought his first book, Apple That Astonished Paris, when it came out from Arkansas, well before there was a "Billy Collins phenomenon," and I've followed each book since. He's a marvelous poet in many ways. But he's not above criticism. There are a few poets I "envy"...& it's always about the poetry not the trappings. Finnegan From adead_poet Sun Nov 4 06:32:29 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 05:32:29 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: i'm wondering who is the major influences on your writing. and how does the one that taught you and those that came before play into the style of writing a poet has. like now, i use humor more than i ever did before (which is to say i never used it before). and i'm sure that is the influence of my prof. and i am trying to write some metrical work, before i only did free verse. i haven't abandoned one for the other, just do some of both. i'm just wondering how the influences teachers of poets works on the poet's work. jason _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From michael.ritchie Sun Nov 4 10:01:11 2001 From: michael.ritchie (Michael Karl Ritchie) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 09:01:11 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Paul Greenberg on Billy Collins Message-ID: OPINION: No drums, no bugles A time for Billy Collins Whoever chose Billy Collins as the country's poet laureate (it was the Library of Congress) chose well. He is just the right poet for this time, this strange wartime. Not because I can find any poem of his about war. On the contrary. They are about the most ordinary, peacetime things. Which is just what the country needs reminding of amid the flags and fear, the rousing speeches and lurking doubts. We are an impatient people, a critical people, a restless people with a short attention span and a weakness for drama. We have built a complex, sophisticated, technologically advanced society that, we suddenly realize, is also fragile, vulnerable, and targeted. And we lose perspective. We lose sight of the simple things that are really not so simple--home, family, a sense of humor, and the unbreakable connection between the intimate and the universal. Billy Collins' poems remind us of the important things that are in danger of being obscured by the dramatic and overwhelming, by the next headline and threat. When war came to England in 1939, George Orwell wrote a pamphlet about what that war was about. He didn't write about ideology or geopolitics or empire. He wrote about the things that made England England, and they were simple things. He wrote about "solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes." He also wrote about the simple things that are intangible. Things you can't see or taste but can feel. He wrote about the ideas, the habits, that make the English English. Like the rule of law. Like an eccentric preference for custom and tradition over logic and efficiency. He wrote about how a man's home is his castle, and the English veneration of privacy--and their allergy to the power-worship that was sweeping Europe and the rest of the world at the time. Billy Collins writes about home and family, the joys of domesticity, the companionship of music--the simple things. But he writes about them at a step removed, on a second level, like someone standing back and looking at his own actions, his own life, his own country. And finding it comfortable, bemusing, then different and deeper. Here is a poet who understands that the best poems are journeys, that they may begin in familiar surroundings but are judged by the surprising turns they take. And the poet is as surprised as the reader at those successful moments when he is no longer the author of the work but a character in it, just going along for the ride and taking notes. Often enough the destination is surreal, like so much of America itself, and often enough hilarious, like America itself. Consider his Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House, with its title that is a poem itself. It begins with a barking dog next door and then ascends, descends, and spirals into the gentle, surreal, inexplicable America of blue dogs. It is the journey from irritation to whimsy everyone has taken when saved by laughter in the middle of a heated argument, and the effect is uproarious perspective. Just remember, as with the best poetry, to read it aloud to someone. There is an innocence in Billy Collins' poems that becomes power. As in America herself. So lovely and so strong a name at the same time, America. So childlike and so knowing at the same time, Billy Collins. I think my favorite poem of his this week is Osso Buco. The poem begins after a supper of osso buco and risotto washed down with a cold, exhilarating wine. ("I love the sound of the bone against the plate . . . . the lion of contentment has placed a warm, heavy paw on my chest'') And it ends at the center of existence. Anger and grief are easy enough, natural enough, in the aftershock of a sneak attack. It is patience and perspective that are in short supply. And humor. We already have a surplus of bloviation, of adolescent wit and political animus. See any television screen near you. To hear Billy Collins' words in your own mind is to be reminded that gentleness can be the strongest and most stirring and lasting of qualities, even the basis of faith. Reading him, I think of visiting the American embassy in Moscow at the end of a three-week tour of what was then the Soviet Union. We had been assaulted by indoctrination and ideology at every stop and from every billboard between Leningrad and Irkutsk. And then, on that last night, we set foot on formally American territory in the capital of all that falsity. The embassy was decorated with simple American folk art. In the hall was a sign from an old New England inn, and all it said was: Live and let live And I knew I was home. No grandiose proclamations of class war. No cries of ideological certitude. No strained dialectic and theory of history. Just an extended hand, a willingness to live and let live, to laugh and let laugh. It is a different time now, but this enemy, too, wouldn't understand anything so simple as tolerance. It is life itself that offends this enemy, the very presence of others in the universe. He has divided the world into true believers and infidels in which bloody havoc is some kind of holy war and there is no room for disagreement. He doesn't recognize the holiness of ordinary, undisturbed things. He refuses to recognize it. It would be the end of him. What would he have to hate? I don't think he would like Billy Collins' poetry. I don't believe he would see the point of it. Or understand the strength of it. Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. This article was published on Sunday, November 4, 2001 http://www.ardemgaz.com/today/edi/wopgreenberg4.asp From spacks Sun Nov 4 11:30:11 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 08:30:11 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Paul Greenberg on Billy Collins In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011104083011.00802100@snowcrest.net> At 09:01 AM 11/4/01 -0600, Paul Greenberg wrote: >OPINION: No drums, no bugles A time for Billy Collins and a time for Paul Greenberg, bless his soul. B. From thebobcooperfor Sun Nov 4 12:39:57 2001 From: thebobcooperfor (bob cooper) Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 17:39:57 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: Hi Jason, I thought about, but never got round to responding to a similar question you asked a while ago. But, even though I?m clicking the keyboard now, I can?t answer your question directly - because I was never ?taught? poetry in a formal way in a formal place. I read the stuff (and I still do) for the sheer pleasure of reading it ? and I wrote the stuff (and I still do) because I want to. OK, I admit, there have been occasions when I have had to write it ? I still want to maintain I wanted to write it too! No one ?taught me? how to write, but I guess there?s more than plenty people who?ve encouraged me what to read (and the reading?s given me permission to continue writing in that particular way, or develop my writing, or change my style and attitude to what I?m writing about). A few have offered advice about the craft of writing and I?ve found what they?ve said so important, essential. But that?s the tinkering after the writing?s happened isn?t it? Could I say ?I was caught (by poetry) more than taught (poetry)? Maybe. I mean I first read the stuff (on the bus going to work) and I was hooked! (The stuff in the book I had was about things that belonged to the world I lived in, and how I felt about myself and other people. No-one gave me the book. I found the book in a bookshop myself, and then individual poems found me). And then I wrote... I guess, as I continued to write and discovered other people who had books published, who read in public, who went for a drink... is that I heard they talked about who they liked to read too. Those suggestions mattered. Then the big issue I found (from those who were trying to teach me something when they suggested I read some other poet) was that I sometimes caught something that was different to what I was expected to learn. But that was the fun of it (and, I?d suggest) that?s part of what reading (and writing) poetry?s all about anyway. But I?m talking history as much as autobiography here... (and you asked your question today). Before I clicked this screen into life and movement, I was just collecting books together to put back on the shelves... James Wright, Kenneth White, Ken Smith, Gary Snyder, George Oppen, Norman McCaig, Brendan Kennelly, W.S. Graham, Stanley Cook, Elizabeth Bishop. A poem or two (or five or six, or more) from each of them, I guess. I?ve got more permission from favourite poems (and new ones snuggled near the ones I already knew so well)... I?ve only met two of them ? but I?ve heard stories about each of the rest that?ve warmed me. And what?s still on the table? Well, I?m amazed to say, Wordsworth! (But not for any reasons I guess he?s taught in a classroom). I?m enjoying his Duddon Sonnets, just love the way he?s sometimes got a bombastic tone, then sometimes he whispers. Why did I get him from the shelf? Again it was after a reading, when a few of us were talking about poems, someone in a pub mentioned him, and I thought... Yeh, OK, why not. Then I discovered these sonnets (and their hidden haikus, their amazing similies) and I felt I was discovering/learning again. And metrical stuff... Well, when I want to write it, it?s possibly because I?ve just read some... and liked it. So I just get the form (the rhythm) drilled into my head and start (and start again, and again). So, will I start writing Wordsworthian sonnets now? No... (I?ve just been there, done it, got the T-shirt that fits). But I may continue to use the pentameter line (which I have a love/hate relationship with) yet again for a few things. And I may use the crazy, intoxicating image-making, elsewhere too. And humour? I enjoyed your statement about humour. I wish I could remember who it was who said that the business of poetry is humour rather than tragedy? I think (particularly after 9.11) someone may be whispering from history (or is it from recent poetics or criticism), someone may be giving us permission, someone may be right. And I?m off out now (lucky sod that I am) to hear more people read their stuff. I?ll listen. We?ll chat. Who knows, (as we sip a few beers when it happens, and slurp a few beers when it's done - not too many cos I'm driving), what?ll be said, what'll burp into my mind on my way home... Bob >From: "dead poet" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: [New-Poetry] influences >Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 05:32:29 -0600 > >i'm wondering who is the major influences on your writing. and how does the >one that taught you and those that came before play into the style of >writing a poet has. like now, i use humor more than i ever did before >(which >is to say i never used it before). and i'm sure that is the influence of my >prof. and i am trying to write some metrical work, before i only did free >verse. i haven't abandoned one for the other, just do some of both. i'm >just >wondering how the influences teachers of poets works on the poet's work. > >jason > >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From wasanthony Sun Nov 4 18:26:18 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 15:26:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] New issue of The Salt River Review Message-ID: <20011104232618.8433.qmail@web12108.mail.yahoo.com> Now online: The Salt River Review, Vol. V, No.1, Winter, 2001-2002 With POETRY BY David Weinstock Wendy Battin Kate Sontag Joe Somoza Ruth E. Foley Peter Munro Frances McConnel Rochelle Hope Mehr FICTION BY Nathan Leslie Joan Wilking. COMMENTARY by Greg Simon AND A REVIEW by Catherine Daly ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From alphavil Mon Nov 5 06:52:45 2001 From: alphavil (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 06:52:45 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] a couple more References: <200111022059.fA2KxjL54467@mx10.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3BE67D8D.5CB68265@ix.netcom.com> of The Millenary's Centos Are the professional mourners Listing the End of the World In the table of contents Yet? The End of Racism. The End of History. The End of Science. A quorum of bio-geneticists, stock analysts and the Klan. Theories bear on praxis, So like praxis, theories cannot be commutative. Reason?s collar is a whorl from a cleric's bolt. ?Strictly speaking, ?Will always?, Cannot be tested.? An event is no more discrete Than its explanation. A skyscraper, a launch tower. Look at the legs on technology's calendar! Surely those gams Go on For a few more millenniams. The Greeks old boost; The eyes hosing light Into an aether of events. The cameras capture is privileged. We view through a light cone The random few, And are left to dream the habits of oblivion. Only the rarest comedian buoys a world. And paradise will trip you up. Physicist Robert Park asks, ?What century, are you left to wonder, Would the Smithsonian historians Preferred to have lived in?? Why Bob, Where circumstance is habituated to ubiquity. Where ?all things being equal? And Robert Park is the equal sign. Physicists aspiring to the 18th century; Corporations to a merger of the ninth and nineteenth; While politicians look more precisely to 1933. Which ozone will have come back by 2050? And to where will it be returning If 50 years won?t stand still? Even the deus ex machina of Michael Rennie Billed for a day Was only a matinee. 7/14/95, the Commerce Department reports A rebound in retail sales Fueled by orders for crystals and pyramids. Paradise is tricky In its ubiquity. And the 100 CEOs gathered on the Eastern shore Are slow to finger fuck the sweet meat Of their steaming crab?s legs. Nostalgic for the Hoover years They barely run their toast Into the mound of piscatorial eggs. ?GO BACK to what we had before the New Deal.? Commanding holomorphic time?s commutative thaumaturgy. The ?NO BACK TALK? of Winslow Taylor Or just ?GET BACK! GET BACK!? Judging by the police security. We are a people who on this, Bastille Day, Exercise the freedom to pay To keep ourselves away. 12,000,000 out of work, ?The problem; EXCESS Of the welfare state.? As waiters haul in yet another virtuosi plate To shore against a loss of appetite. The squalor of the rummaged food Smeared on plates in plastic tubs, Regurgitates for one VP A wrong turn his limousine took in Baltimore: ?Suppose our murders radicalize.? Beyond epiphany for this assize! The reader to spare his filthy rug Sets down his coffee mug And convulses in the novelty. CP From JforJames Sun Nov 4 19:54:24 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 19:54:24 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] 101 Discriminations Message-ID: <170.3683d84.29173d40@aol.com> Subject: Germaine Greer's "101 Discriminations" Interesting piece by Greer on her Faber anthology _101 Poems by 101 Women_ in today's (Glasgow) _Sunday Herald_: http://www.sundayherald.com/19759 From JforJames Sun Nov 4 19:58:20 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 19:58:20 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: 101 Discriminations Message-ID: <10d.8116ee0.29173e2c@aol.com> In a message dated 11/4/01 7:54:24 PM Eastern Standard Time, JforJames writes: << Subject: Germaine Greer's "101 Discriminations" Interesting piece by Greer on her Faber anthology _101 Poems by 101 Women_ in today's (Glasgow) _Sunday Herald_: http://www.sundayherald.com/19759 >> To clarify, this post was a snip for FYI purposes from a longer post by Candice Ward to another list. F From JforJames Sun Nov 4 20:38:34 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 20:38:34 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Is Revision Passe? Message-ID: <84.1def118a.2917479a@aol.com> After all the well-thunk posts on Collins v. O'Hara, MMoore, Negative Cape, etc, I hesitate to post a bit a shoptalk, but twice this past week I encountered poets who profess little interest in revision... (recent Paris Review, "Art of Poetry LXXXIII," an interview with Billy Collins) "I try to write very fast. I don't revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it rip. It's usually over in twenty to forty minutes. I'll go back and tinker with a word or two, change a line for some metrical reason week later, but I try to get the whole thing just done. Most of these poems have a kind of rhetorical momentum. If the whole thing doesn't come out at once, it doesn't come out at all. I just pitch it." (from "First: How Pricilla Becker Beat the Odds," by Joanna Smith Rakoff, current P&W Mag) "Revision, by the way, is a practice she doesn't really engage in anyway. Nearly every night she sits down to write, more out of need than obligation. 'I have an awful lot to clear away. I just write to clear it away.' The poems that result from these sessions generally don't change much form the original draft, because she "cannot reenter the state of mind" that led to a particular poem in the first place 'My revision,' she explains, 'is the next poem.'" Another incidental point from this article: "She submitted her manuscript to the Paris Review contest at a friend's suggestion, and with the security of knowing that Richard Howard, a former professor of hers, was judging. Another poet might have paused to consider the unlikely odds of winning a first-book award affiliated with one of the nation's most important literary magazines, judged by a poet, translator, and editor of legendary status... but Becker barely thought about it. 'I sent my book in to the contest because I never do anything with my work,' she explains. 'I never thought I would win.'" --- Finnegan From Rsgwynn1 Sun Nov 4 21:49:22 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 21:49:22 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Fun with Billy Message-ID: <7f.1cb3621c.29175832@cs.com> In a message dated 11/2/2001 2:29:12 PM Central Standard Time, alphavil at ix.netcom.com writes: > . In fact, taken historically, as the per capita > caloric intake of the average American poet rose dramatically after World > War > II, the subject matter, generally, took on an air of "contentment", > self-absorption and domesticity, virtually reversing all of the existential > gains that poets like Wallace Stevens and Rainer Maria Rilke had made > toward the > 'other.' Don't know about Rilke's diet, but Stevens didn't seem to miss too many meals. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Sun Nov 4 21:51:50 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 21:51:50 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees Message-ID: <118.72507ad.291758c6@cs.com> I love this. Kees is one of the great unknown American poets. He always says it in things, and the things he chooses always seem . . . well chosen. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gmcvay Sun Nov 4 22:14:46 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 22:14:46 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees References: <118.72507ad.291758c6@cs.com> Message-ID: <3BE60419.A0CAE4EA@patriot.net> O Gwynn of the supernumerary n, Unless I'm hallucinating badly, Gioia has written about Kees more than once, and interestingly. Gwyn of the solitary n From Rsgwynn1 Sun Nov 4 22:03:01 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 22:03:01 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: In a message dated 11/4/2001 5:33:12 AM Central Standard Time, adead_poet at hotmail.com writes: > > i'm wondering who is the major influences on your writing. and how does the > one that taught you and those that came before play into the style of > writing a poet has. like now, i use humor more than i ever did before > (which > is to say i never used it before). and i'm sure that is the influence of my > prof. and i am trying to write some metrical work, before i only did free > verse. i haven't abandoned one for the other, just do some of both. i'm > just > wondering how the influences teachers of poets works on the poet's work. > > Good question. I don't know the answer. Wilbur, Weldon Kees, Hecht, Kennedy, Nemerov, etc. I don't think I was ever influenced by any of my teachers (Miller Williams, for example). But someone reading my stuff could probably see whose tracks I'm following. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Sun Nov 4 22:09:25 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 22:09:25 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees Message-ID: <162.361d933.29175ce5@cs.com> In a message dated 11/4/2001 9:00:05 PM Central Standard Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: > > O Gwynn of the supernumerary n, > > Unless I'm hallucinating badly, Gioia has written about Kees more than > once, and interestingly. > > Gwyn of the solitary n > So? He's also written about Gwynn and he's still unknown. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tadrichards Sun Nov 4 22:33:21 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 22:33:21 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees References: <118.72507ad.291758c6@cs.com> <3BE60419.A0CAE4EA@patriot.net> Message-ID: <004701c165aa$9f1fed80$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> As has Donald Justice. He's still nowhere near as well known as he deserves to be. Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gwyn McVay" To: Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 10:14 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees > O Gwynn of the supernumerary n, > > Unless I'm hallucinating badly, Gioia has written about Kees more than > once, and interestingly. > > Gwyn of the solitary n > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From tadrichards Sun Nov 4 22:47:04 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 22:47:04 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences References: Message-ID: <005101c165ac$89be1280$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> My teachers -- the important ones -- were Finkel and Justice. I suspect that in some ways -- I'm not sure what -- they're still presences in my work. When I started teaching the blues as literature a few years ago, I realized how important Leadbelly was when I was young, and how important he stayed. The signifying of the blues writers taught me about economy, and what you leave unsaid. Oddly enough, Robert Service and Joseph Moncure March -- two wonderful doggerel poets my stepfather loved, and who taught me to love storytelling in poetry. Auden -- control. Stevens -- things about language and focus. Ashbery - taiught me I could open up the synapses farther than I had thought I could...but that was just an extension of Leadbelly. I know there are more...those are the first that came to mind. Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 10:03 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] influences In a message dated 11/4/2001 5:33:12 AM Central Standard Time, adead_poet at hotmail.com writes: i'm wondering who is the major influences on your writing. and how does the one that taught you and those that came before play into the style of writing a poet has. like now, i use humor more than i ever did before (which is to say i never used it before). and i'm sure that is the influence of my prof. and i am trying to write some metrical work, before i only did free verse. i haven't abandoned one for the other, just do some of both. i'm just wondering how the influences teachers of poets works on the poet's work. Good question. I don't know the answer. Wilbur, Weldon Kees, Hecht, Kennedy, Nemerov, etc. I don't think I was ever influenced by any of my teachers (Miller Williams, for example). But someone reading my stuff could probably see whose tracks I'm following. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tadrichards Sun Nov 4 22:50:34 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 22:50:34 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees References: <162.361d933.29175ce5@cs.com> Message-ID: <005d01c165ad$061d0fc0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Maybe we can get him to write about Gwyn. But no...it doesn't seem to help. Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 10:09 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: "Crime Club" by Weldon Kees In a message dated 11/4/2001 9:00:05 PM Central Standard Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: O Gwynn of the supernumerary n, Unless I'm hallucinating badly, Gioia has written about Kees more than once, and interestingly. Gwyn of the solitary n So? He's also written about Gwynn and he's still unknown. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From adead_poet Mon Nov 5 02:09:02 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 01:09:02 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: I don?t know if anyone necessarily teach a person to write. I think there has to be a certain amount of natural talent, but I?ve learned a lot of new techniques and some things that I do that weaken the work. I also like the socializing after. One of my favorite things, and I?ve found most artists like the socializing. jason >No one ?taught me? how to write, but I guess there?s more than plenty >people >who?ve encouraged me what to read (and the reading?s given me permission to >continue writing in that particular way, or develop my writing, or change >my >style and attitude to what I?m writing about). _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From aprentiss Mon Nov 5 03:52:58 2001 From: aprentiss (Prentiss, Amber) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 03:52:58 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Is Revision Passe? Message-ID: Are they really not revising, or do they do it as they go along? You can make a thousand choices without a red pen if you want. -Amber -----Original Message----- From: JforJames at aol.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: 11/4/01 8:38 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Is Revision Passe? After all the well-thunk posts on Collins v. O'Hara, MMoore, Negative Cape, etc, I hesitate to post a bit a shoptalk, but twice this past week I encountered poets who profess little interest in revision... (recent Paris Review, "Art of Poetry LXXXIII," an interview with Billy Collins) "I try to write very fast. I don't revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it rip. It's usually over in twenty to forty minutes. I'll go back and tinker with a word or two, change a line for some metrical reason week later, but I try to get the whole thing just done. Most of these poems have a kind of rhetorical momentum. If the whole thing doesn't come out at once, it doesn't come out at all. I just pitch it." (from "First: How Pricilla Becker Beat the Odds," by Joanna Smith Rakoff, current P&W Mag) "Revision, by the way, is a practice she doesn't really engage in anyway. Nearly every night she sits down to write, more out of need than obligation. 'I have an awful lot to clear away. I just write to clear it away.' The poems that result from these sessions generally don't change much form the original draft, because she "cannot reenter the state of mind" that led to a particular poem in the first place 'My revision,' she explains, 'is the next poem.'" Another incidental point from this article: "She submitted her manuscript to the Paris Review contest at a friend's suggestion, and with the security of knowing that Richard Howard, a former professor of hers, was judging. Another poet might have paused to consider the unlikely odds of winning a first-book award affiliated with one of the nation's most important literary magazines, judged by a poet, translator, and editor of legendary status... but Becker barely thought about it. 'I sent my book in to the contest because I never do anything with my work,' she explains. 'I never thought I would win.'" --- Finnegan _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From BobGrumman Mon Nov 5 06:36:02 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 06:36:02 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences References: Message-ID: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> A related question might be: how many significantly different KINDS of poets have you been significantly influenced by? Of course, this is a rather self-congratulatory question for me since I've been influenced importantly by just about every kind of poet imaginable (Keats, Lax, Kempton, Roethke, Williams, Basho, Cummings, Bennett . . .) but if I were strongly influenced by only one kind of poet, I think I'd wonder about the size of my accomplishment (not that I don't anyway). --Bob G. From katenexile Mon Nov 5 07:15:45 2001 From: katenexile (kate thorn) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 04:15:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] influences In-Reply-To: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <20011105121545.77667.qmail@web12208.mail.yahoo.com> My first major literary unfluence was the work of Thomas Wolfe--I became quite drunk on his words at a young age--followed by works of Carl Sandburg. Followed by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Frost, TS Eliot and much later, in college, Syvia Plath, and, of course, Dorothy Parker. My own style evolved from extreme wordiness (influence of Wolfe) to a minimalist style--I now seek to say the most with the least amount of words--that is not to say that I do not ever dive into the pool of too many words! Recently, I have discoved the works of Eugenio Montale (Due to a posting by David Howard)--Ocatavio Paz, De Lorca, and Elinor Wylie, May Sarton--to name a few. I just purchased Poetry Speaks which a 3 CD thing with it in which the poets speak their own poetry! Very nice. My true prize in the realm of poetry however came last weekend when I discoved a copy of Barry Spacks book "Teaching The Penguins To Fly" in a used book store! The book now has a permanent home! I am far from the original subject--and will stop for now. Kate ===== PassionForPoetry at yahoogroups.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PassionForPoetry __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From michael.ritchie Mon Nov 5 08:36:12 2001 From: michael.ritchie (Michael Karl Ritchie) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 07:36:12 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: I personally have been influenced by Zippy the Pinhead. Or perhaps by a falling asteroid that bonked me on the head. Isn't it amazing how really really big asteroids get eaten away by earth's atmosphere before they strike the ground - except in Hollywood, of course. Look at Bruce Willis! What must have struck him to engineer such megalomania! I used to be dissatisfied with the message I left on my answering machine, but then, deus ex machina, I found the perfect rock tune which I played on my ghetto blaster that I cradled very close to the answering machine tape. As a result, I suspect that my telephone has been influenced by Man or Astroman. Every time I call myself, I don't hear Donald Justice, who was and probably still is the best teacher of poetry ever, nor do I hear Zippy the Pinhead, who talks only in air bubbles on the printed page and goes silent on the weekends. But that may be because I refuse to house the internet where I live. Only at work can I enjoy the back-stabbing bickering among all of you poets about who's great and who isn't. Time to visit Zippy! Dr. Mike From paul.lake Sun Nov 4 22:16:26 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 21:16:26 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Collins Message-ID: Thanks, Jim Finnegan, for posting the quote below. It proves my point about the facile nature of Collins' poetry. Paul Lake (recent Paris Review, "Art of Poetry LXXXIII," an interview with Billy Collins) "I try to write very fast. I don't revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it rip. It's usually over in twenty to forty minutes. I'll go back and tinker with a word or two, change a line for some metrical reason week later, but I try to get the whole thing just done. Most of these poems have a kind of rhetorical momentum. If the whole thing doesn't come out at once, it doesn't come out at all. I just pitch it." From JforJames Mon Nov 5 09:53:17 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 09:53:17 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Another BookLength Ms. Prize Message-ID: <15a.37a6ea3.291801dd@aol.com> THE TAMPA REVIEW PRIZE FOR POETRY This major new book award offers hardcover publication, $500 cash, royalties on sales of the book, and a selected portfolio of poems previewed in the hardcover biannual TAMPA REVIEW. The editors invite manuscript submissions by new and established poets. $20 entry. Postmark deadline December 31. See complete guidelines at http://tampareview.ut.edu/TampaprizePD/ or send an SASE for printed guidelines to: Tampa Review Prize Attn: Poetry Daily Promotion University of Tampa Press 401 West Kennedy Blvd. Tampa, FL 33606 From MillB Mon Nov 5 09:56:50 2001 From: MillB (MillB at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 09:56:50 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Revision Message-ID: <14.1d160690.291802b2@aol.com> Greetings: Maybe it's urban legend or poet-lore, but I've heard that Dylan Thomas only wrote one line a day. . .so, in effect, he revised in his head. . .before the line even made it to the page. Or he wrote notes and scribblings on small tear-offs of paper. His "final draft" was the first draft. Which goes to prove that there are many variations of the term "revision." Mill From wasanthony Mon Nov 5 10:17:21 2001 From: wasanthony (jcervantes) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 07:17:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Revision In-Reply-To: <14.1d160690.291802b2@aol.com> Message-ID: <20011105151721.80806.qmail@web12104.mail.yahoo.com> --- MillB at aol.com wrote: > Greetings: > > Maybe it's urban legend or poet-lore, but I've heard that Dylan > Thomas only > wrote one line a day. . .so, in effect, he revised in his head. . > .before the > line even made it to the page. Yeah, I do that during the hiking season: make, revise, stitch, make, revise, stitch etc. Works well with the rhythm of hiking. > Or he wrote notes and scribblings on > small > tear-offs of paper. His "final draft" was the first draft. > The final draft is the first and last *written* draft. - Jim ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: wasanthony at yahoo.com & jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: "Ripples" @ Poetserv: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From JforJames Mon Nov 5 10:51:11 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 10:51:11 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Revision Message-ID: <2b.1dc35937.29180f6f@aol.com> In a message dated 11/5/01 9:57:27 AM Eastern Standard Time, MillB at aol.com writes: > Which goes to prove that there are many variations of the term "revision." > Mill, as you suggest there are many ways to "revise"...Amber suggested that Collins might be doing a lot of revision "on the fly" in the first draft. Tho it doesn't sound like that to me. I wouldn't have guessed it, but it seems Collins is vested in the verbal motion & rhetorical effect that "alla prima" writing can convey. Surprising, to me, because of the level of polish I find in his lines & the well-worked-out structures of his "poetic arguments," if you will. (In fact, the physical evidence of the poems makes me doubt his purported m.o. so much, I want subpeona his records: notebooks & drafts.) I think there is perhaps a useful distinction between the phase of "roughing out" the poem and the process of "revision." Most practical/teaching texts & articles deal with the revision, it seems to me. Fewer try to articulate approaches to accreting or drawing out the lines that will eventually be the first draft. Often, when it comes to praxis, what gets the first draft done is either left to "inspiration" or made a matter of a "creative writing exercise." A gulf exists between what is "magic" and the somewhat "artificial" process of the creative exercise. Finnegan From GrahamD Mon Nov 5 11:31:05 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 10:31:05 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Revision Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFD7@mail.ripon.edu> Many rooms in the mansion of poetry, yes, and many flavors of revision. For pedagogical purposes the comp texts usefully break the process out into its parts--prewriting & research, brainstorming, note-taking, invention exercises, drafting, revision, editing, etc. But these are not always distinct stages, of course, nor do they necessarily occur in linear fashion. And many accomplished writers learn to telescope the parts, or accomplish much before pen hits paper. Collins sounds like someone who does a lot of the preliminary work in his head, and then revises mentally (perhaps fairly lightly) as he drafts. But even he admits to a form of revision--a very important one, seems to me: he throws out completed drafts if they don't work. That's different from word-by-word tinkering, but it's still revision. If he's telling the truth about his methods, I suspect his wastebasket is crammed with aborted drafts. Needless to say, what matters to a reader is the final product. As reader I don't really care how Collins works, though as a fellow practitioner I'm interested in what he has to say about process. I sometimes tell my students that there is a spectrum of possibility with revision. To oversimplify, you can either draft 25 poems and keep the best one, or you can re-write the same poem 25 times. I really haven't encountered any successful poet who does *no* revision--or at least no poet who is successful in my eyes. Seems to me that both methods can "work," and I wouldn't necessarily call one more "facile" than the other, not in the derogatory sense, anyway. Only once in a great while does a truly successful poem just pop out, as far as I can tell, even or especially for poets who profess not to revise much. Whether one should *publish* all one's drafts and lesser efforts or not is another question. Allen Ginsberg was the sort of poet whose every 25th poem or so was pretty good, and I for one wish he had not always printed the other 24. As far as the magic of inspiration goes, I love the possibly apocryphal anecdote Hugo tells in *The Triggering Town*--about how a spectator allegedly commented on a "lucky shot" made by Jack Nicklaus. Nicklaus reported responded, "yes, but I notice that the more I practice, the luckier I get." I think that's exactly right: there *is* something magical about the process, but it's nurtured with practice. David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: JforJames at aol.com > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Monday, November 5, 2001 9:51 AM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Revision > > In a message dated 11/5/01 9:57:27 AM Eastern Standard Time, MillB at aol.com > > writes: > > > Which goes to prove that there are many variations of the term > "revision." > > > Mill, as you suggest there are many ways to "revise"...Amber suggested > that Collins might be doing a lot of revision "on the fly" in the first > draft. Tho it > doesn't sound like that to me. I wouldn't have guessed it, but it seems > Collins is vested in the verbal motion & rhetorical effect that "alla > prima" > writing can convey. Surprising, to me, because of the level of polish > I find in his lines & the well-worked-out structures of his "poetic > arguments," > if you will. (In fact, the physical evidence of the poems makes me doubt > his purported m.o. so much, I want subpeona his records: notebooks & > drafts.) > > I think there is perhaps a useful distinction between the phase of > "roughing > out" the poem and the process of "revision." Most practical/teaching texts > & articles deal with the revision, it seems to me. Fewer try to articulate > > approaches to accreting or drawing out the lines that will eventually be > the first draft. Often, when it comes to praxis, what gets the first draft > > done > is either left to "inspiration" or made a matter of a "creative writing > exercise." > A gulf exists between what is "magic" and the somewhat "artificial" > process of the creative exercise. > Finnegan > From paul.lake Mon Nov 5 00:40:25 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 23:40:25 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Revision In-Reply-To: <14.1d160690.291802b2@aol.com> Message-ID: on 11/5/01 8:56 AM, MillB at aol.com at MillB at aol.com wrote: > Greetings: > > Maybe it's urban legend or poet-lore, but I've heard that Dylan Thomas only > wrote one line a day. . .so, in effect, he revised in his head. . .before the > line even made it to the page. Or he wrote notes and scribblings on small > tear-offs of paper. His "final draft" was the first draft. > > Which goes to prove that there are many variations of the term "revision." > > Mill > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > I read somewhere that Dylan Thomas's friend Vernon Watkins, looking through one of Thomas's notebooks, discovered 200 versions of "Fern Hill." Thomas himself once said that he'd write every day till noon, and that a good day meant that he'd produced two usable lines. Paul Lake From JforJames Mon Nov 5 12:13:13 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 12:13:13 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Kelsey Street Press announces... Message-ID: <6c.128519e3.291822a9@aol.com> The Kelsey Street Press announces a two-month period of open submissions--from November 1 to December 31, 2001. We are looking for unpublished book-length collections of poems or poetically-informed prose. We are especially interested in receiving submissions from younger or less established writers. Manuscripts will be selected in early 2002 and published in 2003. We are interested in books with some cohesion in their overall composition and style whether it is a sense of narrative or consists of a set of interrelated series or parts. We appreciate writing that tells a story but not in the usual way, which subverts a particular kind of genre, has a sense of wit or irony, is honest but not na?ve, but is also direct, surprising, vital and graceful. The press is especially interested in work in which the writing, the page and the form of the book are in dynamic relation. Kelsey Street Press was founded in 1974 to publish experimental writing by women and has a history of publishing poets' collaborations with visual artists. Recent publications include Juice by Renee Gladman, Symbiosis by Barbara Guest and Laurie Reid, and Tales of Horror by Laura Mullen. Collaborations will not be accepted in this call for manuscripts. For more information on the press, please view our website at http://www.kelseyst.com Letters of inquiry and/or manuscripts should be sent to: Kelsey St. Press attn: Tanya Erzen/ Karla Nielsen 50 Northgate Ave Berkeley, CA 94705 From spacks Mon Nov 5 14:51:49 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 11:51:49 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... In-Reply-To: <6c.128519e3.291822a9@aol.com> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011105115149.007fb410@snowcrest.net> The following announcement of a Daniel Albright lecture in Santa Barbara -- one I can't get to -- got me thinking: what's so bad about (shades of the Collins thread?) being a 200-rewrite bricoleur? I confess I'm guilty of approaching many an art this way; common practice? rare? (maybe righteously to be despised)? B. ************** "Noble Savages in Armani Suits: American Art in the Late Twentieth Century" 4 P.M. / Thursday, November 8 /FREE McCune Conference Room, 6020 Humanities & Social Sciences Building In the last twenty years, the American artist has combined the old predilection for ignoble material with the European bricoleur?s predilection for slapdash technique. But the effect is not a total abdication of artistic control; instead it is often peculiarly charming, since the locus of the failure lies not in the artist but in art itself. In this talk, Albright will examine the operations of this studied nonchalance in the poetry of John Ashbery and Charles Wright--what might be called the anti-ideogrammic method--and in the illegible graphisms of the painter Cy Twombley and the composers Earle Brown and Christian Wolff. From adead_poet Mon Nov 5 15:48:46 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 14:48:46 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: ah, i see a few of my personal favorites in your lists of influences. love sandburg and frost. plath is a favorite of mine. and the more millay i read, the more i like her. i'm not sure what sort of influence they've had on me, other than a few poems attempting to mimic what they've done or their style. i know frost had an influence on me wanting to do some metrical work. and i love his sonnets. i keep them in mind whenever i try to write one. jason > >My first major literary unfluence was the work of >Thomas Wolfe--I became quite drunk on his words at a >young age--followed by works of Carl Sandburg. >Followed by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Frost, TS >Eliot and much later, in college, Syvia Plath, and, of >course, Dorothy Parker. > > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From GrahamD Mon Nov 5 16:36:05 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 15:36:05 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFDB@mail.ripon.edu> I never know how to answer the influence question. So many branching options--deep influences, not necessarily literary (pop & folk songs, The Book of Common Prayer, Rembrandt), early influences (Robert Bly, alas), brief hot enthusiasms (that year when I read all of Richard Hugo), enduring favorites (Whitman, Williams, Dickinson), recent discoveries (Alden Nowlan, Gray Jacobik), etc. Some poets I absolutely adore (Robert Frost, Philip Larkin) without finding much visible influence on me. Others I know I've picked up a trick or two from--but this would be invisible to anyone else (Marianne Moore, for one). Sometimes I *want* to be influenced but it doesn't take (Pattiann Rogers, Yeats, Donald Justice). Then there are teachers, whose influence was often as much on my character and habits as on my taste, or who pointed me toward other poets I adopted. And of course there are my close friends, all of whom are published in heaven. For more than 20 years I've seldom written a line without wondering what my pal Dennis Finnell (who?) might think of it. He's influenced me deeply, but perhaps not in my style. Donald Hall once wrote that he simply rotates the answers he gives when asked who his favorite poets are. One day he might say Andrew Marvell, the next day Geoffrey Hill. Day after that, E. A. Robinson. . . . When asked that question I tend to name poets I think are under-appreciated, whether or not they've influenced my style deeply or whether or not I think they're "great" : Robert Morgan, Brendan Galvin, Robert Francis, Norman Nicholson, Marianne Boruch, and of course Dennis Finnell. . . . David Graham =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: dead poet > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Monday, November 5, 2001 2:48 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] influences > > ah, i see a few of my personal favorites in your lists of influences. love > > sandburg and frost. plath is a favorite of mine. and the more millay i > read, > the more i like her. i'm not sure what sort of influence they've had on > me, > other than a few poems attempting to mimic what they've done or their > style. > i know frost had an influence on me wanting to do some metrical work. and > i > love his sonnets. i keep them in mind whenever i try to write one. > > jason > > From CobbCoStudioArts Mon Nov 5 16:37:39 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 13:37:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... Message-ID: <20011105213740.10A3836F9@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From adead_poet Mon Nov 5 16:52:07 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 15:52:07 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences Message-ID: well, i can make it an easier question. i may not have been clear in the original post, but i'm wondering how the teachers you had in school influenced. i'm wondering if formalist begat formalists, postmodern begat postmodern, and so on. sort of an informal study of whether or not the teacher influences the new poet. i know influences extend far beyond just the teacher, and beyond the art itself. jason >From: "Graham, David" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: "'new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu'" >Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences >Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 15:36:05 -0600 > >I never know how to answer the influence question. So many branching >options--deep influences, not necessarily literary (pop & folk songs, The >Book of Common Prayer, Rembrandt), early influences (Robert Bly, alas), >brief hot enthusiasms (that year when I read all of Richard Hugo), enduring >favorites (Whitman, Williams, Dickinson), recent discoveries (Alden Nowlan, >Gray Jacobik), etc. > >Some poets I absolutely adore (Robert Frost, Philip Larkin) without finding >much visible influence on me. Others I know I've picked up a trick or two >from--but this would be invisible to anyone else (Marianne Moore, for one). >Sometimes I *want* to be influenced but it doesn't take (Pattiann Rogers, >Yeats, Donald Justice). Then there are teachers, whose influence was often >as much on my character and habits as on my taste, or who pointed me toward >other poets I adopted. > >And of course there are my close friends, all of whom are published in >heaven. For more than 20 years I've seldom written a line without >wondering >what my pal Dennis Finnell (who?) might think of it. He's influenced me >deeply, but perhaps not in my style. > >Donald Hall once wrote that he simply rotates the answers he gives when >asked who his favorite poets are. One day he might say Andrew Marvell, the >next day Geoffrey Hill. Day after that, E. A. Robinson. . . . > >When asked that question I tend to name poets I think are >under-appreciated, >whether or not they've influenced my style deeply or whether or not I think >they're "great" : Robert Morgan, Brendan Galvin, Robert Francis, Norman >Nicholson, Marianne Boruch, and of course Dennis Finnell. . . . > >David Graham > > >=================== >David Graham >grahamd at mail.ripon.edu >=================== > > > ---------- > > From: dead poet > > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > Sent: Monday, November 5, 2001 2:48 PM > > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] influences > > > > ah, i see a few of my personal favorites in your lists of influences. >love > > > > sandburg and frost. plath is a favorite of mine. and the more millay i > > read, > > the more i like her. i'm not sure what sort of influence they've had on > > me, > > other than a few poems attempting to mimic what they've done or their > > style. > > i know frost had an influence on me wanting to do some metrical work. >and > > i > > love his sonnets. i keep them in mind whenever i try to write one. > > > > jason > > > > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From JforJames Mon Nov 5 16:58:14 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 16:58:14 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Revision Message-ID: <161.36af372.29186576@aol.com> In a message dated 11/5/01 11:32:43 AM Eastern Standard Time, GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU writes: > To oversimplify, you can either draft 25 poems and keep the best > one, or you can re-write the same poem 25 times. I really haven't > encountered any successful poet who does *no* revision--or at least no poet > who is successful in my eyes. Seems to me that both methods can "work David, I don't have the Paris Review interview at hand, but one of the points that Collins made was that the slow "integrating" method of making a poem out of bits & pieces, lines by passage, cut & paste, was not producing very satisfying results in contemporary poetry. I believe he said in so many words that he could "see the marks" of this kind of process in a lot of contemporary poetry. (Maybe he's seeing the postmod penchant for fragmentation & discontinuity). He definitely seemed to indicate that for him the poem should arise form a run of thought/extensive expression that shouldn't be interrupted/disrupted by collaging this bit in here or deleting that whole passage there. Finnegan From spacks Mon Nov 5 18:40:37 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 15:40:37 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... In-Reply-To: <20011105213740.10A3836F9@sitemail.everyone.net> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011105154037.008032b0@snowcrest.net> At 01:37 PM 11/5/01 -0800, you wrote: >Barry, > >Is Daniel Albright related in any way to Ivan Albright? > >Bob don't know either of them, Bob, but here's the true gen on Dan, as produced by the Santa Barbara folks sponsoring his lecture: Daniel Albright is Richard L. Turner Professor in the Humanities at the University of Rochester. He is the author of numerous books, including "Representation and the Imagination: Beckett, Kafka, Nabokov," "Schoenberg, Lyricality and English Literature," "Stravinsky: the Music Box and the Nightingale," "Quantum Poetics: Yeats, Pound, and Eliot and the Science of Modernism," and most recently "Untwisting the Serpent: Modernism in Music, Literature, and other Arts." He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellow and an NEH Senior Fellow. (& by the way, Bill Gates cut off the last word in my subject line -- don't you hate it when he does that?! -- which should read (we bricoleuren can be fastidiously particular): "Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twobley?" best, Barry From cstroffo Mon Nov 5 19:59:58 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 16:59:58 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences References: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <3BE7360D.9B2D14F9@earthlink.net> the size of your accomplishment? Bob Grumman wrote: > A related question might be: how many significantly different > KINDS of poets have you been significantly influenced by? Of > course, this is a rather self-congratulatory question for me since > I've been influenced importantly by just about every kind of poet > imaginable (Keats, Lax, Kempton, Roethke, Williams, Basho, > Cummings, Bennett . . .) but if I were strongly influenced by > only one kind of poet, I think I'd wonder about the size of my > accomplishment (not that I don't anyway). > > --Bob G. > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From spacks Mon Nov 5 21:18:00 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 18:18:00 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences In-Reply-To: <3BE7360D.9B2D14F9@earthlink.net> References: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011105181800.00803a70@snowcrest.net> At 04:59 PM 11/5/01 -0800, Chris wrote: >the size of your accomplishment? > 11B? > >Bob Grumman wrote: > >> A related question might be: how many significantly different >> KINDS of poets have you been significantly influenced by? Of >> course, this is a rather self-congratulatory question for me since >> I've been influenced importantly by just about every kind of poet >> imaginable (Keats, Lax, Kempton, Roethke, Williams, Basho, >> Cummings, Bennett . . .) but if I were strongly influenced by >> only one kind of poet, I think I'd wonder about the size of my >> accomplishment (not that I don't anyway). >> >> --Bob G. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> New-Poetry mailing list >> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > From Thom424 Mon Nov 5 21:19:30 2001 From: Thom424 (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 21:19:30 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Help Message-ID: I'm looking for mailing addresses for the following poets (none is listed in the most recent A DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN POETS AND FICTION WRITERS from Poets & Writers): Thomas Centolella Tim Suermondt Jake Adam York Beckian Fritz Goldberg Thanks for your help. Thom Tammaro Moorhead, MN From grahamd Mon Nov 5 21:23:47 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 20:23:47 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Help Message-ID: <200111060222.fA62M9230292@mx15.mx.voyager.net> Beckian Fritz Goldberg Associate Professor Department of English Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona 85287-0302 (602) 965-3663 beckian at asu.edu _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- >From: Thom424 at aol.com >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Help >Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2001, 8:19 PM > >I'm looking for mailing addresses for the following poets (none is listed in >the most recent A DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN POETS AND FICTION WRITERS from Poets >& Writers): > >Thomas Centolella >Tim Suermondt >Jake Adam York >Beckian Fritz Goldberg > > >Thanks for your help. > >Thom Tammaro >Moorhead, MN >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From JackKerouac25 Mon Nov 5 22:19:29 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 22:19:29 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: <167.36de705.2918b0c1@aol.com> Wow . . . good question. Generally, whomever I'm reading becomes an influence. Right now, it's Machado. In my work, though, I think you can see Philip Levine (for better or worse), Rimbaud, Whitman, Eliot (sadly enough), and Weldon Kees. Contemporary poets like Mark Jarman, Dana Gioia, and (believe it or not) R.S. Gwynn influence me as well. Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 From JackKerouac25 Mon Nov 5 22:23:30 2001 From: JackKerouac25 (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 22:23:30 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] A Poet's Response to 9/11 Message-ID: <115.731a487.2918b1b2@aol.com> There's an interesting article by Dana Gioia at _San Francisco Magazine Online_. http://www.sanfran.com/features/SF0111critics.htm Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 850.473.7330 From Rsgwynn1 Tue Nov 6 00:56:06 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 00:56:06 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] influences Message-ID: In a message dated 11/5/2001 9:20:33 PM Central Standard Time, JackKerouac25 at aol.com writes: > Contemporary poets like Mark Jarman, Dana Gioia, and (believe it or not) > R.S. > Gwynn influence me as well. > Stop them before they multiply! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From adead_poet Tue Nov 6 02:59:51 2001 From: adead_poet (dead poet) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 01:59:51 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] billy collins Message-ID: I went to the Billy Collins reading at U of Houston tonight. I?m not sure what the controversy over him is about (though much like Gioia, I think it is really about jealousy/money). It was a great reading, he reads his poems well. I haven?t read the collection yet, so I don?t know how they do on the page vs his reading, but I think they?ll be successful. He has a great use of humor. And I don?t know if I?d call him a ?frivolous? poet. Not every poem is successful, and I wouldn?t go so far as to say he is one of the greatest poets ever, but I don?t see where the rabid anti-Collins feelings come from. I rather enjoyed it. jason _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From BobGrumman Tue Nov 6 05:46:51 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 05:46:51 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences References: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> <3.0.5.32.20011105181800.00803a70@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <3BE7BF9B.1007@nut-n-but.net> Barry Spacks wrote: > At 04:59 PM 11/5/01 -0800, Chris wrote: > >the size of your accomplishment? > > > 11B? I missed Chris's comment. For new-poetry, I guess elucidation is required. An accomplishment is something someone does. Some accomplishments do not seem important. One can (metaphorically, I suppose--if you follow, or have access to a dictionary) call them small accomplishments, meaning insignificant, not worth mentioning, of little consequence, etc. Other accomplishments, which seem of greater importance, can be termed "large," using similar reasoning. Since "small" and "large" are words associated with size, it therefore seems not improper to me to speak of the "size" of an accomplishment. I hope this clarifies my perhaps too adventurously figurative language for you, Barry and Chris. --Bob G. > >Bob Grumman wrote: > > > >> A related question might be: how many significantly different > >> KINDS of poets have you been significantly influenced by? Of > >> course, this is a rather self-congratulatory question for me since > >> I've been influenced importantly by just about every kind of poet > >> imaginable (Keats, Lax, Kempton, Roethke, Williams, Basho, > >> Cummings, Bennett . . .) but if I were strongly influenced by > >> only one kind of poet, I think I'd wonder about the size of my > >> accomplishment (not that I don't anyway). > >> > >> --Bob G. From BobGrumman Tue Nov 6 05:58:20 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 05:58:20 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] A Poet's Response to 9/11 References: <115.731a487.2918b1b2@aol.com> Message-ID: <3BE7C24B.3FD9@nut-n-but.net> Gioia's response to the World Trade Center Obliteration seems typical of him: he picks out the very poem (by a very famous dead poet) that half the mediocrities in the American world of poetry immediately think of after the disaster and writes a very sound, very clear, completely unsurprising essay about it. --Bob G. JackKerouac25 at aol.com wrote: > > There's an interesting article by Dana Gioia at _San Francisco Magazine Online_. From katenexile Tue Nov 6 09:06:30 2001 From: katenexile (kate thorn) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 06:06:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20011106140630.17887.qmail@web12206.mail.yahoo.com> School for me was a long time ago. But there were two that were memorable. The first was a stickler for grammar and proper writing technique and she also pointed me towards Thomas Wolfe! The second was avant garde in her approach. We dispensed of a formal English book, grammar, etc--and learned how to express ourselves. She even had the football players writing poetry! Naturally, someone that "dangerous" would be made to conform, which she refused to do--and quit teaching. She taught me to question what I was reading--to look beyond the story, the plot--what was the purpose of the story? Quite a lot for a Senior English class--even if it was advanced English! Kate ===== PassionForPoetry at yahoogroups.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PassionForPoetry __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com From mackechnie Tue Nov 6 09:20:13 2001 From: mackechnie (Russ MacKechnie) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 09:20:13 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] A Poet's Response to 9/11 In-Reply-To: <3BE7C24B.3FD9@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: > Gioia's response to the World Trade Center Obliteration > seems typical of him: he picks out the very poem (by a > very famous dead poet) that half the mediocrities in the > American world of poetry immediately think of after the > disaster and writes a very sound, very clear, completely > unsurprising essay about it. > > --Bob G. And your snide, unreasoned response to Gioia seems typical of you, Bob. If the "size of your accomplisments," poetically or otherwise, were remotely proportionate to your insufferable ego---an ego lacking even the most rickety intellectual, critical lumber to support its elephantine weight---there would not be an anthology in the English-speaking world ungraced by a Grummanian Mathemaku (may the saints preserve us). Sometimes poetry escapes even the best of us. You are, as Dickens would say, "a ass." Of the decidedly pompous . . . and medicore . . . breed. rwm From tadrichards Tue Nov 6 10:00:14 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 10:00:14 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences References: <20011106140630.17887.qmail@web12206.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <010001c166d3$be158ae0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> School was a long time ago for me, too, and I'm not sure I could give a good answer to this question after all these years, but I'll ask it anyway. What did our early mentors do that was significant to our development? What makes a Donald Justice, say, such a great teacher? Or others? Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "kate thorn" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 9:06 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] RE: influences > School for me was a long time ago. But there were two > that were memorable. The first was a stickler for > grammar and proper writing technique and she also > pointed me towards Thomas Wolfe! The second was avant > garde in her approach. We dispensed of a formal > English book, grammar, etc--and learned how to express > ourselves. She even had the football players writing > poetry! Naturally, someone that "dangerous" would be > made to conform, which she refused to do--and quit > teaching. She taught me to question what I was > reading--to look beyond the story, the plot--what was > the purpose of the story? Quite a lot for a Senior > English class--even if it was advanced English! > > Kate > > ===== > PassionForPoetry at yahoogroups.com > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PassionForPoetry > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Find a job, post your resume. > http://careers.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From MillB Tue Nov 6 10:18:19 2001 From: MillB (MillB at aol.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 10:18:19 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Help Message-ID: FYI Beckian is on page 6 in the P and W directory. . . Cheers Mill From spacks Tue Nov 6 11:39:44 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 08:39:44 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] comparing sizes In-Reply-To: <3BE7BF9B.1007@nut-n-but.net> References: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> <3.0.5.32.20011105181800.00803a70@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011106083944.00804160@snowcrest.net> >> At 04:59 PM 11/5/01 -0800, Bob G wrote: >I hope this clarifies my perhaps too adventurously >figurative language for you, Barry and Chris. > Well sure, Bob, but can't the little joke take a breath? All this judging and ranking and worrying over "size" is at least a little bit funny, wouldn't you say? And sad. And potentially harmful, no?. Aspiration for top "grosses" often seems like a national obsession, one that poetry -- that any creativity -- has to stand to the side of, if only to survive, much less to provide an alternative. My concern is not just that "size of accomplishment" thinking sometimes tries to beat the competition into the ground by any means necessary, it's more the way the attitude tends to stifle a modest practitioner or, worse, release unbelievable spew from more aggressive would-be poetry-world dominators. I see a serious issue, then, behind the little joke that gently says be cool. (and 11B, hey, that's already a pretty hefty size, many will be impressed). respectfully, B. We do for the love of the doing. -- anon From CobbCoStudioArts Tue Nov 6 11:59:49 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 08:59:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] comparing sizes Message-ID: <20011106165949.43AE72756@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From Rsgwynn1 Tue Nov 6 12:06:34 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 12:06:34 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] billy collins Message-ID: <25.1dca1a34.2919729a@cs.com> In a message dated 11/6/01 2:00:37 AM Central Standard Time, adead_poet at hotmail.com writes: > > I went to the Billy Collins reading at U of Houston tonight. I?m not sure > what the controversy over him is about (though much like Gioia, I think it > is really about jealousy/money). It was a great reading, he reads his poems > well. I haven?t read the collection yet, so I don?t know how they do on > the > page vs his reading, but I think they?ll be successful. He has a great use > of humor. And I don?t know if I?d call him a ?frivolous? poet. Not every > poem is successful, and I wouldn?t go so far as to say he is one of the > greatest poets ever, but I don?t see where the rabid anti-Collins feelings > come from. I rather enjoyed it. > > jason > > I agree with this. Some of the poems were moving, and almost all of them were funny. Collins reads in a very droll manner with understated tone. His poems are perfectly matched with his speaking voice. I think that a lot of the structure of his poems comes from his experience as a jazz pianist: there's a theme and then several variations on it. It was as good a reading as I've attended in a long while. Incidentally, he opened with a Neruda poem that seemed to have something to do with the notion that the ultimate protest is beauty, and he reiterated some of those post-9/11 remarks on his "duty" in the Q & A that followed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Tue Nov 6 12:10:41 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 12:10:41 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] A Poet's Response to 9/11 Message-ID: In a message dated 11/6/01 8:21:05 AM Central Standard Time, mackechnie at email.msn.com writes: > > Gioia's response to the World Trade Center Obliteration > > seems typical of him: he picks out the very poem (by a > > very famous dead poet) that half the mediocrities in the > > American world of poetry immediately think of after the > > disaster and writes a very sound, very clear, completely > > unsurprising essay about it. > This mediocrity immediately thought of it and read it to his class of mediocrities. How shall I ever escape from this mire? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Tue Nov 6 12:13:26 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 12:13:26 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] comparing sizes Message-ID: <62.16849ebb.29197436@cs.com> In a message dated 11/6/01 10:35:07 AM Central Standard Time, spacks at snowcrest.net writes: > I see a serious issue, then, behind the little joke that > gently says be cool. > > (and 11B, hey, that's already a pretty hefty size, many will > be impressed). > > I'm impressed, especially at how he manages to fit it into his mouth so deftly and so often. (Sorry. Couldn't resist and besides Moira is absent.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From CobbCoStudioArts Tue Nov 6 13:23:36 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 10:23:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] comparing sizes Message-ID: <20011106182336.989332755@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From CobbCoStudioArts Tue Nov 6 13:34:42 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 10:34:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] comparing sizes Message-ID: <20011106183442.A83BE2756@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From BobGrumman Tue Nov 6 16:03:22 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 16:03:22 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] A Poet's Response to 9/11 References: Message-ID: <3BE8501A.674C@nut-n-but.net> Russ MacKechnie wrote: > > > Gioia's response to the World Trade Center Obliteration > > seems typical of him: he picks out the very poem (by a > > very famous dead poet) that half the mediocrities in the > > American world of poetry immediately think of after the > > disaster and writes a very sound, very clear, completely > > unsurprising essay about it. > > > > --Bob G. > > And your snide, unreasoned response to Gioia seems typical of you, Bob. > If the "size of your accomplisments," poetically or otherwise, were > remotely proportionate to your insufferable ego---an ego lacking even > the most rickety intellectual, critical lumber to support its > elephantine weight---there would not be an anthology in the > English-speaking world ungraced by a Grummanian Mathemaku (may the > saints preserve us). Sometimes poetry escapes even the best of us. You > are, as Dickens would say, "a ass." Of the decidedly pompous . . . and > medicore . . . breed. Just the kind of defense of Gioia I would expect from an imbecile like you, Russ. --Bob G. From BobGrumman Tue Nov 6 16:24:51 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 16:24:51 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] comparing sizes References: <3BE679A2.2B56@nut-n-but.net> <3.0.5.32.20011105181800.00803a70@snowcrest.net> <3.0.5.32.20011106083944.00804160@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <3BE85523.4091@nut-n-but.net> > Well sure, Bob, but can't the little joke take a breath? The joke was mildly funny, but I didn't think Chris's seeming to question what I meant by "size of accomplishment" made much sense as a joke or serious comment. (But, I was only reacting to a quote from his post, so don't really know what he meant by his question.) And it irked me that it seems to have been the only reaction to my post, except the 11b. > All this judging and ranking and worrying over "size" > is at least a little bit funny, wouldn't you say? And sad. > And potentially harmful, no?. Worrying over anything is funny, I suppose. Judging is impossible to avoid, so we should do it intelligently (unless you have time to read every poem published--and stay up on everything else in our culture at the same time). Concern over ranking is interesting, and ultimately important for any poet who cares whether anyone bothers with what he composes or not--though very comic, most of the time. As for size of one's accomplishment, I can only say that I care very much about mine. I have this strange desire to achieve as much as I can--to make the most of my life. > Aspiration for top "grosses" often seems like a > national obsession, one that poetry -- that any creativity -- > has to stand to the side of, if only to survive, > much less to provide an alternative. I don't know about that, but I've certainly stood aside from it all my life. In any case, it has nothing to do with my idea of size of accomplishment. > My concern is not just that "size of accomplishment" thinking > sometimes tries to beat the competition into the ground > by any means necessary, it's more the way the attitude tends to > stifle a modest practitioner or, worse, release unbelievable > spew from more aggressive would-be poetry-world dominators. That a kind of thinking can be misused is no reason to spurn its appropriate use. You might consider that some "modest practitioner," attacked for being influenced by formalists only, for instance, might widen his interests--and improve as a poet (i.e., increase the size of his accomplishment). I grant you that I sometimes sound (perhaps) like I'm trying to beat the competition into the ground, but I'm really (in my opinion) only trying to clear a little space for my own kind of poetry--and absolutely have no desire to "dominate." > I see a serious issue, then, behind the little joke that > gently says be cool. Right. So do I. > (and 11B, hey, that's already a pretty hefty size, many will > be impressed). Not in hat sizes, I don't think. . . . But I pride myself in having an unusually small hat size. > respectfully, > > B. > > We do for the love of the doing. > -- anon But would love to be paid for it so we could do more than we now have the time to do for the love of doing. --bnon --Bob G. From BobGrumman Tue Nov 6 16:31:41 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 16:31:41 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] A Poet's Response to 9/11 References: Message-ID: <3BE856BD.4999@nut-n-but.net> Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: > > In a message dated 11/6/01 8:21:05 AM Central Standard Time, > mackechnie at email.msn.com writes: > > > Gioia's response to the World Trade Center Obliteration > > seems typical of him: he picks out the very poem (by a > > very famous dead poet) that half the mediocrities in the > > American world of poetry immediately think of after the > > disaster and writes a very sound, very clear, completely > > unsurprising essay about it. > > This mediocrity immediately thought of it and read it to his class of > mediocrities. How shall I ever escape from this mire? Well, that a thing was thought by mediocrities does not mean it could not be thought by a non-mediocrity. If you're really concerned. --Bob G. From GrahamD Tue Nov 6 17:32:10 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 16:32:10 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFDE@mail.ripon.edu> Gioa's essay about poetic responses to 9/11 (http://www.sanfran.com/features/SF0111critics.htm ) was interesting and sane, I thought. And let's not forget that it's journalism--not literary criticism--that he's writing here. Lumping him together with all the "mediocrities" in the poetry world--without engaging his argument, his poetics, his politics, or indeed anything specific--serves little point, seems to me, especially if you happen to agree with what he says. I was amused by one thing. For I couldn't help noticing how strenuously Gioia seems to try and lay claim to the Auden poem, calling it a "long-neglected masterpiece" and implying that he might just have been the one who sent it out on its recent burst of popularity on the internet. He doesn't say so outright, of course. But he makes a point of mentioning how he was quoted on the radio reciting the poem, how someone at his reading later read the Auden at her reading, etc. To what point? Well, probably he's auditioning for the job of laureate, I would guess. And one could argue that, because Gioia seems much happier in the role of public spokesperson, he might be a better choice for the job than Billy Collins--which seems to be the not-so-buried plea in this passage: "Not many writers can manage public poetry well. The new U.S. poet laureate, Billy Collins, has already declared his inability--ever, he claims--to address the recent tragedy, and one admires his candor, if not his boldness." In fact I think Gioia would make a good laureate. Add him to the short list. I don't agree with all of his assessments of the state of contemporary poetry, nor am I drawn to all his remedies, but it seems hard to argue with the following, for instance: _________________________ "Over the past century, American poetry has celebrated the virtues of individuality, originality, and complexity even to the point of prizing--not without reason--the enigmatic idiosyncrasy of writers. The greatness of a poet like Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, or T.S. Eliot lies at least partially in the magnificently private language each developed to express certain personal themes and obsessions. The poet has often been seen as a prophet whose pronouncements the reader/acolyte must carefully learn to interpret. This tradition has produced many masterpieces, but it has also led critics and writers to neglect poetry's other civic functions. Poetry is a vast and flexible art that should be able to express all of human experience--public and private. The horrors of September 11 remind us that the art should be able to articulate our common sorrows as well as our private ones. Sometimes great poetry is not conspicuously individual, original, or complex, but communal, familiar, and direct. What matters most is not its stylistic novelty but its expressive power." _________________________ Reading this, I think how well it applies not only to much of Gioia's own work, but to Collins's, too. They have very different attitudes toward public poetry, it's true, but in their consistent skepticism toward "the enigmatic idiosyncrasy of writers"--especially as deployed in certain modernist and post-modernist modes-- they definitely seem to share some turf. Maybe it makes sense to see them as "communal, familiar, and direct" poets? I mean this descriptively, not as praise or blame, in case that isn't obvious. =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== From GrahamD Tue Nov 6 17:46:54 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 16:46:54 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFDF@mail.ripon.edu> Think I've said this before, but briefly: The formalist / free verse schism was one I happily avoided, partly due to my good luck in teachers. In college I studied under Sydney Lea, who recognizes the absurdity of erecting battle lines on such a flimsy basis (as if loving Ginsberg means you can't also love Justice). Then in grad school I encountered Madeline DeFrees and Joe Langland, who were similarly spirited. My good fortune, I can see now. I gather not everyone enjoyed my kind of experience. My own work has tended increasingly toward free verse end of the spectrum, but with frequent forays into various experiments in conventional form. I have in fact a great love for the tradition, including the tradition of William Carlos Williams as well as that of Robert Frost (to put it in shorthand). =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: dead poet > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Monday, November 5, 2001 3:52 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] RE: influences > > well, i can make it an easier question. i may not have been clear in the > original post, but i'm wondering how the teachers you had in school > influenced. i'm wondering if formalist begat formalists, postmodern begat > postmodern, and so on. sort of an informal study of whether or not the > teacher influences the new poet. > > i know influences extend far beyond just the teacher, and beyond the art > itself. > > jason > > From duemer Tue Nov 6 17:45:29 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 17:45:29 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: influences References: Message-ID: <000a01c16714$bca7b980$18724342@twcny.rr.com> <> My most influential teachers were Donald Justice & Sandra McPherson, but I don't think either one influenced my style; rather, I learned the working details of poetry from them, as well as a certain disdain for the fashionable. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From duemer Tue Nov 6 17:49:24 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 17:49:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... References: <3.0.5.32.20011105154037.008032b0@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <000f01c16715$487b5160$18724342@twcny.rr.com> I took an NEH Summer Seminar with Dan Albright in 1995 on Modernist music & literature. He's smart & a little eccentric & well worth listening to. Encyclopedic knowledge of 20th c. literature & music. jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From CobbCoStudioArts Tue Nov 6 18:52:56 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 15:52:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... Message-ID: <20011106235256.B8EF72757@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From CobbCoStudioArts Tue Nov 6 18:57:31 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 15:57:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... Message-ID: <20011106235732.138212755@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From gmcvay Tue Nov 6 21:37:46 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 21:37:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFDE@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is sparing you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words From JforJames Tue Nov 6 21:51:44 2001 From: JforJames (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 21:51:44 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] billy collins Message-ID: <2b.1dd0a1fb.2919fbc0@aol.com> I was not in Houston for the Collins reading. But I 've heard BC read twice and both times were very enjoyable... he's about as good in the room as they get. Finnegan From bardo Tue Nov 6 22:01:54 2001 From: bardo (Daniel Zimmerman) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 22:01:54 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] influences References: <167.36de705.2918b0c1@aol.com> Message-ID: <010401c16738$8e7a6520$7692be18@DanielZimmerman> Pretty much in order of my recognizing them as (Western) fixed stars in my bardic sky: Ezra Pound, Emily Dickinson, William Blake, John Donne, W. B. Yeats, Gregory Corso, Dylan Thomas, Dante, William Carlos Williams, Bob Dylan, Gary Snyder, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, Ed Dorn, Ed Sanders, Anselm Hollo, Ted Berrigan, John Clarke. Each of their techniques (of 'voice,' of 'style,' of 'perspective,') perfectly embodies the poet's project; each *always* proves insightful / surprising / provocative ('new') to me, no matter how many times I read his or her work. Of course, I also find individual works of many other poets valuable, even essential, but virtually every work of these I've mentioned functions as a holographic fragment of a larger vision, and each serves as a different but crucial stepping stone to my own. Dan Zimmerman ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 10:19 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] influences > Wow . . . good question. > > Generally, whomever I'm reading becomes an influence. Right now, it's > Machado. In my work, though, I think you can see Philip Levine (for better > or worse), Rimbaud, Whitman, Eliot (sadly enough), and Weldon Kees. > Contemporary poets like Mark Jarman, Dana Gioia, and (believe it or not) R.S. > Gwynn influence me as well. > > Jeffrey L. Newberry > Adjunct Instructor > Department of English and Foreign Languages > University of West Florida > 11000 University Parkway > Pensacola, FL 32514 > 850.474.2923 > 850.473.7330 > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From spacks Tue Nov 6 22:32:25 2001 From: spacks (Barry Spacks) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 19:32:25 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFDE@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20011106193225.00843e50@snowcrest.net> At 09:37 PM 11/6/01 -0500, you wrote: >Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is sparing >you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words Gwyn, "karuna" I know, good stuff, but could I have a gloss on this "muditaa"? (might need to get me some) Barry From barr Tue Nov 6 22:51:59 2001 From: barr (Brandon Barr) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 22:51:59 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Is there a thread lurking in this ball of twombley?... In-Reply-To: <20011106235256.B8EF72757@sitemail.everyone.net> References: <20011106235256.B8EF72757@sitemail.everyone.net> Message-ID: Um, Here at the U of R, we all know him as Dan, so I don't believe this information is correct; Dan may not be his given name (I've never thought to ask) but it isn't just a pen name. Dan is a soft-spoken eccentric professor who is really interested in the relationships between arts. His _Quantum Poetics_ is an amazing read, a book that really boils down what's at the heart of modernism in my mind. He has his irons in a lot of fires--both at the English Department here and I think at the Eastman School of Music. But the irons are all redhot, IMHO. At any rate, the lecture looks interesting to me. "Anti-ideogrammatic" seems at least an interesting way into Ashbery's vein of poetics... Brandon Barr University of Rochester Robert Cobb wrote: >I asked Jim Cervantes earlier if Dan Albright was in any way related >to Ivan. Apparently, Dan Albright is a pseudonym, pen name, or >what-have-you, not his given name. Anyway, if anyone is Barry Spacks wrote: >The following announcement of a Daniel Albright >lecture in Santa Barbara -- one I can't get to -- got >me thinking: what's so bad about (shades of the Collins >thread?) being a 200-rewrite bricoleur? I confess I'm guilty >of approaching many an art this way; common practice? >rare? (maybe righteously to be despised)? > >B. >************** > >"Noble Savages in Armani Suits: American Art in the Late Twentieth Century" >4 P.M. / Thursday, November 8 /FREE >McCune Conference Room, 6020 Humanities & Social Sciences Building > >In the last twenty years, the American artist has combined the old >predilection >for ignoble material with the European bricoleur?s predilection for slapdash >technique. But the effect is not a total abdication of artistic control; >instead it is often peculiarly charming, since the locus of the failure lies >not in the artist but in art itself. In this talk, Albright will examine the >operations of this studied nonchalance in the poetry of John Ashbery and >Charles Wright--what might be called the anti-ideogrammic method--and in the >illegible graphisms of the painter Cy Twombley and the composers Earle Brown >and Christian Wolff. From Rsgwynn1 Tue Nov 6 23:06:53 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 23:06:53 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece Message-ID: <130.42a51a4.291a0d5d@cs.com> In a message dated 11/6/2001 8:39:02 PM Central Standard Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his > "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But > laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > I agree. Not in my lifetime. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grahamd Tue Nov 6 23:45:07 2001 From: grahamd (David Graham) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 22:45:07 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece Message-ID: <200111070445.fA74jH962995@mx2.mx.voyager.net> Anyone interested in a friendly wager? I think Gioia will be laureate, probably sooner rather than later, given his skill at literary politicking. Certainly we have had laureates before who were on the young side--Dove was in her 40's when chosen, wasn't she? Gioia's in his 50s. I've said nothing about his merits as a poet, by the way. But as a smiling public man, well, I think he'd be a natural. As for poetic merit, well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the impression that there were some slight disagreements in these parts about the quality of the *current* laureate's work. So apparently universal critical acclaim is not necessarily a requirement for the job. . . . _______________________ David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu _______________________ ---------- From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece Date: Tue, Nov 6, 2001, 10:06 PM In a message dated 11/6/2001 8:39:02 PM Central Standard Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. I agree. Not in my lifetime. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 Wed Nov 7 00:20:14 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 00:20:14 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece Message-ID: In a message dated 11/6/2001 10:45:56 PM Central Standard Time, grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: > Anyone interested in a friendly wager? I think Gioia will be laureate, > probably sooner rather than later, given his skill at literary politicking. > Certainly we have had laureates before who were on the young side--Dove > was in her 40's when chosen, wasn't she? Gioia's in his 50s. > Dana is one of my best friends, and as much as I love him I doubt if he will ever be laureate, just the same as I know he will never get an NEA. This is not to say that I don't think he would make an effective laureate, of course. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From antrobin Wed Nov 7 00:35:08 2001 From: antrobin (Anthony Robinson) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 21:35:08 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] poem References: <167.36de705.2918b0c1@aol.com> <010401c16738$8e7a6520$7692be18@DanielZimmerman> Message-ID: <002d01c1674d$fd2222a0$72aeefd8@0021936706> Magic I've become enraptured by the twin gnomes of causality and supposition- Suppose the beautiful twins down -stairs are waiting for me, wishing I'd call. Magic, I'm told, is when one uses X to cause Y-if one lights a match after coughing and drops the fiery imp into a tall glass of water while concentrating hard upon Vanessa, the tall one, and Sarah, the shorter, but no-less fetching girl, one or the other will ring the doorbell sometime before the cock crows thrice or at least before the next full moon. If it's a blue Moon, both will come in the space of a month, and you'll be sad, so sad. And the neighbors will be suspicious. __________________ "The assumption that a poem must always have the concept of a speaking voice narrating its feeling--well that seemed and still seems an awfully narrow mandate for verbal art." Charles Bernstein "You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler you. I deride your truth-handling abilities!" Sideshow Bob Terwilliger From BobGrumman Wed Nov 7 05:20:35 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 05:20:35 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: Message-ID: <3BE90AF3.4CBD@nut-n-but.net> Gwyn McVay wrote: > > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of > his "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost > did. But laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > > Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is > sparing you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words I'm curious to know from you members of Gioia's club if Gwyn has just put her foot in her mouth. I'll put mine in mine and say that the problem with Gioia is that he IS a Jack Kennedy. What he is not, is a Tom Jefferson--but what recent poet laureate has been? --Bob G. From tadrichards Wed Nov 7 07:43:27 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 07:43:27 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: <3BE90AF3.4CBD@nut-n-but.net> Message-ID: <001901c16789$d05caec0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> My only problem with Gwyn's post is that I don't know what either karuna or muditaa means. It's hard to disagree that poet laureate is a silly institution, but I don't think it's a maleficent institution. I'm glad that there is a poet laureateship, I'm glad that it gets a certain amount of publicity and creates a little blip on the radar screen for poetry. Gioia is probably a divider, not a uniter, in the poetry world, but who isn't? The mandate of the PL, to the extend that there is one, is to be poetry's emissary to the outside world, and -- no strong admirer of Gioia myself -- t think he'd do just fine in that role. I can't imagine him going out there and using the teeny weeny pulpit to say don't read Bernstein, don't read Ashbery. I'd actually rather talk about Ted Gioia, whose generally thorough and perceptive history of jazz is tarnished by an strange white bias -- how can he spend so much time praising Glen Gray, Paul Whiteman and Ferde Grofe, and coldly dismiss the contributions of Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan? Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Grumman" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2001 5:20 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece > Gwyn McVay wrote: > > > > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of > > his "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost > > did. But laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > > > > Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is > > sparing you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words > > I'm curious to know from you members of Gioia's club if Gwyn has > just put her foot in her mouth. I'll put mine in mine and say that > the problem with Gioia is that he IS a Jack Kennedy. What he > is not, is a Tom Jefferson--but what recent poet laureate has been? > > --Bob G. > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From duemer Wed Nov 7 08:06:00 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 08:06:00 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: <3BE90AF3.4CBD@nut-n-but.net> <001901c16789$d05caec0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Message-ID: <003b01c1678c$f2c71420$18724342@twcny.rr.com> We could have Dana Gioia one year & Charles Bernstein the next--or could adopt the late Roman proconsul system & have them both in there at the same time. ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From gmcvay Wed Nov 7 08:46:10 2001 From: gmcvay (Gwyn McVay) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 08:46:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: <003b01c1678c$f2c71420$18724342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: karuna = compassion muditaa = taking pleasure in the goodness of others mala *with* long-vowel diacritics = prayer beads, often worn around the neck or at the wrist (hence the fad for those bracelets) mala *without* long-vowel diacritics = garbage And other useless knowledge... I was interested by JD's vision of a proconsul system, as Proconsul is also the genus name of a gang of apelike prehominids, and I pictured a grand rapprochement in which Gioia and Bernstein would groom each other's fleas. Gwyn "Trivia Woman" McVay From duemer Wed Nov 7 08:41:48 2001 From: duemer (Joseph Duemer) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 08:41:48 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: Message-ID: <007401c16791$f3008160$18724342@twcny.rr.com> <> Now there's a vision of poetic comity we all could learn from! jd ====================== Joseph Duemer School of Liberal Arts, 5750 Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315.268.3967 website http://web.northnet.org/duemer journal http://rw/blogspot.com ====================== From Henry_Gould Wed Nov 7 08:58:08 2001 From: Henry_Gould (Henry Gould) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 08:58:08 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: References: <003b01c1678c$f2c71420$18724342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011107085231.00aa6d00@postoffice.brown.edu> The Proconsul gang is a minor, peripheral subspecies of the Mandarinate of Sultana Vendler, which includes a constellation of courtiers including Heaney, Walcott, Graham. . . a network of international consequence. The flea circus has been underway for some time. Henry >And other useless knowledge... I was interested by JD's vision of a >proconsul system, as Proconsul is also the genus name of a gang of apelike >prehominids, and I pictured a grand rapprochement in which Gioia and >Bernstein would groom each other's fleas. > >Gwyn "Trivia Woman" McVay ******************************************************** HG afloat: www.nedgemagazine.com * www.xlibris.com/HenryGould.html www.spuytenduyvil.net * www.jacket.zip.com.au * www.unf.edu/mudlark "Read it back to me, quietly, quietly." - O. Mandelstam From cstroffo Wed Nov 7 09:35:46 2001 From: cstroffo (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 06:35:46 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: <3BE90AF3.4CBD@nut-n-but.net> <001901c16789$d05caec0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> <003b01c1678c$f2c71420$18724342@twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <3BE946C2.1000DB84@earthlink.net> oh, for a third party candidate....one without soft money.... Joseph Duemer wrote: > We could have Dana Gioia one year & Charles Bernstein the next--or could > adopt the late Roman proconsul system & have them both in there at the same > time. > ====================== > Joseph Duemer > School of Liberal Arts, 5750 > Clarkson University > Potsdam NY 13699 > 315.268.3967 > website http://web.northnet.org/duemer > journal http://rw/blogspot.com > ====================== > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From halvard Wed Nov 7 09:48:33 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 09:48:33 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > muditaa = taking pleasure in the goodness of others Aha, an antonym for "Schadenfreude," almost. Hal "The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided." --Casey Stengel Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html From paul.lake Tue Nov 6 22:37:03 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 21:37:03 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: Message-ID: on 11/6/01 8:37 PM, Gwyn McVay at gmcvay at patriot.net wrote: > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his > "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But > laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > > Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is sparing > you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > I agree with Gywn. The official poetry culture tries its best to ignore Gioia--not an easy task, given his ubiquity. No New Formalist will ever be the nation's laureate--at least not within the next decade. It's a sure bet that Dana won't be picked for the job. Paul Lake From paul.lake Tue Nov 6 22:39:29 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 21:39:29 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: <200111070445.fA74jH962995@mx2.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: on 11/6/01 10:45 PM, David Graham at grahamd at mail.ripon.edu wrote: > Anyone interested in a friendly wager? I think Gioia will be laureate, > probably sooner rather than later, given his skill at literary politicking. > Certainly we have had laureates before who were on the young side--Dove was in > her 40's when chosen, wasn't she? Gioia's in his 50s. > > I've said nothing about his merits as a poet, by the way. But as a smiling > public man, well, I think he'd be a natural. > > As for poetic merit, well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the impression > that there were some slight disagreements in these parts about the quality of > the *current* laureate's work. So apparently universal critical acclaim is > not necessarily a requirement for the job. . . . > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > > ---------- > From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece > Date: Tue, Nov 6, 2001, 10:06 PM > > >> In a message dated 11/6/2001 8:39:02 PM Central Standard Time, >> gmcvay at patriot.net writes: >> >> >>> Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his >>> "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But >>> laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. >> >> I agree. Not in my lifetime. >> >> I?ll take up that bet, David. My latest collection or yours, for whoever wins. Paul Lake -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paul.lake Tue Nov 6 22:40:34 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 21:40:34 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: Message-ID: on 11/6/01 11:20 PM, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com at Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: > In a message dated 11/6/2001 10:45:56 PM Central Standard Time, > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: > > >> Anyone interested in a friendly wager? I think Gioia will be laureate, >> probably sooner rather than later, given his skill at literary politicking. >> Certainly we have had laureates before who were on the young side--Dove was >> in her 40's when chosen, wasn't she? Gioia's in his 50s. >> > > Dana is one of my best friends, and as much as I love him I doubt if he will > ever be laureate, just the same as I know he will never get an NEA. This is > not to say that I don't think he would make an effective laureate, of course. I agree with Sam, here. I?ve known Dana for twenty years and think he?d be a great laureate. As it is, I?m afraid he?ll have to continue being an unofficial one. Paul Lake -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tadrichards Wed Nov 7 10:21:24 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:21:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: Message-ID: <00a801c1679f$dcf21c40$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Re: "The official poetry culture tries its best to ignore Gioia" -- who exactly selects the laureate, anyway? While we're on the subject -- who is the official poetry culture, and how can I get into it? Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Lake" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 10:37 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece > on 11/6/01 8:37 PM, Gwyn McVay at gmcvay at patriot.net wrote: > > > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his > > "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But > > laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > > > > Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is sparing > > you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words > > > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > I agree with Gywn. The official poetry culture tries its best to ignore > Gioia--not an easy task, given his ubiquity. No New Formalist will ever be > the nation's laureate--at least not within the next decade. It's a sure bet > that Dana won't be picked for the job. > > Paul Lake > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From tadrichards Wed Nov 7 10:22:34 2001 From: tadrichards (theoldmole) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:22:34 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: Message-ID: <00ae01c167a0$06b77840$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> I'm hoping you don't need karuna and muditaa -- that would disqualify me right out of the box. Tad Richards "Well said, old mole." The Old Mole Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet of the MoleNet Act I, Scene 5 http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Lake" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 10:37 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece > on 11/6/01 8:37 PM, Gwyn McVay at gmcvay at patriot.net wrote: > > > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At the tippy-top of his > > "form," as it were, he does something kind of like what Frost did. But > > laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > > > > Gwyn, who could rant on about the whole silly institution, but is sparing > > you out of karuna and muditaa, and other Sanskrit words > > > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > I agree with Gywn. The official poetry culture tries its best to ignore > Gioia--not an easy task, given his ubiquity. No New Formalist will ever be > the nation's laureate--at least not within the next decade. It's a sure bet > that Dana won't be picked for the job. > > Paul Lake > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From mmagee Wed Nov 7 10:28:32 2001 From: mmagee (Michael Magee) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:28:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] A Completed Portrait of Lee Greenwood In-Reply-To: from "Eileen Tabios" at Oct 30, 2001 11:09:44 am Message-ID: <200111071528.KAA24042@dept.english.upenn.edu> A COMPLETED PORTRAIT OF LEE GREENWOOD (After Stein and Johns) If I scold him would he like it. Would he like it if I scold him. Would he like it would a soldier would a soldier would would he like it. If I scold him if I sold it if I scold him like a soldier. Would he like it if I scold him if I sold him to a soldier. If I sold him would he like it would he like it if I scold him. Then. Not then. And then. Then. Specifically operating. Exactly specifically operating. Exactly operative. Exacting operatives. Exact specs exactly suspect of an operative. Wheat waves and whistles so do we. Wheat waves and so waves and so sways and so weighs its sways and waves in so ways. One I'm proud. Two I'm proud. One aloud. Two I'm proud. Two aloud. One is aloud. One aloud. One aloud to be a aloud. To be proud. Two be proud. Two be proud to be aloud to be aloud. To be aloud to be loudly proud loudly proudly aloud. A patriot. A pat riot. A pater riot. A laugh riot a rootin tootin laugh riot. Pater and pater. Who starts a riot. Mater and mater. Who cries at a riot. Play patriotism. Play material. Play material well. Missile and thistle. Was a king a groom. Mistle epistle. Has a carpet broom. Pistol and pistol. Has a whip a tomb. Is a mosque an ashram and so it is. A mosque is an ashram and so it is and also. A mosque is a mosque is a mosque and so it is. Ashram and ashram ashram and has ram and has it ram and as it ram and has it ram. And as it ran and has it ran and as has it ran and ran. And as it ran an ashram and ashcroft and has it croft as as it croft and is it aloft. And aircraft and is it aloft and is it soft and ashcroft. And this is so because. Free free free free free free and free and free and free and the free. Free free free and least I'm free and lease the free and the least free and the free and so the free. Me and gave his life. Me and gave a life. Me and gave of his life. Me and a life. Me and life. Me for a life. He for a life for me and a life for a life. Let me recite what Lee preaches. Lee preaches. From GrahamD Wed Nov 7 11:10:44 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:10:44 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFE0@mail.ripon.edu> OK, you're on. We just need to agree on the terms. You said earlier "not within the next decade." Just to be sporting, I'll say 7 years, OK? David =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Paul Lake > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Tuesday, November 6, 2001 9:39 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece > > on 11/6/01 10:45 PM, David Graham at grahamd at mail.ripon.edu wrote: > > > > Anyone interested in a friendly wager? I think Gioia will be > laureate, probably sooner rather than later, given his skill at literary > politicking. Certainly we have had laureates before who were on the young > side--Dove was in her 40's when chosen, wasn't she? Gioia's in his 50s. > > I've said nothing about his merits as a poet, by the way. But as a > smiling public man, well, I think he'd be a natural. > > As for poetic merit, well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the > impression that there were some slight disagreements in these parts about > the quality of the *current* laureate's work. So apparently universal > critical acclaim is not necessarily a requirement for the job. . . . > > _______________________ > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > _______________________ > > ---------- > From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece > Date: Tue, Nov 6, 2001, 10:06 PM > > > > > In a message dated 11/6/2001 8:39:02 PM Central Standard > Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: > > > > > Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At > the tippy-top of his > "form," as it were, he does something kind of like > what Frost did. But > laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. > > > > I agree. Not in my lifetime. > > > > > > I'll take up that bet, David. My latest collection or yours, for whoever > wins. > > Paul Lake > From GrahamD Wed Nov 7 11:24:26 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:24:26 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: A Completed Portrait of Lee Greenwood Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFE3@mail.ripon.edu> This is luscious. By the way, one can listen to Gertrude herself recite "If I Told Him" at Salon: http://www.salon.com/audio/2000/10/05/stein/ =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: mmagee at dept.english.upenn.edu > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Wednesday, November 7, 2001 9:28 AM > To: POETICS at LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Cc: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu; writing at listerv.brown.edu; > pmetres at jcu.edu; parker2 at fas.harvard.edu > Subject: [New-Poetry] A Completed Portrait of Lee Greenwood > > A COMPLETED PORTRAIT OF LEE GREENWOOD (After Stein and Johns) > > If I scold him would he like it. Would he like it if I scold him. > Would he like it would a soldier would a soldier would would > he like it. > If I scold him if I sold it if I scold him like a soldier. Would he > like it if I scold him if I sold him to a soldier. If I sold him would > he like it would he like it if I scold him. > Then. > Not then. > And then. > Then. > Specifically operating. > Exactly specifically operating. > Exactly operative. > Exacting operatives. > Exact specs exactly suspect of an operative. > Wheat waves and whistles so do we. Wheat waves and so waves > and so sways and so weighs its sways and waves in so ways. > One I'm proud. > Two I'm proud. > One aloud. > Two I'm proud. > Two aloud. > One is aloud. > One aloud. > One aloud to be a aloud. > To be proud. > Two be proud. > Two be proud to be aloud to be aloud. > To be aloud to be loudly proud loudly proudly aloud. > A patriot. > A pat riot. > A pater riot. > A laugh riot a rootin tootin laugh riot. > Pater and pater. Who starts a riot. Mater and mater. > Who cries at a riot. > Play patriotism. Play material. Play material well. > Missile and thistle. > Was a king a groom. > Mistle epistle. > Has a carpet broom. > Pistol and pistol. > Has a whip a tomb. > Is a mosque an ashram and so it is. A mosque is an ashram and > so it is and also. A mosque is a mosque is a mosque and so it is. > Ashram and ashram ashram and has ram and has it ram and as it > ram and has it ram. And as it ran and has it ran and as has it ran > and ran. And as it ran an ashram and ashcroft and has it croft as > as it croft and is it aloft. And aircraft and is it aloft and is it soft > and ashcroft. And this is so because. > Free free free free free free and free and free and free and the > free. Free free free and least I'm free and lease the free and the > least free and the free and so the free. > Me and gave his life. > Me and gave a life. > Me and gave of his life. > Me and a life. > Me and life. > Me for a life. > He for a life for me and a life for a life. > Let me recite what Lee preaches. Lee preaches. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > From paul.lake Wed Nov 7 00:52:28 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 23:52:28 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Official Poetry Culture Message-ID: >>exactly selects the laureate, anyway? >While we're on the subject -- who is the official poetry culture, and how >can I get into it? Tad, I guess the official poetry culture would be defined--loosely--as those institutions with the most clout in publishing and reviewing poetry, giving grants, and employing poets. Major university writing programs, university presses, large mainstream publications, and grant-giving institutions ranging from the NEA to private foundations would comprise the official poetry culture. In short, the people and institutions who've elevated poets like Jorie Graham, Charles Wright, and, yes, Billy Collins to positions of eminence. One sure qualification for official poetry culture is that the poet must write free verse, in a not-too-difficult, post Modernist (though not often "postmodern") style. Such a poet can verge on total incoherence, as Graham and Wright often do, but verse too fragmented and radically disjunctive rarely wins official laurels. Similarly, poetry that uses meter or rhyme and form--at least, for poets under 70--results in automatic exclusion. Gender and race can also be important factors. Thus, Timothy Steele, our own Sam Gwynn, and Dana Gioia will not get Pulitzers, Guggenheims, endowed chairs, or Laureateships within our lifetimes, while Marilyn Nelson and Rachel Hadas have longshot chances at each. Paul Lake From paul.lake Wed Nov 7 00:53:11 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 23:53:11 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFE0@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: on 11/7/01 10:10 AM, Graham, David at GrahamD at mail.ripon.edu wrote: > OK, you're on. We just need to agree on the terms. You said earlier "not > within the next decade." Just to be sporting, I'll say 7 years, OK? > > David > > =================== > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > =================== > >> ---------- >> From: Paul Lake >> Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> Sent: Tuesday, November 6, 2001 9:39 PM >> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece >> >> on 11/6/01 10:45 PM, David Graham at grahamd at mail.ripon.edu wrote: >> >> >> >> Anyone interested in a friendly wager? I think Gioia will be >> laureate, probably sooner rather than later, given his skill at literary >> politicking. Certainly we have had laureates before who were on the young >> side--Dove was in her 40's when chosen, wasn't she? Gioia's in his 50s. >> >> I've said nothing about his merits as a poet, by the way. But as a >> smiling public man, well, I think he'd be a natural. >> >> As for poetic merit, well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the >> impression that there were some slight disagreements in these parts about >> the quality of the *current* laureate's work. So apparently universal >> critical acclaim is not necessarily a requirement for the job. . . . >> >> _______________________ >> David Graham >> grahamd at mail.ripon.edu >> _______________________ >> >> ---------- >> From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com >> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece >> Date: Tue, Nov 6, 2001, 10:06 PM >> >> >> >> >> In a message dated 11/6/2001 8:39:02 PM Central Standard >> Time, gmcvay at patriot.net writes: >> >> >> >> >> Gioia is a nice guy. Gioia can turn a pentameter. At >> the tippy-top of his >> "form," as it were, he does something kind of like >> what Frost did. But >> laureate? Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. >> >> >> >> I agree. Not in my lifetime. >> >> >> >> >> >> I'll take up that bet, David. My latest collection or yours, for whoever >> wins. >> >> Paul Lake >> > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > A deal. Paul From aprentiss Wed Nov 7 12:15:17 2001 From: aprentiss (Prentiss, Amber) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 12:15:17 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] How a Poet Laureate Gets Selected Message-ID: In America, the Librarian of Congress appoints the Poet Laureate, so take 'im out to dinner. http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/01078/poet.html -Amber From halvard Wed Nov 7 12:56:16 2001 From: halvard (Halvard Johnson) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 12:56:16 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Equi poems round-up Message-ID: Way back when, I posted an exercise to which quite a few of you responded. The exercise is way down at the bottom of this, should you care to review it before you look at the responses, which I've pasted in here without any of the whines and excuses and apologies that sometimes accompan- ied them. ;) Hal "Flotsam, please, and a side order of jetsam." Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html Happy birthday The minute is past, beat up in the nick of future Ages. Dark but modern, done like movies that vie with meals to serve Man. What a terrific landscape under glass. Mom? Wait. Swing low. The death trend is a cra-zy part of a ridiculous future. The big grenade will keep you little like a girl. So you see I'm really ready to ascend like champagne elevators to a weirdo heaven. The late and future king. --Cindy Closkey Vietnamese Girl With Weirdo Depart the future, dig the ridiculous glass hair style Yes I'll be ready After death you really do serve champagne The brass shirt lodged too close behind the movies, Dark Ages cosmetics Man, like, this chocolate potential --Gwyn McVay champagne under Mom's bra recurring potential for her but for me it's a glass grenade --Tad Richards "IS" Man, you dig into Vietnamese meals and dress in a cra-zy beatnik style, talking _potential, potential, potential_, _be the future_ _be the future_ _be the future_, the Big Brass in the Department of the Possible. I'm like a poet lodged in a recurring landscape where I'll sell my hair for a little champagne. I supervise the Department of the Past, swinging a birthday grenade through the weird modern movies (because they really do ask for it). This order I make is behind reason. Yes I (am) was a terrific mom, kept dark chocolate under my shirt, ready to offer around like glass to this red girl. I'd serve her. Following that, the next girl. Done so by the minute, hear? You do dream of the hi-fashion trend that will be happy like mean cosmetics are (is to look on, but is not to see with), but I keep after the ages. Wait -- if I must store it all by the section, then what elevators ascend to that heaven? Why must death close her candy store, too? --Liz "jibber jabber" Ahl I dream of trend glass swinging my happy Mom in dark recurring elevators Ridiculously big behind ascends the Ages, her red dress following after Next death is birthday in future candy store's chocolate heaven A little poet grenade lodged in brass landscape orders a modern dig. Be do be too so you do serve this future --Robin Morris Departments In Candies a red-haired girl selling chocolates serves little sections of heaven and in Dreams a man in a dark shirt is making a trendy movie, modern Minute Mom lodged for ages in elevator closed by grenade. So Poets, be happy, swing into the future with a glass of champagne because it is done for. A future of not talking but following orders, where you must dig for past potentials in a landscape storing death -- Marianne Poloskey (after Elaine Equi [sort of]) Yes, supervise that swinging future store. See the beatnik cosmetics the Vietnamese champagne glass happy meals by dark movies the ages past reason the following offer the candy like brass this red potential hair shirt this minute grenade. A potential death. A potential dream. A potential heaven. So modern man must wait for the future behind this future will not serve to keep a recurring future under where I hear because of fashion talking her< they be >with< it> after to sell to department on department. In-the-trend ridiculous but kept by mom but look what you are is a landscape in the dress I?m seeing and all of that chocolate is too lodged around you. Next? Then ascend the crazy elevators to make the hi style order the possible to be big be mean do little. Dig, weirdo poet, like ready? Terrific. Done. Through. --Nick Argentarius Like Taking Candy from a Hi-Fashion Beatnick The potential man sells potential dream In the Cosmetics Champagne Candy store of the future. Past the Death department A Vietnamese Mom serves dark chocolate grenades. Movies are offered in elevators to heaven Behind a glass section. Potential landscape recurrs. Hair styles, minute meals, dress shirts. Wait, what ridiculous birthday follows? Really. Ready? The Modern Yes-Man Poet Age. Dig the trend, see. --Gaetan Jeaurond Glass Dress, Champagne And Red Candy Grenade With all that is possible, All that potential, What reason but trend For the cosmetic modern style Of a ridiculous poet? --James Finnegan Dream in Dark Glass Grenade possibilities dress in red and offer potential futures in order and heaven like little girls sell candy. Reason chocolate from the store of Man. Are you ready? I'll wait in the Nick, kept by the Brass for being cra-zy and happy with it. --Sherri/WolfDancing Hi Weirdo Why is chocolate man like potential Mom? That swinging dream must keep her a be be a do be beatnick hair. Seeing a ridiculous brass minute wait under her potential cra-zy future, I'd look behind. To dig the terrific poet in this landscape. Girl, I'm recurring like Vietnamese elevators, ascending into the candy department. If they talk to champagne I'll order modern cosmetics through heaven because the possible shirt I really mean is too dressy. I closed the department of the red past. For I am the next supervisor and so make a by-by for a little grenade. This glass will sell to the Dark girl I follow, this offer not ready in stores of the future. Store that. All happy birthdays to all movies seen. Be in the lodge after the meals ask you with reason but the potential must keep you around the section. The trend is of potential fashion death is it? Yes like what do I hear on my then my where. That it was done to serve a future style but the Ages are big. --David Graham On Being and Time after Elaine Equi and Annie Dillard I?m swinging through the future, the minute of red and ridiculous, ready for the next big trend, a candy of potential. And what is the past? A cosmetic, a grenade, the ages' dark talking, a recurring landscape. Wait. be ready. Doesn?t the present make Mom birthday-happy , look terrific from a glass elevator? It?s the next big trend. It must be the right style for living. Dig the brass, possible to hear in this cra--zy department, a little chocolate and style, a recurring ascension into heaven. --Pat Fargnoli Wait Dig the swinging past, that brass section following. Talk, talk, talk, but the minute landscape is possible. Happy, must be. Not chocolate, not cosmetics. You'd ascend, but minutes keep you here. Next, the terrific future. --Russ Kesler Brass red dress chocolate candy potential grenade in a weirdo landscape future dream in a champagne glass Cher With Beatnik Hair I'm lodged in a chocolate store, then the Vietnamese department close by a potential grenade. Its ascending, werido birthday is the poet's happy dress, elevated through Dark Ages. The landscape swings - cra-zy! Brass possibilities styled into look-and-see, glass shirts, movie meals, a champagne elevator past the red cosmetic section. An unsupervised man orders a trend and I dream brass heaven. Death is the reason I recur, big and terrific, the beat into future's hi-fashion. --James Cervantes Dream Meals Modern girl grenade of beatnik candy, Because it is possible. You mean I like my future? Where champagne is kept, I'll ready myself for heaven as Elevators take me past the ages. Are you the modern man With dark potential? Little death, Big dream. Ready I am, For red movie-like end, And my ridiculous cosmetic behind. --Teehan Kaye Little Talking Big Seeing >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> a brass shirt weirdo serves heaven a potential grenade. dreams of dark swinging glass. a red future lodged in movies, the end of this cosmetic candy age, this ridiculous champagne style. modern me. so dig for chocolate in a cra-zy landscape. order a past but no following. a happy death to ascend. and you will wait for me. supervise a possible future of terrific potential, a recurring trend of department. the elevators are ready. i make the reason. --Tabetha Dunn FUTURE ORDERS AWAIT DEATH'S MINUTES "Hi"-I'm reasonable to ask, "What do you see as recurring trends in dreams? My, my, are you ready?" Under Mom's supervision, I'll hear why my following future potential must be lodged in past movies seen, of beatnick hair styles. Yes, all around mean weirdo poets swinging, "Cra-zy man! Dig this girl under glass in her fashionable little red dress!" Terrific possibilities, if you have an offer. Because, talking about birthdays is like talking of brass grenades! Sold in Vietnamese stores, next to the candy department, close to heavenly chocolates, champagne, ridiculous cosmetics. Where the elevators ascend, big dark modern landscapes, seen under glass. Elaine ages happily like a kept Equi girl. --Bob Cobb The original exercise: Here's your next assignment: At the bottom of this message is a prose poem by Elaine Equi. Your assignment is to write one or more poems using nothing but words and punctuation marks found in her text. The rules: 1. Use only words and punctuation marks found in Equi's text. 2. If a word is used five times in Equi's text, you may use it an equal number of times, but no more. Same goes for marks of punctuation. 3. You may use word variants: e.g. "talked" for "talking." 4. You may use word parts: e.g. the "king" from "talking." 5. You may not use groups of words in sequence from Equi: (i.e. not even "of the"). 6. You must follow the rules. All the rules. 7. If or when you break any of the first five rules, you must append a "confession" to the poem you've submitted. In the confession, you must explain your reason(s) for breaking the rule(s) and plead for mercy. The text: Hi-Fashion Girl I'm swinging through a department store of the future because by then it will be possible to do that. I mean hear red. Dig the brass section of this cra-zy shirt. Wait a minute. If this is the future, why am I talking like a ridiculous beatnick poet? The past must be following too close behind. Lodged by the cosmetics like a little Vietnamese girl with a grenade under her dress. I'd offer chocolate but in the department store of the future all they sell is the potential for candy. The potential to make Mom happy on her birthday the potential to look terrific. What is all this potential I keep seeing like landscape in a recurring weirdo dream? It must be the reason I ask you to style my hair, order my meals and supervise the movies I see. Yes, so I'll be ready for the next big trend after death. Glass elevators where you really do ascend into heaven but are kept around to serve champagne. Man, that is not modern. That was done in the Dark Ages. --Elaine Equi Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvardjohnson From TerryP17 Wed Nov 7 14:00:44 2001 From: TerryP17 (TerryP17 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 14:00:44 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece Message-ID: <112.7455055.291adedc@aol.com> All-- Interesting thread to which I can only make a short contribution as I'm on holiday in Daytona Beach and am using a machine with limited time at the Volusia County Library, home of hanging and pregnant chads. I've been on the road a lot lately, and also hadn't had the chance to reply to Joe Duemer's query from last month as well. I'll catch up sooner or later. But my 2 cents' worth. I think Dana is becoming more of a force as a critic than a poet. His poetry output has slowed and he's getting a lot more mileage out of his prose pieces these days as this thread proves. New Formalism, Old Formalism, Expansive Poetry, New Narrative--whatever--is beginning to become an unwieldy concept and I am not sure the center is going to hold. Re: Pulitzers and Laureateships--not in my lifetime to anyone who writes "formal verse"--basically what Paul said. Back to Dana's piece--I consider it one of his weaker efforts. Too much reliance on the memoir approach. I'd rather see poets writing poems about 9/11 rather than sincere and honest feelings on the same. We'll be featuring poems on the topic in upcoming issues of Edge City and I'll be soliciting more. Re: Ted Gioia. Ted points out in one of his recent books that he is West Coast centric when it comes to jazz criticism because he believes it's being neglected. He also squarely states that he is not going to do the "race thing" in his jazz coverage, giving equal time however one defines that, to white and black jazz musicians. Marsalis took the opposite tack as advisor to the rather poor Ken Burns series on jazz. This is obviously still a hot topic. However, since Ted never bothers to respond to my missives, I'm not going to defend his point of view beyond this point. Back to the Boardwalk. I'll make appearances when possible, but I expect the next time I'm back the thread will be different. --Terry Ponick From GrahamD Wed Nov 7 14:35:21 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 13:35:21 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] The Form of Laureate Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFE4@mail.ripon.edu> Before it hardens into dogma, I'd like to splash a little skeptical water on the notion that the institution of poet laureate, such as it is, discriminates against poets who write in conventional forms. Since 1986, when the modern poet laureateship replaced the old "Consultant to the Librarian of Congress" position, some of the raving anti-formalist poets who have served in this position include Stanley Kunitz, Richard Wilbur, Howard Nemerov, Mona Van Duyn, Joseph Brodsky, Robert Pinsky, and Rita Dove, who is a known writer of sonnets. And, let's see, who have I left out? Just Robert Hass, Mark Strand, and Billy Collins. Sounds like a conspiracy against free versers to me. . . . =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== From CobbCoStudioArts Wed Nov 7 13:19:16 2001 From: CobbCoStudioArts (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:19:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece Message-ID: <20011107181917.C787336FF@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From paul.lake Wed Nov 7 03:53:43 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 02:53:43 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] The Form of Laureate Message-ID: Sorry, David, but you're wrong here: "Since 1986, when the modern poet laureateship replaced the old "Consultant to the Librarian of Congress" position, some of the raving anti-formalist poets who have served in this position include Stanley Kunitz, Richard Wilbur, Howard Nemerov, Mona Van Duyn, Joseph Brodsky, Robert Pinsky, and Rita Dove, who is a known writer of sonnets. And, let's see, who have I left out? Just Robert Hass, Mark Strand, and Billy Collins. Sounds like a conspiracy against free versers to me. . . ." As I said in my original post, the no formal verse stricture only applies to poets under 70. Look at the ages of the poets you list up till Pinsky; they're all old or dead. Distinguished elder poets, from the "Greatest Generation," like war veteran Nemerov, are indulged in their peculiar penchant toward rhyme and meter; it's unforgivable, however, in a younger poet. Robert Pinsky offers a somewhat odd case; he and (free verse poet) Bob Hass, are the last generation of white male poets to enter the poetic establishment without apologies. Their politics are also acceptably left/liberal. Pinsky's formalism (An Explanation of America, for instance, is in blank verse) is usually rather loosely worn; he writes free and "formal" verse almost indistinguishable from each other. Hass, Strand, and Collins write free verse. Dove, to my mind, is also a free verse poet; I can't think of a poem of hers with regular meter or a regular rhyme pattern. Trust me, distinguished formal poets like Charles Martin and younger ones like Greg Williamson are not in the running for the laureateship--or MacArthurs--now or in years to come. Paul Lake From Rsgwynn1 Wed Nov 7 15:12:02 2001 From: Rsgwynn1 (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 15:12:02 EST Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Gioia's piece Message-ID: In a message dated 11/7/01 1:57:54 PM Central Standard Time, CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com writes: > > I don't know exactly how one is chosen to become our national poet > laureate. Is it that political a position? Must one be nominated to run? > What qualifications are necessary? Is it a one year term? > What renumeration might a poet laureate expect to receive, in addition to > the honor, endorsements, etc? > And, if it comes down to a single vote, I would choose you. I am certain > that you meet all the criteria to become our next poet laureate. > > It's a small groundswell, to be sure, but I appreciate it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From GrahamD Wed Nov 7 15:41:33 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 14:41:33 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: The Form of Laureate Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFE7@mail.ripon.edu> Paul, I just checked the archives, and see I somehow missed your earlier post about "official verse culture." Sorry. I was responding to today's messages, which seemed to suggest that formalist poets had been shut out of the laureateship. That simply isn't true, as my list of the winners since 1986 clearly shows. I believe that the list of Pulitzer winners, MacArthurs, etc. for the same period will yield similar results. It's certainly true that the prizes do often go to the Geezer set, of whichever aesthetic, of course. Maybe it's true that for poets of Gioia's generation and younger, there is a big fix in against formalism, but I'm going to need more evidence before I buy into that. Now, one can certainly quibble about whether Dove or Pinsky can be admitted to the True Church of formalism, but that's an argument I'm not at all interested in. =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Paul Lake > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Wednesday, November 7, 2001 2:53 AM > To: New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: [New-Poetry] The Form of Laureate > > Sorry, David, but you're wrong here: > > "Since 1986, when the modern poet laureateship replaced the old > "Consultant > to the Librarian of Congress" position, some of the raving anti-formalist > poets who have served in this position include Stanley Kunitz, Richard > Wilbur, Howard Nemerov, Mona Van Duyn, Joseph Brodsky, Robert Pinsky, and > Rita Dove, who is a known writer of sonnets. And, let's see, who have I > left out? Just Robert Hass, Mark Strand, and Billy Collins. > > Sounds like a conspiracy against free versers to me. . . ." > > As I said in my original post, the no formal verse stricture only applies > to > poets under 70. Look at the ages of the poets you list up till Pinsky; > they're all old or dead. Distinguished elder poets, from the "Greatest > Generation," like war veteran Nemerov, are indulged in their peculiar > penchant toward rhyme and meter; it's unforgivable, however, in a younger > poet. Robert Pinsky offers a somewhat odd case; he and (free verse poet) > Bob Hass, are the last generation of white male poets to enter the poetic > establishment without apologies. Their politics are also acceptably > left/liberal. Pinsky's formalism (An Explanation of America, for > instance, > is in blank verse) is usually rather loosely worn; he writes free and > "formal" verse almost indistinguishable from each other. Hass, Strand, and > Collins write free verse. Dove, to my mind, is also a free verse poet; I > can't think of a poem of hers with regular meter or a regular rhyme > pattern. > > Trust me, distinguished formal poets like Charles Martin and younger ones > like Greg Williamson are not in the running for the laureateship--or > MacArthurs--now or in years to come. > > Paul Lake > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > From paul.lake Wed Nov 7 04:52:36 2001 From: paul.lake (Paul Lake) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 03:52:36 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Laureates Message-ID: David, I don't know how my comment showed up as "yesterday" on the board, but it did on mine, too. As to your comment-- "Now, one can certainly quibble about whether Dove or Pinsky can be admitted to the True Church of formalism, but that's an argument I'm not at all interested in." I'd say that (though no True Church is involved) Pinsky is largely in, Dove largely out. Check those MacArthurs again. Except for Leithauser, many years ago, there's been a drought of formal poets. It's not a grand conspiracy, it's just the way things are. Paul Lake From GrahamD Wed Nov 7 16:46:42 2001 From: GrahamD (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 15:46:42 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Laureates Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990BDFE8@mail.ripon.edu> Poets who have won MacArthur Fellowships. I don't have them sorted by date, but the Fellowships began in 1981: Ammons, A. R. Ashbery, John Bierds, Linda Brodsky, Joseph Carson, Anne Clampitt, Amy Crase, Douglas Feldman, Irving Fulton, Alice Graham, Jorie Grossman, Allen Gunn, Thom Hass, Robert Hine, Daryl Hirsch, Edward Hollander, John Howard, Richard Kenney, Richard Kinnell, Galway Lauterbach, Ann Leithauser, Brad McGrath, Campbell Moss, Thylias Perillo, Lucia Powell, Jim Ramanujan, A. K. Rich, Adrienne Simic, Charles Strand, Mark Swenson, May Walcott, Derek Warren, Robert Penn Wilner, Eleanor Wright, Jay =================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu =================== > ---------- > From: Paul Lake > > > Check those MacArthurs again. Except for Leithauser, many years ago, > there's been a drought of formal poets. > > It's not a grand conspiracy, it's just the way things are. > > > Paul Lake > > From BobGrumman Wed Nov 7 16:50:44 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 16:50:44 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: <3BE90AF3.4CBD@nut-n-but.net> <001901c16789$d05caec0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> <003b01c1678c$f2c71420$18724342@twcny.rr.com> <3BE946C2.1000DB84@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <3BE9ACB3.5BA5@nut-n-but.net> Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino wrote: > > oh, for a third party candidate....one without soft money.... Yes, exactly what I thought on reading Joseph's suggestion. But, on second thought, Bernstein is almost exactly to what I call burstnorm poetry what Gioia is to knownstream poetry, so the pairing DOES make sense. --Bob G. From BobGrumman Wed Nov 7 16:56:26 2001 From: BobGrumman (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 16:56:26 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gioia's piece References: Message-ID: <3BE9AE09.7A58@nut-n-but.net> > I agree with Gywn. The official poetry culture tries its best to ignore > Gioia--not an easy task, given his ubiquity. No New Formalist will ever be > the nation's laureate--at least not within the next decade. It's a sure bet > that Dana won't be picked for the job. > > Paul Lake So, who does everyone think will become poet laureate sooner: a new formalist or a language poet? The language poets are becoming mainstream pretty rapidly, it seems to me, but I still think a new formalist will beat them to the position. Certainly