From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Wed May 1 09:03:40 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 09:03:40 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Working-class Southern poetry Message-ID: <96.25e248c6.2a0141ac@cs.com> In a message dated 4/30/2002 10:18:21 PM Central Daylight Time, acgold01 at gwise.louisville.edu writes: > Jeff, > > I'd recommend C. D. Wright--relevant material running through the last > four or five books (well, I guess not *Just Whistle*) but esp. *Deepstep > Come Shining* and poems in *String Light*. > > Alan For a judge's daughter, she's managed to pull herself down by her bootstraps. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hruggier at localnet.com Wed May 1 11:59:22 2002 From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri) Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 11:59:22 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] New-Poetry: claiming Anna References: <3.0.5.32.20020430135349.007b9330@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <3CD010DA.C4BA4372@localnet.com> Ben Met Anna made a hit neglected beard Ben-Anna split Burma Serb > . > > . > -._______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From marcus at designerglass.com Wed May 1 12:58:09 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 12:58:09 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry In-Reply-To: <174.78d00f5.2a00495d@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CCFE661.3062.4A6DA4@localhost> > Finnegan: > Presumptuously, I'll hazard a guess on his bio note revision.... > "Industrial" doesn't have the same derogatory connotation > that "stupid" has, even if stated in a self-deprecating fashion... > The jobs may have been beneath his intelligence, but he doesn't > intend to inadvertently demean those who are still doing > the heavy lifting in society. I'm curious about the notion of a job being "beneath [one's] intelligence". In my work we do a lot of what we call "client art" -- art that we wouldn't do at all if someone wasn't paying us to do it, but it's not "beneath [our] intelligence" -- it's just very different from our aesthetic preferences. We also have to do stuff such as order materials, answer phones, build pallets and crates, move and fix machinery, drive, sell, go to the bank, read memos from the Bureau of Workers' Comp, and the like. But one of the virtues of doing non-art tasks during the day is that it frees up one's artistic imagination to work on art during non-work hours, and frequently doing "client art" tasks during the day makes it harder to do art during non-work hours. So I'm pretty lost about this "working-class poet" designation, and what it means. Is it a term of opprobrium or of appreciation or something in between? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From tutorsvc at bright.net Wed May 1 13:32:15 2002 From: tutorsvc at bright.net (Mark & Stephanie Livengood) Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 13:32:15 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] 9-11 Anthology Call for Submissions Message-ID: <00e601c1f136$2360a9b0$809adb42@DCKS9F11> Good Afternoon, This announcement is being sent to multiple lists, please excuse any duplication. American poets, young or established, are invited to submit an original work commemorating the pivotal day of September 11th, 2001 and the days thereafter. This anthology, which is being prepared for publication, will present short heartfelt writings in verse and prose by authors from across our nation. Your participation in this collaborative, nationwide project will open up another means of assisting survivors. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be contributed to a benefit organization. Submissions may be sent via e-mail to librarian Stephanie Livengood at tutorsvc at bright.net Please include your name, address, and age. The deadline for submissions is July 31, 2002. You will be notified if your piece is selected for the final manuscript. Your participation is greatly appreciated. This collection will serve as a powerful tool for healing and as a token of remembrance for many, many people. Sincerely, Stephanie P. Livengood, Librarian University of Akron, Akron, Ohio Wayne College Library tutorsvc at bright.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JackKerouac25 at aol.com Wed May 1 14:56:27 2002 From: JackKerouac25 at aol.com (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 14:56:27 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry Message-ID: <22.27fbbdb9.2a01945b@aol.com> In a message dated 5/1/02 11:48:15 AM Central Daylight Time, marcus at designerglass.com writes: > So I'm pretty lost about this "working-class poet" designation, and > what it means. Is it a term of opprobrium or of appreciation or > something in between? > Well, I certainly didn't mean to cause a class war ala Marx and Engels. To be very specific, I suppose, I'm interested in poets who have written about working-class, blue-collar lifestyles, setting these poems in (primarily) Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Virginia, and most any other southeastern state that I inadvertently neglected to mention. If said poets have written about working in factories such as paper mills and/or chemical processing centers; or if said poets have written about being fishermen or working in grocery stores, I'd like to read them. I hope that this paragraph clears up any snobbery I may have suggested in my original post. Jeff Newberry _____________________________________________________________________ From Robtberner at aol.com Wed May 1 17:08:37 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 17:08:37 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] caste and class among the rymers Message-ID: RSgwynn1 says, of C.D. Wright: "For a judge's daughter, she's managed to pull herself down by her bootstraps." Yeah, all the way down to a professorship at Brown. But she is one sweet lady, and I love String Light. Robert Berner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Wed May 1 17:29:17 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 17:29:17 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry Message-ID: In a message dated 5/1/02 12:48:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time, marcus at designerglass.com writes: > 'm curious about the notion of a job being "beneath [one's] > intelligence". The 'beneath one's intelligence' phrase was inexact...I wanted to make a distinction between those who have to do a certain job due to circumstance, education or ability versus those are biding their time, doing the job but knowing all along it will be temporary or transitional. There is the worker on a truck farm and there's a college student working there summers. > So I'm pretty lost about this "working-class poet" designation, and > what it means. Is it a term of opprobrium or of appreciation or > something in between? Certainly I'm in sympathy with the working-class poet. Getting back to Levine, I think it's clear to everyone, and would think to him, that he's a long way from the auto industry of Detroit in the 40s & 50s. The whole country is, for that matter...the smokestack sector having given way to info & services sectors, to big-box retail, etc. Who are our poets of the cubie & the headset...our bard of Aisle 17 "Bath & Linens"? The Toyota assembly plant is a sterile and automated facility, with an excellent safety record. Clearly Levine is using the past as mythology to represent the struggle of the class he came from, and which still exists, tho now its challenges are different. Contemporary poets and critics often promote the pose & the mask, the variable and fictive self. The postmodern sensibility is suspicious of the authentic voice. Yet we seem to be quick to point out the poet who talks the talk but no longer walks the walk. It's the Levine "character" that is the working-class joe. Finnegan From Thom424 at aol.com Wed May 1 17:57:35 2002 From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 17:57:35 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry Message-ID: <5DEE247F.17818134.001A46F6@aol.com> Some possible bards of the cubie & headset...see: _Domestic Work_ by Natasha Trethewey and _A Working Girl Can't Win : And Other Poems_ by Deborah Garrison Thom Tammaro Moorhead, MN From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Wed May 1 18:09:32 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 18:09:32 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry Message-ID: <9a.24eff348.2a01c19c@cs.com> In a message dated 5/1/2002 4:31:17 PM Central Daylight Time, JforJames at aol.com writes: > Clearly Levine is using the > past as mythology to represent the struggle of the class he came > from, and which still exists, tho now its challenges are different. > It's not the class he came from. As his own memoir makes clear, his family managed to fall out of the upper middle class during the depression. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Wed May 1 19:57:01 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 19:57:01 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry Message-ID: <160.d186106.2a01dacd@aol.com> In a message dated 5/1/02 6:11:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com writes: << Clearly Levine is using the > past as mythology to represent the struggle of the class he came > from, and which still exists, tho now its challenges are different. > It's not the class he came from. As his own memoir makes clear, his family managed to fall out of the upper middle class during the depression. >> Sam, this is splitting hairs....and it doesn't negate the fact that the poetry is trying to create a mythos for a social class. What you're doing is "credentialing" the poet... I thought we could make the truth. Finnegan From JforJames at aol.com Wed May 1 20:15:12 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 20:15:12 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Peter Porter Message-ID: <17d.7b315f7.2a01df10@aol.com> BBC Tuesday, 23 April, 2002, 16:56 GMT 17:56 UK Queen honours poet Porter Porter says the Queen's Medal honours poetry itself The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2002 will be awarded to Australian poet Peter Porter, Buckingham Palace has revealed. The palace's announcement comes as the nation celebrates both St George's Day and the birthday of William Shakespeare. Mr Porter, 73, is expected to collect his medal in the summer, accompanied by the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion. Poet Laureate Andrew Motion recommended Porter Recommendations for the honour have been made by the poet laureate since 1933, when the award was instituted by King George V at the suggestion of the then Poet Laureate, Dr John Masefield. The medal is not awarded every year - but one has been given in about half of the years since 1933. Other poets who have been honoured include WH Auden, Siegfried Sassoon, John Betjeman, RS Thomas, Robert Graves, Stevie Smith and Ted Hughes. It's amazing to think that I'm getting it at the age of 73, and WH Auden got it at 29 Peter Porter Originally, the award was open only to UK poets, but in 1985 the scope was extended to include people from the Commonwealth. Mr Porter told News Online that the award was not only good for him, but also good for poetry itself. Like a work undertaken pro bono publico - for the public good - the Queen's Medal was given "pro bono poetico", he said. "It gives the art itself a little more status. "It's a recognition of the fact that writing poetry is one of the great gifts of the English-speaking peoples. Mr Porter commented: "It's amazing to think that I'm getting it a the age of 73, and WH Auden got it at 29." Betjeman: Poet laureate and Queen's Medal recipient Mr Porter was born in Brisbane in 1929 and has been writing poetry since he left school. He came to England in 1951, and worked as a clerk, bookseller and an advertising writer while developing his literary career. In 1968, he became a full-time poet, journalist, reviewer and broadcaster. In 1983, he won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize for his first collection, and in 1988 he won the Whitbread Poetry Award for the collection the Automatic Oracle. In recent years he has divided his time between Britain and his home country. From trbell at comcast.net Thu May 2 00:14:22 2002 From: trbell at comcast.net (trbell at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 23:14:22 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry References: <160.d186106.2a01dacd@aol.com> Message-ID: <00ef01c1f18f$d710bbe0$6401a8c0@ruthfd1tn.home.com> unfortunately everyone seems to slide over the first part of the name and get into an uproar over the "class". For me it's "working" that means and I guess I'm condemned to be a 'working-class' poet unless fired, disabled, or promoted to a position where i can acquire some trappings.... tom b0ell. From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Wed May 1 22:37:18 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 22:37:18 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry Message-ID: <160.d16e840.2a02005e@cs.com> In a message dated 5/1/2002 6:59:19 PM Central Daylight Time, JforJames at aol.com writes: > > > In a message dated 5/1/02 6:11:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com > > writes: > > < >past as mythology to represent the struggle of the class he came > >from, and which still exists, tho now its challenges are different. > > > It's not the class he came from. As his own memoir makes clear, his > family > managed to fall out of the upper middle class during the depression. >> > Sam, > this is splitting hairs....and it doesn't negate the fact > that the poetry is trying to create a mythos for a social > class. What you're doing is "credentialing" the poet... > I thought we could make the truth. > Finnegan > _______________________________________________ You said "the class he comes from," not the class he is trying to create a mythos for (love those prepositions). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Wed May 1 22:37:54 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 22:37:54 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry Message-ID: <11a.104d919b.2a020082@cs.com> Tony Harrison is a real one. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From khodges at softhome.net Thu May 2 05:40:53 2002 From: khodges at softhome.net (Kim Hodges) Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 02:40:53 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry In-Reply-To: <5a.ac68cac.2a0020a2@aol.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020502023851.024ef1d0@pop.softhome.net> At 12:30 PM 4/30/02 -0400, you wrote: >Howdy listers, > >I'm looking for some information about working class poetry, specifically >working-class southern poetry. > >I realize that this is a vague request, but I hope that some of you can point >me in the right direction. Books of poems, studies of poetry, and names of >poets would be greatly appreciated. > >Thanks in advance. > >Jeff N. I'd recommend C.E. Nelson, who is also southern. And also Michael McNeilley might fit into that characterization. Search on McNeilley, there are a lot of sites devoted to him. For Nelson, also check out Oyster Boy Review that he has been connected with. - Kim From JforJames at aol.com Thu May 2 09:34:35 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 09:34:35 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry Message-ID: <170.d06e6f9.2a029a6b@aol.com> In a message dated 5/1/02 10:39:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com writes: > You said "the class he comes from," not the class he is trying to create a > mythos for (love those prepositions). We're quibbling; but I think it matters little if your family fell from a higher estate into the working class. Does Tony Harrison have the right working-class pedigree because his family, including all uncles, aunts and cousins, spent ___ generations in the working class? Finnegan From halvard at earthlink.net Thu May 2 09:43:57 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 09:43:57 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Frank Lima, "Glycerin" Message-ID: Glycerin My whistle is senseless Because my hands are divided In your direction The brown flesh of the weather Rules the loam of August Like a dart behind you The sky turns away from The bayonet into deeper blue There is a picture in the room Of a dangerous weapon But there is much light between us In variations The night is carefully preparing Our legs are energy The distance is unconscious There is eight inches of rain And the circles are hardly warm. --Frank Lima Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From tadrichards at prodigy.net Thu May 2 09:58:42 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 09:58:42 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry References: <170.d06e6f9.2a029a6b@aol.com> Message-ID: <001e01c1f1e1$784e0840$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> I just finished up a semester of English Lit II with a short unit on the singer/songwriters of the last part of the 20th Century, focusing on Lennon/McCartney, Ray Davies, and Strummer/Jones. I talked about the expanding thematic possibilities of song in this era, and I also talked about the working class origins of the writers, and the different ways they dealt with their roots and their economic success -- something most page poets don't have to worry about. McCartney upwardly mobile, Lennon holding onto working class anger even as his horizons expanded, Davies the consummate satirist, moving from lashing out at the well respected man to sardonically conceding his victory in "Young Conservatives." I talked about the Clash as the white hot epicenter of working class anger, lyricists who never lost any of their class warfare stance ... but wasn't Joe Strummer actually from a professional class? Wasn't his father a diplomat? Are the downwardly mobile more likely to hold the course of working class awareness? SITUATIONS due out soon! Check for information at http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 9:34 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry > In a message dated 5/1/02 10:39:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com > writes: > > > You said "the class he comes from," not the class he is trying to create a > > mythos for (love those prepositions). > We're quibbling; but I think it matters little if your family > fell from a higher estate into the working class. Does Tony Harrison > have the right working-class pedigree because his family, > including all uncles, aunts and cousins, spent ___ generations > in the working class? > Finnegan > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From JforJames at aol.com Thu May 2 09:58:01 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 09:58:01 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine poem & excerpt from The Bread of Time Message-ID: <102.148b7889.2a029fe9@aol.com> They Feed They Lion Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter, Out of black bean and wet slate bread, Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar, Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies, They Lion grow. Out of the gray hills Of industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride, West Virginia to Kiss My Ass, out of buried aunties, Mothers hardening like pounded stumps, out of stumps, Out of the bones? need to sharpen and the muscles? to stretch, They Lion grow. Earth is eating trees, fence posts, Gutted cars, earth is calling in her little ones, "Come home, come home!" From pig balls, From halvard at earthlink.net Thu May 2 10:06:22 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 10:06:22 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Frank Lima, "Penicillin" Message-ID: Penicillin To Harold Krieger Here I am born a brilliant mistake from infinity And the idea of existence reminds me of turtles December is the day of insects in bloom for horoscopes The duty of love is hiding a corner of flesh A hot mouth with beautiful teeth The earth is familiar to me small and beautiful Like a cup of coffee a running joke in the mornings I am breathless in this mad race with the butterflies They encircle my head and choke the air in my chest To remind me of my body when it snows on finger tips What becomes of a poet with a common cold? Nothing. I want to own the air and glitter in a hot shower Because I have copied everything I have seen. --Frank Lima Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 2 10:19:15 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 10:19:15 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry Message-ID: <109.11cef6bc.2a02a4e3@cs.com> In a message dated 5/2/2002 8:36:22 AM Central Daylight Time, JforJames at aol.com writes: > Does Tony Harrison > have the right working-class pedigree because his family, > including all uncles, aunts and cousins, spent ___ generations > in the working class? In England he does. This is just my personal bias; I think Levine is about as bogus as they come, despite his having written some wonderful poems. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Robtberner at aol.com Thu May 2 10:36:07 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 10:36:07 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] class consciousness Message-ID: <3d.1da22e95.2a02a8d7@aol.com> JforJames writes, "Does Tony Harrison have the right working class pedigree because his family...spent ___ generations in the working class?" This reminds me of the exchange between Gore Vidal and Auden. Auden: "My father was a physician. I am middle class." Vidal:" In the house I grew up in, the doctor came to the tradesman's entrance." Auden:" I am middle class." In America everyone is middle class, remember? As to "pedigrees," I'd never miss a good one. That's why I read the wedding announcements in the Sunday Styles section of the Times faithfully. And Tad Richards writes, "Are the downwardly mobile more likely to hold the course of working class awareness?" My guess is that it would depend on how many and which working class values, attitudes, and tastes the downwardly mobile adopt as they slide down the razor of American life. Robert Berner From DICK at watson.ibm.com Thu May 2 10:39:21 2002 From: DICK at watson.ibm.com (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 02 10:39:21 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry about work Message-ID: <200205021439.g42Edkd42444@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Most of the discussion has assumed "work" means working in smokestack industries. Or else working where the mental challenge is minimal, by people who would rather do something else. Is there poetry about "professional" class work, e.g., lawyers', accountants', engineers'? I know teachers and doctors (MDs) sometimes write about their work. Richard From Robtberner at aol.com Thu May 2 10:42:27 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 10:42:27 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] serious charge Message-ID: <94.25b32d31.2a02aa53@aol.com> Rsgwynn1 writes, "I think Levine is about as bogus as they come..." This is a fairly serious charge. Where's the evidence? Robert Berner From tadrichards at prodigy.net Thu May 2 11:01:08 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 11:01:08 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] serious charge References: <94.25b32d31.2a02aa53@aol.com> Message-ID: <003c01c1f1ea$314dad20$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> I'll join Bob on this one. I don't find Levine bogus in any way. Making up his past? I wouldn't find that bogus. Levine freely admits that his stories are all fiction...are we anti-fiction? No, of course not, and I know Sam doesn't mean that. His emotions bogus? Do you mean that the poems don't move you, or that you think he's being meretricious, claiming bogus emotrion he doesn't really feel, or using cheap tricks to elicit it? SITUATIONS due out soon! Check for information at http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 10:42 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] serious charge > Rsgwynn1 writes, "I think Levine is about as bogus as they come..." This > is a fairly serious charge. Where's the evidence? Robert Berner > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From tchandle at bryant.edu Thu May 2 10:59:38 2002 From: tchandle at bryant.edu (Thomas Chandler) Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 10:59:38 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine Message-ID: <003501c1f1e9$fb735c40$0e32280a@bryant.edu> Phil Levine was my teacher at Brown, and was the most demanding, sensitive, tyrannical, compassionate prof I ever had. Whoever says he's bogus is, in fact, the bogus one. Tom Chandler From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 2 11:35:19 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 11:35:19 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] serious charge Message-ID: <8f.1b64b51e.2a02b6b7@cs.com> In a message dated 5/2/2002 9:44:25 AM Central Daylight Time, Robtberner at aol.com writes: > Rsgwynn1 writes, "I think Levine is about as bogus as they come..." This > is a fairly serious charge. Where's the evidence? Robert Berner The Bread of Time, by Philip Levine. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 2 11:37:48 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 11:37:48 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine Message-ID: <1bb.471955.2a02b74c@cs.com> In a message dated 5/2/2002 10:01:24 AM Central Daylight Time, tchandle at bryant.edu writes: > Phil Levine was my teacher at Brown, and was the most demanding, sensitive, > tyrannical, compassionate prof I ever had. > Whoever says he's bogus is, in fact, the bogus one. > Tom Chandler I should have added "IMHO" to that remark. I'm sure that one could learn quite a bit about working-class consciousness at Brown. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tchandle at bryant.edu Thu May 2 11:55:56 2002 From: tchandle at bryant.edu (Thomas Chandler) Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 11:55:56 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine References: <1bb.471955.2a02b74c@cs.com> Message-ID: <004c01c1f1f1$d8e9d520$0e32280a@bryant.edu> Ah, yet another low blow, this one aimed at the elitists of Brown. For what it's worth (not much, I know) I too came out of a working class background, and was the first in my family to attend college. Maybe that's why I liked Levine so well. Tom Chandler ----- Original Message ----- From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 11:37 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Levine In a message dated 5/2/2002 10:01:24 AM Central Daylight Time, tchandle at bryant.edu writes: Phil Levine was my teacher at Brown, and was the most demanding, sensitive, tyrannical, compassionate prof I ever had. Whoever says he's bogus is, in fact, the bogus one. Tom Chandler I should have added "IMHO" to that remark. I'm sure that one could learn quite a bit about working-class consciousness at Brown. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 2 12:16:37 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 12:16:37 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine Message-ID: <159.d55240a.2a02c065@cs.com> In a message dated 5/2/2002 10:57:46 AM Central Daylight Time, tchandle at bryant.edu writes: > > Ah, yet another low blow, this one aimed at the elitists of Brown. For what > it's worth (not much, I know) I too came out of a working class background, > and was the first in my family to attend college. Maybe that's why I liked > Levine so well. > Tom Chandler > > > Ah, well, if we must get to cases: Levine's own low blow to his onetime friend, the late Henri Coulette. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cstroffo at earthlink.net Thu May 2 12:54:47 2002 From: cstroffo at earthlink.net (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 09:54:47 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine References: <003501c1f1e9$fb735c40$0e32280a@bryant.edu> Message-ID: <3CD16F57.C60D63C7@earthlink.net> wow---tyranny is better than bogus! Thomas Chandler wrote: > Phil Levine was my teacher at Brown, and was the most demanding, sensitive, > tyrannical, compassionate prof I ever had. > Whoever says he's bogus is, in fact, the bogus one. > Tom Chandler > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From Henry_Gould at brown.edu Thu May 2 13:15:42 2002 From: Henry_Gould at brown.edu (Henry Gould) Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 13:15:42 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine In-Reply-To: <004c01c1f1f1$d8e9d520$0e32280a@bryant.edu> References: <1bb.471955.2a02b74c@cs.com> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20020502130847.00adec80@postoffice.brown.edu> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 2 13:46:51 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 13:46:51 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine Message-ID: <162.d293632.2a02d58b@cs.com> In a message dated 5/2/2002 12:20:40 PM Central Daylight Time, Henry_Gould at brown.edu writes: > > >> >> >>> I'm sure that one could learn quite a bit about working-class >>> consciousness at Brown. >> > > Why would anyone with such intellectual certainty &overall politico-moral > correctness need poetry? Why haven't you saved the world yet? Done away > with the parasitical bourgeoisie? Enacted a universal living wage and > free education, health care, &transportation for all? Officially annexed > the U.S. to Scandinavia (changing the name to "Greater Minnesota")? > Peopled major cities with statues of Ideal Workers? Lobotomized ornery > individualists? Done away with filthy lucre? Get to work, you lazy bum! > > - Henry, worker at Brown > Alas, my only platform is here, and it is made of porcelain. Citizen Gwynn And right, I should be grading papers. One odd thing: I don't think I've ever heard a woman poet speak up for Levine. Are there any out there? Citizen Gwyn? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Arielpf123 at aol.com Thu May 2 14:23:45 2002 From: Arielpf123 at aol.com (Arielpf123 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 14:23:45 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine Message-ID: <129.10be4c35.2a02de31@aol.com> In a message dated 5/2/02 1:51:34 PM, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com writes: << One odd thing: I don't think I've ever heard a woman poet speak up for Levine. Are there any out there? Citizen Gwyn? >> well here you go: I love Levine's work, also his passion about poetry and teaching....and the love for humanity he pours into his work. I'll take Levine over any ten postmodern poets with their arch cleverness, irony, bitterness, and manipulative language hijinks. Patf From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Thu May 2 14:37:50 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 13:37:50 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Credentials & Levine Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E2C@mail.ripon.edu> I've little to say if the topic continues to be pedigree & credentialing, which seems a form of gossip, interesting enough for those who are interested. Discussion of class always seem to put people in high-defensive mode, anyway. (You'd never know it from my uppercrust diction and taste for multilingual puns, but mah pappy was a coalminer in the hills of San Francisco. . . . What of it and who the hell cares?) But it does seem useful to make the distinction: is Levine *himself* bogus, or is there something bogus about his portrayal of reality in his poems? If it's the latter, I've yet to see any illustration of that. (I've no idea what he did or did not do to Coulette, by the way: did he "do" it in a poem, perhaps?) David Graham, at work and late for class. . . . ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 2 15:05:45 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 15:05:45 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Credentials & Levine Message-ID: <4b.1ca9a2c0.2a02e809@cs.com> In a message dated 5/2/2002 1:42:28 PM Central Daylight Time, GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU writes: > > > I've little to say if the topic continues to be pedigree &credentialing, > which seems a form of gossip, interesting enough for those who are > interested. Discussion of class always seem to put people in > high-defensive > mode, anyway. > > (You'd never know it from my uppercrust diction and taste for multilingual > puns, but mah pappy was a coalminer in the hills of San Francisco. . . . > What of it and who the hell cares?) > > But it does seem useful to make the distinction: is Levine *himself* > bogus, > or is there something bogus about his portrayal of reality in his poems? > If > it's the latter, I've yet to see any illustration of that. (I've no idea > what he did or did not do to Coulette, by the way: did he "do" it in a > poem, perhaps?) > > David Graham, at work and late for class. . . . > You're right, and I shouldn't have brought the matter up. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cvoisine at nmsu.edu Thu May 2 16:18:34 2002 From: cvoisine at nmsu.edu (NMSU) Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 13:18:34 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #783 - 14 msgs In-Reply-To: <200205021333.g42DX1Q30390@wiz.cath.vt.edu> Message-ID: RE: Working class To me the definition must include some limits to the imagination about what's possible. My family never imagined things like college educations were possible for people like us. When I got into Yale, my father got angry and said don't think you'll get to go there (meaning I don't want your heart broken by these dreams). I have met people who grew up as poor as I did (there are few poorer) but whose family, due to a "fall" or bohemian life choices or whatever, still managed to have the idea that class mobility was possible. Connie Voisine From sholman at mac.com Thu May 2 15:32:49 2002 From: sholman at mac.com (Shannon Holman) Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 15:32:49 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Credentials & Levine In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E2C@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: on 5/2/02 2:37 PM, Graham, David at GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU wrote: > (I've no idea > what he did or did not do to Coulette, by the way: did he "do" it in a > poem, perhaps?) > > David Graham, at work and late for class. . . . > > ======================================== I know little of Levine's work and nothing of his private life, but I've long admired this poem of his, which seems to bear--lightly--on your query. Or is that what you had in mind? ______________________________________________________________ The Simple Truth I bought a dollar and a half's worth of small red potatoes, took them home, boiled them in their jackets and ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt. Then I walked through the dried fields on the edge of town. In middle June the light hung on in the dark furrows at my feet, and in the mountain oaks overhead the birds were gathering for the night, the jays and mockers squawking back and forth, the finches still darting into the dusty light. The woman who sold me the potatoes was from Poland; she was someone out of my childhood in a pink spangled sweater and sunglasses praising the perfection of all her fruits and vegetables at the road-side stand and urging me to taste even the pale, raw sweet corn trucked all the way, she swore, from New Jersey. "Eat," she said, "even if you don't I'll say you did." Some things you know all your life. They are so simple and true they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme, they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker, the glass of water, the absence of light gathering in the shadows of picture frames, they must be naked and alone, they must stand for themselves. My friend Henri and I arrived at this together in 1965 before I went away, before he began to kill himself, and the two of us to betray our love. Can you taste what I'm saying? It is onions or potatoes, a pinch of simple salt, the wealth of melting butter, it is obvious, it stays in the back of your throat like a truth you never uttered because the time was always wrong, it stays there for the rest of your life, unspoken, made of that dirt we call earth, the metal we call salt, in a form we have no words for, and you live on it. -- Philip Levine ______________________________________________________________ -- Shannon Holman work: 212.545.6089 home: 718.638.1239 cell: 917.655.2415 email: sholman at mac.com -- http://www.onemississippi.com From JforJames at aol.com Thu May 2 16:25:21 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 16:25:21 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine Message-ID: <93.1c806aa2.2a02fab1@aol.com> In a message dated 5/2/02 12:53:37 PM Eastern Daylight Time, cstroffo at earthlink.net writes: > wow---tyranny is better than bogus! > In The Bread of Time there is a loving portrayal of John Berryman (Levine's instructor for a term at Iowa) in all his tyrannical tearcherly glory (eros tyrannos?). Finnegan From Arielpf123 at aol.com Thu May 2 16:46:17 2002 From: Arielpf123 at aol.com (Arielpf123 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 16:46:17 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Credentials & Levine Message-ID: Just discovered a terrific interview with Levine at The Cortland Review....here's the site in case any are interested:Interview with Philip Levine (2) : Issue Seven ? patf From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 2 18:12:51 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 18:12:51 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine Message-ID: In a message dated 5/2/2002 3:29:43 PM Central Daylight Time, JforJames at aol.com writes: > In The Bread of Time there is a loving portrayal > of John Berryman (Levine's instructor for a term at Iowa) > in all his tyrannical tearcherly glory (eros tyrannos?). > Finnegan > It is a good portrayal. I read it again this afternoon. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cstroffo at earthlink.net Thu May 2 22:27:32 2002 From: cstroffo at earthlink.net (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 19:27:32 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #783 - 14 msgs References: Message-ID: <3CD1F594.62D901E6@earthlink.net> Connie--- I can totally relate to this--- Chris Stroffolino NMSU wrote: > RE: Working class > > To me the definition must include some limits to the imagination about > what's possible. My family never imagined things like college educations > were possible for people like us. When I got into Yale, my father got angry > and said don't think you'll get to go there (meaning I don't want your heart > broken by these dreams). I have met people who grew up as poor as I did > (there are few poorer) but whose family, due to a "fall" or bohemian life > choices or whatever, still managed to have the idea that class mobility was > possible. > > Connie Voisine > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From Henry_Gould at brown.edu Fri May 3 10:57:31 2002 From: Henry_Gould at brown.edu (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 10:57:31 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] consciousness & mobility Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20020503100559.00ae4760@postoffice.brown.edu> Here are some vague ideas inspired by Connie Voisine's post. If class mobility is partly an imaginative act, then what are the relations or connections between imagination, education, literacy, empowerment, freedom? Somewhere here is the nexus where poets have some interest. The question is not only one of mobility, but of the quality of labor relations - the way work is valued & dignified - in a marketing world. If the whole concept of "working class" has to do with a large group of people who have become alienated from skills, crafts, and ownership of their production by commercial capitalism - then the distinction between poetry (as craft, even as manual labor) and commercial entertainment - even if it's a blurred & ambiguous distinction - takes on a political aspect. By "political aspect" I don't mean that poetry is thereby provided with a simple grid of political correctness. My own personal view is that private property & capitalism small &/or large are not necessarily evil, nor are self-righteous collectives founded on abstract idealism necessarily good. The pedagogy of the left often ignores the presence of individual freedom-of-action, which resolves - pragmatically & partially - the conflicts between self & community, opportunity & social justice, by means of unique & local good works. The pedagogy of the right is blind to the value of creative collective action - the entrepreneurship of social justice - which can make government a positive player in fostering the good life. Yet the political aspect of poetry, as art as opposed to commercial entertainment, is a kind of doorway which allows for intellectual freedom. It's the alienation of poetry from entertainment & social status which highlights some poets' solidarity with the dispossessed. The challenge is one of fashioning useful imaginative work - a set of themes and a means of presentation - which empowers & nourishes rather than distracts & deludes people. This might have less to do with credentials than with the poetic power to connect the experience of dispossession with the means to well-being - both for individuals and for nations & cultures. This might mean discovering a cultural harmonics, an equilibrium, between labor and property, business & government, private & communal. In the nexus of literacy, pedagogy, and literature, it might lead to very new forms of local & poetic "entertainment". Then again, poetry is a natural phenomenon which can't be "planned" or forced into didactic channels in a mechanical way. Henry From Henry_Gould at brown.edu Fri May 3 11:51:04 2002 From: Henry_Gould at brown.edu (Henry Gould) Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 11:51:04 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] re: consciousness & mobility Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20020503114739.00ae59c0@postoffice.brown.edu> . . . Meanwhile, I suppose, my categorical house o' cards (poetry/entertainment/commerce/solidarity) is set a-trembling - see the book review in NY Times today of "The Emperor's Babe", a novel in verse by a Nigerian-Englishwoman named Bernardine Evaristo, about a love affair between an African slave & a Roman general in London in 211 A.D. - published by Viking. . . Henry From Robtberner at aol.com Fri May 3 17:38:32 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 17:38:32 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] class dismissed Message-ID: <49.1ce2bfcb.2a045d58@aol.com> In his book Labor and Monopoly Capital, Harry Braverman says the following: I have no quarrel with the definition of working class,on the basis of its "relationship to the means of production," as that class which does not own or otherwise have proprietary access to the means of labor, and must sell its labor power to those who do. My posting yesterday of the exchange between Auden and Vidal was meant to illustrate this elementary distinction between middle and working class. The middle class lives on the income from property. The working class lives on income derived from its own labor, no matter the occupation--ditch-digger or neuro-surgeon, steelworker of English professor. In this country we tend to blur this distinction by equating income level with class. It's this equation that provides us with "the idea that class mobility was possible," as Connie Voisine phrased it. Thus, a ditch-digger's son may become a mid-level--even an upper--corporate manager, and a steelworker's daughter an English teacher. But as long as the son or daughter works for a living, they are still working class whether they think of themselves as middle class or not. Henry Gould writes: "If class mobility is partly an imaginative act,what are the relations or connections between imagination, education, literacy, empowerment, freedom?" Such factors, it seems to me, are crucial, in the sense that they are tools which enable us to escape the prejudices of the class into which we are born. Free of such prejudices, are we not thus enabled to create a poetry which tells the truth, many truths: that there are things in the world which are beautiful, that love is better than hate, light better than dark, and that it is our duty to keep the lights from going out? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Robtberner at aol.com Fri May 3 18:03:24 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 18:03:24 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] correction Message-ID: <12b.10b78659.2a04632c@aol.com> Line 4 of my quotation from Braverman contains a serious mis-typing. The second word in line 4 should be production. Sorry about that.The phrase should then read: "proprietary access to the means of production." Robert Berner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From FanwoodJEL at aol.com Fri May 3 18:38:03 2002 From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com) Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 18:38:03 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] reading reminder - Tupelo Press Message-ID: <143.df3f6da.2a046b4b@aol.com> Please Join Us Sunday, May 5th (7:30 pm) for the second installment in the TUPELO PRESS VILLAGE READING SERIES at Pangea Readers: David Lehman, Monica Ferrell, and Jennifer Michael Hecht, winner of the PSA Norma Farber First Book Award. Dinner after. Hot and cold running spirits, whispering muses. Solid one-liners. Fancy bookmarks. Pangea Bar & Restaurant ~ 178 Second Avenue, btwn 12th & 11th Streets ~ 212-995-0900 Jeffrey (the other Levine) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Sat May 4 12:34:24 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 12:34:24 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] class dismissed Message-ID: <8f.1b7b3e3b.2a056790@aol.com> In a message dated 5/3/02 5:50:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Robtberner at aol.com writes: << The working class lives on income derived from its own labor, no matter the occupation--ditch-digger or neuro-surgeon, steelworker of English professor. In this country we tend to blur this distinction by equating income level with class. >> Robert, we're probably getting far afield in this discussion, but I wanted to speak to this. The problem with this view is that income is, by & large, a measure of social value & status, and to ignore it is similar to ignoring the effect of "magnitude" in the view that a flat tax is a fairer tax... 10% of $40,000 gross income leaves one w/ $36K....of $400,000 leaves one net $360K, more than enuf to keep the wolf from the door. Equal percentages thus fair, but Magnitude matters: 10% of a pie 3" in diameter is a taste; 10% of a pie 12" in diameter is dessert. Yes, all of the jobs listed above are work, but levels of entitlement and opportunity must be acknowledged...the 4 people are not equals in terms of education, political access, social circle, residency, opportunities for their offspring, etc. How much of the job is physical versus mental matters, as well, in terms of defining working class. And even the words we use to describe these jobs matter: 2 of the 4 above would be spoken of as having "careers." Something we've danced around, in trying to define working-class poet, is that by writing about or from her/his background/upbringing/experiences, no matter how objectively or obliquely, no matter his/her pedigree (one generation or 10 generations below or hovering uneasily above the poverty line) he/she becomes, de facto, a political poet. Finnegan From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Sat May 4 15:09:36 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sat, 04 May 2002 14:09:36 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry About Work Message-ID: <200205041909.g44J91T40614@mx2.mx.voyager.net> With all the back-and-forth about class consciousness, part of the originating impulse of this thread got lost. I'm wondering if anyone's still interested, as I am, in looking at particular poems that describe or grow from specific kinds of work. Max Garland (another Southerner, by the way) has a book called *The Postal Confessions* that contains a number of poems touching on this theme. Here's the title piece: The Postal Confessions The sorting machine whirs like the blades of a fan. You could fall asleep if it weren?t for the money, if it weren?t for the fact that the work is already much deeper than sleep, and what could you fall into lower than life you never intended, yet inhabit like the rumble in the conveyor?s constant moan. The strange thing is, hardly anyone writes anymore, yet the tonnage builds and builds. Hardly anyone spills even a grain of his life in a letter, yet the machines whir and jam, the bundles threaten to topple, the mail cases bulge with billing and the inky brightness of sales pitch. You could fall asleep if it weren?t for the third cup of vending machine coffee, which resembles in color, texture, and taste, the silted waters of the Ohio in spring, which is why they built the town in the first place, to drink the waters of the river, to burden the long twisted back of the river with barges and bridges, to sit in the slump of afternoon watching the sun float down from white to yellow to red to maroon, the last few gulls raking the far shore, as if even the shadows were richer there. --Max Garland, fr. *The Postal Confessions*. U Massachusetts P, 1995. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com Sun May 5 10:44:00 2002 From: thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com (bob cooper) Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 14:44:00 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] consciousness & mobility Message-ID: I guess I'm following on, too, from Connie Voisine's post... (where things seemed to clarify themselves) and then I like it where Henry Gould wrote:"If the whole concept of "working class" has to do with a large group of people who have become alienated from skills, crafts, and ownership of their production by commercial capitalism - then the distinction between poetry (as craft, even as manual labor) and commercial entertainment - even if it's a blurred & ambiguous distinction - takes on a political aspect." And I think that's getting near a definition that gets much further than "my folks are/were Working Class" or "I once had a working class job" or whatever. I guess the old class definitions and systems still exist but they're less than adequate for a world where WORK is no longer seen in the ways it used to be. I sense Western Society has educated what was its Working Class to such an extent that it's more than possible for movement and fluidity (that's a good point, well made, Henry!). However there now seems to be a large class of not working people for whom literature/poetry/creativity can either fill a lot of time or be more ignored than when they had more money and choices. What links are there between poetries and the increasing numbers of people for whom work is rarely an option? I don't think the term "Working Class" can apply to a societal group who probably can never find ways of valuing their lives, or recognising their status, through work. To talk about work is to talk an alien language. So I'm intrigued by the point that's made: "what are the relations or connections between imagination, education, literacy, empowerment, freedom? Somewhere here is the nexus where poets have some interest." Because I wonder if there are other poetries being formed where there is little "empowerment" and little "freedom." (this could get interesting...) Bob Cooper _________________________________________________________________ Join the world?s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Sun May 5 16:19:24 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 13:19:24 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] out west Message-ID: <3CD593CB.909B7E86@earthlink.net> A reminder to anyone living in the great northwest that I'll be giving several readings out that way, one of which might be in your neighborhood. It would be nice to say hello to you in person. Tuesday, May 14th, 7 p.m.: Helena, Montana, Naked Words Reading Series, Miller's Crossing, 52 S. Park Avenue Thursday, May 16th, 7-9 p.m.: Seattle, Washington, The Hugo House, 1634 Eleventh Avenue - Workshop, call for details: 206-322-7030 Friday, May 17th, 7:30 p.m.: Seattle, Washington, Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S, Main St. (206-624-6600) Tuesday, May 21st, 7 p.m.: Eugene, Oregon, Windfall Series, sponsored by the Public Library and the Lane Literary Guild, with George Hitchcock, at the Eugene Public Library - Jim James Cervantes: Salt River Review: Poetserv: Homepage: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Reading itinerary: From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Sun May 5 16:37:36 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 15:37:36 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Work: Ginger Andrews Message-ID: <200205052037.g45Kb0q86137@mx12.mx.voyager.net> Here's another poem about work. What the Cleaning Lady Knows Cleanliness is not and never has been next to godliness. White carpets are hell. You can get by without Comet, Spic and Span or lemon oil, but Windex is mandatory. Ammonia can cause pneumonia. People who pay to have clean houses cleaned are lonely. Children whose parents work full-time will fall in love with you. Rich people splatter diarrhea on the inside rim of their toilet seats, just like the rest of us. Cleaning rags should always be washed separately with bleach. Cash is better than checks. ---Ginger Andrews. *An Honest Answer*. Story Line Press, 1999. =================================================== David Graham grahamd at vbe.com Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html =================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Sun May 5 16:42:15 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 15:42:15 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about work: Grace Bauer Message-ID: <200205052041.g45Kfc203613@mx16.mx.voyager.net> The English Teacher's Bad Day *Something there is that doesn't love a wall* I repeat as if they cared. What do farmers hauling rocks have to do with their bodies still tanned from Palm Beach and Bermuda, their eighteen year old's certainty of never running out of life? Last week when I warned them more than one Willy Loman might be sitting in this very room, they exchanged weary looks and rolled their eyes, convinced it must be me. And who am I to say they're wrong? I, who force them to define the elements of tragedy in two-hundred-fifty words. --Grace Bauer. *In Praise of Pedagogy*. ed. Wendy Bishop & David Starkey. Calendar Island Publishers, 2000. =================================================== David Graham grahamd at vbe.com Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html =================================================== From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Sun May 5 16:46:35 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 15:46:35 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Work: David Ignatow Message-ID: <200205052045.g45Kjvw38991@mx14.mx.voyager.net> For One Moment You take the dollar and hand it to the fellow beside you who turns and gives it to the next one down the line. The world being round, you stand waiting, smoking and lifting a cup of coffee to your lips, talking of seasonal weather and hinting at problems. The dollar returns, the coffee spills to the ground in your hurry. You have the money in one hand, a cup in the other, a cigarette in your mouth, and for one moment have forgotten what it is you have to do, your hair grey, your legs weakened from long standing. --David Ignatow. *Selected Poems*. Wesleyan, 1975. =================================================== David Graham grahamd at vbe.com Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html =================================================== From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Sun May 5 16:54:34 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 15:54:34 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about work: Wm. Matthews Message-ID: <200205052053.g45KrvT96990@mx4.mx.voyager.net> Job Interview Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife He would have written sonnets all his life? DON JUAN, III, 63-4 "Where do you see yourself five years from now?" the eldest male member (or is "male member" a redundancy?) of the committee asked me. "Not here," I thought. A good thing I speak fluent Fog. I craved that job like some unappeasable, taunting woman. What did Byron's friend Hobhouse say after the wedding? "I felt as if I had buried a friend." Each day I had that job I felt the slack leash at my throat and thought what was its other trick. Better to scorn the job than ask what I had ever seen in it or think what pious muck I'd ladled over the committee. If they believed me, they deserved me. As luck would have it, the job lasted me almost but not quite five years. --William Matthews. *After All*. Houghton Mifflin, 1998. =================================================== David Graham grahamd at vbe.com Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html =================================================== From Simon at IPFW.EDU Sun May 5 16:54:24 2002 From: Simon at IPFW.EDU (Simon_Beth) Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 15:54:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Work: Max Garland Message-ID: THE POSTAL CONFESSIONS The sorting machine whirs like the blades of a fan. You could fall asleep if it weren't for the money, if it weren't for the fact that the work is already much deeper than sleep, and what could you fall into lower than life you never intended yet inhabit like the rumble in the conveyor's constant moan. The strange thing is, hardly anyone spills even a grain of his life in a letter, yet the machines whir and jam, the bundles threaten to topple, the mail cases bulge with billing and the inky brightness of sales pitch. You could fall asleep if it weren't for the third cup of vending machine coffee, which resembles in color, texture, and taste, the silted waters of the Ohio in spring, which is why they built the town in the first place, to drink the waters of the river, to burden the long twisted back of the river with barges and bridges, to sit in the slump of afternoon watching the sun float down from white to yellow to red to maroon, the last few gulls raking the far shore, as if even the shadows were richer there. From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Sun May 5 17:17:59 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 16:17:59 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about work: Gary Snyder Message-ID: <200205052117.g45LHM587463@mx8.mx.voyager.net> One final item today for my mini-anthology of poems about work--in hopes of nudging others to post some favorites. This one by Snyder has been one of my favorites for nearly 30 years. One of my college profs used it on a Christmas card: context is all. Hay for the Horses He had driven half the night From far down San Joaquin Through Mariposa, up the Dangerous Mountain roads, And pulled in at eight a.m. With his big truckload of hay behind the barn. With winch and ropes and hooks We stacked the bales up clean To splintery redwood rafters High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa Whirling through shingle-cracks of light, Itch of haydust in the sweaty shirt and shoes. At lunchtime under Black oak Out in the hot corral, ?-The old mare nosing lunchpails, Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds?- "I'm sixty-eight" he said, "I first bucked hay when I was seventeen. I thought, that day I started, I sure would hate to do this all my life. And dammit, that's just what I've gone and done." --Gary Snyder. *Riprap*. Four Seasons, 1965. =================================================== David Graham grahamd at vbe.com Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html =================================================== From antrobin at clipper.net Sun May 5 17:40:21 2002 From: antrobin at clipper.net (Anthony Robinson) Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 14:40:21 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] poem not about work References: <3CD593CB.909B7E86@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <005f01c1f47d$76ba6160$6faeefd8@0021936706> Four Love Poems 1. We wanted to take everything with us because we didn't know when we'd be back. I stuffed a badger in each pocket, a hunk of cheese beneath my waistcoat; you brought the mirror, the candle, the hoary volume of middle-eastern cookery, a spool of string, and a tartan skirt that stopped just above your knee. 2. We entered the night as one enters a great hall, staggering, unable to fathom the deep space ahead, the linearity of it all, the unhinging that happens in the dark, the way our skin flakes off invisibly, leaving the things of our life (the things we touch then cast aside) covered with a fine, quick dust. Of these things we were scared, and the owl offered no solace, the warm wind only howled and buffeted, didn't calm. 3. Sometimes one's life takes on a temporary sheen: the pictures you developed spoke and they said "you are exquisite when you smoke a cigarette," "yours is the throat the wine seeks, trying to find its level," "marry me or at least sleep with me,"-at these moments, it's as if someone has switched on a light near the door, and over the transom lay the grey galaxy beyond, suddenly and wonderfully illumined: you can make out the circumference of stars, the "face on the water" slides up to land. 4. Nothing ever happens here. What brought you won't save you in the end, won' t console or shine. The trans-continental migration of a certain type of bird becomes the operative metaphor-we reason by analogy, and so I think of the swallows that returned each year to my childhood home, to the same mud and twig nest, and how one late morning my mother stepped out onto the back porch, surveyed the eaves, and-shaking her head and muttering-with one swipe, knocked it down. And they didn't come back. That was the summer I kissed somebody. *** "The incredible never surprises us because it is the incredible." Emily Dickinson *** "The Romantic movement left, when it departed, a tremendous gap in poetry which could be filled by criticism and by literary theory but which would be better left alone." Kenneth Koch *** ...theres some thing in us it dont have no name...it aint us but yet its in us. Its looking out thru our eye hoals. Russell Hoban, "Riddley Walker" ----- Original Message ----- From: "James Cervantes" To: "new-poetry" Sent: Sunday, May 05, 2002 1:19 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] out west > A reminder to anyone living in the great northwest that I'll be giving > several readings out that way, one of which might be in your > neighborhood. It would be nice to say hello to you in person. > > Tuesday, May 14th, 7 p.m.: Helena, Montana, Naked Words Reading Series, > Miller's Crossing, 52 S. Park Avenue > Thursday, May 16th, 7-9 p.m.: Seattle, Washington, The Hugo House, 1634 > Eleventh Avenue - Workshop, call for details: 206-322-7030 > Friday, May 17th, 7:30 p.m.: Seattle, Washington, Elliott Bay Book > Company, 101 S, Main St. (206-624-6600) > Tuesday, May 21st, 7 p.m.: Eugene, Oregon, Windfall Series, sponsored > by the Public Library and the Lane Literary Guild, with George > Hitchcock, at the Eugene Public Library > > - Jim > > James Cervantes: > Salt River Review: > Poetserv: > Homepage: > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Reading itinerary: > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From marcus at designerglass.com Sun May 5 22:41:31 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 22:41:31 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Work: Ginger Andrews In-Reply-To: <200205052037.g45Kb0q86137@mx12.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3CD5B51B.18979.244CD70@localhost> > What the Cleaning Lady Knows > ---Ginger Andrews. *An Honest Answer*. Story Line Press, 1999. > > Cleanliness is not and never has been next to godliness. > > White carpets are hell. > > You can get by without Comet, Spic and Span or lemon oil, > but Windex is mandatory. > > Ammonia can cause pneumonia. > > People who pay to have clean houses cleaned are lonely. > > Children whose parents work full-time will fall in love with you. > > Rich people splatter diarrhea > on the inside rim of their toilet seats, just like the rest of us. > > Cleaning rags should always be washed separately with bleach. > > Cash is better than checks. Once again, what makes this newspaper-column prose into poetry? Merely the claim by the writer that it is poetry? This is splattered diarrhetic prose on the inside rim of the publishing biz, it seems to me. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From gmcvay at patriot.net Sun May 5 22:44:15 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 22:44:15 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Work: Ginger Andrews References: <3CD5B51B.18979.244CD70@localhost> Message-ID: <3CD5EDF9.9075DCBB@patriot.net> Marcus, you've never gotten into the form/genre of the "list poem"? This is a prose poem. This is what the speaker knows, and is passing on. Language that doesn't seem "poetic," whatever the hell that means, is what is available to the speaker at the moment, what she must use if she is to have a voice. And not to have voice, to use a highly technical term here, sucks. Gwyn From marcus at designerglass.com Sun May 5 23:06:28 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 23:06:28 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Work: Ginger Andrews In-Reply-To: <3CD5EDF9.9075DCBB@patriot.net> Message-ID: <3CD5BAF4.31391.25BA7F7@localhost> > Marcus, you've never gotten into the form/genre of the "list poem"? This > is a prose poem. This is what the speaker knows, and is passing on. > Language that doesn't seem "poetic," whatever the hell that means, is > what is available to the speaker at the moment, what she must use if she > is to have a voice. And not to have voice, to use a highly technical > term here, sucks. Then what makes it "a poem" instead of "a list"? Perhaps you're familiar with the "quote poem", thus: QUOTATION 02-0305 Remove existing Helios Shower Door cut through drywall in bedroom, insert reinforcing wood frame behind fiberglass shower enclosure Secure wood frame to wall studs Patch drywall and paint wall 3/8" tempered glass bi-fold shower doors with stationary panel Semi-obscure glass pattern Chrome hinges and pulls Vinyl sweeps Installed $2,985.00 Helios installation holes in fiberglass shower enclosure to be filled by others Terms: 50% on approval; balance on installation. Please sign and date below, and return one signed copy with your deposit. Please keep one copy for your records. _________________________ ____________ Accepted Date Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Sun May 5 23:05:31 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 22:05:31 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Merely Message-ID: <200205060304.g4634si28850@mx16.mx.voyager.net> >Once again, what makes this newspaper-column prose into >poetry? Merely the claim by the writer that it is poetry? In a word, yes, that works for me. But once again, you are blurring two separate issues here: what constitutes *poetry*, and what constitutes *good* poetry. Apparently you already know the answer to the second question, but haven't shared it with the rest of the class. That's naughty. But, best wishes on your quest for the Holy Grail of poetic quality. David Graham ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== >Once again, what makes this newspaper-column prose into >poetry? Merely the claim by the writer that it is poetry? This is >splattered diarrhetic prose on the inside rim of the publishing biz, it >seems to me. > > >Marcus Bales > From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Sun May 5 23:29:24 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 23:29:24 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Work: Ginger Andrews Message-ID: <1ab.1d3c693.2a075294@cs.com> In a message dated 5/5/2002 9:31:45 PM Central Daylight Time, marcus at designerglass.com writes: > > >What the Cleaning Lady Knows > >---Ginger Andrews. *An Honest Answer*. Story Line Press, > 1999. > > > >Cleanliness is not and never has been next to godliness. > > > >White carpets are hell. > > > >You can get by without Comet, Spic and Span or lemon oil, > >but Windex is mandatory. > > > >Ammonia can cause pneumonia. > > > >People who pay to have clean houses cleaned are lonely. > > > >Children whose parents work full-time will fall in love with you. > > > >Rich people splatter diarrhea > >on the inside rim of their toilet seats, just like the rest of us. > > > >Cleaning rags should always be washed separately with bleach. > > > >Cash is better than checks. > > Once again, what makes this newspaper-column prose into > poetry? Merely the claim by the writer that it is poetry? This is > splattered diarrhetic prose on the inside rim of the publishing biz, it > seems to me. > There are better poems than this in Ginger Andrews's book. If I didn't have this pinched nerve from working so much I'd type one up and post it here. Maybe someone else will. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcus at designerglass.com Sun May 5 23:41:39 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 23:41:39 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Merely In-Reply-To: <200205060304.g4634si28850@mx16.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3CD5C333.9073.27BDBBD@localhost> > But once again, you are blurring two separate issues here: what constitutes > *poetry*, and what constitutes *good* poetry.<< Well, then, let me change my question: what prompted whoever it was who posted that poem to claim implicitly that it was "good poetry" by posting it (assuming that by posting it as a "poem about work" you meant to post it as "a good poem" -- is it?)? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Mon May 6 01:01:20 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 00:01:20 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Merely Message-ID: <200205060500.g4650l899744@mx12.mx.voyager.net> Well, I posted the poem by Ginger Andrews. And I'm here to say I did not mean thereby "to claim inplicitly" anything much--certainly not that it's a great poem. I'd agree with Sam Gwynn: Ginger Andrews has written better. This one's pretty prosy, and whatever interest it has is largely, as single-n-Gwyn suggested, in its voice, and in the effect that hearing such previously silent voices might bring into the varied carol that is contemporary American poetry. In any case, given that it was a poem about work, written by a poet anyone would agree is "working class," and concerning, in part, matters of class consciousness, I thought that it added something to the soup of our simmering discussion. I found it interesting. But to return to the blurred-issue issue. Strikes me that the implicit claim in your response, Marcus, is that free verse is largely prose, a claim which loosely enough seems at times to morph into "not good poetry." Correct me if I'm wrong. But are there any free verse poems you're willing to claim as "good"? If so, what are the yardsticks by which you measure goodness in free verse? The thrust of your comments, over time, has made me suspect that poetic quality for you has something to do with conventional metrics. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== ---------- >From: "Marcus Bales" >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Merely >Date: Sun, May 5, 2002, 10:41 PM > >> But once again, you are blurring two separate issues here: what constitutes >> *poetry*, and what constitutes *good* poetry.<< > >Well, then, let me change my question: what prompted whoever it >was who posted that poem to claim implicitly that it was "good >poetry" by posting it (assuming that by posting it as a "poem about >work" you meant to post it as "a good poem" -- is it?)? > > >Marcus Bales From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Mon May 6 01:17:21 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 00:17:21 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Good Work Message-ID: <200205060516.g465GlR83432@mx15.mx.voyager.net> One more work poem by C. K. Williams. I think I may have posted this before (as is true of a couple of the others I tossed into this thread recently). But poetry is news that stays news. . . . In any case, before anyone else points it out, I'll say that of course it's about more than just work. This poem is one I would be happy to call "good," by the way--though I confess the music of CKW was fairly slow to grow on me. The extremely long lines will probably get messed up in transition, I fear, but short of sending an attachment, I don't know how to avoid that. Tar The first morning of Three Mile Island: those first disquieting, uncertain, mystifying hours. All morning a crew of workmen have been tearing the old decrepit roof off our building, and all morning, trying to distract myself, I've been wandering out to watch them as they hack away the leaden layers of asbestos paper and disassemble the disintegrating drains. After half a night of listening to the news, wondering how to know a hundred miles downwind if and when to make a run for it and where, then a coming bolt awake at seven when the roofers we've been waiting for since winter sent their ladders shrieking up our wall, we still know less than nothing: the utility company continues making little of the accident, the slick federal spokesmen still have their evasions in some semblance of order. Surely we suspect now we're being lied to, but in the meantime, there are the roofers, setting winch-frames, sledging rounds of tar apart, and there I am, on the curb across, gawking. I never realized what brutal work it is, how matter-of-factly and harrowingly dangerous. The ladders flex and quiver, things skid from the edge, the materials are bulky and recalcitrant. When the rusty, antique nails are levered out, their heads pull off; the underroofing crumbles. Even the battered little furnace, roaring along as patient as a donkey, chokes and clogs, a dense, malignant smoke shoots up, and someone has to fiddle with a cock, then hammer it, before the gush and stench will deintensify, the dark, Dantean broth wearily subside. In its crucible, the stuff looks bland, like licorice, spill it, though, on your boots or coveralls, it sears, and everything is permeated with it, the furnace gunked with burst and half-burst bubbles, the men themselves so completely slashed and mucked they seem almost from another realm, like trolls. When they take their break, they leave their brooms standing at attention in the asphalt pails, work gloves dinging like Br'er Rabbit to the bitten shafts, and they slouch along the precipitous lip, the enormous sky behind them, the heavy noontime air alive with shimmers and mirages. Sometime in the afternoon I had to go inside: the advent of our vigil was upon us. However much we didn't want to, however little we would do about it, we'd understood: we were going to perish of all this, if not now, then soon, if not soon, then someday. Someday, some final generation, hysterically aswarm beneath an atmosphere as unrelenting as rock, would rue us all, anathematize our earthly comforts, curse our surfeits and submissions. I think I know, though I might rather not, why my roofers stay so clear to me and why the rest, the terror of that time, the reflexive disbelief and distancing, all we should hold on to, dims so. I remember the president in his absurd protective booties, looking absolutely unafraid, the fool. I remember a woman on the front page glaring across the misty Susquehanna at those looming stacks. But, more vividly, the men, silvered with glitter from the shingles, clinging like starlings beneath the eaves. Even the leftover carats of tar in the gutter, so black they seemed to suck the light out of the air. By nightfall kids had come across them: every sidewalk on the block was scribbled with obscenities and hearts. --C. K. Williams. Poems 1963-1983. (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1988). ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From Robtberner at aol.com Mon May 6 05:01:18 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 05:01:18 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry and work Message-ID: <10d.11c94290.2a07a05e@aol.com> Many thanks to David Graham for posting poems about work, especially those by Grace Bauer, Wm. Matthews, and Gary Snyder. And let us not forget Sara Teasdale's beautifully succint The Golf Links The golf links are so near the mill That almost every day The laboring children can look out And watch the men at play. Marcus Bales, I challenge you to post on this net a poem of no more than thirty lines which you consider good. I further challenge you to tell us why and how the poem is good. Better yet, why don't you post one you thinks is great and tell us why? Robert Berner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Mon May 6 08:50:53 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 08:50:53 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry and work Message-ID: <60.1f73155b.2a07d62d@cs.com> In a message dated 5/6/2002 4:02:49 AM Central Daylight Time, Robtberner at aol.com writes: > > > Many thanks to David Graham for posting poems about work, especially > those by Grace Bauer, Wm. Matthews, and Gary Snyder. And let us not forget > Sara Teasdale's beautifully succint > > The Golf Links > > The golf links are so near the mill > That almost every day > The laboring children can look out > And watch the men at play. > > > Marcus Bales, I challenge you to post on this net a poem of no more > than thirty lines which you consider good. I further challenge you to tell > us why and how the poem is good. Better yet, why don't you post one you > thinks is great and tell us why? > > Robert Berner The poem is by Sarah N. Cleghorn. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From DICK at watson.ibm.com Mon May 6 09:12:46 2002 From: DICK at watson.ibm.com (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Mon, 6 May 02 09:12:46 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" Message-ID: <200205061313.g46DDCd11602@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> David Graham wrote: >>>Once again, what makes this newspaper-column prose into >>>poetry? Merely the claim by the writer that it is poetry? >> >>In a word, yes, that works for me. >> >>But once again, you are blurring two separate issues here: what constitutes >>*poetry*, and what constitutes *good* poetry. Apparently you already know >>the answer to the second question, but haven't shared it with the rest of >>the class. That's naughty. >> >>But, best wishes on your quest for the Holy Grail of poetic quality. >> >> >>David Graham Wow. Does that definition work for brain surgery too? Or violin playing, even? Richard From Arielpf123 at aol.com Mon May 6 09:23:54 2002 From: Arielpf123 at aol.com (Arielpf123 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 09:23:54 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry and work Message-ID: <126.10484048.2a07ddea@aol.com> here's one by Natasha Tretheway just out in the current issue of the online journal Artemis: pat fargnoli Domestic Work All week she's cleaned someone else's house, stared down her own face in the shine of copper- bottomed pots, polished wood, toilets she'd pull the lid to ? that look saying Let's make a change ,girl. But Sunday mornings are hers ? church clothes starched and hanging, a record spinning on the console, the whole hous e dancing. She raises the shades, washes the rooms in light, buckets of water, Octagon soap. Cleanliness is next to godliness ? Windows and doors flung wide, curtains two-stepping forward and back, neck bones bumping in the pot, a choir of clothes clapping on the line. Nearer my God to Thee ? She beats time on the rugs, blows dust from the broom like dandelion spores, each one a wish for something better. ? Natasha Trethewey From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 6 10:26:20 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 10:26:20 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Merely In-Reply-To: <200205060500.g4650l899744@mx12.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3CD65A4C.22357.1AAF77@localhost> > Well, I posted the poem by Ginger Andrews. And I'm here to say I did not > mean thereby "to claim inplicitly" anything much--certainly not that it's a > great poem. I'd agree with Sam Gwynn: Ginger Andrews has written better. Well, I didn't mean to mean that you meant it was a "great" poem, but surely the implicit claim in posting any poem that you don't say "Hey, look at this piece of crap" is that it is worthwhile, at least. > This one's pretty prosy, and whatever interest it has is largely, as > single-n-Gwyn suggested, in its voice, and in the effect that hearing such > previously silent voices might bring into the varied carol that is > contemporary American poetry. << But its "voice", such as it is, is utterly without redeeming merit -- it's the flat affectless voice of the forwarded internet joke; it's a list of not-quite-funny-enough comments interspersed with banal cliches ("Cash is better than checks" -- surely not an outstanding evocation of "voice"!). I've seen better "poems" that ARE forwarded internet joke lists. > In any case, given that it was a poem about work, written by a poet anyone > would agree is "working class," and concerning, in part, matters of class > consciousness, I thought that it added something to the soup of our > simmering discussion. I found it interesting.<< So, then, is the idea here that "working class poem" is pretty much the same as "bad poem"? > But to return to the blurred-issue issue. Strikes me that the implicit > claim in your response, Marcus, is that free verse is largely prose, a claim > which loosely enough seems at times to morph into "not good poetry." << No -- I don't object to every poem posted, you know, which is, it seems to me, what it would take to infer that I'm implying that every free verse poem is prose. > Correct me if I'm wrong. But are there any free verse poems you're willing > to claim as "good"? If so, what are the yardsticks by which you measure > goodness in free verse? > The thrust of your comments, over time, has made me suspect that poetic > quality for you has something to do with conventional metrics. Sure: Frost, "After Apple Picking"; Holmes, "Against the Literal"; Borges, "Browning Decides to Be a Poet"; Heaney, "Casting and Gathering"; McNeilly, "Confined"; Olds, "Connoisseuse of Slugs"; Plath, "Daddy"; Frost, "Death of the Hired Man"; Wayman "Did I Miss Anything"; Piercy, "Every Leaf is a Mouth"; Komunyakaa, "The Goddessof Quotas Laments" ... Stopping at the Gs of my office computer's stash of poems. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Mon May 6 10:24:44 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 07:24:44 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Remember that questionnaire? Message-ID: <3CD6922B.C47AC576@earthlink.net> Remember that questionnaire regarding electronic publishing? I have tabulated the results and collated the comments, and if anyone's interested, I could send them to you backchannel via safe MS Word attachments - the format precludes posting them via an e-mail. Or, if you wanted to participate but let the opportunity slip by, you can do so now - the questions are below. Overall, the attitudes toward electronic publication can be characterized as "cautious," and remarkably so in light of responses and discussion of similar questions seven years ago in a questionnaire that was distributed at AWP in Pittsburgh and included in a panel there, when attitudes seemed more open and positive. That particular survey is squirreled away on a floppy somewhere. So, if you'd like to see the results as of now, just write to me. If you'd like to add your response, please do so. I'll do as much as I can with it this week before I hit the road on Saturday. - Jim ================ Some terms and simplified definitions: P.O.D. = "Print-on-demand"; reader selects text online or at a bookstore, purchases it, and a bound custom text arrives at the bookstore or reader's address within 2 weeks (?); not stocked on bookstore shelves. PDF = Text available online in PDF format; downloaded and printed by reader; free, or available via nominal charge or honor system donation. Online = Text accessible online only; free, or via honor system donation. e-book = Reader purchases text online or at a book or computer store (memory card), downloads and views on one of several handheld devices - this technology is improving constantly. text = book-length manuscript Respond by listing # and letter(s) (ex: "1. b" etc.) or deleting answers that do not apply (ex: "3. If you chose electronic publication, which of the following best characterizes your primary reason(s) for doing so: a) audience") Chance for explanations at the end! 1. If, as a writer, you have a text circulating among print publishers/competitions (unsuccessfully, so far) and you are presented with an offer to have it published electronically by a reputable online publisher, would you: a) opt for electronic publication b) continue submitting to print publishers 2. If you chose electronic publication, which format would you most desire: a) P.O.D. b) PDF c) online d) e-book 3. If you chose electronic publication, which of the following would best characterize your *primary* reason for doing so: a) audience b) promotion/publicity c) reviews d) readability e) desire to experiment with new technology 3a. Which of the following best characterizes your next most important consideration for choosing electronic publication: a) audience b) promotion/publicity c) reviews d) readability e) desire to experiment with new technology 4. If you chose to continue seeking print publication, which of the following would best characterize your *primary* reason for doing so: a) audience b) promotion/publicity c) reviews d) readability e) prestige f) tradition 4a. Which of the following best characterizes your next most important consideration for seeking print publication: a) audience b) promotion/publicity c) reviews d) readability e) prestige f) tradition 5. Are there any considerations re. print vs electronic publication that are more important to you than any of the above? Write comments at bottom. 6. Which of the above are you *most* compelled to expound upon? Write comments at bottom. 7. If you have recently read an electronically mediated book or chapbook, in which format(s) did you read it: a) P.O.D. b) PDF c) online d) e-book 7a. How many texts have you read in *any* of the above formats: _____ 8. Do you regularly read as many electronic publications (any kind) as you do print publications: a)Yes b) Almost as many c) Much less d) More 9. If individual works of yours have been published electronically, what is the approximate ratio of your print publications to your electronic publications: ________ 10. If you have had a collection of work (chapbook or book) published electronically, what are the number of downloads to date? _________ James Cervantes: Salt River Review: Poetserv: Homepage: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Readings: From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Mon May 6 10:42:17 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 09:42:17 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E2F@mail.ripon.edu> As a matter of fact, I do think that the same principle applies. There's a difference between the two claims (is this a poem? is this a good poem?) that seems crucial to me. If some tone-deaf fool wants to say "I'm a violinist," fine. No skin off my back. I just won't buy a ticket to the concert. Neither do I find it interesting or productive to spend much time trying to argue said fool out of that opinion. Brain surgery's a different matter, obviously. I don't think anyone's ever been killed by an awkward lyric. But as Frost pointed out in "Education By Poetry," every metaphor breaks down at some point. Poetry helps one to know where that point is. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== > ---------- > From: DICK at watson.ibm.com > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Monday, May 6, 2002 8:12 AM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" > > David Graham wrote: > >>>Once again, what makes this newspaper-column prose into > >>>poetry? Merely the claim by the writer that it is poetry? > >> > >>In a word, yes, that works for me. > >> > > Wow. Does that definition work for brain surgery too? > > Or violin playing, even? > > Richard > From Robtberner at aol.com Mon May 6 11:02:40 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:02:40 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry and work Message-ID: <6e.1c27c3fa.2a07f510@aol.com> sorry about that mis-attribution. robert From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 6 11:17:51 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:17:51 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poem In-Reply-To: <3CD65A4C.22357.1AAF77@localhost> References: <200205060500.g4650l899744@mx12.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3CD6665F.29809.49DC1B@localhost> Poems About Work From hruggier at localnet.com Mon May 6 11:31:10 2002 From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri) Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 11:31:10 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Work: Ginger Andrews References: <3CD5BAF4.31391.25BA7F7@localhost> Message-ID: <3CD6A1BE.E7F8597@localnet.com> That's a found poem, isn't it? HR Marcus Bales wrote: > > Marcus, you've never gotten into the form/genre of the "list poem"? This > > is a prose poem. This is what the speaker knows, and is passing on. > > Language that doesn't seem "poetic," whatever the hell that means, is > > what is available to the speaker at the moment, what she must use if she > > is to have a voice. And not to have voice, to use a highly technical > > term here, sucks. > > Then what makes it "a poem" instead of "a list"? > > Perhaps you're familiar with the "quote poem", thus: > > QUOTATION 02-0305 > > Remove existing Helios Shower Door > cut through drywall in bedroom, insert reinforcing wood frame > behind fiberglass shower enclosure > Secure wood frame to wall studs > Patch drywall and paint wall > 3/8" tempered glass bi-fold shower doors with stationary panel > Semi-obscure glass pattern > Chrome hinges and pulls > Vinyl sweeps > Installed $2,985.00 > > Helios installation holes in fiberglass shower enclosure to be filled by > others > > Terms: 50% on approval; balance on installation. Please sign and date > below, and return one signed copy with your deposit. Please keep one > copy for your records. > > _________________________ ____________ > Accepted Date > > Marcus Bales > > marcus at designerglass.com > http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From Thom424 at aol.com Mon May 6 11:23:44 2002 From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:23:44 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Working Class Poets and Poetry Message-ID: <34.27238c19.2a07fa00@aol.com> William Coles's essay "Democratizing Literature: Issues in Teaching Working Class Literature" (_College English_ 48, November, 1986, 667+) is quite relevant to the recent on-going discussions here. Some related anthologies of working class literature: Nicholas Coles and Peter Oresick, eds. Working Classics: Poems on Industrial Life. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990. Nicholas Coles and Peter Oresick, eds. For a Living: The Poetry of Work. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995. Benjamin DeMott. ed. Created Equal: Reading and Writing About Class in America . HarperCollins, 1996. Sandra Martz ed. If I Had a Hammer, Women's Work: In Poetry, Fiction, and Photographs. Watsonville, Ca.: Papier-Mache Press, 1990. Charlotte Nekola and Paula Rabinowitz, eds. Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1930-1940. NY: The Feminist Press, 1987. David Shevin and Larry Smith, eds. Getting By: Stories of Working Lives. Huron, OH: Bottom Dog Press, 1996. (Includes narrative poems, fiction and personal essays). David Shevin, Janet Zandy, Larry Smith, eds. and Writing Work: Writers on Working-Class Writing (Huron, OH: Bottom Dog Press, 1999). Thom Tammaro Moorhead, MN From sholman at mac.com Mon May 6 11:33:02 2002 From: sholman at mac.com (Shannon Holman) Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 11:33:02 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Work: ALAN BANNISTER In-Reply-To: <200205052037.g45Kb0q86137@mx12.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: Alan Bannister is a real live ad exec with poems in this week's edition of the delightful Monday Poetry Report: Shannon -- Shannon Holman work: 212.545.6089 home: 718.638.1239 cell: 917.655.2415 email: sholman at mac.com -- http://www.onemississippi.com From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Mon May 6 11:37:11 2002 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 10:37:11 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poem In-Reply-To: <3CD6665F.29809.49DC1B@localhost> Message-ID: on 5/6/02 10:17 AM, Marcus Bales at marcus at designerglass.com wrote: > Poems About Work >> From an internet joke list > > A man came into the ER and yelled, > "My wife's going to have her baby in the cab!" > I grabbed my stuff, rushed > out to the cab, lifted > the lady's dress, and began to take off > her underwear. > Suddenly I realized > I was in the wrong cab. > > At the beginning of my shift I placed > a stethoscope on an elderly > and slightly deaf female patient's > anterior chest wall. > "Big breaths," I instructed. > "Yes, they used to be," replied the patient, > sadly. > > I told a wife that her husband had died > of a massive myocardial infarct. > Five minutes later, I heard her reporting > To the rest of the family that he had died > of a "massive internal fart." > > While acquainting myself with a new, > Elderly, patient, I asked, > "How long have you been bedridden?" > After a look of complete confusion she answered ... > "Why, not for about twenty years -- > when my husband was alive." > > I was caring for a woman from Kentucky > and asked, "So, how's your breakfast this morning?" > "It's very good, except for the Kentucky Jelly. > I can't seem to get used to the taste," > I asked to see the jelly > The woman produced a foil packet labeled > "KY Jelly." > > A new, young MD doing > his residency in OB was quite embarrassed > performing female pelvic exams. > To cover his embarrassment he had > unconsciously > formed a habit of whistling softly. > The middle aged lady upon whom he was performing > an exam suddenly burst out > laughing and further embarrassed him. > He looked up from his work and sheepishly said, > "I'm sorry. Was I tickling you?" > "No doctor, but the song you were whistling was > 'I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Wiener'." > > Marcus Bales > > marcus at designerglass.com > http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > I could have sworn this was a Billy Collins poem. Paul Lake From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Mon May 6 11:45:59 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 10:45:59 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] The net's down! Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E30@mail.ripon.edu> The sound I'm enjoying this morning is Robert Frost turning over in his grave at having "Death of the Hired Man" called "free verse." Thanks for that. As for the rest, including reductive absurdities such as "So, then, is the idea here that 'working class poem' is pretty much > the same as 'bad poem'"?--I thought I told you not to be naughty, Marcus. > . . . > And since no one is defending poor Ginger Andrews's poem, perhaps the civil thing would be to stop attacking it, huh? David Graham ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== > > Well, I posted the poem by Ginger Andrews. And I'm here to say I did > not > > mean thereby "to claim inplicitly" anything much--certainly not that > it's a > > great poem. I'd agree with Sam Gwynn: Ginger Andrews has written > better. > > Well, I didn't mean to mean that you meant it was a "great" poem, > but surely the implicit claim in posting any poem that you don't say > "Hey, look at this piece of crap" is that it is worthwhile, at least. > > > This one's pretty prosy, and whatever interest it has is largely, as > > single-n-Gwyn suggested, in its voice, and in the effect that hearing > such > > previously silent voices might bring into the varied carol that is > > contemporary American poetry. << > > But its "voice", such as it is, is utterly without redeeming merit -- > it's the flat affectless voice of the forwarded internet joke; it's a list > > of not-quite-funny-enough comments interspersed with banal > cliches ("Cash is better than checks" -- surely not an outstanding > evocation of "voice"!). I've seen better "poems" that ARE forwarded > internet joke lists. > > > In any case, given that it was a poem about work, written by a poet > anyone > > would agree is "working class," and concerning, in part, matters of > class > > consciousness, I thought that it added something to the soup of our > > simmering discussion. I found it interesting.<< > > So, then, is the idea here that "working class poem" is pretty much > the same as "bad poem"? > > > But to return to the blurred-issue issue. Strikes me that the implicit > > claim in your response, Marcus, is that free verse is largely prose, a > claim > > which loosely enough seems at times to morph into "not good poetry." << > > No -- I don't object to every poem posted, you know, which is, it > seems to me, what it would take to infer that I'm implying that > every free verse poem is prose. > > > Correct me if I'm wrong. But are there any free verse poems you're > willing > > to claim as "good"? If so, what are the yardsticks by which you measure > > goodness in free verse? > > The thrust of your comments, over time, has made me suspect that poetic > > quality for you has something to do with conventional metrics. > > Sure: Frost, "After Apple Picking"; Holmes, "Against the Literal"; > Borges, "Browning Decides to Be a Poet"; Heaney, "Casting and > Gathering"; McNeilly, "Confined"; Olds, "Connoisseuse of Slugs"; > Plath, "Daddy"; Frost, "Death of the Hired Man"; Wayman "Did I > Miss Anything"; Piercy, "Every Leaf is a Mouth"; Komunyakaa, > "The Goddessof Quotas Laments" ... > > Stopping at the Gs of my office computer's stash of poems. > > > > > > Marcus Bales > > From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Mon May 6 11:52:12 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 10:52:12 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Birthdays Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E32@mail.ripon.edu> Just wondering how we should celebrate the birthdays (tomorrow) of both Robert Johnson and Billie Holiday. . . . Perhaps Tad Richards will play us a song or two? David Graham ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From halvard at earthlink.net Mon May 6 12:04:24 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 12:04:24 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Octavio Paz, "One and the same" Message-ID: One and the same (Anton Webern, 1883-1945) Spaces Space Without centre no above or below Devours and engenders itself and does not cease Whirlpool space And it falls into height Spaces Clarities Cut into jewel-points Hanging From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Mon May 6 12:23:04 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 12:23:04 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Birthdays Message-ID: In a message dated 5/6/2002 10:54:16 AM Central Daylight Time, GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU writes: > Just wondering how we should celebrate the birthdays (tomorrow) of both > Robert Johnson and Billie Holiday. . . . Perhaps Tad Richards will play us > a song or two? > > David Graham > Go out to the crossroads with a gardenia in your hair! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Mon May 6 12:23:24 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:23:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Overhand the Hammers Swing Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E34@mail.ripon.edu> The Academy of American Poets has a modest but interesting online exhibit on the poetry of work, curated by Philip Levine: http://www.poets.org/exh/Exhibit.cfm?prmID=2 What Levine means by work is admirably clear: "When I say work I mean the sort of brute physical work that most of us try to avoid, but that those without particular gifts or training were often forced to adopt to make a living in a society as tough and competitive as ours. This may in fact be a species of work that is disappearing from America as more and more automation replaces the need for human hands, that is manual labor." David Graham ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From acgold01 at gwise.louisville.edu Mon May 6 12:31:32 2002 From: acgold01 at gwise.louisville.edu (Alan C Golding) Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 12:31:32 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] RJ and BH Message-ID: "Just wondering how we should celebrate the birthdays (tomorrow) of both Robert Johnson and Billie Holiday. . . . Perhaps Tad Richards will play us a song or two?" We should listen to their music . . . or return to O'Hara's great elegy "The Day Lady Died" . . . or revisit Clapton's guitar solo on "Crossroads" . . . or . . . Perhaps some knowledgeable folks can point us toward further Holiday and Johnson poems. Alan From languagethief at yahoo.com Mon May 6 13:48:17 2002 From: languagethief at yahoo.com (The Old Mole) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 10:48:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: <200205061313.g46DDCd11602@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: <20020506174817.11184.qmail@web12201.mail.yahoo.com> If someone pries open your brain with an icepick and removes a few pieces, he can call it brain surgery if he wants. One can respond, OK, it's brain surgery, but it's such an inept, botched job of brain surgery that it's moved over to the area of criminality. Or one can say No it's not, because brain surgery is defined as hacking away at the brain by a licensed and certified brain surgeon. There's no equivalent for poetry. If someone has never seen a violin before, and picks it up and starts sawing away at it, saying, "Look, I'm playing the violin!" one can say "No, you're not," but one would be wrong. As an editorial comment on the quality of playing -- sure. As a statement of fact -- wrong. --- DICK at watson.ibm.com wrote: > David Graham wrote: > >>>Once again, what makes this newspaper-column > prose into > >>>poetry? Merely the claim by the writer that it > is poetry? > >> > >>In a word, yes, that works for me. > >> > >>But once again, you are blurring two separate > issues here: what constitutes > >>*poetry*, and what constitutes *good* poetry. > Apparently you already know > >>the answer to the second question, but haven't > shared it with the rest of > >>the class. That's naughty. > >> > >>But, best wishes on your quest for the Holy Grail > of poetic quality. > >> > >> > >>David Graham > > Wow. Does that definition work for brain surgery > too? > > Or violin playing, even? > > Richard > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com From gmcvay at patriot.net Mon May 6 14:03:21 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 14:03:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: <20020506174817.11184.qmail@web12201.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 6 May 2002, The Old Mole wrote: > If someone pries open your brain with an icepick and > removes a few pieces, he can call it brain surgery if > he wants. One can respond, OK, it's brain surgery, but > it's such an inept, botched job of brain surgery that > it's moved over to the area of criminality. > Actually, licensed brain surgeons have been performing this and calling it "prefrontal lobotomy" for decades, but that's neither here nor there. As for the "Cash is better than checks" line, perhaps if one cannot even imagine oneself in a financial state where one would be absolutely screwed if some meathead bounced a check to one for work performed, one is never going to be able to enter into the poem and meet it on its own terms anyway. Gwyn From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Mon May 6 14:41:10 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 14:41:10 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets' Prize Reading Message-ID: <61.1f597119.2a082846@cs.com> Robert Mezey, winner of the Poets' Prize for 2002, will give a reading at the Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York, 319 West 107th St., on Thursday, May 16 at 7:00 p.m. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Robtberner at aol.com Mon May 6 17:11:18 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 17:11:18 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] challenge Message-ID: <174.7ddd0ae.2a084b76@aol.com> Earlier today I posted a challenge to Marcus Bales: Post a poem of no more than thirty lines that you think is a good poem and tell us why and how it is good. Better yet, post a poem you think is great and tell us how and why. As of this writing, Marcus has not replied. What are you waiting for, Marcus? Robert Berner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tadrichards at prodigy.net Mon May 6 18:57:55 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 18:57:55 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] RJ and BH References: Message-ID: <001801c1f551$77aa7360$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> O'Hara's is the best. I do have a Robert Johnson nod in Situations, the scene where Bob meets the Devil: Bob pauses at a Trucker's Paradise Near Memphis, off I-40, where he buys Three-pack pastel condoms, fuzzy dice, Black and white Scottie dogs with magnetized Bases. He gets back in his Terraplane, Heads down along the Delta, driving slow, Studying faces. He's looking for a man: If he's not in West Helena, he must be in East Monroe. He drives all day and deep into the night. He goes through Rosedale, Clarksdale, Friar's Point, Out to a crossroads. He knows it's the right Spot. He stops the car, and lights a joint. He hasn't long to wait. A blood red Packard Pulls up behind him, and a man steps forth. He wears a crimson cloak; his hair is lacquered; His nails are buffed. He might be from the North, Or maybe not. There's something in his eyes That's only found in New Orleans or Haiti. "Old friend," says Bob, "I've come for your advice." "You've come to the right place. Is it a lady?" SITUATIONS due out soon! Check for information at http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan C Golding" To: Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 12:31 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] RJ and BH > "Just wondering how we should celebrate the birthdays (tomorrow) of > both > Robert Johnson and Billie Holiday. . . . Perhaps Tad Richards will > play us > a song or two?" > > We should listen to their music . . . or return to O'Hara's great elegy > "The Day Lady Died" . . . or revisit Clapton's guitar solo on > "Crossroads" . . . or . . . Perhaps some knowledgeable folks can point > us toward further Holiday and Johnson poems. > > Alan > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 6 21:38:03 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 21:38:03 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: References: <20020506174817.11184.qmail@web12201.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3CD6F7BB.2886.3C8FBE@localhost> Gwyn McVay wrote: > As for the "Cash is better than checks" line, perhaps if one cannot even > imagine oneself in a financial state where one would be absolutely screwed > if some meathead bounced a check to one for work performed, one is never > going to be able to enter into the poem and meet it on its own terms > anyway.<< The question is not whether cash is actually better than checks in the real-world situation, but whether the line "cash is better than checks" has any quality of poetry about it, cliched prose as it is. If "cash is better than checks" is an example of the "working class voice" that you say we ought to admire, well, then, it seems to me, that you are saying that cliched prose is the voice of the working class. But is cliched prose poetry? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 6 21:38:03 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 21:38:03 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] The net's down! In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E30@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <3CD6F7BB.30935.3C8FA5@localhost> > The sound I'm enjoying this morning is Robert Frost turning over in his > grave at having "Death of the Hired Man" called "free verse." > Thanks for that. Oh, but I'm told that all free verse has its own metrics -- so any poem with any metrics, it seems to me, can be called "free verse". The systemic and endemic intellectual confusion on the parts of those who want "free verse" to be both "free" and "verse" at the same time have long been pointed out with great amusement by generations of people, now. And very amusing it remains. > And since no one is defending poor Ginger Andrews's poem, perhaps > the civil thing would be to stop attacking it, huh? << We've moved on from attacking poor Ginger Andrews's poem and are now discussing why anyone would post a bad poem as an example of a genre in the first place, it seems to me. Did you think that just any poem had been asked for? And if so, why not just write a bunch of them by rearranging the prose out of sociological studies of the working class? Or from prose fiction about the working class? I mean, if you thought just any poem would do, why bother to make distinctions at all? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Mon May 6 21:35:15 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 18:35:15 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" References: <20020506174817.11184.qmail@web12201.mail.yahoo.com> <3CD6F7BB.2886.3C8FBE@localhost> Message-ID: <3CD72F53.7512EA6A@earthlink.net> Marcus Bales wrote: From JackKerouac25 at aol.com Tue May 7 00:32:47 2002 From: JackKerouac25 at aol.com (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 00:32:47 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] The net's down! Message-ID: <16b.d43680d.2a08b2ef@aol.com> In a message dated 5/6/02 8:28:27 PM Central Daylight Time, marcus at designerglass.com writes: > Oh, but I'm told that all free verse has its own metrics -- so any > poem with any metrics, it seems to me, can be called "free verse". > The systemic and endemic intellectual confusion on the parts of > those who want "free verse" to be both "free" and "verse" at the > same time have long been pointed out with great amusement by > generations of people, now. And very amusing it remains. It's my understanding that free verse (or open form) poems set their own meter, a meter appropriate to that specific poem. The meter, then, would not be recognizable as any fixed meter, like iambic pentameter for example. Therefore, the polished blank verse of Frost's "Death of a Hired Man" could never be mistaken for free verse, could it? Jeff (wondering if he's supposed to be amused) _____________________________________________________________________ Jeffrey L. Newberry *REMOVED--Let's Not Anger Anyone* Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 850.474.2923 From thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com Tue May 7 06:24:36 2002 From: thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com (bob cooper) Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 10:24:36 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" Message-ID: Oh Marcus, Marcus, calm down. You're too loud. My screen's almost screeching with yr sound! I mean here's you saying: "If "cash is better than checks" is an example of the "working class voice" that you say we ought to admire, well, then, it seems to me, that you are saying that cliched prose is the voice of the working class. But is cliched prose poetry?" which sounds so loud I guess yr eardrums must be bulging out too. When I hear the lines of the poem yr questioning (and poems from whatever poet, wherever they are) I like the words to play. Even in that (almost flat) line there's smidgins of irony possible/comments on how I view money(the economic system et al) in relation to how others view it/more than a C&W perspective/I sense the cliche's being thrown back at me/and how much else? Who was it said that cliches in poetry are like small dogs that seem to yap so loud you want to kick them away... then when they've left you see the stain they've left? Well I don't really care how much else because (as no-one's disagreeing) it's not the best poetry line in the world. But it is a line in a poem, from a poem in a book, that someone thinks is covering a subject so many of us want to follow. So please, please, please, (whatever y do) don't shout so loud the subject gets changed! OK? Bob >From: "Marcus Bales" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" >Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 21:38:03 -0400 > >Gwyn McVay wrote: > > As for the "Cash is better than checks" line, perhaps if one cannot even > > imagine oneself in a financial state where one would be absolutely >screwed > > if some meathead bounced a check to one for work performed, one is never > > going to be able to enter into the poem and meet it on its own terms > > anyway.<< > >The question is not whether cash is actually better than checks in >the real-world situation, but whether the line "cash is better than >checks" has any quality of poetry about it, cliched prose as it is. > >If "cash is better than checks" is an example of the "working class >voice" that you say we ought to admire, well, then, it seems to me, >that you are saying that cliched prose is the voice of the working >class. But is cliched prose poetry? > > > >Marcus Bales > >marcus at designerglass.com >http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From Robtberner at aol.com Tue May 7 07:45:12 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 07:45:12 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] in this corner, the challenger Message-ID: <7c.27832725.2a091848@aol.com> marcus bales has still not seen fit to take up my challenge, posted yesterday. thus, i'll issue a second challenge: i will cease posting anything even vaguely smacking of a personal opinion of an aesthetic, political, or sociological nature if he will agree to cease posting pedantic, niggling, supercilious commentary on poetry, politics, or class relations. what say you, marcus? robert berner From marcus at designerglass.com Tue May 7 09:31:21 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 09:31:21 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] The net's down! In-Reply-To: <16b.d43680d.2a08b2ef@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CD79EE9.10382.311E66@localhost> > It's my understanding that free verse (or open form) poems set their own > meter, a meter appropriate to that specific poem. The meter, then, would not > be recognizable as any fixed meter, like iambic pentameter for example. > Therefore, the polished blank verse of Frost's "Death of a Hired Man" could > never be mistaken for free verse, could it? > Jeff (wondering if he's supposed to be amused) If every poem sets its own meter appropriate to the specific poem, and iambic pentameter is appropriate to that specific poem, then it must be free verse since even a regular verse must be free verse if it is appropriate to the specific poem, right? So blank verse is free verse and so is every other kind of verse "free verse", if the criterion for "free verse" is that "every poem sets its own meter appropriate to the specific poem". Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From marcus at designerglass.com Tue May 7 09:31:21 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 09:31:21 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3CD79EE9.31352.311EBB@localhost> Marcus: > "If "cash is better than checks" is an example of > the "working class voice" that you say we ought to admire, well, then, it > seems to me, that you are saying that cliched prose is the voice of the > working class. But is cliched prose poetry?< Bob Cooper: > When I hear the lines of the poem yr questioning (and poems from whatever > poet, wherever they are) I like the words to play. Even in that (almost > flat) line there's smidgins of irony possible/comments on how I view > money(the economic system et al) in relation to how others view it/more than > a C&W perspective/I sense the cliche's being thrown back at me/and how much > else?<< But if you think, in a working class poem, by a working class poet, that uses a flat affectless cliche prose line that is presented, along with the rest of the list of prose aphorisms, as simple truths uninflected with irony, on what grounds do you claim that there is any irony? It seems to me that the only way to read "cash is better than checks" as an ironic statement would be if the poem were NOT a working class poem or NOT written by a working class poet. But the very fact that you seem to accept that this is all working class and "true" vitiates any claim that such a line is "ironic". > Well I don't really care how much else because (as no-one's disagreeing) > it's not the best poetry line in the world. But it is a line in a poem, from > a poem in a book, that someone thinks is covering a subject so many of us > want to follow.<< But that is so low a bar that it makes a mockery of the notion that there can be a good line of poetry. Why isn't everything poetry, then? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From aprentiss at agnesscott.edu Tue May 7 09:54:13 2002 From: aprentiss at agnesscott.edu (Prentiss, Amber) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 09:54:13 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #792 - 15 msgs Message-ID: Maybe Mr. Levine is pretty clear, but his definition would need a bit of retooling for this our wonderful new century. That is to say, unskilled people seem to be doing more service work (McDonald's drive-thru, Blockbuster cashier--a level of hell best not spoken of--, Wal-Mart employee, wiping forgotten grandparents' butts, etc.) Not exactly heave-ho work but irritating and repetitive work nonetheless. Jobs that no one ever wants to do and seem to have little chance of being replaced by automation any time in the future. Whatever happened to the world where robots were supposed to do everything? Also, this privelege accorded to the working class is somewhat funny, since many, if not most, working-class people do not like the work that they do, and since many, if not all, non-working-class people would not like to do said work. I guess a working-class poet/poem is like the strange kid in the classroom everyone gawks at but does not want to be. -Amber ____________________ From: "Graham, David" To: "'New-Poetry'" Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:23:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Overhand the Hammers Swing Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu The Academy of American Poets has a modest but interesting online exhibit on the poetry of work, curated by Philip Levine: http://www.poets.org/exh/Exhibit.cfm?prmID=2 What Levine means by work is admirably clear: "When I say work I mean the sort of brute physical work that most of us try to avoid, but that those without particular gifts or training were often forced to adopt to make a living in a society as tough and competitive as ours. This may in fact be a species of work that is disappearing from America as more and more automation replaces the need for human hands, that is manual labor." David Graham ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html From DICK at watson.ibm.com Tue May 7 09:52:45 2002 From: DICK at watson.ibm.com (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Tue, 7 May 02 09:52:45 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] calls to keep quiet Message-ID: <200205071353.g47DrBd35778@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> I think calls to stop posting to this list are totally inappropriate. I think ultimatums ala R. Berner's are silly. I think Marcus Bales' comments are overall much better written than most on this list, and I for one would miss his pointing out the deficiencies in posted poems. Richard From halvard at earthlink.net Tue May 7 09:53:36 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 09:53:36 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: besmilr brigham, "Caught in the Car's Lights, the while owl" In-Reply-To: <60.1f73155b.2a07d62d@cs.com> Message-ID: Caught in the Car's Lights, the white owl wings before the racing wind- shield glass, through glass we see it white with the lights against the snow edges of the road, seemed to be travelling with us in speed the under-place feathers death death of the bird, a point of lifting awareness against the white fields the woods, flying for wood- line --besmilr brigham *heaved from the earth* (Knopf, 1971) also (slightly different) in *Run Through Rock* (Lost Roads, 2000) Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From marcus at designerglass.com Tue May 7 10:17:20 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 10:17:20 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] in this corner, the challenger In-Reply-To: <7c.27832725.2a091848@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CD7A9B0.10291.5B3993@localhost> >robert berner: > marcus bales has still not seen fit to take up my challenge, posted > yesterday. thus, i'll issue a second challenge: i will cease posting anything > even vaguely smacking of a personal opinion of an aesthetic, political, or > sociological nature if he will agree to cease posting pedantic, niggling, > supercilious commentary on poetry, politics, or class relations. what say > you, marcus? But I like reading your opinions. I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for your silence. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From DICK at watson.ibm.com Tue May 7 10:09:43 2002 From: DICK at watson.ibm.com (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Tue, 7 May 02 10:09:43 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Billy Collins poem, again Message-ID: <200205071410.g47EA8d43394@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> For any who might suffer Paul Lake's confusion of bad internet jokes with a Billy Collins poem, I again recommend the long essay in April Poetry by Dennis O'Driscoll. His explication of Sonnet, in particular, illustrates really how skilled and at the same time "accessible" Collins' poetry is. BTW - isn't it amusing how the Formalistas go non-linear when someone, e.g., Billy Collins, Gerald Stern, treat a received form with less than traditional respect? Richard From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Tue May 7 10:14:25 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 07:14:25 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Remember that questionnaire? Message-ID: <3CD7E140.B1EAD8F9@earthlink.net> Someone on another list wrote: > > Could you, at your convenience, give those of us who can't open the > attachment (or who don't deal well with tabulated material) a brief summary > of the findings of the survey. Havind done this survey, to what conclusions > have you come about electronic publishing? and the following was my response. You can always delete now if this is of no interest to you. For the purpose of my sabbatical project, I was most interested in responses to questions 1, 3, 3a, 4, and 4a, which indicate that, for most people, considerations other than audience determine their choice of seeking print publication over electronic publication. This is borne out by the responses to questions 3 and 3a, contrasted with responses to questions 4 and 4a, as well as the written responses to questions 5 and 6, which were typified by this particularly pointed response: "I'd write poetry even if no one read it (and, let's face it, mostly no one does). Given that, when I send those poems out into the world, I'm not expecting much, but it's nice to get both financial reward for my efforts and to have the poems read by as wide an audience as possible. The basic dynamic seems to be that print publication pays and offers prestige, which leads to payment in the form of residencies, grants, teaching assignments, etc. Electronic publication seems to reach a far greater audience, but carries little or no inroad into the 'traditional' print community (which is tied to the paying 'sub-endeavors' of the poetry community.) I suppose if electronic publication paid nothing, yet carried the same prestige which could be translated into 'career poet' activities, it would be more lucrative than any print publishing advance, due to the larger audience." Ironically, the responses to question 7a indicate that most respondents have never read an electronically-mediated full-length text, though responses to other questions show a consensus that the largest potential audience exists in electronic publication. What do I think? That electronic publication is as legitimate and "prestigious" as print publication. That audience IS the primary consideration after a work is written. That there is no money in writing poetry, so why worry about it? That the copyright bogey-man is just that - there's sufficient (and legal) record of ownership in electronic publication (there were indications in the written comments that some people still worry about this). That the audiences for print publication and electronic publication overlap, but not so much (yet) that one would imperil or limit the other except in financial terms, and that would primarily affect print publishers. Many more issues out there, but that's enough for me today. - Jim ============================================== There were 16 respondents. (NOTE: * = responsed by commenting, or response with additional comment; nr= no response; n/a = inserted by respondent) 1. If, as a writer, you have a text circulating among print publishers/competitions (unsuccessfully, so far) and you are presented with an offer to have it published electronically by a reputable online publisher, would you: a) opt for electronic publication b) continue submitting to print publishers a: 8 b: 6 a/b: 2 2. If you chose electronic publication, which format would you most desire: a) P.O.D. b) PDF c) online d) e-book a: 5 b: 2 c: 5 "all": 2 nr: 1 *: 1 3. If you chose electronic publication, which of the following would best characterize your *primary* reason for doing so: a) audience b) promotion/publicity c) reviews d) readability e) desire to experiment with new technology a: 6 b: 1 c: 1 d: 1 e: 3 nr: 2 *: 2 3a. Which of the following best characterizes your next most important consideration for choosing electronic publication: a) audience b) promotion/publicity c) reviews d) readability e) desire to experiment with new technology a: 8 b: 4 c: 0 d: 0 e: 1 *: 2 nr: 1 4. If you chose to continue seeking print publication, which of the following would best characterize your *primary* reason for doing so: a) audience b) promotion/publicity c) reviews d) readability e) prestige f) tradition a: 3 b: 1 c: 1 d: 2 e: 3 f: 3 a-e: 1 n/a: 2 4a. Which of the following best characterizes your next most important consideration for seeking print publication: a) audience b) promotion/publicity c) reviews d) readability e) prestige f) tradition a: 5 + * b: 0 c: 1 d: 1 e: 3 f: 2 n/a: 3 a-e: 1 5. Are there any considerations re. print vs electronic publication that are more important to you than any of the above? Write comments at bottom. 6. Which of the above are you *most* compelled to expound upon? Write comments at bottom. 7. If you have recently read an electronically mediated book or chapbook, in which format(s) did you read it: a) P.O.D. b) PDF c) online d) e-book a: 1 b: 5 c: 3 + * d: 0 a/c: 1 n/a: 3 nr: 2 7a. How many texts have you read in *any* of the above formats: _____ ("texts" = book-length) 0: 7 1 to 6: 4 20 to 30: 2 100+: 3 8. Do you regularly read as many electronic publications (any kind) as you do print publications: a)Yes b) Almost as many c) Much less d) More a: 2 b: 2 c: 11 d: 1 9. If individual works of yours have been published electronically, what is the approximate ratio of your print publications to your electronic publications: ________ Average was 10 (print) to 1 (electronic) 10. If you have had a collection of work (chapbook or book) published electronically, what are the number of downloads to date? _________ From thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com Tue May 7 10:54:00 2002 From: thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com (bob cooper) Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 14:54:00 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] calls to keep quiet Message-ID: Yeh Dick, I thought I was asking "don't shout so loud" not "shut up!" I was thinking the point about the ways we value working class poetry is something important. I just don't want things to get distracted - or should I say distorted by the volume being turned up too high. There's somethings not yet said that could be very interesting... Bob >From: DICK at watson.ibm.com >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: [New-Poetry] calls to keep quiet >Date: Tue, 7 May 02 09:52:45 EDT > >I think calls to stop posting to this list are totally >inappropriate. I think ultimatums ala R. Berner's are silly. > > >I think Marcus Bales' comments are overall much better >written than most on this list, and I for one would miss >his pointing out the deficiencies in posted poems. > >Richard >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Join the world?s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com Tue May 7 11:28:58 2002 From: thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com (bob cooper) Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 15:28:58 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #792 - 15 msgs Message-ID: Yeh, Prentiss, interesting thoughts... Y've got me thinking about the poets (of the 17th & 18th Centuries) who were writing all their Shepherd's Calenders, and Ol Willie Blake's self published Songs (about the lives and jobs of people as the 18th C turned to the 19th). Then there's John Clare who was promoted as a Peasent Poet (almost rural Working Class) and how many others? Plenty others, then and now, write poems (and play music, and draw things). Poets who work in schools, in adult education, could probably tell countless tales of people who've been gripped/excited by poems, and people who've written poems that fizz. A UK poet, Adrian Mitchel, made an (infamous) remark "most poeople don't care much for poetry - because most poetry doesn't care much about them" (or something like that). I guess his comment can't be dismissed - but isn't it being worked on. And, because it's been on for years, because those with the most menial jobs to get towards (good) poetry with school and adult education, are they still literary or social outsiders? I want to say they can be recognised, affirmed, by other writers (and I hope with delight and no condescension). Bob Cooper >From: "Prentiss, Amber" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: "'new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu'" >Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #792 - 15 msgs >Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 09:54:13 -0400 > >Maybe Mr. Levine is pretty clear, but his definition would need a bit of >retooling for this our wonderful new century. That is to say, unskilled >people seem to be doing more service work (McDonald's drive-thru, >Blockbuster cashier--a level of hell best not spoken of--, Wal-Mart >employee, wiping forgotten grandparents' butts, etc.) Not exactly heave-ho >work but irritating and repetitive work nonetheless. Jobs that no one ever >wants to do and seem to have little chance of being replaced by automation >any time in the future. Whatever happened to the world where robots were >supposed to do everything? > >Also, this privelege accorded to the working class is somewhat funny, since >many, if not most, working-class people do not like the work that they do, >and since many, if not all, non-working-class people would not like to do >said work. I guess a working-class poet/poem is like the strange kid in the >classroom everyone gawks at but does not want to be. >-Amber >____________________ >From: "Graham, David" > To: "'New-Poetry'" > Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:23:24 -0500 > Subject: [New-Poetry] Overhand the Hammers Swing > Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > The Academy of American Poets has a modest but interesting online >exhibit >on > the poetry of work, curated by Philip Levine: > > http://www.poets.org/exh/Exhibit.cfm?prmID=2 > > What Levine means by work is admirably clear: > > "When I say work I mean the sort of brute physical work that most of us >try > to avoid, but that those without particular gifts or training were often > forced to adopt to make a living in a society as tough and competitive >as > ours. This may in fact be a species of work that is disappearing from > America as more and more automation replaces the need for human hands, >that > is manual labor." > > David Graham > > > ======================================== > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > Home Page: > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Tue May 7 11:54:37 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 10:54:37 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] work levine work Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E36@mail.ripon.edu> I don't think Levine would disagree that his definition of "work" is limited, and specific to his own experience. Nor is he ever unclear about the fact that many "working class" people hate their work. One of the reasons that passions often run high about Levine, I suspect, is that he's never concealed the fact of his own nostalgic and romantic impulses--these being big no-no's in some quarters. When he writes about factory work, he's not just writing about class and labor, but about his own vanished youth. And, as he notes in the Academy exhibit, about a *kind* of work that is less common today than it once was. Thus the common perception of his work as sentimental--a critique that I think is itself too simple. Ginger Andrews is a good example of a poet (still a relative rarity, I guess) who writes directly out of experience in the "service sector" of our "new" economy--and thus of interest for that reason alone, as I've said. Perhaps in the future we will see more poems about work at McDonalds, at the nursing homes, etc. Probably so. But there have been other poems/poets covering this territory for a while now. Dorianne Laux has a nice one about pumping gas. . . . ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== > ---------- > From: Prentiss, Amber > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Tuesday, May 7, 2002 8:54 AM > To: 'new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu' > Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #792 - 15 msgs > > Maybe Mr. Levine is pretty clear, but his definition would need a bit of > retooling for this our wonderful new century. That is to say, unskilled > people seem to be doing more service work (McDonald's drive-thru, > Blockbuster cashier--a level of hell best not spoken of--, Wal-Mart > employee, wiping forgotten grandparents' butts, etc.) Not exactly heave-ho > work but irritating and repetitive work nonetheless. Jobs that no one > ever > wants to do and seem to have little chance of being replaced by automation > any time in the future. Whatever happened to the world where robots were > supposed to do everything? > > Also, this privelege accorded to the working class is somewhat funny, > since > many, if not most, working-class people do not like the work that they do, > and since many, if not all, non-working-class people would not like to do > said work. I guess a working-class poet/poem is like the strange kid in > the > classroom everyone gawks at but does not want to be. > -Amber > ____________________ > From Simon at IPFW.EDU Tue May 7 12:09:36 2002 From: Simon at IPFW.EDU (Simon_Beth) Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 11:09:36 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] work levine work Message-ID: Cynthia MacDonald has a blow out very funny one about pumping gas, based on her pumping gas, I believe, because of Bly's directive to get out in the world. (Max Garland's postal confessions and his exterminator confessions follow his having been an exterminator and a postal worker. But I'm not sure what isn't work. If one is a contemplative, professionally, so to speak, contemplation is work, and a contemplative will tell you, hard work. beth lee >>> GrahamD at mail.ripon.edu 05/07/02 10:59 AM >>> I don't think Levine would disagree that his definition of "work" is limited, and specific to his own experience. Nor is he ever unclear about the fact that many "working class" people hate their work. One of the reasons that passions often run high about Levine, I suspect, is that he's never concealed the fact of his own nostalgic and romantic impulses--these being big no-no's in some quarters. When he writes about factory work, he's not just writing about class and labor, but about his own vanished youth. And, as he notes in the Academy exhibit, about a *kind* of work that is less common today than it once was. Thus the common perception of his work as sentimental--a critique that I think is itself too simple. Ginger Andrews is a good example of a poet (still a relative rarity, I guess) who writes directly out of experience in the "service sector" of our "new" economy--and thus of interest for that reason alone, as I've said. Perhaps in the future we will see more poems about work at McDonalds, at the nursing homes, etc. Probably so. But there have been other poems/poets covering this territory for a while now. Dorianne Laux has a nice one about pumping gas. . . . ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== > ---------- > From: Prentiss, Amber > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Tuesday, May 7, 2002 8:54 AM > To: 'new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu' > Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #792 - 15 msgs > > Maybe Mr. Levine is pretty clear, but his definition would need a bit of > retooling for this our wonderful new century. That is to say, unskilled > people seem to be doing more service work (McDonald's drive-thru, > Blockbuster cashier--a level of hell best not spoken of--, Wal-Mart > employee, wiping forgotten grandparents' butts, etc.) Not exactly heave-ho > work but irritating and repetitive work nonetheless. Jobs that no one > ever > wants to do and seem to have little chance of being replaced by automation > any time in the future. Whatever happened to the world where robots were > supposed to do everything? > > Also, this privelege accorded to the working class is somewhat funny, > since > many, if not most, working-class people do not like the work that they do, > and since many, if not all, non-working-class people would not like to do > said work. I guess a working-class poet/poem is like the strange kid in > the > classroom everyone gawks at but does not want to be. > -Amber > ____________________ > _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Tue May 7 12:18:59 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 11:18:59 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine/You Can Have It Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E37@mail.ripon.edu> You Can Have It My brother comes home from work and climbs the stairs to out room. I can hear the bed groan and his shoes drop one by one. You can have it, he says. The moonlight streams in the window and his unshaven face is whitened like the face of the moon. He will sleep long after noon and waken to find me gone. Thirty years will pass before I remember that moment when suddenly I knew each man has one brother who dies when he sleeps and sleeps when he rises to face this life, and that together they are only one man sharing a heart that always labours, hands yellowed and cracked, a mouth that gasps for breath and asks, Am I gonna make it? All night at the ice plant he had fed the chute its silvery blocks, and then I stacked cases of orange soda for the children of Kentucky, one gray boxcar at a time with always two more waiting. We were twenty for such a short time and always in the wrong clothes, crusted with dirt and sweat. I think now we were never twenty. In 1948 the city of Detroit, founded by de la Mothe Cadillac for the distant purposes of Henry Ford, no one wakened or died, no one walked the streets or stoked a furnace, for there was no such year, and now that year has fallen off all the old newspapers, calanders, doctors' appointments, bonds wedding certificates, drivers licenses. The city slept. The snow turned to ice. The ice to standing pools or rivers racing in the gutters. Then the bright grass rose between the thousands of cracked squares, and that grass died. I give you back 1948. I give you all the years from then to the coming one. Give me back the moon with its frail light falling across a face. Give me back my young brother, hard and furious, with wide shoulders and a curse for God and burning eyes that look upon all creation and say, You can have it. Philip Levine ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com Tue May 7 12:37:11 2002 From: thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com (bob cooper) Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 16:37:11 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" Message-ID: Hi Marcus, It may be we're playing different games here (like American Football & Soccer). I, too, don't go all the way in declaring this to be "a good poem." I think it was offered as an example. As with any example I assume there's others, better and worse. I guess I can't "hear" this poet's voice too clearly yet. Even a lift of the eyebrow when the line's read, for example, may be enough to open lock-gates of irony. There's been plenty of poets I've initially not liked on the page, but when I've heard them read I've found all sorts of things happening. I'm wanting to reserve judgement. Maybe I don't want a poetry step ladder with "bad" on the bottom rung and "the utterly incontrovertable good" on the top anyway. Life ain't snakes an ladders. (Oops, that's close to a cliche!) And, I think, as well, "cliched prose" can (used skillfully) work in a poem. But they poet's got to know what they're doing - and they're probably aware that they're taking a risk. Some risks fail... And sometimes we make howlers. And I know I've had plenty published where I'd now love to say "Oh no, that must be by the other Bob Cooper. Is he still writing?" - But just as there's things I write I wish had been altogether forgotten - there's then other things I'm surprised (and delighted) are remembered. So (to turn the volume up from maybe 3 to 6 for a phrase) "great poets write crap lines, crap poets write good lines" (turn the volume down again) some of the time. And you write "Why isn't everything poetry, then?" Well, it's back to Duchamp's piss-bowl in the art gallery (and furry mugs) isn't it? Bob >From: "Marcus Bales" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" >Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 09:31:21 -0400 > >Marcus: > > "If "cash is better than checks" is an example of > > the "working class voice" that you say we ought to admire, well, then, >it > > seems to me, that you are saying that cliched prose is the voice of the > > working class. But is cliched prose poetry?< > >Bob Cooper: > > When I hear the lines of the poem yr questioning (and poems from >whatever > > poet, wherever they are) I like the words to play. Even in that (almost > > flat) line there's smidgins of irony possible/comments on how I view > > money(the economic system et al) in relation to how others view it/more >than > > a C&W perspective/I sense the cliche's being thrown back at me/and how >much > > else?<< > >But if you think, in a working class poem, by a working class poet, >that uses a flat affectless cliche prose line that is presented, along >with the rest of the list of prose aphorisms, as simple truths >uninflected with irony, on what grounds do you claim that there is >any irony? > >It seems to me that the only way to read "cash is better than >checks" as an ironic statement would be if the poem were NOT a >working class poem or NOT written by a working class poet. But >the very fact that you seem to accept that this is all working class >and "true" vitiates any claim that such a line is "ironic". > > > Well I don't really care how much else because (as no-one's disagreeing) > > it's not the best poetry line in the world. But it is a line in a poem, >from > > a poem in a book, that someone thinks is covering a subject so many of >us > > want to follow.<< > >But that is so low a bar that it makes a mockery of the notion that >there can be a good line of poetry. Why isn't everything poetry, >then? > > >Marcus Bales > >marcus at designerglass.com >http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Join the world?s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From tadrichards at prodigy.net Tue May 7 13:30:04 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 13:30:04 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #792 - 15 msgs References: Message-ID: <002d01c1f5ec$d3ab7240$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Amber -- good to see you again. You've been MIA for a while. Levine's definition comes from his own experience, but the principle is the same -- jobs that no one ever wants to do. Working class poets like Levine, or Antler, or Jim Harrison, or Victoria Rivas, or John Lennon, are like anyone else...they want to get out of the working class, and literacy is one of the tools they use to achieve it. Here's a poem that's more or less about that: DOING LAUNDRY by Victoria Rivas Steam from white laundry wet the mostly black faces of women who ironed, folded and stacked linens at Keystone Towel Supply. Hot air from dryers, noise from the big machines, made the work feel a bit like hell as we pushed through the towel folders, sheet mangles, hands moving quickly, conscious of hourly quotas, piece work for extra pennies until it became the norm, the quota raised again and again, like an insatiable lover who always looks for more, moves out of reach until you give it to him. In summer, three shifts of women worked the constant stream of baskets from tourist hotels, expensive restaurants near the beaches. Slow days of winter meant layoffs for summer workers. Those who remained sorted dirty laundry from dormitories, frat houses, soiled sheets stained strong with piss, stiff, chunky with sickness, alcohol, party remains. Tampons, used condoms fell like dead rodents onto the cold cement. We laughed, chatted, sorted quickly, glad we had a paycheck, Christmas coming and all. Keystone Towel Supply was my salvation, white trash girl who scrambled for the key to pay for college, the key to exit Erie, Pennsylvania, in the pennies of extra piece work, and a dollar sixty five minimum wage. Quick hands got me on Diane's sheet team. She did not understand this strange girl who laughed out loud over the laundry din at nothing but her own fantasies. "Whatchu laughin' about girl?" she'd yell. "You crazy or somethin'?" Yes, I was crazy. Crazy to go home at night. Crazy to never have to work a job like that again, where my body moved and my mind did not. Crazy to ensure this hell was simply a stop on my ladder to success, not an eternal sentence. Ten years later I return, degree in my hand, arrogant, stand in the gaping dock door. I watch the women work, as I once did, through the wavy heat, feel it waft across the plant, hit me face first. Still hot, still noisy, still some of the same women bent down, feeding linens into the machines. Diane, floorwalker now, struts down the aisles, gently places cold, wet wash cloths on the backs of her girls' necks to keep them from passing out in the summer heat, constant dryer blasts. Still they sweat, still they work. I leave them to their work, without interruption, without the need to flaunt my differences. I go off to eat at restaurants with cloth napkins and stay at hotels where they change my sheets daily. I pray their summer work lasts long, their winter work isn't too ugly, and that their piece work pays well. SITUATIONS due out soon! Check for information at http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Prentiss, Amber" To: Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 9:54 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #792 - 15 msgs > Maybe Mr. Levine is pretty clear, but his definition would need a bit of > retooling for this our wonderful new century. That is to say, unskilled > people seem to be doing more service work (McDonald's drive-thru, > Blockbuster cashier--a level of hell best not spoken of--, Wal-Mart > employee, wiping forgotten grandparents' butts, etc.) Not exactly heave-ho > work but irritating and repetitive work nonetheless. Jobs that no one ever > wants to do and seem to have little chance of being replaced by automation > any time in the future. Whatever happened to the world where robots were > supposed to do everything? > > Also, this privelege accorded to the working class is somewhat funny, since > many, if not most, working-class people do not like the work that they do, > and since many, if not all, non-working-class people would not like to do > said work. I guess a working-class poet/poem is like the strange kid in the > classroom everyone gawks at but does not want to be. > -Amber > ____________________ > From: "Graham, David" > To: "'New-Poetry'" > Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:23:24 -0500 > Subject: [New-Poetry] Overhand the Hammers Swing > Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > > The Academy of American Poets has a modest but interesting online exhibit > on > the poetry of work, curated by Philip Levine: > > http://www.poets.org/exh/Exhibit.cfm?prmID=2 > > What Levine means by work is admirably clear: > > "When I say work I mean the sort of brute physical work that most of us > try > to avoid, but that those without particular gifts or training were often > forced to adopt to make a living in a society as tough and competitive as > ours. This may in fact be a species of work that is disappearing from > America as more and more automation replaces the need for human hands, > that > is manual labor." > > David Graham > > > ======================================== > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > Home Page: > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From halvard at earthlink.net Tue May 7 17:01:12 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 17:01:12 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry and work: Russell Edson Message-ID: A Machine A man had built a machine . . . Which does what? said his father. Which gets red with rust if it rains, wouldn't you say so, father? But the machine is something to put a man out of work, said his father, and as work is prayer, so the machine is damnation. But the machine can also be sweethearts, growing cobwebs between its wheels where little black hands crawl; and soon the grasses come up between its gears -- And its spokes laced with butterflies . . . I do not like the machine, even if it is friendly, because it may yet de- cide to love my wife and take my bus to work, said the father. No no, father, it is a flying machine. Well, suppose the machine builds a nest on the roof and has baby ma- chines? said the father. Father, if you would only stare at the machine for a few hours you would learn to love it, to perhaps devote your very life to it. I would not do no such a thing, not with your mother watching, item- izing my betrayals with which to confront me in bed . . . Perhaps I would soften toward this humble iron work, for even now I feel moved to assure it that there is a God, *yes, even for you, dear patient machine*. But your mother is watching. Even my mother is watching. All the women of the household are watching from the windows, waiting to see what I shall do. But father, look at the dew on its wheels, does it not make you think of tears? Would you break my heart whilst the women watch, half hoping that I shall weaken? for they are hungry for the victim that would be a kind- ness for me to deliver. Then bow to the machine, father, be kind to the women as you are kind to the machine. Oh no, dear child, I could not bow to a machine; I am, after all human. Let others open new doors of history . . . --Russell Edson (1964) fr. *The Tunnel: Selected Poems* (Field Poetry Series #3, Oberlin College Press, 1994) Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From halvard at earthlink.net Tue May 7 17:01:15 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 17:01:15 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry and work: Bernadette Mayer In-Reply-To: <10d.11c94290.2a07a05e@aol.com> Message-ID: Returning the Books to Their Shelves I could have caught a taxi to your city But I couldn't have gotten back in time To put books on shelves at P.S. 19 I wish I lived by a wide stream I should've called a taxi to your city A library should have books in it Pumpkins shouldn't be made into mulch Balloons shouldn't get butter on them Maybe home shouldn't have these stupid windows And art as we know is next to nothing A library does have books in it So you come here by train with a cold I'd rather run out for love, never phone And slam books back on their shelves --Bernadette Mayer, fr. *Sonnets* (Tender Buttons, 1989) Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From Robtberner at aol.com Tue May 7 17:58:43 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 17:58:43 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] not on the ropes yet Message-ID: <31.2696dbce.2a09a813@aol.com> DICK at watson.ibm.com writes that he thinks "ultimatums[sic] ala R Berner's are silly." Generally I'd agree. But my "ultimatum" was issued in frustration with the refusal of Marcus Bales to take up my initial challenge: post a poem and tell us how and why it's good--a challenge intended to get Marcus to show us a poem he thinks meets his lofty (indeed, are they not empyrean?) standards. My challenge still stands. Moreover, Marcus himself says he likes reading my opinions and that he wouldn't want to be the one responsible for my silence. Point taken. But the gauntlet waits to be picked up. What say you, Marcus? From thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com Tue May 7 19:56:31 2002 From: thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com (bob cooper) Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 23:56:31 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] not on the ropes yet Message-ID: Hey, calm down Robert, I mean I can't write wearing a gauntlet, and I can't turn a page to read the next poem very easily wearing a gauntlet either... and as for clicking a mouse? Well I don't know if I could even switch the machine on to start with wearing one, never mind squeeze a plastic mouse's bum. Bob >From: Robtberner at aol.com >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: [New-Poetry] not on the ropes yet >Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 17:58:43 EDT > > DICK at watson.ibm.com writes that he thinks "ultimatums[sic] ala R >Berner's >are silly." Generally I'd agree. But my "ultimatum" was issued in >frustration >with the refusal of Marcus Bales to take up my initial challenge: post a >poem >and tell us how and why it's good--a challenge intended to get Marcus to >show >us a poem he thinks meets his lofty (indeed, are they not empyrean?) >standards. My challenge still stands. > Moreover, Marcus himself says he likes reading my opinions and that he >wouldn't want to be the one responsible for my silence. Point taken. But >the >gauntlet waits to be picked up. What say you, Marcus? >_______________________________________________ >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 grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Tue May 7 20:36:43 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 19:36:43 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Goldbarth Message-ID: <200205080036.g480a5T61710@mx3.mx.voyager.net> Fans of what's been called "lineated prose" might want to take a look at Salon's brief article in praise of "the wacky, talky, fat poetry" of Albert Goldbarth: http://slate.msn.com//?id=2065330 ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Tue May 7 20:50:40 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 19:50:40 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Goldbarth Message-ID: <200205080050.g480o2T78011@mx3.mx.voyager.net> Not Salon, but Slate, obviously. . . . ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== ---------- >From: "David Graham" >To: "new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu" >Subject: [New-Poetry] Goldbarth >Date: Tue, May 7, 2002, 7:36 PM > >Fans of what's been called "lineated prose" might want to take a look at >Salon's brief article in praise of "the wacky, talky, fat poetry" of Albert >Goldbarth: > >http://slate.msn.com//?id=2065330 From halvard at earthlink.net Tue May 7 23:16:42 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 23:16:42 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Ronald Johnson, "As Darkness Wraps Itself Around Us" Message-ID: As Darkness Wraps Itself Around Us impenetrable darkness evesdrop an other civilization defied explanation cataclysm shifted in spectrum a galaxy fleeing itself strange object infinite collapse aspects of physics the stuff of extrapolation calculating things unthought may indeed exist the force unleashes oscillating back and forth --Ronald Johnson, fr. *The Shrubberies* (Chicago: Flood Editions, 2001) Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From gudding at olemiss.edu Wed May 8 00:41:29 2002 From: gudding at olemiss.edu (Gudding) Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 23:41:29 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <200205060500.g4650l899744@mx12.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020507233528.035731d0@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> And furthermore where has JORDAN DAVIS gone? Once upon a time -- I don't know how many of you know this -- but once upon a time JORDAN DAVIS moderated the BEST poetry listserv once extant upon computers. It disturbs me JORDAN DAVIS, probably an incredibly delicious poet, felt a hard need to discontinue the listserv SUBSUBPOETICS. But everyone here should know that JORDAN DAVIS deserves the vibrant respect of each of you and each of your boyfriends and houseguests. It is disturbing to me a listserv like SUBSUBPOETICS can go away unsung or probably unarchived. There are certain things in life that are unfair. I submit the demise of Subsubpoetics is one of them. GUH From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Wed May 8 08:35:18 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 05:35:18 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] NW cancellations Message-ID: <3CD91B85.D99128CF@earthlink.net> Seems I've come down with something pretty nasty and have had to attenuate my west coast itinerary - doc says absolutely no road trips. So, I will just fly into Seattle for the two items there: Thursday, May 16th, 7-9 p.m.: Seattle, Washington, The Hugo House, 1634 Eleventh Avenue - Workshop, call for details: 206-322-7030. Friday, May 17th, 7:30 p.m.: Seattle, Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S, Main St. (206-624-6600). - Jim ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: Salt River Review: Poetserv: Homepage: From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Wed May 8 08:47:44 2002 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 07:47:44 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry and work: Bernadette Mayer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: on 5/7/02 4:01 PM, Halvard Johnson at halvard at earthlink.net wrote: > > Returning the Books to Their Shelves > > I could have caught a taxi to your city > But I couldn't have gotten back in time > To put books on shelves at P.S. 19 > I wish I lived by a wide stream > I should've called a taxi to your city > A library should have books in it > Pumpkins shouldn't be made into mulch > Balloons shouldn't get butter on them > Maybe home shouldn't have these stupid windows > And art as we know is next to nothing > A library does have books in it > So you come here by train with a cold > I'd rather run out for love, never phone > And slam books back on their shelves > > --Bernadette Mayer, > fr. *Sonnets* (Tender Buttons, 1989) > > > Hal > > Halvard Johnson > =============== > email: halvard at earthlink.net > website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > This is lame even as free verse. A sonnet, it ain't. Paul Lake From gmcvay at patriot.net Wed May 8 10:13:47 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 10:13:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] not on the ropes yet In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 7 May 2002, bob cooper wrote: > Hey, calm down Robert, > I mean I can't write wearing a gauntlet, and I can't turn a page to read the > next poem very easily wearing a gauntlet either... and as for clicking a > mouse? Well I don't know if I could even switch the machine on to start with > wearing one, never mind squeeze a plastic mouse's bum. You know, I never thought of it that way. But given that I work in IT currently, the line All day I squeeze a plastic mouse's bum is both true, and a passable line of pentameter with a spondaic substitution. Many thanks, Gwyn From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Wed May 8 11:00:22 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 10:00:22 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Academy/Library Message-ID: <200205081459.g48ExiY01413@mx4.mx.voyager.net> A couple visitors to my poetry library have noted that links to the Academy of American Poets site are screwed up. Apparently their site is/was being re-constructed after it was corrupted somehow in March. I'm still policing my links and trying to fix them. I'd appreciate hearing of any link on my Poets page that you notice is still wrong. In the meantime, you can play poetry roulette, with some interesting results: link to Weldon Kees, and you get Paul Eluard instead! Richard Eberhart has morphed into Robert Wallace! Andrew Hudgins is channeling Boris Pasternak! Also, some might be interested to know that I've added some links recently on the Essays page, including Donald Hall's very interesting "Death to the Death of Poetry," which is nonetheless mysteriously titled "80085" at the moment by the Academy. As ever, I invite suggestions for additions. Especially interested in good online essays about poetry. David Graham ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From tadrichards at prodigy.net Wed May 8 11:48:00 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 11:48:00 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Academy/Library References: <200205081459.g48ExiY01413@mx4.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <004f01c1f6a7$bb6ae240$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> David -- I'd suggest Bob Grumman's fascinating essay on MNMLST poetry at http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/grumman/egrumn.htm SITUATIONS due out soon! Check for information at http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Graham" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 11:00 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] Academy/Library > A couple visitors to my poetry library have noted that links to the Academy > of American Poets site are screwed up. Apparently their site is/was being > re-constructed after it was corrupted somehow in March. > > I'm still policing my links and trying to fix them. I'd appreciate hearing > of any link on my Poets page that you notice is still wrong. > > In the meantime, you can play poetry roulette, with some interesting > results: link to Weldon Kees, and you get Paul Eluard instead! Richard > Eberhart has morphed into Robert Wallace! Andrew Hudgins is channeling > Boris Pasternak! > > Also, some might be interested to know that I've added some links recently > on the Essays page, including Donald Hall's very interesting "Death to the > Death of Poetry," which is nonetheless mysteriously titled "80085" at the > moment by the Academy. > > As ever, I invite suggestions for additions. Especially interested in good > online essays about poetry. > > David Graham > ======================================== > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > Home Page: > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html > Poetry Library: > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html > ======================================== > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Wed May 8 11:55:52 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 08:55:52 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Academy/Library References: <200205081459.g48ExiY01413@mx4.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3CD94A87.F15BCF02@earthlink.net> Tried to get to the Hall but their server is refusing connections. Fix-it time, I'd bet. - Jim David Graham wrote: > > A couple visitors to my poetry library have noted that links to the Academy > of American Poets site are screwed up. Apparently their site is/was being > re-constructed after it was corrupted somehow in March. > > I'm still policing my links and trying to fix them. I'd appreciate hearing > of any link on my Poets page that you notice is still wrong. > > In the meantime, you can play poetry roulette, with some interesting > results: link to Weldon Kees, and you get Paul Eluard instead! Richard > Eberhart has morphed into Robert Wallace! Andrew Hudgins is channeling > Boris Pasternak! > > Also, some might be interested to know that I've added some links recently > on the Essays page, including Donald Hall's very interesting "Death to the > Death of Poetry," which is nonetheless mysteriously titled "80085" at the > moment by the Academy. > > As ever, I invite suggestions for additions. Especially interested in good > online essays about poetry. > > David Graham > ======================================== > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > Home Page: > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html > Poetry Library: > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html > ======================================== > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Wed May 8 15:01:22 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 14:01:22 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: Tom Lux Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E38@mail.ripon.edu> A Little Tooth Your baby grows a tooth, then two, and four, and five, then she wants some meat directly from the bone. It's all over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet talker on his way to jail. And you, your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue nothing. You did, you loved, your feet are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall. --Thomas Lux. * New and Selected Poems, 1975-1995*. Houghton Mifflin, 1997. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From gmcvay at patriot.net Wed May 8 15:39:40 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 15:39:40 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: Tom Lux In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E38@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: I thought Anne Sexton treated the same topic in vastly more interesting language in "Little Girl, My Stringbean, My Lovely Woman." Gwyn --- "We share half our genome with the banana. This is more evident in some of my acquaintances than others." Sir Robert May, President of the Royal Society of London From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Wed May 8 15:54:07 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 14:54:07 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Lux v Sexton Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E3A@mail.ripon.edu> I don't quite see the point in setting up some contest between a 9 line rhyming lyric and a 110-liner in free verse, even if they are on "the same topic," but Sexton's is surely an interesting poem. Still, I bet I could pick out more than 9 lines in the Sexton whose language is hardly "vastly more interesting" than the Lux. That is, I could do so if I didn't think such comparisons were odious. . . . How 'bout we just take a look at Sexton's, and see if we can enjoy both? Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman My daughter, at eleven (almost twelve), is like a garden. Oh, darling! Born in that sweet birthday suit and having owned it and known it for so long, now you must watch high noon enter - noon, that ghost hour. Oh, funny little girl - this one under a blueberry sky, this one! How can I say that I've known just what you know and just where you are? It's not a strange place, this odd home where your face sits in my hand so full of distance, so full of its immediate fever. The summer has seized you, as when, last month in Amalfi, I saw lemons as large as your desk-side globe - that miniature map of the world - and I could mention, too, the market stalls of mushrooms and garlic buds all engorged. Or I think even of the orchard next door, where the berries are done and the apples are beginning to swell. And once, with our first backyard, I remember I planted an acre of yellow beans we couldn't eat. Oh, little girl, my stringbean, how do you grow? You grow this way. You are too many to eat. I hear as in a dream the conversation of the old wives speaking of womanhood. I remember that I heard nothing myself. I was alone. I waited like a target. Let high noon enter - the hour of the ghosts. Once the Romans believed that noon was the ghost hour, and I can believe it, too, under that startling sun, and someday they will come to you, someday, men bare to the waist, young Romans at noon where they belong, with ladders and hammers while no one sleeps. But before they enter I will have said, Your bones are lovely, and before their strange hands there was always this hand that formed. Oh, darling, let your body in, let it tie you in, in comfort. What I want to say, Linda, is that women are born twice. If I could have watched you grow as a magical mother might, if I could have seen through my magical transparent belly, there would have been such a ripening within: your embryo, the seed taking on its own, life clapping the bedpost, bones from the pond, thumbs and two mysterious eyes, the awfully human head, the heart jumping like a puppy, the important lungs, the becoming - while it becomes! as it does now, a world of its own, a delicate place. I say hello to such shakes and knockings and high jinks, such music, such sprouts, such dancing-mad-bears of music, such necessary sugar, such goings-on! Oh, little girl, my stringbean, how do you grow? You grow this way. You are too many to eat. What I want to say, Linda, is that there is nothing in your body that lies. All that is new is telling the truth. I'm here, that somebody else, an old tree in the background. Darling, stand still at your door, sure of yourself, a white stone, a good stone - as exceptional as laughter you will strike fire, that new thing! --Anne Sexton ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== > ---------- > From: Gwyn McVay > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Wednesday, May 8, 2002 2:39 PM > To: 'New-Poetry' > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: Tom Lux > > I thought Anne Sexton treated the same topic in vastly more interesting > language in "Little Girl, My Stringbean, My Lovely Woman." > > Gwyn > > --- > From gmcvay at patriot.net Wed May 8 16:23:48 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 16:23:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Lux v Sexton In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E3A@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: Dear David, I, personally, do not enjoy both. I still think the Lux Radio Theater is boring. However, this is my opinion, which I chose to share, not a Fiat of Greatness or Non-Greatness, or Poetry Vs. Non-Poetry. (Actually, we drive a Saturn.) All best, Gwyn From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Wed May 8 16:37:53 2002 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 16:37:53 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Academy/Library References: <200205081459.g48ExiY01413@mx4.mx.voyager.net> <004f01c1f6a7$bb6ae240$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Message-ID: <001301c1f6d0$3b081360$88f9fea9@j1c1k6> > David -- I'd suggest Bob Grumman's fascinating essay on MNMLST poetry at > http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/grumman/egrumn.htm Thanks for the plug, Mole. A few weeks ago a fellow I argue on the Internet with about who wrote Shakespeare (benighted soul that I am, I go with the lout from Stratford) tried to discredit me as a close reader of certain poems from Shakespeare's times by posting excerpts from that very essay. He thought they proved me incompetent to read or evaluate ANY poem. One of his teammates read the essay, though, and told me backchannel that he had enjoyed it. Speaking of essays of mine, has anyone read my review of Roger Mitchell's Savage Baggage in the latest issue of American Book Review? I think it was influenced by new-poetry because, while I do describe Mitchell as not what I'd call innovative in any way, my review is very positive about his poems. --Bob G. From tadrichards at prodigy.net Wed May 8 17:40:51 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 17:40:51 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Lux v Sexton References: Message-ID: <00d801c1f6d9$06680120$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gwyn McVay" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 4:23 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Lux v Sexton > Dear David, > > I, personally, do not enjoy both. I still think the Lux Radio Theater is > boring. However, this is my opinion, which I chose to share, not a Fiat of > Greatness or Non-Greatness, or Poetry Vs. Non-Poetry. (Actually, we drive > a Saturn.) > > All best, Gwyn > > I always wondered why you were so saturnine. > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From gmcvay at patriot.net Wed May 8 17:44:07 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 17:44:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Lux v Sexton In-Reply-To: <00d801c1f6d9$06680120$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Message-ID: > I always wondered why you were so saturnine. > Actually, I'm sanguine, when not penguin. (Although this time of year, I tend to be rather phlegmatic.) Just a little humor humor, Gwyn From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Wed May 8 17:47:31 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 14:47:31 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Lux v Sexton References: <00d801c1f6d9$06680120$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Message-ID: <3CD99CF1.E53A9E76@earthlink.net> theoldmole wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Gwyn McVay" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 4:23 PM > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Lux v Sexton > > > Dear David, > > > > I, personally, do not enjoy both. I still think the Lux Radio Theater is > > boring. However, this is my opinion, which I chose to share, not a Fiat of > > Greatness or Non-Greatness, or Poetry Vs. Non-Poetry. (Actually, we drive > > a Saturn.) > > > > All best, Gwyn > > > > > > I always wondered why you were so saturnine. > Actually, she's generally motovated. - a friend From halvard at earthlink.net Wed May 8 18:13:50 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 18:13:50 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Lux v Sexton In-Reply-To: Message-ID: { > I always wondered why you were so saturnine. { > { Actually, I'm sanguine, when not penguin. (Although this time of year, I { tend to be rather phlegmatic.) { { Just a little humor humor, { Gwyn And I, for one, have always admired your sang Freud. Hal ""Anything is art if an artist says it is." --Marcel Duchamp Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From Arielpf123 at aol.com Wed May 8 20:08:15 2002 From: Arielpf123 at aol.com (Arielpf123 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 20:08:15 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] an essay for your website Message-ID: <16b.d58c4e6.2a0b17ef@aol.com> Hi David, don't know if have one yet, but it's a good one by Tom O'Grady in the current online Artemis. "Stalking the Stuff of Poetry" http://www.artemisjournal.com/is2/stalking.html ? Stalking The Stuff of Poetry The other day I was walking through the woods which surrounded my vineyard looking for small cedars to use as trellis posts and I discovered something. Partially hidden in a pile of oak leaves was the tiny white pawbone of a mole. It was not a great surprise. I knew we had plenty of moles on our land. In fact, mole ridges rise uo and surround our house each spring and fall like a network of superhighways. I've spent a lot of time trying to stop moles, and our dogs who like to dig them up, from ruining our lawn. I've even tried to disguise their presence from the dogs by stomping down the soft dirt mounds which trail all over the place. But I've never seen a mole. The thought doesn't frustrate me as it does my dogs: they've never caught one and it seems to bother them terribly. As for me, I like the idea of being surrounded by unseen creatures even though they tamper with my sense of order. But I do have moments when I would like to catch one, place it in a huge cage perhaps, gaze at it from every angle, try to figure how and even why it does what it does. It took some time before I realized that this flat white bone with its claws stretching out like the spires of a Venus Flytrap was my caged mole. This paw was the eye of the blind animal; this paw was brain. It was round- no bigger than a dime. But when I took it home, polished it a bit and glued it, like a piece of sculpture, to a small block of stained wood, and when the light caught it against a black background, it was a tree, it was a monument, it was a family photograph album. This piece of washed, dead life was fixed in my eye forever and I had the entire creature alive, moving somewhere in the dark earth slow and careful, crazed or stumbling. I had it crashing into rocks and tree stumps, I had it swimming through easy loam, I had it comfortable and carefree, munching on the tulip bulbs or selecting delectable roots like a fat connoisseur. Of course, I could imagine the life of the mole without this relic, but with it I could focus so much quicker. It was like rubbing a philosopher's stone and conjuring a photograph of memory. I sometimes wish I had a piece of myself to place in the window light to help me see the movement of my own life down its dark corridors. But I don't. In fact, most of my life is hidden from me by my own doing. We forget ,often for the sake of our own sanity, and soon it disappears. Or, we simply doze through one waking life with the same "uncontrol" of deep REM sleep. Only the dramatic experiences can shake us out of this blind daze; but drama can hurt sometimes, or leave scars which seal our visions as completely as copper pennies on the eyelids of the dead, so, what do I do, what do you do, to keep ourselves aware of our own lives? And, if we want to make art from our own lives, what do we do to find the materials for this art? People have answered these questions simply: Learn to see, learn to appreciate even the smallest aspects of your life as you live it. But ,for me, this doesn't work. I can't write poetry about an experience I'm living- I'm always to busy living it. Poetry for me is a remaking of experience, a drawing together of what went before. In order to pull on this previous life I must know what is valuable, what is worth keeping for poetry, what, in a sense, is the stuff of which relics are made. The answer to this can also be deceptively easy:everything! Bur, again, I know I cannot turn everything into poetry( I've never written a mole poem for instance). So, I've tried to teach myself to become a collector of sorts- or , more to the point, a scavenger. I've tried to build an abundance, an excess, a warehouse in my head, or actually in my house, of the materials of poetry. I don't use it all, but I can pick and choose. Nevertheless, I have my problems like everyone else. The storehouse is locked most of the time. I'm only a poet when I am writing poetry. We all see, and most of us see quite well. Most of us also store up images in our own private warehouses. But, for some reason, many of us hide the key from ourselves. M any of us refuse to take another look at what we've collected. There is always movement inside, always a groping, even a crazed stumbling. But we seem to try to disguise it, to stomp it down when it comes to breaking the surface-we don't want the dogs to see. What I'm suggesting here is that the poet is a person who always keeps his pockets full, a person who can check yesterday's adventures by noticing what he's dumped in the bureau drawer. The stuff of poetry can be there: a strange stone, a letter from a friend, a crumpled flower, torn tickets to a football game, a photograph, another poem, a rabbit's foot, old shotgun shells, even money. All of these things contain metaphor, contain image, contain feeling and memory. Like a navigator's landmark, they can serve as the focal point for larger excursions; like Michaelangelo's huge black chunk of marble they can contain our Moses. But, more important, for the poet, these relics possess frozen time. What we have to do is learn the selecting process; we have to learn which "time" we want to thaw out to make a particular poem. The thaw is not always automatic: we have only the materials, not the potion. Some good things will have to be discarded, some things will have to be combined even though they seem quite disparate. Most of us realize that the mind tends to remember and therefore "see"when unconnected items are connected in poetry: combine shotgun shells and football tickets in a line or two and see what you get. Read one sentence, or just one phrase, from that letter over and over for awhile and see what "appears". Hold the rabbit's foot as if it were a philosopher's stone and then describe or "undescribe" (uncover it in your mind, look below the surface to the white bone) and see what comes. Change the color of things for your own sake, mix like a chemist in his lab, and find a new compound. Or, if these objects are to be used as poem starters, perhaps they will lead you to a subject(if you let yourself go) which you had not imagined when you began. Even if you digresss, even if you imagine beyond what is before your eyes, stay close to what George Seferis called the "single theme of your live body", the result will be honest because it will be human, it will be you reacting to the things which have rubbed up against your own life. And you will give these trinkets life by touching them with human perfume, the sweat of your hands, the smoke of thought. You will have walked behind the thrasher, like the poet Ted Hughes, filling your pockets with live mice. We all know you plan to give the movement back to the fields; you are a scavenge who is only holding what he finds for himself because he does not know who in particular owns it. So, he turns it into a poem and gives it back to everybody, And finally, if all this contrast and association does not lead to a poem, then simply make a list of what you have collected. The specific names of things alone contain a kind of poetry and a theme may arise to form an unexpected marriage of ideas from these separate objects. Or, you may simply describe closely as if you were a camera taking a good photograph and recording your own chunk of frozen time. And, don't forget the bureau drawer of your mind. It too is filled with relics of which you are not immediately aware and they can sometimes be recaptured with the help of music- whether it be the sad and joyous moaning of gentle whales romping in the dark ocean or the scream of hard rock. Or take a real photograph of real people and ask what they were thinking when they let themselves be captured. The poet who writes poems in this way is using objects to give a certain artistic distance to his work. He is hopefully making his poems available to honest sentiment without losing them to overtly personal and uncontrolled sentimentality. But the poet, whether he be in the classroom or in the meadow, is still after the strongly felt life. He is still searching for the lonely, and perhaps noble, groping of the single human being burrowing out whatever road he can manage in the continual glare of the active world or the continual dark of his own secret soul. ? Tom O'Grady | other works by this author previously appeared in the Contemporary Literary Scene, Vol. II, Anthology, edited by Frank Magill and Walter Beacham, 1979. From Arielpf123 at aol.com Wed May 8 20:10:48 2002 From: Arielpf123 at aol.com (Arielpf123 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 20:10:48 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] an essay for your website Message-ID: <134.e03a3f0.2a0b1888@aol.com> sorry, meant that last only to go to David.... patf From tadrichards at prodigy.net Wed May 8 20:39:01 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 20:39:01 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] an essay for your website References: <134.e03a3f0.2a0b1888@aol.com> Message-ID: <012301c1f6f1$eaa7c7e0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Well, I'm glad it went to the whole list. SITUATIONS due out soon! Check for information at http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 8:10 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] an essay for your website > sorry, meant that last only to go to David.... > > patf > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From Serbpoet at aol.com Wed May 8 21:15:37 2002 From: Serbpoet at aol.com (Serbpoet at aol.com) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 21:15:37 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? Message-ID: <85.1b39d5c1.2a0b27b9@aol.com> What is for poetry? Before I went to the first grade in American terms I could have already have read about the newspapwrs. Because of thus i was prompted up immediately high to the third grade. My teachers was astonished at this. This happened when I was supposed at the first grade of student. I also excelleded at spelling. History i amlmost knew by heart. As child i was alone with poetry except with girl as me a refeuge what was sometimes friendly or not. When she got angry at you you knew it. She was not a bullyboy nor tried it. But at times she was a snitcher. Her name was Gwynn. Unlike him I was studiuos personage. Unless i was a little too funny and made strange noises with my nose mouth and throat into the classrooms of all of the other boy and girl young adults. And i thought Gwunn would think I was very funny and or laugh or giggle upon it. But she gazed me ugly and saucy looks. Some said if I did not stop talking they would gang up on it. However but the others were glad because of my voices that tanatalized every intilligent person, they surely did not like my crazy voices at all. After several months of it it cuased my expulsion from school. They, some of them, did try to beat me up. But Gwynn, I did know how to protect myself with a long stick I always carried to stick into somebodys opened eye. as gwynn This is poetry for me. Anna From gmcvay at patriot.net Wed May 8 23:02:53 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 23:02:53 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? References: <85.1b39d5c1.2a0b27b9@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CD9E6DA.BC713BBF@patriot.net> > This is poetry for me. > > Anna This is poetry for me too. You know what? Yo Marcus! THIS is for poetry! It try to beet me up in school. Him always was saying this is not poetry, how can you proove your claim of law. He, Mark-us, in my native language he is being the marks upon us. Once was the proffessor that did MarC Us down for being, for being intnelligent in a way that not was poetry of the officiary style. Once is All-One way as says upon bottle of hippie soap. It is that you are funny about this. To me the officiating nature of having poetry that is poetry, and poetry that not is poetry, is craptrap. Now a new way is being in poetry. We had this way secrtely and suffered it for very long times. You wilfully do not comprehend the passages of the sinus, much less the Stanza, that means Room, or Chamber. Much less what you are being, an outrage. For there is a way of poetry that is not poetry that yet IS poetry in your offices, mister! Do not be mistake. As Pacifica Radio, way of the immigrant station say, Positive, Powerful, Progressive. In mines is the fulfilment of librety. Say the Breath-Foot is samer than your radio mail, your electronic net that come by phone signal. You not poetry, then is schmuck. Is you with us or for us? Sinserely, Gwynn From JackKerouac25 at aol.com Wed May 8 23:25:49 2002 From: JackKerouac25 at aol.com (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 23:25:49 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems By Others: Joseph Kalar "Papermill" Message-ID: Papermill Joseph Kalar (1906-1972) Not to be believed, this blunt savage wind Blowing in chill empty rooms, this tornado Surging and bellying across the oily floor Pushing men out in streams before it; Not to be believed, this dry fall Of unseen fog drying the oil And emptying the jiggling greasecups; Not to be believed, this unseen hand Weaving a filmy rust of spiderwebs Over these turbines and grinding gears, These snarling chippers and pounding jordans; These fingers placed to lips saying shshsh; Keep silent, keep silent, keep silent; Not to be believed hardly, this clammy silence Where once feet stamped over the oily floor, Dinnerpails clattered, voices rose and fell In laughter, curses, and songs. Now the guts Of this mill have ceased their rumblings, now The fires are banked and red changes to black, Stream is cold water, silence is rust, and quiet Spells hunger. Look at these men, now, Standing before the iron gates, mumbling, "Who could believe it? Who could believe it?" _____________________________________________________________________ Jeffrey L. Newberry *If J.D. is peeping* Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida From gudding at olemiss.edu Wed May 8 23:37:56 2002 From: gudding at olemiss.edu (Gudding) Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 22:37:56 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? In-Reply-To: <85.1b39d5c1.2a0b27b9@aol.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508222321.0201ccc0@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> Gwyn, I am new to this list. And I have to say, I find your post offensive. Here is a Serbian poet, whether she is a man or woman I don't know -- a young poet who has probably been through some very gruesome times -- struggling perhaps with the language -- trying in her somewhat pathetic way to be funny and earnest -- and you mock her? Your irony, your sarcasm, your "wit" -- whatever you might want it to be called -- may have its place in some close-knit grad school context where everything is a yuck-yuck here and a yuck-yuck there -- but it has no place on an international poetry list -- a list that attracts the attention of poets, people struggling with language (indeed, LANGUAGES) -- from all over the globe -- and you MOCK HER. Fantastic, McVay. Great job. Anna, I just want you to know that I find this behavior despicable and I hope that Gwyn's insensitivity will not drive you from this list. Gabriel Gudding <----- MY NAME At 09:15 PM 5/8/2002 -0400, Serbpoet at aol.com wrote: >What is for poetry? > >Before I went to the first grade in American terms I could have already have >read about the newspapwrs. Because of thus i was prompted up immediately >high to the third grade. My teachers was astonished at this. This happened >when I was supposed at the first grade of student. > >I also excelleded at spelling. > >History i amlmost knew by heart. > >As child i was alone with poetry except with girl as me a refeuge what was >sometimes friendly or not. When she got angry at you you knew it. She was >not a bullyboy nor tried it. But at times she was a snitcher. Her name was >Gwynn. > >Unlike him I was studiuos personage. Unless i was a little too funny and >made strange noises with my nose mouth and throat into the classrooms of all >of the other boy and girl young adults. And i thought Gwunn would think I >was very funny and or laugh or giggle upon it. But she gazed me ugly and >saucy looks. Some said if I did not stop talking they would gang up on it. > However but the others were glad because of my voices that tanatalized > every >intilligent person, they surely did not like my crazy voices at all. After >several months of it it cuased my expulsion from school. They, some of them, >did try to beat me up. But Gwynn, I did know how to protect myself with a >long stick I always carried to stick into somebodys opened eye. as gwynn > >This is poetry for me. > >Anna >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From gmcvay at patriot.net Wed May 8 23:47:18 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 23:47:18 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508222321.0201ccc0@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> Message-ID: <3CD9F13D.B9117838@patriot.net> Um, Gabriel Gudding, a name I mention frequently, thankyouverymuch, not that you ever mention mine on ImitaPo, I would be able to understand your commentary better if you had actually quoted MY post rather than the one I was responding to. But okay. I don't mock. That's for magpies. I was actually completely deadly serious. This is Zen, Gabriel Gudding. This is life and death. Gwyn McVay <--- my name PS. Lurk longer. Read archives. From gmcvay at patriot.net Thu May 9 00:00:57 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 00:00:57 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508222321.0201ccc0@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> <3CD9F13D.B9117838@patriot.net> Message-ID: <3CD9F46E.93B5AE61@patriot.net> Not only that, Gabriel Gudding, a name I mention frequently around the halls at AOL, where it is well known that you do not have to prove an ethnicity to make up a combination of characters as a screen name on an account -- BUT, here I go, showing my ass in public, making a spontaneous POEM, performing it, actually letter-by-letter doing the act, doing the poetry zazen or bop-kabbalah or whatever label you want to stick on it -- I mean, we can talk it into the ground, but when do we ever walk it? Is that always a private act, or is there a part of it that's pulling your guts out, Gabriel Gudding, and showing them to the general populace, through your own filter of chemical-induced or chemical-imbalance-induced artifice? Baudelaire had good hash; we have this screen of ASCII text. I am articulating a poetics here, Gabriel Gudding, and you accuse me of hating on a notorious troll with multiple sockpuppets? Gertrude Stein is with me, Gabriel Gudding, and we are having one mutha of a serious conversation about you, in between turns at the screen. I mean, come on, homeslice, you're talking like you actually trust language. I remain, Sir, your humble and obedient servant, Vywc AnGmy <--- my name From gudding at olemiss.edu Thu May 9 00:17:25 2002 From: gudding at olemiss.edu (Gudding) Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 23:17:25 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? In-Reply-To: <3CD9F13D.B9117838@patriot.net> References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508222321.0201ccc0@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508230920.029c8d10@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> gWyn, forgive me for typing this at speed but I have lurked on this list for three months. I have read every word typed in by every address typing in. And I have lurked VERY long on this list. This is "ZEN" to you, but to many people, and I am a member of a great deal of international poetry listservs -- and have been for 4 years -- for many people this is less ZEN than xenophobia. I find your treatment of the Serbian poet Anna despicable when I consider that her country --former country -- has been embroiled in war and contrafaction for at least the early 1990s. She is to be commended, not denigrated, for typing in English Why would you be able to understand your own post better if I had pasted it below my post? Poor Anna, she is someone who is writing from a great distance, bridging cultures, and trying to understand the very involuted and imbricated world of Euro and American poetry. I doubt that she would even be able to BEGIN to understand your slights and faints of grass. Gabreil Gudding <---- mock that name then, go ahread At 11:47 PM 5/8/2002 -0400, Gwyn McVay wrote: >Um, Gabriel Gudding, a name I mention frequently, thankyouverymuch, not >that you ever mention mine on ImitaPo, I would be able to understand >your commentary better if you had actually quoted MY post rather than >the one I was responding to. But okay. > >I don't mock. That's for magpies. I was actually completely deadly >serious. This is Zen, Gabriel Gudding. This is life and death. > >Gwyn McVay <--- my name > >PS. Lurk longer. Read archives. >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From gudding at olemiss.edu Thu May 9 00:26:21 2002 From: gudding at olemiss.edu (Gudding) Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 23:26:21 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? In-Reply-To: <3CD9F46E.93B5AE61@patriot.net> References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508222321.0201ccc0@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> <3CD9F13D.B9117838@patriot.net> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508231748.029c9900@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> Are you trying to say that I am "serbpoet"? Don't think I know very well there has been some incredible circumspection about the name and the identity of this poor woman for some months. Let me tell you something, Gwyn. I have emailed with this person backchannel a fair deal. A fair deal. And I can certainly tell you that she is NOT A FAKE. I've been to Yugoslavia. I've visited friends in Belgrade, I know many poets there (well, five, not many I guess) and I *have met* ANNA. She is NOT some made-up identity. My friend William Hayden was a field officer for the OSCE in Belgrade during the troubles of 1999-2000 on a state-building mission. I met Anna. She is NOT repeat NOT someone you can just MOCK. GWYN McVAY, you can call me all the faux-friendly names you like (did you acutallly call me "home slice"?) but I am still going to be there WITH YOU in your zazen, every time you approach that CUSHION, Gwyn, I, your center, will be there waiting for you during ANAPANA. Don't think that I don't know my sitting, my prana, my aches. Annica vata sankhara.guh At 12:00 AM 5/9/2002 -0400, you wrote: >Not only that, Gabriel Gudding, a name I mention frequently around the >halls at AOL, where it is well known that you do not have to prove an >ethnicity to make up a combination of characters as a screen name on an >account -- > >BUT, here I go, showing my ass in public, making a spontaneous POEM, >performing it, actually letter-by-letter doing the act, doing the poetry >zazen or bop-kabbalah or whatever label you want to stick on it -- > >I mean, we can talk it into the ground, but when do we ever walk it? > >Is that always a private act, or is there a part of it that's pulling >your guts out, Gabriel Gudding, and showing them to the general >populace, through your own filter of chemical-induced or >chemical-imbalance-induced artifice? Baudelaire had good hash; we have >this screen of ASCII text. > >I am articulating a poetics here, Gabriel Gudding, and you accuse me of >hating on a notorious troll with multiple sockpuppets? > >Gertrude Stein is with me, Gabriel Gudding, and we are having one mutha >of a serious conversation about you, in between turns at the screen. > >I mean, come on, homeslice, you're talking like you actually trust language. > >I remain, Sir, your humble and obedient servant, >Vywc AnGmy <--- my name >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 9 00:29:05 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 00:29:05 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? Message-ID: <12f.111ab4e6.2a0b5511@cs.com> I, two, am shockered at this Gwyn's streak of mean. Henceforward, I will longer not be known as "Gwynn" to avoid confussion with she of the mising consonant. R. S. Poe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tadrichards at prodigy.net Thu May 9 00:46:39 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 00:46:39 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508222321.0201ccc0@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> Message-ID: <022101c1f714$84c823c0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Gabe -- Serbpoet is the second incarnation of a jokester who is well known, and well loved, on this list. SITUATIONS due out soon! Check for information at http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gudding" To: ; Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 11:37 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? > Gwyn, > > I am new to this list. And I have to say, I find your post offensive. Here > is a Serbian poet, whether she is a man or woman I don't know -- a young > poet who has probably been through some very gruesome times -- struggling > perhaps with the language -- trying in her somewhat pathetic way to be > funny and earnest -- and you mock her? Your irony, your sarcasm, your "wit" > -- whatever you might want it to be called -- may have its place in some > close-knit grad school context where everything is a yuck-yuck here and a > yuck-yuck there -- but it has no place on an international poetry list -- a > list that attracts the attention of poets, people struggling with language > (indeed, LANGUAGES) -- from all over the globe -- and you MOCK HER. > > Fantastic, McVay. Great job. > > Anna, I just want you to know that I find this behavior despicable and I > hope that Gwyn's insensitivity will not drive you from this list. > > Gabriel Gudding <----- MY NAME > > At 09:15 PM 5/8/2002 -0400, Serbpoet at aol.com wrote: > >What is for poetry? > > > >Before I went to the first grade in American terms I could have already have > >read about the newspapwrs. Because of thus i was prompted up immediately > >high to the third grade. My teachers was astonished at this. This happened > >when I was supposed at the first grade of student. > > > >I also excelleded at spelling. > > > >History i amlmost knew by heart. > > > >As child i was alone with poetry except with girl as me a refeuge what was > >sometimes friendly or not. When she got angry at you you knew it. She was > >not a bullyboy nor tried it. But at times she was a snitcher. Her name was > >Gwynn. > > > >Unlike him I was studiuos personage. Unless i was a little too funny and > >made strange noises with my nose mouth and throat into the classrooms of all > >of the other boy and girl young adults. And i thought Gwunn would think I > >was very funny and or laugh or giggle upon it. But she gazed me ugly and > >saucy looks. Some said if I did not stop talking they would gang up on it. > > However but the others were glad because of my voices that tanatalized > > every > >intilligent person, they surely did not like my crazy voices at all. After > >several months of it it cuased my expulsion from school. They, some of them, > >did try to beat me up. But Gwynn, I did know how to protect myself with a > >long stick I always carried to stick into somebodys opened eye. as gwynn > > > >This is poetry for me. > > > >Anna > >_______________________________________________ > >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 gudding at olemiss.edu Thu May 9 00:42:28 2002 From: gudding at olemiss.edu (Gudding) Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 23:42:28 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? In-Reply-To: <12f.111ab4e6.2a0b5511@cs.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508233043.029cb660@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> Look. you can mock me too. I've read your posts. I've read your very staid and quasi-heady, tight little British views about this art. I've read how you protect Ms. McVay. I suppose you own a Saturn too? And engage in a little "humor humor" now and then ? You people think you're playing around, ha ha. I once did too. Read the archive of BuffaloPoetics Nov-Dec 1998: see what playing around gets you. This is *not* a medium for irony. Please stop everyone. Please let Anna post in peace, I think she has been patient enough. I'm sorry, I'm a little overcome about this: I guess I'm just fed up. I've met this delightful poet. She is a soft spoken, incredibly perspicuous inventor. I'm sorry for the rhetoric in the previous paragraph, but I think it better that I don't change it. Gabe At 12:29 AM 5/9/2002 -0400, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: >I, two, am shockered at this Gwyn's streak of mean. Henceforward, I will >longer not be known as "Gwynn" to avoid confussion with she of the mising >consonant. > >R. S. Poe From gudding at olemiss.edu Thu May 9 00:49:53 2002 From: gudding at olemiss.edu (Gudding) Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 23:49:53 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? In-Reply-To: <022101c1f714$84c823c0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508222321.0201ccc0@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508234557.029d12b0@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> Tad, I have to go to bed. I have a sense of who you think Serbpoet is ( I know I know, don't we all). But I *MET* her!!! I suggest to you that this "jokester" you think she is, is someone well known on a great many other lists -- and NOT "Serbpoet." I know Serbpoet very well, she is a good decent young person who is without this kind of guile. She just can't type too well. And it incredibly bugs me that you can make fun of her to this degree. It is really inhuman. Gabriel Gudding <----- Do not misspell that name, Gwyn At 12:46 AM 5/9/2002 -0400, you wrote: >Gabe -- Serbpoet is the second incarnation of a jokester who is well known, >and well loved, on this list. > > >SITUATIONS due out soon! Check for information >at http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Gudding" >To: ; >Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 11:37 PM >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? > > > > Gwyn, > > > > I am new to this list. And I have to say, I find your post offensive. Here > > is a Serbian poet, whether she is a man or woman I don't know -- a young > > poet who has probably been through some very gruesome times -- struggling > > perhaps with the language -- trying in her somewhat pathetic way to be > > funny and earnest -- and you mock her? Your irony, your sarcasm, your >"wit" > > -- whatever you might want it to be called -- may have its place in some > > close-knit grad school context where everything is a yuck-yuck here and a > > yuck-yuck there -- but it has no place on an international poetry list -- >a > > list that attracts the attention of poets, people struggling with language > > (indeed, LANGUAGES) -- from all over the globe -- and you MOCK HER. > > > > Fantastic, McVay. Great job. > > > > Anna, I just want you to know that I find this behavior despicable and I > > hope that Gwyn's insensitivity will not drive you from this list. > > > > Gabriel Gudding <----- MY NAME > > > > At 09:15 PM 5/8/2002 -0400, Serbpoet at aol.com wrote: > > >What is for poetry? > > > > > >Before I went to the first grade in American terms I could have already >have > > >read about the newspapwrs. Because of thus i was prompted up immediately > > >high to the third grade. My teachers was astonished at this. This >happened > > >when I was supposed at the first grade of student. > > > > > >I also excelleded at spelling. > > > > > >History i amlmost knew by heart. > > > > > >As child i was alone with poetry except with girl as me a refeuge what >was > > >sometimes friendly or not. When she got angry at you you knew it. She >was > > >not a bullyboy nor tried it. But at times she was a snitcher. Her name >was > > >Gwynn. > > > > > >Unlike him I was studiuos personage. Unless i was a little too funny and > > >made strange noises with my nose mouth and throat into the classrooms of >all > > >of the other boy and girl young adults. And i thought Gwunn would think >I > > >was very funny and or laugh or giggle upon it. But she gazed me ugly and > > >saucy looks. Some said if I did not stop talking they would gang up on >it. > > > However but the others were glad because of my voices that tanatalized > > > every > > >intilligent person, they surely did not like my crazy voices at all. >After > > >several months of it it cuased my expulsion from school. They, some of >them, > > >did try to beat me up. But Gwynn, I did know how to protect myself with >a > > >long stick I always carried to stick into somebodys opened eye. as gwynn > > > > > >This is poetry for me. > > > > > >Anna > > >_______________________________________________ > > >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 From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Thu May 9 01:01:13 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 00:01:13 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Joseph Kalar "Papermill" Message-ID: <200205090500.g4950WM76594@mx1.mx.voyager.net> Thanks for this, Jeffrey. Joseph Kalar was new to me. A quick Google search turned up some biographical info and two more poems by Kalar on Cary Nelson's modern American poetry site, which I thought might be of interest to others: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/kalar/kalar.htm ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== ---------- >From: JackKerouac25 at aol.com >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems By Others: Joseph Kalar "Papermill" >Date: Wed, May 8, 2002, 10:25 PM > >Papermill > >Joseph Kalar (1906-1972) > >Not to be believed, this blunt savage wind >Blowing in chill empty rooms, this tornado >Surging and bellying across the oily floor >Pushing men out in streams before it; >Not to be believed, this dry fall >Of unseen fog drying the oil >And emptying the jiggling greasecups; >Not to be believed, this unseen hand >Weaving a filmy rust of spiderwebs >Over these turbines and grinding gears, >These snarling chippers and pounding jordans; >These fingers placed to lips saying shshsh; >Keep silent, keep silent, keep silent; >Not to be believed hardly, this clammy silence >Where once feet stamped over the oily floor, >Dinnerpails clattered, voices rose and fell >In laughter, curses, and songs. Now the guts >Of this mill have ceased their rumblings, now >The fires are banked and red changes to black, >Stream is cold water, silence is rust, and quiet >Spells hunger. Look at these men, now, >Standing before the iron gates, mumbling, >"Who could believe it? Who could believe it?" > >_____________________________________________________________________ > >Jeffrey L. Newberry >*If J.D. is peeping* >Department of English and Foreign Languages >University of West Florida From Robtberner at aol.com Thu May 9 01:22:33 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 01:22:33 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] what for is poetry Message-ID: <182.816da1e.2a0b6199@aol.com> If Gabe Gudding has actually met our Anna--see, even I have succumbed to a certain fondness for her--then I want some of whatever it is he's been smoking. Robert Berner From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 9 01:30:21 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 01:30:21 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? Message-ID: <12d.10ec9ae7.2a0b636d@cs.com> In a message dated 5/8/2002 11:43:42 PM Central Daylight Time, gudding at olemiss.edu writes: > > Look. you can mock me too. I've read your posts. I've read your very staid > and quasi-heady, tight little British views about this art. I've read how > you protect Ms. McVay. I suppose you own a Saturn too? And engage in a > little "humor humor" now and then ? You people think you're playing around, > > ha ha. I once did too. Read the archive of BuffaloPoetics Nov-Dec 1998: see > > what playing around gets you. This is *not* a medium for irony. Please stop > > everyone. Please let Anna post in peace, I think she has been patient > enough. > > I'm sorry, I'm a little overcome about this: I guess I'm just fed up. I've > met this delightful poet. She is a soft spoken, incredibly perspicuous > inventor. I'm sorry for the rhetoric in the previous paragraph, but I think > > it better that I don't change it. > Bummed were my poeple, the Brittish, too. I am not quasi though I much like Pasty Cline's virgin of it. As for heady, she was great in Casbah but not so much so in Macy's. Not a saturn do I drive but excelent American car Toyoda and made in Tenessee too. But no longer will I protect Gwyn who has dishonoured family escutcheon. You are a gud man, Gregg. You're heart is in the right place like Gen. Pope's headquarters was. Gud night. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 9 01:31:47 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 01:31:47 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] what for is poetry Message-ID: <45.172cec16.2a0b63c3@cs.com> In a message dated 5/9/2002 12:23:51 AM Central Daylight Time, Robtberner at aol.com writes: > > If Gabe Gudding has actually met our Anna--see, even I have succumbed > to > a certain fondness for her--then I want some of whatever it is he's been > smoking. > > Robert Berner Have you noticed that "Anna" spelled backwards is "annA"? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 9 01:37:23 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 01:37:23 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? Message-ID: <60.1f980c65.2a0b6513@cs.com> In a message dated 5/8/2002 10:39:36 PM Central Daylight Time, gudding at olemiss.edu writes: > > I am new to this list. And I have to say, I find your post offensive. Here > is a Serbian poet, whether she is a man or woman I don't know -- a young > poet who has probably been through some very gruesome times -- struggling > perhaps with the language -- trying in her somewhat pathetic way to be > funny and earnest -- and you mock her? Your irony, your sarcasm, your "wit" > > -- whatever you might want it to be called -- may have its place in some > close-knit grad school context where everything is a yuck-yuck here and a > yuck-yuck there -- but it has no place on an international poetry list -- a > > list that attracts the attention of poets, people struggling with language > (indeed, LANGUAGES) -- from all over the globe -- and you MOCK HER One might note that Prof. Gudding, who claims to have personally met serbpoet, still seems a bit confused by her gender. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 9 01:42:15 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 01:42:15 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? Message-ID: <16b.d59e36e.2a0b6637@cs.com> "her or his gender," I meant. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Robtberner at aol.com Thu May 9 06:05:02 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 06:05:02 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] re.: Joseph Kalar poems Message-ID: <4e.b328e9a.2a0ba3ce@aol.com> Many thanks to Jeff Newberry and Dave Graham for their postings on Kalar. I hit the uiuc website and of the two poems there "Nothing To Lose" seemed to fit right in with the recent discussion of class. Moreover, with its depression-era disillusionment, "Nothing To Lose" seems signally appropriate to our own post-industrial era: when was the last time you tried to Buy American? What did you get? Robert Berner From gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Thu May 9 10:46:54 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 09:46:54 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? In-Reply-To: <12d.10ec9ae7.2a0b636d@cs.com> Message-ID: Thanks Tad. You have a good night too. I think there is an uncommon tendency these days to (1) assume the lack of irony, and (2) look for irony in situations of identity (heteronyms etc). So, thank you for assuming (correctly) that I was being ironic in my post below (though I'm chagrined I didn't do a better job of showing it [I was headed quickly for bed]). But I want to just go one further and rejoin that we ought not assume the crypto-poster is someone toying inexpertly with a heternymic identity. Why? Because *I've met her*. In this particular case, this is a real person. This is not an Araki Yasusada or an Erminia Passannanti, but an Anna Abba. Gabe On Thu, 9 May 2002 Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: > In a message dated 5/8/2002 11:43:42 PM Central Daylight Time, > gudding at olemiss.edu writes: > > > > Look. you can mock me too. I've read your posts. I've read your very staid > > and quasi-heady, tight little British views about this art. I've read how > > you protect Ms. McVay. I suppose you own a Saturn too? And engage in a > > little "humor humor" now and then ? You people think you're playing around, > > > > ha ha. I once did too. Read the archive of BuffaloPoetics Nov-Dec 1998: see > > > > what playing around gets you. This is *not* a medium for irony. Please stop > > > > everyone. Please let Anna post in peace, I think she has been patient > > enough. > > > > I'm sorry, I'm a little overcome about this: I guess I'm just fed up. I've > > met this delightful poet. She is a soft spoken, incredibly perspicuous > > inventor. I'm sorry for the rhetoric in the previous paragraph, but I think > > > > it better that I don't change it. > > > Bummed were my poeple, the Brittish, too. I am not quasi though I much like > Pasty Cline's virgin of it. As for heady, she was great in Casbah but not so > much so in Macy's. Not a saturn do I drive but excelent American car Toyoda > and made in Tenessee too. But no longer will I protect Gwyn who has > dishonoured family escutcheon. You are a gud man, Gregg. You're heart is in > the right place like Gen. Pope's headquarters was. Gud night. > From gmcvay at patriot.net Thu May 9 10:48:28 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 10:48:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508233043.029cb660@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 8 May 2002, Gudding wrote: > Look. you can mock me too. I've read your posts. I've read your very staid > and quasi-heady, tight little British views about this art. I've read how > you protect Ms. McVay. I suppose you own a Saturn too? *ker-SNIP* Whoa Nelly! So there are some ethnic groups/nationalities that it is OKAY to diss, and in fact stereotype, as above... but some *claims to* ethnic group or nationality should get a pass, and be treated quite uncritically? Personally, assuming, for the sake of this paragraph, Gabriel Gudding, a name I use not to mock it, but because very recently, on YOUR list, there has been a similarly bantering thread about namedropping in which YOU posted about one of the listmembers' hypothetical nakedness... assuming for the sake of argument that there were a poet posting from Serbia (a country which, checking company statistics, just supplies a STAGGERING proportion of AOL's subscribers)... it would be insanely patronizing to condescend to that person and expect less of them than one would other listmembers. "Anna" has been dogging my footsteps since I took it seriously for half a second a while back and disagreed with it about Allen Ginsberg. That's annoying in any language, and eventually, given enough pokes, a living organism on Planet Earth is going to poke back. You would think an authentic Serb would also have a grasp of the unavoidable fact that life sucks. (Ordinarily, I would put that as "all life entails dukkha," but then YOU would mock THAT.) Look guh, a false-friendly name of your own coinage, if you truly and honestly wish to protect this sensitive, fragile poet who would probably get more respect for posting a poem of its own, even with Not Perfect Grammar, than for relentlessly baiting a preexisting-condition listmember, but anyway, if you really want to protect it, why don't you extend it an invite to join your listserv, the warm, nurturing environment known as ImitaPo? There it could study for its Turing test. Since Kent Johnson, the bringer-to-the-world of "Araki Yasusada," is on that list, surely you must understand just a BIT about what happens when a suffering ethnic identity is claimed for a body of work, people go all gaga over that, and then they get really upset when it's pointed out through obvious holes (like the fact that, because of the chronology, "Yasusada" could never have met Jack Spicer, as was claimed) that this identity is a heteronym. Or the controversy about that book from Australia that turned out not to have been written by a bona-fide Aborigine person at all. Personally, I think that, because conversation has flagged on ImitaPo lately, you are picking now to stick up for "Anna" just to get an excuse to point out the flaws of THIS list (rather like shooting fish in a barrel, really) and the tight little "British" attitudes toward poetry you say you deplore. (Says me: Any person from any ethnic group or nationality is equally capable of having an overly tight sphincter.) Your carping at this list for banter, besides being an overwhelming case of PKB, ignores the fact that this world is in real, literal, extreme physical danger because a bunch of people who are TOO FREAKING SERIOUS ALL THE TIME are in charge of it. Without a trace of irony whatsoever, Bush the Second is contemplating whipping up a batch of alleged low-yield nukes. If he keeps up, there's not going to BE a cushion under me, or a me on it. (Indeed, how do you know that I exist NOW? But I digress.) Real people's actual civil liberties in this country are currently being abridged by an attorney general who is so serious he has himself ANOINTED WITH OIL every time he is elected/inaugurated/appointed to something. You know what's truly unfunny? Being on the brink of theocracy, in which, as in the Middle East, a lot of random people also die. I am proposing a new theory of "Anna's" identity: Mairead Byrne. Sincerely (even though you don't fricking believe so much as my adverbs), Gwyn M. (look, we have the same middle initial, so mocking you would be just like mocking me) McVay From snospx at silcom.com Thu May 9 12:28:45 2002 From: snospx at silcom.com (Barry Spacks) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 09:28:45 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Anna-Serb-Poet-Luv-Billie In-Reply-To: <200205091600.g49G08Q15668@wiz.cath.vt.edu> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20020509092845.007d16f0@snowcrest.net> At 12:00 PM 5/9/02 -0400, R. Berner wrote: Have you noticed that "Anna" spelled backwards is "annA"? speech free: this poetree! climb up archives pick there, pick tiny upper leef, smoulder, tee maek, deep drink this cup Pierean Spring! Now I go with brandy wreat on spiderhead summerglint in eye, yes jesus harpo guy play harp with grapefruit, (oka Serb-Bully), sweet spider nevermine, Ezer Pound alsow in new track snow remember alsow on thin Jim Joys, feed this thin Jim Joys, lemon curd, o deep river wanna cross to Jordan -- you hear,? the call, Gwyy? the bleedyhand! ?? -- Arlo (I've met him, Senator!) From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com Thu May 9 12:29:17 2002 From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 17:29:17 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? References: Message-ID: <00c501c1f776$e532d540$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> > This is not an Araki Yasusada or an Erminia Passannanti, but > an Anna Abba. Gabe Wow!! What a linkage!! I'm sure Erminia will absolutely love to know that she's a simple heteronym. Robin Hamilton. From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com Thu May 9 12:41:25 2002 From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 17:41:25 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? References: Message-ID: <00c801c1f778$6130aa40$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Gwyn: > Since Kent Johnson, the bringer-to-the-world of "Araki Yasusada," is on > that list, surely you must understand just a BIT about what happens when a > suffering ethnic identity is claimed for a body of work, people go all > gaga over that, and then they get really upset when it's pointed out > through obvious holes (like the fact that, because of the chronology, > "Yasusada" could never have met Jack Spicer, as was claimed) that this > identity is a heteronym. D'you know, it has always struck me that the most likely candidate to be running The-Heteronym-Known-As-SerbPoet would be Kent Johnson? There are distinct links between the Suffering Serb and the Gentle Japanese. So, folks, watch your backchannels, or you too may find yourself subedited out of existence by the wilful editorialisation of The Highlander. Robin Hamilton. (Look, I'm +really+ sorry about this, but the novocaine has worn off my jaw, I forgot to munch a couple of Neurofen tablets before I went sleep, and the brandy doesn't seem to be biting. Excuses, excuses ... R2.) From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Thu May 9 12:44:46 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 09:44:46 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Anna-Serb-Poet-Luv-Billie References: <3.0.5.32.20020509092845.007d16f0@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <3CDAA77E.1504CDC@earthlink.net> Gnao ye be spekin eldest cup o'wine neath orpin vine, arbor arlo. Spackinzee dork? In orkney splash we springtime went, oofinit pass the cowee. Ach, bullpie! Hail, salad! Many years a'parkin in the K-Mart lot, the check-out, the dangly plastic paks o'SlimJims like a crown o'death. Toss it, moss it, and glitteringly gloss it. Time's a messin', aye! - Trobak Barry Spacks wrote: > > At 12:00 PM 5/9/02 -0400, R. Berner wrote: > > Have you noticed that "Anna" spelled backwards is "annA"? > > speech free: this poetree! climb up archives pick there, pick tiny upper > leef, smoulder, tee maek, deep drink this cup Pierean Spring! Now I go with > brandy wreat on spiderhead summerglint in eye, yes jesus harpo guy play > harp with grapefruit, (oka Serb-Bully), sweet spider nevermine, Ezer Pound > alsow in new track snow remember alsow on thin Jim Joys, feed this thin Jim > Joys, lemon curd, o deep river wanna cross to Jordan -- you hear,? > the call, Gwyy? the bleedyhand! ?? > > -- Arlo (I've met him, Senator!) > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From Robtberner at aol.com Thu May 9 14:50:38 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 14:50:38 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Anna-Serb-Poet-Luv-Billie Message-ID: 'Twas not I who spelled annA backwards, forwards, sideways, or any other wise, including upside down. It was some other wag. Robert Berner From gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Thu May 9 15:04:57 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 14:04:57 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Gwyn, it's great we have the same middle initial. And I would never mock you. Also, Imitapo is not my listserv, but Patrick Herron's -- he's the moderator. I'm very sorry to hear that Anna has been dogging your footsteps here. That is really bad form. I've seen some of that and I sympathize with you. I'm not saying she's perfect. Just that she's not a good typer and that shouldn't be held against her. The other stuff -- the homophobia and whatnot -- that's, I'm not sure, that's just in poor taste, to say the least. From what I know of her, however, she's being ironic, and loves to press irony to its limits. That's just her game. At least that was William's experience of her. I am wasting too much time at this machine because I'm in my office grading portfolios and tihs is more preferable But the one really fantastic thing I've loved about your posts and your poetry Gwyn over the last four years or so is your superb wit. It's really yquite extraordinary. And, what's more, I like your (mahayana) buddhistic tendencies. I -- as someone who studied Pali with Jim Gair in grad school in order to read the Tipitika (or I guess as you'd say the Tripitika) -- I want you to know that I would never mock your views about life's inherent unsatisfactory nature (your dukkha), nor put you out in any way -- at least not intentionally. I sat vipassana for three years (Goenka) but gave it up because I realized life was too short not to enjoy all the beer and cigarettes. I suppose it IS interesting that someone might choose the name "Anna" (which backward is, yes, "annA") as a heteronym, insofar as the three essential truths are dukkha, anicca, and anatta, the last being the truth of "selflessness." A heteronym named Anna might be punning on anatta I suppose. But all this is silly. And Anna would herself get a kick out of our torsions. The last I saw her was in a dirty coffee house in Bunar Street. And no Mairead Byrne is not Anna. Anna is Anna. Mairead doesn't have time for such shenanigans as she's either writing or working. Which is what I should be doing. Over and out. Gabe On Thu, 9 May 2002, Gwyn McVay wrote: > On Wed, 8 May 2002, Gudding wrote: > > > Look. you can mock me too. I've read your posts. I've read your very staid > > and quasi-heady, tight little British views about this art. I've read how > > you protect Ms. McVay. I suppose you own a Saturn too? > > *ker-SNIP* > > Whoa Nelly! So there are some ethnic groups/nationalities that it is OKAY > to diss, and in fact stereotype, as above... but some *claims to* ethnic > group or nationality should get a pass, and be treated quite uncritically? > > Personally, assuming, for the sake of this paragraph, Gabriel Gudding, a > name I use not to mock it, but because very recently, on YOUR list, there > has been a similarly bantering thread about namedropping in which YOU > posted about one of the listmembers' hypothetical nakedness... assuming > for the sake of argument that there were a poet posting from Serbia (a > country which, checking company statistics, just supplies a STAGGERING > proportion of AOL's subscribers)... it would be insanely patronizing to > condescend to that person and expect less of them than one would other > listmembers. "Anna" has been dogging my footsteps since I took it > seriously for half a second a while back and disagreed with it about Allen > Ginsberg. That's annoying in any language, and eventually, given enough > pokes, a living organism on Planet Earth is going to poke back. You would > think an authentic Serb would also have a grasp of the unavoidable fact > that life sucks. (Ordinarily, I would put that as "all life entails > dukkha," but then YOU would mock THAT.) > > Look guh, a false-friendly name of your own coinage, if you truly and > honestly wish to protect this sensitive, fragile poet who would probably > get more respect for posting a poem of its own, even with Not Perfect > Grammar, than for relentlessly baiting a preexisting-condition listmember, > but anyway, if you really want to protect it, why don't you extend it an > invite to join your listserv, the warm, nurturing environment known as > ImitaPo? There it could study for its Turing test. > > Since Kent Johnson, the bringer-to-the-world of "Araki Yasusada," is on > that list, surely you must understand just a BIT about what happens when a > suffering ethnic identity is claimed for a body of work, people go all > gaga over that, and then they get really upset when it's pointed out > through obvious holes (like the fact that, because of the chronology, > "Yasusada" could never have met Jack Spicer, as was claimed) that this > identity is a heteronym. Or the controversy about that book from Australia > that turned out not to have been written by a bona-fide Aborigine person > at all. > > Personally, I think that, because conversation has flagged on ImitaPo > lately, you are picking now to stick up for "Anna" just to get an excuse > to point out the flaws of THIS list (rather like shooting fish in a > barrel, really) and the tight little "British" attitudes toward poetry you > say you deplore. (Says me: Any person from any ethnic group or nationality > is equally capable of having an overly tight sphincter.) > > Your carping at this list for banter, besides being an overwhelming case > of PKB, ignores the fact that this world is in real, literal, extreme > physical danger because a bunch of people who are TOO FREAKING SERIOUS ALL > THE TIME are in charge of it. Without a trace of irony whatsoever, Bush > the Second is contemplating whipping up a batch of alleged low-yield > nukes. If he keeps up, there's not going to BE a cushion under me, or a me > on it. (Indeed, how do you know that I exist NOW? But I digress.) Real > people's actual civil liberties in this country are currently being > abridged by an attorney general who is so serious he has himself ANOINTED > WITH OIL every time he is elected/inaugurated/appointed to something. You > know what's truly unfunny? Being on the brink of theocracy, in which, as > in the Middle East, a lot of random people also die. > > I am proposing a new theory of "Anna's" identity: Mairead Byrne. > > Sincerely (even though you don't fricking believe so much as my adverbs), > Gwyn M. (look, we have the same middle initial, so mocking you would be > just like mocking me) McVay > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From sholman at mac.com Thu May 9 15:14:33 2002 From: sholman at mac.com (Shannon Holman) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 15:14:33 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] A history of heteronyms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Would anybody be willing to give a newcomer to this list a brief history of Anna and her possible predecessors? It's been a fun ride and all, but I'm starting to feel a bit spinny-headed. Your slights and faints of grass, Shannon -- Shannon Holman work: 212.545.6089 home: 718.638.1239 cell: 917.655.2415 email: sholman at mac.com -- http://www.onemississippi.com From gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Thu May 9 15:45:56 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 14:45:56 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] A history of heteronyms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Shannon, I'm not sure when Pessoa was "outed" as the source of his 3 major heteronyms, but over the course of his life (died when he was 47), he had 72 "inexistent" identities. His three major identities were quite distinct from each, as were their poetries. The problem of course with "Anna" as a heteronym is not merely that she is a real person. The problem is that Anna and billy are not distinct personalities, which makes their relationship pseudonymous not heteronymous. Probably the best heteronymic relationship on these lists is the one between Erminia Passananti and Anna Abba, a good solid dissimilarity, that. Whereas Anna and billy just bleed into each other. The source of the "poor typer" technique stems from a group of poets working on collaborative works two and three years ago on Subsubpoetics. Anna Abba was not among those poets at that time -- for obvious reasons. Her country was in turmoil and being profoundly bombed. The question then becomes, if Anna Abba is not a real person (which she is), the question then becomes not who is the source of this hyperauthor, but who is she the pseudonym for. Gwyn McVay suggests it's Kent Johnson, then suggests it's Mairead Byrne. Both Kent and Mairead *were* on subsbupoetics, yes. But Mairead hasn't the time for these shenanigans. Kent Johnson has assured me he is not Anna Abba -- and why would he not assure me he is not a real woman? Gaga From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Thu May 9 15:50:17 2002 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 14:50:17 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Ryan Message-ID: Here's a poem by Kay Ryan I like. Paul Lake Blandeur If it please God, let less happen. Even out Earth?s rondure, flatten Eiger, blanden the Grand Canyon. Make valleys slightly higher, widen fissures to arable land, remand your terrible glaciers and silence their calving, halving or doubling all geographical features toward the mean. Unlean against our hearts. Withdraw your grandeur >From these parts. From sholman at mac.com Thu May 9 16:21:33 2002 From: sholman at mac.com (Shannon Holman) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 16:21:33 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] A history of heteronyms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: So let's see if I've got this right: 1. Gabriel M. Gudding asserts that Anna is a real person who, presumably, aches the more she is invented (and we all feel feel her pain); and further, that she is the source of the heteronym Erminia Passananti; that she uses the pseudonym "billy"; and that her real, or let's say three-dimensional, origin is Serbia. Or, Anna is to Erminia as Pessoa is to Alberto Caeiro, and Anna is to billy as Pessoa is to Bernardo Soares, and Anna is to Serbia as Pessoa is to Lisbon, NOT as Alvaro de Campos is to Taviras. 2. Others believe that Anna is not a "real person"--they won't stop at rabbit while the fox hunt is on. I'm not sure I see the difference (not to say the distinction) between "who is the source of this hyperauthor" and "who is she the pseudonym for." I would think that those in this second category would ask both questions. Is there any relationship between this affair and the brabble over on the Buffalo list about the "Booted Five" or whatever they're calling it? S Shannon Holman work: 212.545.6089 home: 718.638.1239 cell: 917.655.2415 email: sholman at mac.com -- http://www.onemississippi.com From aburack at mail.slc.edu Thu May 9 16:27:52 2002 From: aburack at mail.slc.edu (Alexandra Burack) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 16:27:52 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: Tom Lux References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E38@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <002101c1f798$05f02b40$950653c6@bzln101> Folks, It was lovely of David Graham to post a Tom Lux poem. Tom was my thesis advisor at Sarah Lawrence College this year, and has been known for his championing of poets who are outside the academy. He will end his long association with Sarah Lawrence at the end of this year, as he will be moving to Georgia Tech to start their creative writing program. Tom's work is difficult to classify, which may be one of its strengths. For those interested, I might suggest his new book, out last year, entitled *The Street of Clocks.* Here is one of my favorite poems from the new volume, the opening poem to the book: Cucumber Fields Crossed by High-Tension Wires The high-tension spires spike the sky beneath which boys bend to pick from prickly vines the deep-sopped fruit, the rind's green a green sunk in green. They part the plants' leaves, reach into the nest, and pull out mother, father, fat Uncle Phil. The smaller yellow-green children stay, for now. The fruit goes in baskets by the side of the row, every thiry feet or so. By these bushels the boys get paid, in cash, at day's end, this summer of the last days of the empire that will become known as the past, adios, *then*, the ragged-edged beautiful blink. --by Thomas Lux *The Street of Clocks*. Houghton-Mifflin, 2001 Cheers, Alexandra Burack Sarah Lawrence College ----- Original Message ----- From: "Graham, David" To: "'New-Poetry'" Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 3:01 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: Tom Lux > A Little Tooth > > Your baby grows a tooth, then two, > and four, and five, then she wants some meat > directly from the bone. It's all > > over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall > in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet > talker on his way to jail. And you, > > your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue > nothing. You did, you loved, your feet > are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall. > > --Thomas Lux. * New and Selected Poems, 1975-1995*. Houghton Mifflin, > 1997. > > > ======================================== > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > Home Page: > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html > Poetry Library: > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html > ======================================== > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From JforJames at aol.com Thu May 9 16:54:54 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 16:54:54 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] A history of heteronyms? Message-ID: In a message dated 5/9/02 3:45:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time, gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu writes: > The problem is that Anna and billy are not distinct > personalities, which makes their relationship pseudonymous not > heteronymous. My observation would be that the problem is that Anna's posts are a kind of spam on this list. On other hand, I've also observed that many people choose to engage rather than ignore (delete) her off-topic ramblings. And, to make matters worse, we begun talking about who she is/isn't and not about poetry, and now I've been drawn in....it's beginning to feel like a cyBorges' story: The Mobius List. Finnegan (ps: As one of the orthographically-challenged, the wit of her misspellings was always lost on me.) From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Thu May 9 17:02:30 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 16:02:30 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E44@mail.ripon.edu> Yes, I for one am ready to talk poetry, Jim. Let's see, on the table recently. . . Thomas Lux, Kay Ryan, Joseph Kalar, Bernadette Mayer. . . . Fire at will. David Graham ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== > ---------- > From: JforJames at aol.com > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Thursday, May 9, 2002 3:54 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] A history of heteronyms? > > In a message dated 5/9/02 3:45:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time, > gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu writes: > > > The problem is that Anna and billy are not distinct > > personalities, which makes their relationship pseudonymous not > > heteronymous. > My observation would be that the problem is that Anna's > posts are a kind of spam on this list. > On other hand, I've also observed that many people choose > to engage rather than ignore (delete) her off-topic ramblings. And, > to make matters worse, we begun talking about who she is/isn't > and not about poetry, and now I've been drawn in....it's beginning > to feel like a cyBorges' story: The Mobius List. > Finnegan > (ps: As one of the orthographically-challenged, the wit > of her misspellings was always lost on me.) > From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com Thu May 9 17:15:57 2002 From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 22:15:57 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] A history of heteronyms? References: Message-ID: <11a801c1f79e$b90090c0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> From: "Shannon Holman" > Is there any relationship between this affair and the brabble over on the > Buffalo list about the "Booted Five" or whatever they're calling it? Yes. Nice to see SOMEONE has has noticed there were five, not four, Bounced From Buffalo. I believe the name of the thread there is either "Make Peace, Not War", or "The Ejected (sic!) Four". Sorry, Shannon, if the BufPo thread bores you, but there's quite a +lot+ of previous on this -- try Buffalo98, try the subsubpoetics meltdown, try The Wasting of british-poetry, try why poetryetc had to lager-up over pirated cyberidentities. Fuff!! Robin Hamilton From marcus at designerglass.com Thu May 9 17:09:44 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 17:09:44 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: Tom Lux In-Reply-To: <002101c1f798$05f02b40$950653c6@bzln101> Message-ID: <3CDAAD58.25429.146317C@localhost> > Cucumber Fields Crossed > by High-Tension Wires Oh, no! Not ANOTHER heteronym! Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com Thu May 9 17:24:30 2002 From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 22:24:30 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] A history of heteronyms? References: <11a801c1f79e$b90090c0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Message-ID: <11be01c1f79f$ea617200$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> > From: "Shannon Holman" > > > Is there any relationship between this affair and the brabble over on the > > Buffalo list about the "Booted Five" or whatever they're calling it? > > Yes. To elaborate -- neither the Buffalo (purge) nor the subsub Meltdown turned on the Heteronym Question, but both bitpo and petc did. Robin (If it looks like a duck, and quacks, take cover.) From gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Thu May 9 19:19:11 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 18:19:11 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] A history of heteronyms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Shannon, I understand your confusion. I am simply saying that Anna is the person writing Anna and billy and Erminia. She is real, whereas billy and Erminia are fictive. The only difference btw a pseudonymous writer and a heteronymous is that the heteronymous is undiscovered and/or distinct in style from teh source author. There is no relation btw this situation and the one they're talking about on buffpo.gabe On Thu, 9 May 2002, Shannon Holman wrote: > So let's see if I've got this right: > > 1. Gabriel M. Gudding asserts that Anna is a real person who, presumably, > aches the more she is invented (and we all feel feel her pain); and further, > that she is the source of the heteronym Erminia Passananti; that she uses > the pseudonym "billy"; and that her real, or let's say three-dimensional, > origin is Serbia. > > Or, Anna is to Erminia as Pessoa is to Alberto Caeiro, and Anna is to billy > as Pessoa is to Bernardo Soares, and Anna is to Serbia as Pessoa is to > Lisbon, NOT as Alvaro de Campos is to Taviras. > > 2. Others believe that Anna is not a "real person"--they won't stop at > rabbit while the fox hunt is on. I'm not sure I see the difference (not to > say the distinction) between "who is the source of this hyperauthor" and > "who is she the pseudonym for." I would think that those in this second > category would ask both questions. > > Is there any relationship between this affair and the brabble over on the > Buffalo list about the "Booted Five" or whatever they're calling it? > > S > > > > Shannon Holman > work: 212.545.6089 > home: 718.638.1239 > cell: 917.655.2415 > email: sholman at mac.com > -- > http://www.onemississippi.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From languagethief at yahoo.com Thu May 9 19:25:03 2002 From: languagethief at yahoo.com (The Old Mole) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 16:25:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] A history of heteronyms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20020509232503.6730.qmail@web12206.mail.yahoo.com> Shannon -- he's on third, we're not talking about him. Tad --- Shannon Holman wrote: > So let's see if I've got this right: > > 1. Gabriel M. Gudding asserts that Anna is a real > person who, presumably, > aches the more she is invented (and we all feel feel > her pain); and further, > that she is the source of the heteronym Erminia > Passananti; that she uses > the pseudonym "billy"; and that her real, or let's > say three-dimensional, > origin is Serbia. > > Or, Anna is to Erminia as Pessoa is to Alberto > Caeiro, and Anna is to billy > as Pessoa is to Bernardo Soares, and Anna is to > Serbia as Pessoa is to > Lisbon, NOT as Alvaro de Campos is to Taviras. > > 2. Others believe that Anna is not a "real > person"--they won't stop at > rabbit while the fox hunt is on. I'm not sure I see > the difference (not to > say the distinction) between "who is the source of > this hyperauthor" and > "who is she the pseudonym for." I would think that > those in this second > category would ask both questions. > > Is there any relationship between this affair and > the brabble over on the > Buffalo list about the "Booted Five" or whatever > they're calling it? > > S > > > > Shannon Holman > work: 212.545.6089 > home: 718.638.1239 > cell: 917.655.2415 > email: sholman at mac.com > -- > http://www.onemississippi.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Mother's Day is May 12th! http://shopping.yahoo.com From gudding at olemiss.edu Thu May 9 20:16:31 2002 From: gudding at olemiss.edu (Gudding) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 19:16:31 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Seneca Review -- paratexts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020509190838.02afe610@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> Has anyone noticed the paratextual stuff in the latest SENECA REVIEW? Lots of "marginalia," and in a few poems the epigraphs float above the titles. Personally I find it kind of comforting when the epigraph is sandwiched between the title and the text of the poem; it is disconcerting to read the epigraph first and then the title, but I like being disconcerted so this was a positive experience. In a few poems, there are Three and Four epigraphs above the title! Some of the marginalia remind me of Alice Fulton's experiments with paratexts in the mid-'80s I think. From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 9 20:19:40 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 20:19:40 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] A history of heteronyms? Message-ID: <18c.7aa30fe.2a0c6c1c@cs.com> In a message dated 5/9/2002 6:18:07 PM Central Daylight Time, gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu writes: > Shannon, I understand your confusion. I am simply saying that Anna is the > person writing Anna and billy and Erminia. She is real, whereas billy and > Erminia are fictive. The only difference btw a pseudonymous writer and a > heteronymous is that the heteronymous is undiscovered and/or distinct in > style from teh source author. There is no relation btw this situation and > the one they're talking about on buffpo.gabe Bubba, are your grades turned in yet? You need to go easy on that stuff. Ask Hannah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu May 9 20:24:08 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 20:24:08 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Seneca Review -- paratexts Message-ID: <15f.d7db671.2a0c6d28@cs.com> In a message dated 5/9/2002 7:18:23 PM Central Daylight Time, gudding at olemiss.edu writes: > Personally I find it kind of comforting when the epigraph is sandwiched > between the title and the text of the poem; it is disconcerting to read the > > epigraph first and then the title, but I like being disconcerted so this > was a positive experience. In a few poems, there are Three and Four > epigraphs above the title! > > Some of the marginalia remind me of Alice Fulton's experiments with > paratexts in the mid-'80s I think. Try Brad Leithauser's note about this in his introductory notes to Cats of the Temple. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gudding at olemiss.edu Thu May 9 20:24:58 2002 From: gudding at olemiss.edu (Gudding) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 19:24:58 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] A history of heteronyms? In-Reply-To: <18c.7aa30fe.2a0c6c1c@cs.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020509192213.02b00380@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu> ><stuff. Ask Hannah. >> I am temporarily living in the South, and as it happens I have a student named Bubba. Barry Hannah is a nice man who smokes very heavily. Cigarettes that is. Recently Barry said, apropos of nothing, "I can't imagine Freud DOING anything." From Serbpoet at aol.com Thu May 9 21:09:26 2002 From: Serbpoet at aol.com (Serbpoet at aol.com) Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 21:09:26 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] I had had a dream that i am murdered in tornado in Illiniois Message-ID: <7c.27ab053f.2a0c77c6@aol.com> Dear Gwyn, I had had a dream that i am murdered in tornados in Illiniois state. Indeed all of my years in Serbia country I hear of the Loncoln who is half-black to free the ensalved in South of the US states. And that then i dream of tumult in upper air zones that murdered me in the country of llinois to where I had been forced to live as black enslaved. Why did i go to live inside there?????? To teach the black. Black is still hated in your country. They all live in the slum of richest jewel superpower. This is the reason. Love Jesus evey single one of you. P.S. This, however, post is about the death of my mother to me. I had that kind of deep sorrow, that, bad as you feel, I could not (cry.) I was even very dangerous if not left alone. I do not know how long I was away from the school befor I was excommunicated. It caused the teachers to think I was either feeble minded or actualy crazy. In fact i hadmade better advances in the school than any of the children had did. BUT had i knonw what was going to be done with me I would sureley have run away. P.S. S. Plus I do not read any of the posts thru and thru on new poetry about ME except my own posts becuase they are ununderstandable. STOP TALKING CONFUSING ABOUT ME anymore. Anna From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Thu May 9 21:22:44 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 18:22:44 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] I had had a dream that i am murdered in tornado in Illiniois References: <7c.27ab053f.2a0c77c6@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CDB20E4.EC75414E@earthlink.net> First paragraph translated into German then back into English, courtesy Babelfish: I had a dream am had, da.ue I in the Tornadoes in the Illiniois condition murdered. Indeed all my years in Serbia country h..re I from the Loncoln, which H.??lfte black is, to release ensalved in the S.?*den US Zust.??nde. And then the i dream of tumult in the upper air zones, which murdered me in the country of llinois too, which I had been forced to live as enslaved black. Why I went, there to live inside?????? The black inform. Black is geha.uet still in your country. All it live richest jewel superpower in the slum area. This is the reason. Liebejesus evey single of you. Serbpoet at aol.com wrote: > > Dear Gwyn, > > I had had a dream that i am murdered in tornados in Illiniois state. > > Indeed all of my years in Serbia country I hear of the Loncoln who is > half-black to free the ensalved in South of the US states. And that then i > dream of tumult in upper air zones that murdered me in the country of > llinois to where I had been forced to live as black enslaved. Why did i go > to live inside there?????? To teach the black. Black is still hated in your > country. They all live in the slum of richest jewel superpower. This is the > reason. Love Jesus evey single one of you. > > P.S. This, however, post is about the death of my mother to me. I had that > kind of deep sorrow, that, bad as you feel, I could not (cry.) I was even > very dangerous if not left alone. I do not know how long I was away from the > school befor I was excommunicated. It caused the teachers to think I was > either feeble minded or actualy crazy. In fact i hadmade better advances in > the school than any of the children had did. BUT had i knonw what was going > to be done with me I would sureley have run away. > > P.S. S. Plus I do not read any of the posts thru and thru on new poetry about > ME except my own posts becuase they are ununderstandable. STOP TALKING > CONFUSING ABOUT ME anymore. > > Anna > > > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From gmcvay at patriot.net Thu May 9 23:32:24 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 23:32:24 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] I had had a dream that i am murdered in tornado in Illiniois References: <7c.27ab053f.2a0c77c6@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CDB3F45.F26092A3@patriot.net> Dear Anna, OK, you're real, I'm real. This world is impermanent anyway, and this medium ephemeral. No big deal. One of my poems was written in Illinois, scrawled first on a motel napkin very late at night. It's not a beautiful state apart from Chicago, but there are emu and ostrich farms alongside the highway. What does the name "Abba" mean? In Aramaic it means "father," and is said to have been how Jesus addressed YHWH, but I regret I don't know its meaning in your own language. I assume you are not referring to music here. Really really, Gwyn From gmcvay at patriot.net Thu May 9 23:51:45 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 23:51:45 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is for poetry? References: Message-ID: <3CDB43CB.65C99B79@patriot.net> "Gabriel M. Gudding" wrote: > > Gwyn, it's great we have the same middle initial. And I would never mock > you. Also, Imitapo is not my listserv, but Patrick Herron's -- he's the > moderator. My bad. I promoted you through mismemory. > I'm very sorry to hear that Anna has been dogging your footsteps here. > That is really bad form. I've seen some of that and I sympathize with you. > I'm not saying she's perfect. Just that she's not a good typer and that > shouldn't be held against her. The other stuff -- the homophobia and > whatnot -- that's, I'm not sure, that's just in poor taste, to say the > least. From what I know of her, however, she's being ironic, and loves to > press irony to its limits. That's just her game. I didn't mean to mock her typing; I was actually trying to write a new prose poem on top of her text. I would never intentionally mock the language use of someone I suspected of being flesh and blood. It was my own Zen teacher, the Ven. Po-Hwa Sunim, who warned against the three great poisons thusly: "No anger! No delusion! No stupid!" I notice Anna hasn't got a member profile set on AOL. I'd be interested to see what got put in there. > I sat vipassana for three years (Goenka) but gave > it up because I realized life was too short not to enjoy all the beer and > cigarettes. > Erk. Tobacco ices 400,000+ people a year. Stick to pot, or salvia. > I suppose it IS interesting that someone might choose the name "Anna" > (which backward is, yes, "annA") as a heteronym, insofar as the three > essential truths are dukkha, anicca, and anatta, the last being the truth > of "selflessness." A heteronym named Anna might be punning on anatta I > suppose. Anna Atman would be the appropriate pun in Sanskrit, vs. Paali. > And no Mairead Byrne is not Anna. Anna is Anna. Mairead doesn't > have time for such shenanigans as she's either writing or working. Dear guh, I suggest we don't necessarily disagree here... writing IS a shenanigan (lookie, the rare singular form!), and shenanigans on a text-based listserv necessarily entail writing. Good luck with the papers. Grading is always TEH SUCK. (not an Anna reference, but a B1FF reference) Yours and yours and yours, Gwyn Mary McVay From Robtberner at aol.com Fri May 10 07:28:38 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 07:28:38 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Is It Irish Enough For You? Message-ID: <1ad.209db4d.2a0d08e6@aol.com> Gwyn Mary McVay writes: "Grading is always TEH SUCK," which, I'm sure she knows, is the official title of an Irish PoohBah, the Taoiseach. Sleinte, Robert Barry Berner From Robtberner at aol.com Fri May 10 07:38:19 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 07:38:19 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms Message-ID: <29.26fd7b91.2a0d0b2b@aol.com> Regarding the recent exchanges on pseudonyms, heteronyms, and all the other kinds of nyms up to but excluding J.F. Nims, some of them actually very funny: what did academics do for fun before the invention of the internet? Robert Berner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Fri May 10 09:58:08 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 09:58:08 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms Message-ID: <15d.dba42cc.2a0d2bf0@cs.com> In a message dated 5/10/2002 6:39:57 AM Central Daylight Time, Robtberner at aol.com writes: > Regarding the recent exchanges on pseudonyms, heteronyms, and all the other > kinds of nyms up to but excluding J.F. Nims, some of them actually very > funny: what did academics do for fun before the invention of the internet? > > Robert Berner We wrote on bathroom walls a lot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Fri May 10 10:58:22 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 10:58:22 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms In-Reply-To: <29.26fd7b91.2a0d0b2b@aol.com> Message-ID: > Regarding the recent exchanges on pseudonyms, heteronyms, > and all the other kinds of nyms up to but excluding J.F. Nims, > some of them actually very funny: what did academics do for > fun before the invention of the internet? > > Robert Berner Well, according to that anonymous elevator-man at the Palmer House in Chicago, they did more drinking and less fucking than any other convention that came to town. That was on the occasion of an MLA convention there. Hal Please stand clear of the closing doors. Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From hruggier at localnet.com Fri May 10 11:23:57 2002 From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 11:23:57 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Anna-Serb-Poet-Luv-Billie References: Message-ID: <3CDBE60D.54901471@localnet.com> Anna, she dead. Love, Nana Robtberner at aol.com wrote: > 'Twas not I who spelled annA backwards, forwards, sideways, or any other > wise, including upside down. It was some other wag. > Robert Berner > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Fri May 10 11:05:58 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 10:05:58 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms Message-ID: <200205101505.g4AF5KC58593@mx15.mx.voyager.net> >Well, according to that anonymous elevator-man at the Palmer >House in Chicago, they did more drinking and less fucking than >any other convention that came to town. That was on the occasion >of an MLA convention Good story, Hal, but I've heard it told of many cities and a number of different academic conferences. It's got urban legend written all over it. Subcategory: academic urban legend? How many of *those* are there? . . . ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From sholman at mac.com Fri May 10 11:16:24 2002 From: sholman at mac.com (Shannon Holman) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 11:16:24 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Babelfish In-Reply-To: <3CDB20E4.EC75414E@earthlink.net> Message-ID: on 5/9/02 9:22 PM, James Cervantes at jvcervantes at earthlink.net wrote: > First paragraph translated into German then back into English, courtesy > Babelfish: I have a couple of poems written with Babelfish. One starts with Plath and one with Simic, and both go from English to English by way of French, German, and Portugese. Backchannel me if you wanna have a look. -- Shannon Holman work: 212.545.6089 home: 718.638.1239 cell: 917.655.2415 email: sholman at mac.com -- http://www.onemississippi.com From halvard at earthlink.net Fri May 10 11:17:30 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 11:17:30 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms In-Reply-To: <200205101505.g4AF5KC58593@mx15.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: { >Well, according to that anonymous elevator-man at the Palmer { >House in Chicago, they did more drinking and less fucking than { >any other convention that came to town. That was on the occasion { >of an MLA convention { { Good story, Hal, but I've heard it told of many cities and a number of { different academic conferences. It's got urban legend written all over it. Quite right, David. It's probably too good to be true, but the question had to do with what academics did to amuse themselves before the internet came along, and I thought that little anecdote, true or not, might suggest one possible answer. As to other academic urban legends--well, there are plenty of local ones. When I was in grad school a noted Chicago Donne scholar used to haul a black attache case around to classes with him that he never was seen to open. Legend had it that the case contained the remains of his late wife. Hal "I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens." --Woody Allen Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Fri May 10 11:58:09 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 08:58:09 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Anna-Serb-Poet-Luv-Billie References: <3CDBE60D.54901471@localnet.com> Message-ID: <3CDBEE11.445130D6@earthlink.net> Not again! - Jim Helen Ruggieri wrote: > > Anna, she dead. > > Love, > > Nana > > Robtberner at aol.com wrote: > > > 'Twas not I who spelled annA backwards, forwards, sideways, or any other > > wise, including upside down. It was some other wag. > > Robert Berner > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 jholmes at boisestate.edu Fri May 10 12:32:01 2002 From: jholmes at boisestate.edu (Janet Holmes) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 10:32:01 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Surtitles Message-ID: Are these GE Patterson's poems? He's been using surtitles for a while now, and they're usually hilarious. (Haven't seen Seneca Review, but I'm guessing.) Janet Holmes From gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Fri May 10 12:42:25 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 11:42:25 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Surtitles In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Janet, I'm at my office now and my SR copy is disagreeably at home, otherwise I would be on the scent. I was so addled by the experience that I didn't get beyond a brief skimming of the epigraphs and title. It was dizzying. Gabe On Fri, 10 May 2002, Janet Holmes wrote: > Are these GE Patterson's poems? He's been using surtitles for a while > now, and they're usually hilarious. (Haven't seen Seneca Review, but I'm > guessing.) > > Janet Holmes > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From snospx at silcom.com Fri May 10 14:15:06 2002 From: snospx at silcom.com (Barry Spacks) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 11:15:06 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #799 - 13 msgs In-Reply-To: <200205092100.g49L03Q17774@wiz.cath.vt.edu> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20020510111506.007d7800@snowcrest.net> Sorry folks, re. my feeble funning with annA-speak, which fell out of line for posting, coming later than it might have and now out-of-synch with serious attitudes growing about our multi-nymic seductress -- hard to resist trying (& failing) to mimic her duende, apologies to all, I'll have to accept in future my severe restriction to Barry-speak. B. "But al shal passe; and thus take I my leve" -- G. Chaucer From chryss at silcom.com Fri May 10 14:18:27 2002 From: chryss at silcom.com (Chryss Yost) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 11:18:27 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #799 - 13 msgs In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20020510111506.007d7800@snowcrest.net> Message-ID: <52F64121-6442-11D6-91C4-000393775748@silcom.com> Serious attitudes be damned! Speak on, Master Poet! C. On Friday, May 10, 2002, at 11:15 AM, Barry Spacks wrote: > Sorry folks, re. my feeble funning with annA-speak, which fell out > of line for posting, coming later than it might have > and now out-of-synch with serious attitudes growing > about our multi-nymic seductress -- hard to resist > trying (& failing) to mimic her duende, apologies to all, > I'll have to accept in future my severe restriction to Barry-speak. > > B. > "But al shal passe; and thus take I my leve" > -- G. Chaucer > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com Fri May 10 14:31:46 2002 From: thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com (bob cooper) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 18:31:46 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] not on the mousetrap yet Message-ID: Gwyn McVay writes: You know, I never thought of it that way. But given that I work in IT >currently, the line > >All day I squeeze a plastic mouse's bum > >is both true, and a passable line of pentameter with a spondaic >substitution. > Yeh Gwyn, I never tried putting spondees (I usually just try cheese) in my mousetrap either! To a poet, I guess, all things are writeable. (He types with a stilton grin!) Bob (push-squeeze-click- - - gone!) >From: Gwyn McVay >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] not on the ropes yet >Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 10:13:47 -0400 (EDT) > >On Tue, 7 May 2002, bob cooper wrote: > > > Hey, calm down Robert, > > I mean I can't write wearing a gauntlet, and I can't turn a page to read >the > > next poem very easily wearing a gauntlet either... and as for clicking a > > mouse? Well I don't know if I could even switch the machine on to start >with > > wearing one, never mind squeeze a plastic mouse's bum. > >You know, I never thought of it that way. But given that I work in IT >currently, the line > >All day I squeeze a plastic mouse's bum > >is both true, and a passable line of pentameter with a spondaic >substitution. > >Many thanks, >Gwyn > >_______________________________________________ >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 paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Fri May 10 14:33:52 2002 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 13:33:52 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Pleasure Principle Message-ID: One reason I like the poetry of Kay Ryan is that her poetics is based on pleasure. Here's her ars poetic. Paul Lake The Narrow Path No rime-grizzled mountain climber, puzzled by where to put his fingers next, knows the least thing about how narrow work gets that depends only on pleasure. When it gets late or he gets depressed, he can hang in a nylon sack, his whole weight waiting for the light to come back. But for people who ascend only by pleasure there are no holding straps. They must keep to the hairline crack all the time or fall all the way back From Robtberner at aol.com Fri May 10 17:56:19 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 17:56:19 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] urban legends Message-ID: <193.6d6c6da.2a0d9c03@aol.com> Halvard Johnson writes of the Donne scholar who never opened his attache case. If we followed said scholar to the rec room, we'd find that the attache case contained his lunch and his ping pong paddles. As to the MLA attendees who drank more and fucked less, if you asked the elevator man why, he'd probably tell you they didn't want to sully themselves with pros. Remember to stand clear of all electrically controlled water-tight sliding doors.They are about to be test-closed. Robert Berner From Robtberner at aol.com Fri May 10 18:04:24 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 18:04:24 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] wall-scribblings Message-ID: <161.d917638.2a0d9de8@aol.com> R.S. Gwynn says that for fun before the invention of the internet, academics wrote on bathroom walls a lot. And how did the walls respond? Robert Berner From FanwoodJEL at aol.com Fri May 10 18:15:35 2002 From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 18:15:35 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] wall-scribblings Message-ID: <32.26c054af.2a0da087@aol.com> In a message dated 5/10/2002 6:05:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Robtberner at aol.com writes: > R.S. Gwynn says that for fun before the invention of the internet, > academics wrote on bathroom walls a lot. And how did the walls respond? > Robert Berner > Mirrored the odd sentiment, flushed with embarrassment, then threw in the towel. the other Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Fri May 10 19:01:47 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 16:01:47 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms References: Message-ID: <3CDC515B.B10F90B5@earthlink.net> Halvard Johnson wrote: > > > As to other academic urban legends--well, there are plenty of local ones. When > I was in grad school a noted Chicago Donne scholar used to haul a black attache > case around to classes with him that he never was seen to open. Legend had it > that the case contained the remains of his late wife. > When Hunter S. Thomson was doing a visiting stint at A.S.U., his black attache case contained a portable bar. - Jim ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This message, unless otherwise noted, is impermanent. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org/ Poetserv: http://www.poetserv.com/ Homepage: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/index.html From JforJames at aol.com Fri May 10 19:21:57 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 19:21:57 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Fulcrum's Forthcoming Submission Season Message-ID: <41.1cff7ab1.2a0db015@aol.com> Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 18:16:02 -0400 From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: Pre-Announcing Fulcrum's Forthcoming Submission Season Attention poets, critics and philosophers. Fulcrum: an annual of poetry and aesthetics is now open to unsolicited submissions of poetry and essays. The theme of our forthcoming (2003) issue will be "Philosophies of Poetry." For Issue 2, we are looking for philosophical essays about poetry - generalized, deep reflections on the nature of poetry, poetic form and vision, the meaning of the poetic art. Although we use the term "philosophy" somewhat broadly (we may even consider essays on the "physics" or "mathematics of poetry" if they make any sense), we are not looking for literary criticism as such for the 2003 issue. If you had to explain what you think is most essential about poetry, and why (and how) poetry matters to you, what would you say? Have you got philosophic ideas or observations about poetry that you have always wanted to formulate, but never found a suitable occasion? (This brief description is for orientation purposes only.) Poetry submissions are not required to conform to the issue's central theme directly. We would especially caution poets against sending us "metapoetry" (pensive poetry about poetry). Please feel free, however, to send us your best, "representative" work, such as you feel most accurately captures your thinking and your worth as a poet. Please note that Fulcrum does not publish book reviews. All submitted work will be considered collegially. Please send unsolicited submissions between June 1 and August 31 to Fulcrum, 334 Harvard Street, Suite D-2, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Include a return envelope with sufficient postage or IRCs if a response is desired. All regions of the English-speaking world are welcome, and all established regional and orthographic conventions are acceptable. No email submissions. Accepted work will be requested in an electronic format. No payment for unsolicited contributions except in copies. Reading a sample issue before submitting work is strongly recommended. Fulcrum is a genuinely international journal. Contributors to Issue One (256 pages): Douglas Barbour (Canada), Ken Bolton (Australia), Pam Brown (Australia), Branston Clark (Belize and USA), Fred D'Aguiar (Guyana, England, USA), Allen Fisher (England), Randolph Healy (Ireland), Brian Henry (USA), W. N. Herbert (Scotland), Peter Horn (South Africa), Robert Kelly (USA), David Kennedy (England), John Kinsella (Australia), August Kleinzahler (USA), Alan Loney (New Zealand), Roddy Lumsden (Scotland, England), Paul Muldoon (Northern Ireland, USA), Gregory O'Brien (New Zealand), Marjorie Perloff (USA), Sheenagh Pugh (Wales), Menka Shivdasani (India), Matvei Yankelevich (USA), Angeline Yap (Singapore), Harriet Zinnes (USA). Subscription rates in the U.S. are $12 per issue/year for individuals, $15 for institutions. Foreign subscriptions are $17 and $20 respectively. $5 discount for a three-year subscription. Fulcrum needs your financial support and welcomes philanthropic donations. A check or money order payable to Fulcrum Annual should be sent to Fulcrum, 334 Harvard Street, Suite D-2, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. From FanwoodJEL at aol.com Fri May 10 19:21:56 2002 From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 19:21:56 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms Message-ID: In a message dated 5/10/2002 7:06:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time, jvcervantes at earthlink.net writes: > When Hunter S. Thomson was doing a visiting stint at A.S.U., his black > attache case contained a portable bar. > > - Jim > Did you notice, I sure hope you did, that Hunter S. Thompson and A.S.U. share the same middle initial and that all the letters in bar are contained in portable, as are port and ale. Figure the odds. Anyone want to talk poetry? Jeffrey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Fri May 10 19:25:18 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 19:25:18 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms Message-ID: <13c.e2d213a.2a0db0de@aol.com> In a message dated 5/10/02 7:06:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time, jvcervantes at earthlink.net writes: << When Hunter S. Thomson was doing a visiting stint at A.S.U., his black attache case contained a portable bar. >> Jim, I would consider that a prop, part of his performance art. Finnegan From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Fri May 10 20:00:30 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 20:00:30 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] wall-scribblings Message-ID: <19b.211ca6b.2a0db91e@cs.com> In a message dated 5/10/2002 5:05:09 PM Central Daylight Time, Robtberner at aol.com writes: > > R.S. Gwynn says that for fun before the invention of the internet, > academics wrote on bathroom walls a lot. And how did the walls respond? > Robert Berner They did not respond. This was long before they became known as "texts." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Fri May 10 20:07:42 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 20:07:42 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms Message-ID: <21.1dcc3c09.2a0dbace@cs.com> In a message dated 5/10/2002 6:23:06 PM Central Daylight Time, FanwoodJEL at aol.com writes: > Anyone want to talk poetry? > > Jeffrey I did, for once, come up with a good final-exam essay topic (done out of class for 30% of the grade) for my sophomore American lit classes. I had my students write a mock- debate between Poe and Whitman on three questions: 1. What subjects should American poets write about; 2. What forms should they use; 3. What kind of language should they use? The debate was judged by Ms. Dickinson, Mr. S. Crane, and Mr. Robinson. I also told them that they could quote from these folks as much as they wished. Best set of papers I've ever gotten--Jerry Springer, WWF format, etc. I laughed out loud (for the right reasons for a change!) many times. Most of them exceeded the 500-word minimum requirement two- or three-fold. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Fri May 10 20:18:02 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 19:18:02 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Then Jeffrey said, > Did you notice, I sure hope you did, that Hunter S. Thompson and A.S.U. share > the same middle initial and that all the letters in bar are contained in > portable, as are port and ale. Figure the odds. Anyone want to talk poetry? Jeffrey, I suppose someone cd just as easily say that's what we were doing all along. Where would Swift have been if he and Dr. Sheridan had not sat down at the scullery table for hours playing goofy little word-games -- riddles, enigmas, doggerel inventions, insults? The Dean considered such activity vital to maintaining his verbal edge, calling it "la bagetelle." As a matter of fact, the poems about Anne Acheson, _A Tale of a Tub_, many of his scatalogical pieces, and _Gulliver's Travels_ all started out with, and were maintained by (or at least accompanied by) verbal doodling. What was it Heaney called many of Muldoon's desultory inventions? Muldoodles?, something like that, viva la doodle, as i've oodles of the lads. Gabe From marcus at designerglass.com Fri May 10 20:38:37 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 20:38:37 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] urban legends In-Reply-To: <193.6d6c6da.2a0d9c03@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CDC2FCD.17981.EB24C@localhost> Berner: > ... As to the MLA attendees > who drank more and fucked less, if you asked the elevator man why, he'd > probably tell you they didn't want to sully themselves with pros.<< A very hoary joke. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From FanwoodJEL at aol.com Fri May 10 21:27:38 2002 From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 21:27:38 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry? Message-ID: <114.113a900a.2a0dcd8a@aol.com> In a message dated 5/10/2002 8:16:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time, gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu writes: > Jeffrey, I suppose someone cd just as easily say that's what we were doing > all along. Gabe > Gabe, I suppose ye lads of the doodles may oodle the viva as ever the viva you will. I'm Swiftly set right, kicked square in the pants, pared like an apple and hung out to dry. So someone cd say, and someone dd say, and thanks to someone for setting me strt. Pray, continue. You have my blessing. Insult your inventions, dog your enigmas. I'm all ears. Teach me. Teach me. There's so much to learn. Jeffrey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Robtberner at aol.com Fri May 10 22:40:00 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 22:40:00 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms Message-ID: <183.82ffba4.2a0dde80@aol.com> So talk poetry, already. What's the best book of poems you've read recently? I'll offer Lawson F. Inada's Drawing The Line. Robert Berner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Fri May 10 22:55:49 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 21:55:49 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry? In-Reply-To: <114.113a900a.2a0dcd8a@aol.com> Message-ID: >I'm all ears. Teach me. Teach me. There's so much to learn. Jeffrey Okay okay! Uncle! I didnt mean to appear, uhh, pedantic?, is that the word?, but heck just wanted to stand up for the "play" of this serious art. In hilaritas tristis, in tristitia hilaris, as some yokel once said. I guess the kind of play I love about lists like this is what's sustained me in many writing endeavors. Gwyn mentioned the other day how her post was a "prose poem" placed upon another post. I think for many the value of such lists is the collaborative community they provide, yuh maybe? It juices me that Rather than always being About the art, they Are the art, etc., the Deweyan act of Doing, and I know that, for me, the same has been true: I wrote a great many "things" that eventually became poems for and in response to the audiences at Buffpo, Poetryetc, Imitapo, and Subsubpoetics -- the last being a particularly fruitful collaborative community. I for instance love sharing in the spirit of play my enthusiasms about Myles of the Little Horses with Robin Hamilton or watching a proto-heteronym bud to life on a listserv like this. This is "making" in the Emersonian spirit! Oh the Pendantry, Gabe! Thanks for your response, Jeffrey, You of the Little Horses.guh PS, I wonder if it is part of our expectations of this genre, poetry, that it must bear, as Bakhtin noted (o the pedantry!), a monologic tendency, a tendency that causes poets to disdain audience? Hmm... Hmmmhuhyhunnuhn.hmm.hmm. From wjbat at conncoll.edu Sat May 11 02:42:52 2002 From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 23:42:52 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms In-Reply-To: <13c.e2d213a.2a0db0de@aol.com> Message-ID: <20020510234252.008932@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> When I was a a mere pup, 21, in an MFA program I later dropped out of from sheer boredom, I had an afternoon with Seamus Heaney. All I recall clearly from it was his cracking his briefcase and pulling out the Jamison's and two glasses; he said nice things about my work and asked why I was wasting time there, taught me something, and then all is blurry. I doubt that's a rare habit. Wendy wrote: >In a message dated 5/10/02 7:06:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time, >jvcervantes at earthlink.net writes: > ><< When Hunter S. Thomson was doing a visiting stint at A.S.U., his black > attache case contained a portable bar. >> >Jim, >I would consider that a prop, part of his performance art. >Finnegan >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From FanwoodJEL at aol.com Fri May 10 23:43:09 2002 From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 23:43:09 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry? Message-ID: <99.264deea8.2a0ded4d@aol.com> In a message dated 5/10/2002 10:54:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time, gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu writes: > This is "making" in the Emersonian spirit! Okay. You're right. Today, in tristitia moodiness, all plum and plummet. Tomorrow I'll be a fine fiddle. I'll write something and put the word *green* in it and also *flower* and maybe *pear.* Maybe even little horses. Little pinto horses. Anyway, as it happens, all of my poems begin as things which turn into other things. None, alas, as horses, with horses, or about horses, which is not to rule out things with bits, bits of things, even little bitty things. As Ralph Waldo said the other day on Pedantipo, *No imitation or playing of these things would content him; he loves the earnest of the north wind, of rain, of stone and wood and iron. A beauty not explicable is dearer than a beauty which we can see to the end of.* See how fearlessly I quote. See, we're birds of a feather, we Little Horses. Jeffrey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From FanwoodJEL at aol.com Fri May 10 23:46:18 2002 From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 23:46:18 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Tupelo Press Village Reading Series, First Blood, Part III Message-ID: Please Join Us Sunday, May 19th (7:30 pm) for the third installment in the TUPELO PRESS VILLAGE READING SERIES at Pangea Readers: Vijay Seshadri, Joshua Beckman, and Patricia Ferrell. Dinner after. Hot and cold running spirits, whispering muses. Authentic gurgling sounds from distressed espresso machine. Pangea Bar & Restaurant ~ 178 Second Avenue, btwn 12th & 11th Streets ~ 212-995-0900 No cover. Jeffrey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wjbat at conncoll.edu Sat May 11 02:48:36 2002 From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin) Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 23:48:36 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms In-Reply-To: <183.82ffba4.2a0dde80@aol.com> Message-ID: <20020510234836.019957@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> wrote: > So talk poetry, already. What's the best book of poems you've read >recently? I'll offer Lawson F. Inada's Drawing The Line. > > Robert Berner Is this something you could let us in on? Wendy From tadrichards at prodigy.net Sat May 11 00:13:21 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 00:13:21 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Babelfish References: Message-ID: <002101c1f8a2$3098df80$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Shannon...frontchannel? SITUATIONS due out soon! Check for information at http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shannon Holman" To: Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 11:16 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Babelfish > on 5/9/02 9:22 PM, James Cervantes at jvcervantes at earthlink.net wrote: > > > First paragraph translated into German then back into English, courtesy > > Babelfish: > > I have a couple of poems written with Babelfish. One starts with Plath and > one with Simic, and both go from English to English by way of French, > German, and Portugese. Backchannel me if you wanna have a look. > > > -- > Shannon Holman > work: 212.545.6089 > home: 718.638.1239 > cell: 917.655.2415 > email: sholman at mac.com > -- > http://www.onemississippi.com > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From tadrichards at prodigy.net Sat May 11 00:28:35 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 00:28:35 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms References: <183.82ffba4.2a0dde80@aol.com> Message-ID: <007801c1f8a4$51748400$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> I really liked Janet Holmes' "Humanophone." SITUATIONS due out soon! Check for information at http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: Robtberner at aol.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 10:40 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] nyms So talk poetry, already. What's the best book of poems you've read recently? I'll offer Lawson F. Inada's Drawing The Line. Robert Berner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcus at designerglass.com Sat May 11 10:30:06 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 10:30:06 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms In-Reply-To: <20020510234252.008932@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> References: <13c.e2d213a.2a0db0de@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CDCF2AE.17162.582238@localhost> > ... I had an afternoon with Seamus Heaney. All I recall > clearly from it was his cracking his briefcase and pulling out the > Jamison's and two glasses; he said nice things about my work and asked > why I was wasting time there, taught me something ...<< About poetry? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From gmcvay at patriot.net Sat May 11 10:29:25 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 10:29:25 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] talking poetry already In-Reply-To: <183.82ffba4.2a0dde80@aol.com> Message-ID: I am all over Lisa Jarnot's _Ring of Fire,_ and Paul Celan is a perennial favorite, and the Pierre Joris translations seem to me the absolute best -- partly because Sun & Moon prints them with the German en face, so I can see what Joris is doing with or to Celan's thick, distorted language. Gwyn From wjbat at conncoll.edu Sat May 11 14:04:11 2002 From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin) Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 11:04:11 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] nyms In-Reply-To: <3CDCF2AE.17162.582238@localhost> Message-ID: <20020511110411.001039@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> Marcus Bales wrote: >About poetry? About poetry. A purely linguistic ravishment, thank you. From halvard at earthlink.net Sat May 11 11:56:17 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 11:56:17 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Susan Howe, untitled poem Message-ID: [untitled] To be brief Kant's theory of long run wars to hysteria shock and projectile cycle viz mimetic character until a day is filled with night night with doubt with doubt Tense armies immemorial soil reverberation of artillery I equate will and instinct with the other plot Europe Cold marches with soldiers abreast you cold Predicate --Susan Howe [publ. in *Artes: An International Reader of Literature Art and Music*, 1996] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From gmcvay at patriot.net Sat May 11 20:40:47 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 20:40:47 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" References: <20020506174817.11184.qmail@web12201.mail.yahoo.com> <3CD6F7BB.2886.3C8FBE@localhost> Message-ID: <3CDDBA0A.11917DA6@patriot.net> The question is not whether cash is actually better than checks in the real-world situation, but whether the line "cash is better than checks" has any quality of poetry about it, cliched prose as it is. --- Marcus, I think it does, cliched as we agree it is: it is a line to read between, if you'll forgive the geometrical impossibility; the speaker is weary, and resorts to a truism about her current profession, which invites a second reading of the poem. (Note: This wouldn't go on my "hang it on the wall of great poems" list either, but I don't think it's at the opposite extreme of being total crud.) --- If "cash is better than checks" is an example of the "working class voice" that you say we ought to admire, well, then, it seems to me, that you are saying that cliched prose is the voice of the working class. But is cliched prose poetry? --- Sometimes, if you bend it enough. (I don't say that one should admire a working-class voice UNCRITICALLY, just that there is relatively less of it, particularly coming from women, than the 900 pages of Ouija-board crap, albeit cleverly rhymed crap, generated by James Merrill.) I particularly admire the twists on cliche Harry Mathews of the single "t" has published under the rubric of "perverbs." Gwyn From gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Sat May 11 20:47:37 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 19:47:37 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry? In-Reply-To: <99.264deea8.2a0ded4d@aol.com> Message-ID: > Tomorrow I'll be a fine fiddle. Tomorrow I'll be packing the last of my items into boxes and moving everything -- including this computer -- to Illinois. I hope to see Anna there, afloat in some tornado. I will not however be moving my person there until August. Good luck with teh reading, Jeffrey.guh From JforJames at aol.com Sat May 11 22:41:11 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 22:41:11 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" Message-ID: I was in Chicago last week and I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art (to see the Mies van der Rohe exhibit) where I ran into a very liberally curated show of new moden/contemporary "paintings," and in the catalog I encountered this quote by the art critic Howard Halle: "Painting is a philosophical enterprise that doesn't always involve paint." Can we say much the same about poetry? Finnegan From halvard at earthlink.net Sat May 11 23:18:59 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 23:18:59 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: { "Painting is a philosophical enterprise that doesn't always { involve paint." { Can we say much the same about poetry? { Finnegan Let's try it out. "Poetry is a philosophical enterprise that doesn't always involve paint." Yes, I think I can buy--or at least rent--that. Hal "I need big art." --overheard in a Chelsea gallery Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From marcus at designerglass.com Sun May 12 01:14:52 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 01:14:52 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3CDDC20C.26119.4B4A61@localhost> > Finnegan > "Painting is a philosophical enterprise that doesn't always > involve paint." > Can we say much the same about poetry? Well, at least we can probably agree that poetry doesn't always involve paint. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From Robtberner at aol.com Sun May 12 06:35:10 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 06:35:10 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] claptrap Message-ID: <93.1cf8b8b8.2a0f9f5e@aol.com> many thanks to gwyn mcvay for saying out loud what needed to be said: james merrill is nothing but a high-class bullshit-artist. and the answer to jim finnegan's replace-the-terms inquiry would come out looking something like this: poetry is a philosophical enterprise that doesn't always involve language. hmmmmm... robert berner From tadrichards at prodigy.net Sun May 12 08:08:31 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 08:08:31 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" References: Message-ID: <001801c1f9ad$d7364100$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Or the reverse: > "Poetry is a philosophical enterprise that > always involves paint." > I kinda like it that way. SITUATIONS due out soon! Check for information at http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: "Halvard Johnson" To: Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2002 11:18 PM Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" > { "Painting is a philosophical enterprise that doesn't always > { involve paint." > { Can we say much the same about poetry? > { Finnegan > > Let's try it out. > > "Poetry is a philosophical enterprise that > doesn't always involve paint." > > Yes, I think I can buy--or at least rent--that. > > Hal "I need big art." > --overheard in a Chelsea gallery > Halvard Johnson > =============== > email: halvard at earthlink.net > website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From marcus at designerglass.com Sun May 12 11:01:03 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 11:01:03 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: <3CDDBA0A.11917DA6@patriot.net> Message-ID: <3CDE4B6F.3374.5A4EA8@localhost> Marcus: > The question is not whether cash is actually better than checks in > the real-world situation, but whether the line "cash is better than > checks" has any quality of poetry about it, cliched prose as it is. Gwyn: > ... I think it does, cliched as we agree it is: it is a line to read > between, if you'll forgive the geometrical impossibility; the speaker is > weary, and resorts to a truism about her current profession, which > invites a second reading of the poem.< This seems to me to be and example of reading meaning into rather than getting meaning out of. By this test, by this method, we can privilege ANY collection of words to mean anything by simply saying we believe some interpretation to be true, irrespective of grammar, syntax, denotation or connotation, manner, tone, or context. For example, I can interpret your view above to be an absolute agreement with mine just because I say so because I can pretend to see irony in your purported disagreement that you put forward only to strengthen my argument. The sort of approach that allows any collection of words to mean anything the reader pleases, which you seem to be taking here, contradicts the notion of using language to mean anything at all -- and obviates the notion of art in language entirely. There is no indication that I can see that "cash is better than checks" is a line that has any relation to irony, much less is so freighted with it that good readers ought to be expected to regard it is a line of poetry worth defending as poetic. Gwyn: > (Note: This wouldn't go on my > "hang it on the wall of great poems" list either, but I don't think it's > at the opposite extreme of being total crud.)< If this line, in this context, is "poetic", then what is not? And if everything is "poetic" then, of course, everything is "poetic" and yet another word is stretched into meaninglessness by the attempt to pack it with all possible meanings. If this line is not total crud, what is? This is just exactly the sort of line that, it seems to me, good readers ought to regard as total crud because it is mere cliched prose in a context where no smidgen of ironic usage can be, as far as I can see, detected. Marcus: > ... But is cliched prose poetry?<< Gwyn: > Sometimes, if you bend it enough.<< But why should we "bend it enough"? It seems to me that here, again, you are simply advocating an ad hominem approach to the poem: because a "working class writer" wrote it, you are willing to chuck overboard everything you know about tone, manner, context, grammar, syntax, and "poetry" in order to say something nice, or to avoid saying something bad, about another woman's work? Why, if that sort of bending is legitimate ought we not regard your willingness to bend it as an example of your blind prejudice in favor of poems by women, or poems with cliches in them -- or both? If bending the language so much to say that "cash is better than checks" in the context in which we find it in the poem at issue is legitimate then we can also bend everything else. If we can bend THAT much in the context of a poem, where the writer is presumed to have been careful with language, that means that your readers can -- and should -- read your defense of the line (in poetry, prose, or just body-language) as advocating child-abuse and wife-beating -- or anything else they please. By advocating such broad interpretiive latitude you perforce allow others to claim that *you* said anything they please to say you said. That seems to me to be an abandonment of everything that writing and reading poetry is about. Gwyn: > (I don't say that one should admire a > working-class voice UNCRITICALLY, just that there is relatively less of > it, particularly coming from women, ...< So what? The question is not, is seems to me, whether a woman or a Nigerian or a scuba-diver wrote the poem. To say, as you seem to say here, that who wrote it under what conditions counts toward the quality of the poem seems to me to so distort the idea of what is "good poetry" that it makes it impossible for good readers -- or good writers -- to distinguish, to discriminate, to judge between what is good and what is not in literary arts -- and maybe in any situation whatever. Gwyn: > ... than the 900 pages of Ouija-board > crap, albeit cleverly rhymed crap, generated by James Merrill.)< But this is preposterous on the face of it by your own apparent standards! If you are willing to say, as you seem to say, that because there are very few working class women writing poems we must value them specially, you must also say that because there are very few incredibly wealthy gay male poets writing about Ouija- board experiences taht we must value such poetry even more highly -- because whatever ELSE you may want to say about working-class woman poets, there's more than a single one. But there is, so far as I know, only a single one of incredibly wealthy gay male poets who wrote about Ouija-board experiences. Merrill's poetry is, therefore, by your own standards, more valuable at least, if not better than, any working-class woman's poems you care subsequently to name. The notion that by examining the characters or characteristics of the poet a good reader can -- and should -- judge the quality of his or her poetry seems to be ludicrous on the face of it. Gwyn: > I particularly admire the twists on cliche Harry Mathews of the single "t" > has published under the rubric of "perverbs." Is Mr Mathews a woman? Is he a working-class woman? Are deliberate plays on proverbs cliches? Are such verbal games by themselves poems or "poetic lines"? How does this relate to what you are saying about working-class women, working-class poets, working-class poems, or the quality of work by working class or working-class women poets? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From Robtberner at aol.com Sun May 12 11:31:01 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 11:31:01 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] what is a good poem? Message-ID: <15f.da13d93.2a0fe4b5@aol.com> in his lengthy harangue against gwyn mcvay, marcus bales once again displays his critical skills, particulalry a kind of sophistry only a first year law student could admire. but his arguments only lead me to ask once again: Marcus, please post a poem you think is good and tell us how and why. robert berner From JforJames at aol.com Sun May 12 12:34:51 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 12:34:51 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] claptrap Message-ID: <166.d9387be.2a0ff3ab@aol.com> In a message dated 5/12/02 6:36:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Robtberner at aol.com writes: << poetry is a philosophical enterprise that doesn't always involve language. hmmmmm... >> I was think something more along the lines of A poem is a philosophical enterprise that doesn't always involve poetry. Finnegan From tadrichards at prodigy.net Sun May 12 12:44:48 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 12:44:48 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] claptrap References: <166.d9387be.2a0ff3ab@aol.com> Message-ID: <003601c1f9d4$570f7ba0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> A poem is s poetic ecercise that doesn't always involve philosopy. And remember...philology leads to calamity! SITUATIONS due out soon! Check for information at http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2002 12:34 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] claptrap > In a message dated 5/12/02 6:36:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time, > Robtberner at aol.com writes: > > << poetry is a philosophical enterprise that > doesn't always involve language. hmmmmm... >> > I was think something more along the lines of > A poem is a philosophical enterprise that > doesn't always involve poetry. > Finnegan > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com Sun May 12 13:41:55 2002 From: CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 10:41:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry? Message-ID: <20020512174156.3492F3ECC@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com Sun May 12 13:50:33 2002 From: CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 10:50:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" Message-ID: <20020512175034.125263ED3@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From JforJames at aol.com Sun May 12 14:03:06 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 14:03:06 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" Message-ID: In a message dated 5/12/02 10:50:27 AM Eastern Daylight Time, marcus at designerglass.com writes: >>The sort of approach that allows any collection of words to mean anything the reader pleases, which you seem to be taking here, contradicts the notion of using language to mean anything at all -- and obviates the notion of art in language entirely. Marcus, of course one of the many impulses behind the movement we call language poetry attempted what you've stated above. You pose many good questions...but it seems you're in search of a "universal consensus" that will never be possible given the disparate sensibilities of the readership of poetry. My answer to the question is that the poem defines itself by finding a constituency of readers, enough readers willing to get behind this collection of words and to acknowledge its worth as poem. How many is not important. The constituency may disband or die away over time and if that collection of words is unable to find (be found by) a new readership who will take it up as their standard of a poem, it will cease to be a poem, or it may exist as a poem only by remaining in a curiosity shop of literature, stacked in some obscure archive, picked up from time to by scholars or literary historians, but unable to speak to any living practitioners of the art of poetry, and unable to interest any readership beyond the odd literary specialist. >>So what? The question is not, is seems to me, whether a woman or a Nigerian or a scuba-diver wrote the poem. To say, as you seem to say here, that who wrote it under what conditions counts toward the quality of the poem seems to me to so distort the idea of what is "good poetry" that it makes it impossible for good readers -- or good writers -- to distinguish, to discriminate, to judge between what is good and what is not in literary arts -- and maybe in any situation whatever. >> It's absolutist to think we could read or should read poems wholly ignorant of the author's character/biography, socio-cultural and historical background, gender, geography, politics, point-of-view/project...we can use these things to inform our reading. Even a poem writ on water would present itself as made differently by being incised on a frozen lake or caught up in the flow of the muddy Mississippi... Finnegan From marcus at designerglass.com Sun May 12 14:19:49 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 14:19:49 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is a good poem? In-Reply-To: <15f.da13d93.2a0fe4b5@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CDE7A05.32222.1105032@localhost> Berner: > ... in his lengthy harangue against gwyn mcvay ...< This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding, too. I didn't harangue against Gwyn McVay, but against the opinion she apparently holds. There is an important difference -- one that distinguishes civil discourse and disagreement from the sort of personal attack in which Mr Berner seems to want to engage. Berner: > Marcus, please post a poem you think is good and tell us how > and why. Send some of your poems; I'll pick the best one and tell you why it's good. I'll refrain from commenting on the rest. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From marcus at designerglass.com Sun May 12 14:36:05 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 14:36:05 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3CDE7DD5.12768.11F3576@localhost> Marcus: > The sort of approach that allows any collection of words to mean > anything the reader pleases, which you seem to be taking here, > contradicts the notion of using language to mean anything at all -- > and obviates the notion of art in language entirely.< Finnegan: > ... of course one of the many impulses behind the movement > we call language poetry attempted what you've stated above.< Sort of like fucking for virginity, isn't it? Finnegan: > You pose many good questions...but it seems you're in search > of a "universal consensus" that will never be possible given the disparate > sensibilities of the readership of poetry.< Not "universal", just "consensus". > My answer to the question > is that the poem defines itself by finding a constituency of readers, > enough readers willing to get behind this collection of words and > to acknowledge its worth as poem. How many is not important.<< If the standard is that there exists a constituency of readers, why is it that you say how many is not important? And if how many is not important why isn't it the case that a constituency of only one (one's mother, say, whose unconditional approval of one's poems one may be supposed to be able to count on) enough to qualify any poem as being as good as any other and, perhaps, better? Marcus: > >>So what? The question is not, is seems to me, whether a woman > or a Nigerian or a scuba-diver wrote the poem. To say, as you > seem to say here, that who wrote it under what conditions counts > toward the quality of the poem seems to me to so distort the idea > of what is "good poetry" that it makes it impossible for good > readers -- or good writers -- to distinguish, to discriminate, to judge > between what is good and what is not in literary arts -- and maybe > in any situation whatever. Finnegan: > It's absolutist to think we could read or should read poems wholly > ignorant of the author's character/biography, socio-cultural and historical > background, gender, geography, politics, point-of-view/project...we can > use these things to inform our reading.<< But such things are not *enough*, it seems to me, as Gwyn McVay seems to be saying they are, to justify calling a line such as "cash is better than checks" a "poetic" line or an "ironic" line in the context of the flat affectless list-poem in which it's being discussed. More importantly, it seems to me to be condescendingly disingenuous for non-working-class poets and critics to praise working-class poems or poets more effusively than other poems or poets on the grounds that they *are* working-class, as if working- class were some claim to artistic merit. Either there is a rough consensus about what constitutes artistic merit or there is not -- and if there is, then it is only reasonable to apply it equally to all. The notion of saying "Pity the poor disadvantaged working-class writer -- if only he or she had not been such a disadvantaged working class writer his or her poetry would have been better, so let's just *declare* that it's better than it is and let it go at that!" seems akin to awarding the prize for the 100-yard dash by lottery -- or by economic class -- or by any other criterion than who ran the race the fastest. You don't want to have it said of you, I'm pretty certain, that you're smart for an Irish guy; or Gwyn that she's smart for a woman -- why would either of you defend "It's good for a working-class poem"? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Sun May 12 17:23:27 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 16:23:27 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry? In-Reply-To: <20020512174156.3492F3ECC@sitemail.everyone.net> Message-ID: Bloomington/Normal. Am joingin the faculty at ISU. I like how your name rhymes. I have a good friend named Bobby Dobby,w hich is a name I admire for its rhyming chiming, but Bob Cobb is great too. On Sun, 12 May 2002, Robert R.Cobb wrote: > Hey Gabe, > > What part of Illinois are you settling in? > > Rolling Meadows, a NW suburb of Chicago-land, is wheren I reside. > > Bob Cobb > > Poetry Catamaran > > "Just how advanced a poetic craft need be to sail along the 'known mainstream' down to the poetic sea?" > > Robert R. Cobb > AMONG FRIENDS, original art and poetry. > http://rrcobb.tripod.com > > > --- "Gabriel M. Gudding" wrote: > >> Tomorrow I'll be a fine fiddle. > > > >Tomorrow I'll be packing the last of my items into boxes and moving > >everything -- including this computer -- to Illinois. I hope to see Anna > >there, afloat in some tornado. I will not however be moving my person > >there until August. Good luck with teh reading, Jeffrey.guh > > > >_______________________________________________ > >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 halvard at earthlink.net Sun May 12 17:43:05 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 17:43:05 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "There are no answers. Then, of course, there are answers but the final answer makes the questions seem absurd, whereas the questions up until then seem more intelligent than the answers." --John Cage, "45' for a Speaker" Hal When Light Flashes Help Is On The Way Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com Sun May 12 19:01:31 2002 From: thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com (bob cooper) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 23:01:31 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" Message-ID: Marcus writes: "More importantly, it seems to me to be condescendingly disingenuous for non-working-class poets and critics to praise working-class poems or poets more effusively than other poems or poets on the grounds that they *are* working-class, as if working- class were some claim to artistic merit...." .... I think you're moving towards saying something important here Marcus! (I too distrust overt effusion!) but then I lose you because... you write: "Either there is a rough consensus about what constitutes artistic merit or there is not -- " (and that sounds just about OK, too).... but then you go on: "and if there is, then it is only reasonable to apply it equally to all." And then I think I want to veer away from your train of thought... Because I guess you mean all poetry! But I just can't go along with that. I don't think it possible to say much more than "this is a poem, and so is this" when looking first at, say, some Stephen Roedeffer and then one of Basho's Haiku. If I had to justify each being a poem I sense all I could do is bring forward more examples! I guess what's handed on from poet to poet are examples - and the kind of silence that means "Yes, h'm..." is a primary response (and all else follow's the "Yes, h'm."). I guess I'm saying there can only be a rough consensus as to what constitues poetry (and many, many, varied examples!). I feel I couldn't talk about an art form like music in less broad terms either. I guess I can say more than this... but I'm enjoying what Finnegan's written.That makes a lot of sense to me. Bob _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From gmcvay at patriot.net Sun May 12 19:21:07 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 19:21:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: <3CDE4B6F.3374.5A4EA8@localhost> Message-ID: Marcus, What is supposed to be ironic about cash being better than checks? It is. Since when is irony required to cause something to be poetic? That's an oddly postmodernist take, coming from you. As I said, people keep talking as if they trust the medium of language in ANY context, which cracks me up. Gwyn From gmcvay at patriot.net Sun May 12 19:29:22 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 19:29:22 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: <3CDE7DD5.12768.11F3576@localhost> Message-ID: >>>You don't want to have it said of you, I'm pretty certain, that you're smart for an Irish guy; or Gwyn that she's smart for a woman -- why would either of you defend "It's good for a working-class poem"?<<< I'm not. It's okay for a mainstream free-verse lyric poem. I'm just resisting any and all attempts to have it shitcanned as Not Poetry without serious examination. Long before I would dump this poem from the canon (was it ever there in the first place?), I would delete the entire works of Mattie J.T. Stepanek, the dying 11-year-old whose works are taken as "poetic" largely because he is a dying 11-year-old, and the entire non-prose output of Maya Angelou, including her craptastic inaugural ode. Gwyn, short for a woman and hungry for a California roll From DICK at watson.ibm.com Sun May 12 20:37:10 2002 From: DICK at watson.ibm.com (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Sun, 12 May 02 20:37:10 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem Message-ID: <200205130046.g4D0kZd29704@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> >> >> in his lengthy harangue against gwyn mcvay, marcus bales once again >>displays his critical skills, particulalry a kind of sophistry only a first >>year law student could admire. but his arguments only lead me to ask once >>again: Marcus, please post a poem you think is good and tell us how and why. >> >> robert berner Modesty probably forbids Marcus, but I'll remind that Marcus posted a poem of his own a while back that, I assume, M. thought was good. Robt, you could look it up. M. or R., if you repost it, _I'll_ tell you why I thought it was good. (I did.) BTW - the term "poetry" or "good poetry" keeps coming up, but I don't think anyone has taken a position on what "poetry" is - beyond that it may or may not or doesn't necessarily involve paint. I've heard it said that poetry is "elevated speech." Anybody want to add (or subtract) from that? Richard From gmcvay at patriot.net Sun May 12 20:58:10 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 20:58:10 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem References: <200205130046.g4D0kZd29704@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: <3CDF0F9A.622E4798@patriot.net> >>>I've heard it said that poetry is "elevated speech." Anybody want to add (or subtract) from that?<<< Louis Zukofsky, in calculus terms: "upper limit music / lower limit speech" Gwyn From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Sun May 12 21:07:44 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 20:07:44 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem Message-ID: <200205130107.g4D174r27553@mx3.mx.voyager.net> Best definitions of poetry are all metaphorical, aren't they? Thoreau called it "healthy speech," as I recall. Auden's "clear expression of mixed feelings" does it most deeply for me. And I've always been fond of Ashbery's little non-answer: What Is Poetry The medieval town, with frieze Of boy scouts from Nagoya? The snow That came when we wanted it to snow? Beautiful images? Trying to avoid Ideas, as in this poem? But we Go back to them as to a wife, leaving The mistress we desire? Now they Will have to believe it As we believed it. In school All the thought got combed out: What was left was like a field. Shut your eyes, and you can feel it for miles around. Now open them on a thin vertical path. It might give us--what?--some flowers soon? --John Ashbery _____________________________________ It is always valid to question the question, I think, as Billy Collins also does in his well-known fantasia on the subject of interpreting poems: Introduction to Poetry I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means. --Billy Collins ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== >BTW - the term "poetry" or "good poetry" keeps coming up, but I don't >think anyone has taken a position on what "poetry" is - beyond that it >may or may not or doesn't necessarily involve paint. > >I've heard it said that poetry is "elevated speech." Anybody want >to add (or subtract) from that? > >Richard > From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sun May 12 21:11:56 2002 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 21:11:56 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem References: <200205130046.g4D0kZd29704@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: <001d01c1fa1b$2fd47bc0$23e4fea9@j1c1k6> > BTW - the term "poetry" or "good poetry" keeps coming up, but I don't > think anyone has taken a position on what "poetry" is - beyond that it > may or may not or doesn't necessarily involve paint. I've brought it up more than once in previous posts. Go to http://www.geocities.com/comprepoetica where I define it--basically as a work of literature containing a significant number of flow-breaks, of which line-breaks are the traditional kind. A poem is good in proportion to the ratio of the size and zing of the manywhere-at-once the poem puts an informed, intelligent auditor into to the size of the poem. Metaphors are the traditional way of getting a poem's auditor into Manywhere-at-Once, and still the most effective, but certainly not the only way. --Bob G. From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sun May 12 21:17:10 2002 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 21:17:10 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem References: <200205130107.g4D174r27553@mx3.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <002301c1fa1b$e8cd1560$23e4fea9@j1c1k6> > Best definitions of poetry are all metaphorical, aren't they? No. The best descriptions of poetry are metaphorical. The best definitions of poetry, like the best definitions of everything else, are scientific. They are therefore shunned by most poets. --Bob G. From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Sun May 12 21:22:16 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 20:22:16 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a poem Message-ID: <200205130121.g4D1Lal41804@mx13.mx.voyager.net> "Manywhere at Once" is lovely. I like the notion of flow-breaks, too, which puts me in mind of a favorite passage (I'm sure I've quoted it before) from Wendell Berry: "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." --fr. "Standing By Words." ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== A poem >is good in proportion to the ratio of the size and zing of the >manywhere-at-once the poem puts an informed, intelligent auditor into to the >size of the poem. Metaphors are the traditional way of getting a poem's >auditor into Manywhere-at-Once, and still the most effective, but certainly >not the only way. > > --Bob G. > From JforJames at aol.com Sun May 12 22:36:26 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 22:36:26 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" Message-ID: <55.272f1d28.2a1080aa@aol.com> In a message dated 5/12/02 2:25:37 PM Eastern Daylight Time, marcus at designerglass.com writes: M: Not "universal", just "consensus". Marcus, latching onto either term, you've got an impossible task before you; if poetry is different (in sense of some poetry being better than some other poetry) then why would one expect the universe of readers to be capable of even a rough consensus? A critic can only expect to convince a subset of readers to get behind a poem/poetry. M: If the standard is that there exists a constituency of readers, why is it that you say how many is not important? And if how many is not important why isn't it the case that a constituency of only one (one's mother, say, whose unconditional approval of one's poems one may be supposed to be able to count on) enough to qualify any poem as being as good as any other and, perhaps, better? -- It's more than one, probably more than 2, particularly if the second is a relation. Descartes asked three people (Marsenne, Gassendi, Hobbes) to read his work before it was released for publication...not all three were in favor of his conjectures... but their responses confirmed for him that his work had merit enough to, in time, find a larger constituency. The audience for a poet, or poetry, need not be extensive; just as the poetry may be judged, so may the quality of the readership be judged. In this century there is more interest in outsider/naive art. Anthologists and curators are willing to see the work as having arisen in a context that makes its very being extraordinary; context augmenting the merits of the work itself. M: More importantly, it seems to me to be condescendingly disingenuous for non-working-class poets and critics to praise working-class poems or poets more effusively than other poems or poets on the grounds that they *are* working-class, as if working- class were some claim to artistic merit. Either there is a rough consensus about what constitutes artistic merit or there is not -- and if there is, then it is only reasonable to apply it equally to all. >> It's not that one element promotes the work above all else; it's that each reader brings a different set of values, and differing weights to bear even when the values are shared... Reader A: 10% background/subtext; 20% content/theme; 40% craft; 30% memorability. Reader B: 35% content/theme; 30% memorability; 15% breadth of vocabulary; 15% sonic effect; 5% craft. The weights are different; and the two readers aren't even addressing the same set of elements.The critic tries to convince readers to value the same set of elements; and to give each element a weight consistent with her/his own. But no matter the critic's persuasiveness, only a provincial or pocket consensus of like-minded readers will slot into place. Finnegan From JforJames at aol.com Sun May 12 22:41:53 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 22:41:53 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem Message-ID: <43.b626d0c.2a1081f1@aol.com> In a message dated 5/12/02 9:21:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time, bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: > The best definitions of poetry, > like the best definitions of everything else, > are scientific. They are therefore shunned by > most poets. Bob, as the scientist's are fond of saying, "Prove it." Finnegan From cstroffo at earthlink.net Mon May 13 02:56:46 2002 From: cstroffo at earthlink.net (Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino) Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 23:56:46 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" References: Message-ID: <3CDF63AE.EB57B3EA@earthlink.net> what kind of California roll are you? most of the ones I've met in Oakland seem exceedingly hungry.... c, tall for a shrub... Gwyn McVay wrote: > >>>You don't want to have it said of you, I'm pretty certain, that you're > smart for an Irish guy; or Gwyn that she's smart for a woman -- why > would either of you defend "It's good for a working-class poem"?<<< > > I'm not. It's okay for a mainstream free-verse lyric poem. I'm just > resisting any and all attempts to have it shitcanned as Not Poetry without > serious examination. Long before I would dump this poem from the canon > (was it ever there in the first place?), I would delete the entire works > of Mattie J.T. Stepanek, the dying 11-year-old whose works are taken as > "poetic" largely because he is a dying 11-year-old, and the entire > non-prose output of Maya Angelou, including her craptastic inaugural ode. > > Gwyn, short for a woman and hungry for a California roll > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 13 07:32:35 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 07:32:35 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: References: <3CDE4B6F.3374.5A4EA8@localhost> Message-ID: <3CDF6C13.5852.842637@localhost> Gwyn: > What is supposed to be ironic about cash being better than > checks? It is.< I don't know, Gwyn -- you're the one (weren't you?) who said that that line had to be "read between" ironically? That the line was ironic because it was said by a working-class narrator in a working- class poem by a working-class poet? As I said before, the issue is not whether it is true in the real world that cash is better than checks, but whether saying so in a poem in just that way in just the context in which it exists in the poem in question is "poetic". I understood you to say that it *is* poetic because it is ironic. Did I misunderstand you? Gwyn: > Since when is irony required to cause something to be poetic? That's an > oddly postmodernist take, coming from you.< I'm questioning the assertion that irony is required to make something poetic, not asserting it myself. My assertion is that the line "cash is better than checks" is neither ironic nor poetic in the context of the poem. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 13 07:32:35 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 07:32:35 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: References: <3CDE7DD5.12768.11F3576@localhost> Message-ID: <3CDF6C13.12608.842650@localhost> Marcus: > You don't want to have it said of you, I'm pretty certain, that you're > smart for an Irish guy; or Gwyn that she's smart for a woman -- why > would either of you defend "It's good for a working-class poem"?<<< Gwyn: > I'm not. It's okay for a mainstream free-verse lyric poem.<< I'm saying it's poor even by that low standard. Gwyn: > I'm just > resisting any and all attempts to have it shitcanned as Not Poetry without > serious examination.< But if this discussion we're having doesn't qualify as "serious examination" what does? Must it be seriously examined by some Brand Name critic instead of you and me before you'll agree that it has had serious examination? Gwyn: > Long before I would dump this poem from the canon > (was it ever there in the first place?), I would delete the entire works > of Mattie J.T. Stepanek, the dying 11-year-old whose works are taken as > "poetic" largely because he is a dying 11-year-old, and the entire > non-prose output of Maya Angelou, including her craptastic inaugural ode.< Well, I can't disagree with you about Maya Angelou and I agree enthusiastically about Mattie JT Sepanek. But what do those things have to do with the poem at issue? There are always going to be egregiously bad examples of verse out there -- is it your new position that as long as any poem is better than something really really egregiously bad it's good? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 13 07:32:35 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 07:32:35 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: <55.272f1d28.2a1080aa@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CDF6C13.15177.842678@localhost> > M: Not "universal", just "consensus". Finnegan: > ... latching onto either term, you've got an impossible > task before you; if poetry is different (in sense of some poetry > being better than some other poetry) then why would one expect > the universe of readers to be capable of even a rough consensus? > A critic can only expect to convince a subset of readers to > get behind a poem/poetry.< But a subset of all readers can still be a consensus. You speak of Descartes hoping that his publication would achieve "a larger constituency" than the three people he sent it to before publication: > Descartes asked three people (Marsenne, > Gassendi, Hobbes) to read his work before it was released for > publication...not all three were in favor of his conjectures... > but their responses confirmed for him that his work had merit > enough to, in time, find a larger constituency.<< But, setting aside the differences, and significant ones it seems to me, between a philosophical attempt and a poetic one, why does any writer hope for "a larger constituency" in the first place? After all, if the work is "too popular" (that is, if it has "too large" a constituency) it is dismissed as irrelevant. So there must be some constituency much larger than 3 but much smaller than best- sellerdom that makes up a writer's -- or at least "a serious writer's" - - notional audience. Aren't we talking, here, in context, about the consensus of "serious readers" of "serious writers"? It seems to me that even within the group of "serious readers" there will not be anything like total agreement, but still that that group will inevitably, by its reading and conversation about that reading, produce a rough consensus regarding what is worthwhile reading and what is not. I don't propose, for example, to seek out any more of Mattie TJ Stepanek's work than I've seen in order to try to argue with Gwyn that it's better than she says it is -- I've seen enough, and I have enough respect for Gwyn's judgment, to agree with her that Mr Stepanek's work is not going to make the consensus about what is good poetry. > M: If the standard is that there exists a constituency of readers, why > is it that you say how many is not important? And if how many is > not important why isn't it the case that a constituency of only one > (one's mother, say, whose unconditional approval of one's poems > one may be supposed to be able to count on) enough to qualify > any poem as being as good as any other and, perhaps, better? Finnegan: > It's more than one, probably more than 2, particularly if the > second is a relation.< It seems implicit to me in this that you are saying that praise based on other than artistic merit (for example, praise based on physical relationship) is not particularly worthwhile. But that also seems to me to be saying that there *is* a standard of artistic merit on which poetry must be judged -- and that whether one is sleeping with the poet, has raised the poet from a baby, or admires the poet'sr moral stance, or sympathizes with the poet's circumstances, and the like, is not enough to qualify as worthwhile praise for a poem. If that's the case, what *does* qualify as worthwhile praise for a poem? Finnegan: > ... The audience > for a poet, or poetry, need not be extensive; just as the poetry > may be judged, so may the quality of the readership be judged.< But in this case, why does a writer hope for "a larger constituency" at all in the sense of one beyond the bounds of the experts in the field? Since Kant (1724-1804) wrote with great admiration about Hume (1711-1776) -- does that mean that you believe that Hume wasn't too worried about what Parson Brown in Dulwits thought, for example? Finnegan: > In this century there is more interest in outsider/naive > art. Anthologists and curators are willing to see the work > as having arisen in a context that makes its very being > extraordinary; context augmenting the merits of the work itself. Well, then, why not admire as extraordinary the work of Mattie TJ Stepanek? Why not say that any art that is produced by those who are NOT wealthy and at leisure to do as the please has "arisen in a context that makes its very being extraordinary"? If that's all it takes to be extraordinary how extraordinary can it BE? Very few artists are wealthy enough to be at leisure to do whatever they please -- it isn't extraordinary at all to have to work for a living and produce art on the side. > M: More importantly, it seems to me to be condescendingly > disingenuous for non-working-class poets and critics to praise > working-class poems or poets more effusively than other poems or > poets on the grounds that they *are* working-class, as if working- > class were some claim to artistic merit. > Either there is a rough consensus about what constitutes artistic > merit or there is not -- and if there is, then it is only reasonable to > apply it equally to all. >> Finnegan: > It's not that one element promotes the work above all else; it's that > each reader brings a different set of values, and differing weights > to bear even when the values are shared...<< But unless I misunderstand this, we're not talking about what the reader brings to it, but what the writer provides. That is not to say that what the reader brings to it is unimportant, but it is not as important as what the writer provides -- and if your position is that what the reader provides is as, or more, important than what the writer provides, then on what grounds do we need a writer at all? Why not just call any "reader"'s unmediated response to the world around him or her "art"? Finnegan: > The weights are different; and the two readers aren't even addressing > the same set of elements.The critic tries to convince readers > to value the same set of elements; and to give each element > a weight consistent with her/his own. But no matter the critic's > persuasiveness, only a provincial or pocket consensus of > like-minded readers will slot into place. < But this implies that you hold that poetry is merely another commodity that salesmanship may persuade one to buy irrespective of the actual merits of the stuff itself -- and in fact you may hold, based on this, that there is no way to measure the "actual merits of the stuff itself": that salesmanship is all there is to it. Perhaps the most important part of poetry is not writing it but going to parties and conferences and charming editors and publishers and grant-givers and reading-sponsors, and the like? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From dbarone at sjc.edu Mon May 13 07:22:08 2002 From: dbarone at sjc.edu (dbarone) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 07:22:08 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] philosphy/poetry/painting Message-ID: <0D9D00A18A08ED47875BD976E134249008D38D@sjcmail.sjc.edu> Didn't de Kooning say -- simply -- "Painting is paint"? Barone From dbarone at sjc.edu Mon May 13 07:45:56 2002 From: dbarone at sjc.edu (dbarone) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 07:45:56 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] a working class poem Message-ID: <0D9D00A18A08ED47875BD976E134249008D38F@sjcmail.sjc.edu> Since there still is some discussion of working class poems I've typed in another one by Pascal D'Angelo. This one was published in The Literary Digest on 14 October 1922. The Toilers Brown faces of immatured senility Twisted into an ecstasy of unshaped satiation. Eyes that are huge, tumultuous flares of light Peering athwart the forced austerity of tiredness. Your hugely-muscled, stalwart arms That lift the mammoth weight of majestic industry, Branch up from your broad Herculean shoulders In a magnificence of thronged power. Reeling on the verge of eagerness You shift about-- Throughout the night you are hurled In a confused heave of struggling illusions, Under the machinal flights of those moistened walls, Under those black, moistened walls of disregarded futility. Facing this Giant monument of bitterness-- Your thoughts! Amid the incessant whirrs of the maniac motors, Are smashed into fragments of an irresolved dream, And you are swept on! On! By the involuntary rapids of meniality In frenzied whirls of humiliation! On! On! From JackKerouac25 at aol.com Mon May 13 10:26:16 2002 From: JackKerouac25 at aol.com (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 10:26:16 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Animated Poets Message-ID: <89.17ed9aad.2a112708@aol.com> Am I the only one who saw Robert Pinsky on The Simpsons last night? Might this be the first instance of a poet appearing on a cartoon broadcast? JLN _____________________________________________________________________ Jeffrey L. Newberry *FEAR J.D.* Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Mon May 13 10:27:54 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 09:27:54 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is poetry? Message-ID: <200205131427.g4DERE651399@mx12.mx.voyager.net> Gwyn: > I'm not. It's okay for a mainstream free-verse lyric poem.<< >Marcus: I'm saying it's poor even by that low standard. A while back I accused Marcus of not liking free verse very much. Q.E.D. The question of whether free verse is "really" poetry was settled to my satisfaction in1855. But those who are still interested in debating the matter, go right ahead without me. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Mon May 13 10:29:42 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 09:29:42 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Animated Poets Message-ID: <200205131429.g4DET2653484@mx12.mx.voyager.net> >Might this be the first instance of a poet appearing on a cartoon broadcast? > Nah, there was Maya Angelou at Clinton's inauguration. . . . ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Mon May 13 10:59:19 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 09:59:19 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Fiat Lux Message-ID: <200205131458.g4DEwdn07168@mx14.mx.voyager.net> So talk poetry, already. What's the best book of poems you've read recently? I'll offer Lawson F. Inada's Drawing The Line. Robert Berner What I'm reading: On heavy rotation for me lately has been Thomas Lux's *New & Selected Poems*. Lux is one of those poets I was slow to warm up to. In part that's because I think he's been getting steadily better since his glib early days of semi-surrealism--more nuanced, less self-absorbed, less obtrusively clever. In part, though, it's because I'm more open to his idiosyncrasies, I suppose. I've learned that many of my judgments evolve over time, and that's one reason I am continually puzzled by those who seem to know exactly what poetry is, for all ages. Lux fans might like to look at the newest issue of FIELD, which contains a review of Lux's newest collection, *The Street Of Clocks*, by David Walker. Here's a short one from that book: Plague Victims Catapulted Over Walls into Besieged City Early germ warfare. The dead hurled this way like wheels in the sky. Look: there goes Larry the Shoemaker, barefoot, over the wall, and Mary Sausage Stuffer, see how she flies, and the Hatter twins, both at once, soar over the parapet, little Tommy's elbow bent as if in a salute, and his sister, Mathilde, she follows him, arms outstretched, through the air, just as she did on earth. - -Thomas Lux David Walker comments about this poem: "This grim little saga, for instance, could have been plucked straight from Brueghel. . . . How a poem based on scuh a gruesome subject attains such charm has to do, I think, with the degree to which the plague victims are given folktale identities and lovingly particularized, and even more with the way they seem to transcend their fate, apotheosized into flight. It's part grand Guignol, part resurrrection scene--astonishingly, the catapulted Hatter twins begin to look a lot like angels--and that strange dialectic gets to the center of what's memorable about Lux." --"The Heart's Affections." FIELD 66 (Spring 2002). I haven't read the new book yet, though I've seen a number of poems that make me want to. The above poem does remind me highly of Charles Simic, who also often uses such a "folktale" approach. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gmcvay at patriot.net Mon May 13 11:09:04 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 11:09:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: <3CDF6C13.12608.842650@localhost> Message-ID: > Well, I can't disagree with you about Maya Angelou and I agree > enthusiastically about Mattie JT Sepanek. But what do those > things have to do with the poem at issue? There are always going > to be egregiously bad examples of verse out there -- is it your new > position that as long as any poem is better than something really > really egregiously bad it's good? > Dear Marcus, As you are not my husband, it is quite unlikely that you will witness my new position. But I'm just wondering why the poem at hand is being piled onto quite so vigorously. Is it your position that this poem is a living, breathing example of suck? I was merely pointing out two oeuvres that suck far worse than this poor little poem can be said to do. Gwyn From gmcvay at patriot.net Mon May 13 11:15:24 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 11:15:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Cash really is better than checks, and I can prove it In-Reply-To: <3CDF6C13.5852.842637@localhost> Message-ID: Okay. Forget irony. No irony is required. Check your irony at the door with Anna, and don't forget to tip her handsomely when you reclaim it. I am saying that part of the line's poetic quality comes from the pause for reflection it invites. Why, indeed, would the speaker feel it important to say such a seemingly obvious thing? Maybe it's worth reading the poem a second time... etc. In other words, it engages the reader and makes her actually think. It is a text that communicates across time -- that is, between the moment of writing it and the moment of reading it. Etc. Gwyn From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Mon May 13 11:52:58 2002 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 10:52:58 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Animated Poets In-Reply-To: <89.17ed9aad.2a112708@aol.com> Message-ID: on 5/13/02 9:26 AM, JackKerouac25 at aol.com at JackKerouac25 at aol.com wrote: > Am I the only one who saw Robert Pinsky on The Simpsons last night? > > Might this be the first instance of a poet appearing on a cartoon broadcast? > > JLN > _____________________________________________________________________ > Jeffrey L. Newberry > *FEAR J.D.* > 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 > Was the impersonation mocking or respectful? Paul Lake From rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu Mon May 13 16:15:35 2002 From: rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu (rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 13:15:35 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Ironic cliches Message-ID: <3.0.32.20020513131535.00f9adb0@medicine.nodak.edu> At 08:40 PM 5/11/02 -0400, Gwyn McVay wrote: >But is cliched prose poetry? Sometimes, if you bend it enough. Maybe there is something constructive to be gained out of the "conversation" about cliches in "working-class" poems/poetry: some insight into how clicheda can be used ironically for powerful poetic effect (and often to contrast grim reality with high pretention). What came to mind is that Horace's admonition "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" is perhaps best known not for its original use but for its ironic use in Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum," about the victim of a gas attack in WWI. Anyone care to comment on good poetic use of cliches for irony? Richard W. Wilsnack rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu From JackKerouac25 at aol.com Mon May 13 14:58:11 2002 From: JackKerouac25 at aol.com (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 14:58:11 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Animated Poets Message-ID: It was respectful, I believe. The Pinsky character was reading at a coffee house called the "Kafe Kafka," I believe, and though the jokes escape me, there were a few more jabs at coffee house culture. The funniest moment comes as Pinsky describes some of his exploits as the White House as he served as Poet Laureate. The character describes walking past the president's office (Clinton, I presume) and the president yelling, "Pinsky, I need another poem." Pinsky explains that he "made one up on the spot." The president then says, "By God, Pinsky, you've done it again." His appearance was funny and well-intentioned satire. Pinsky himself loves the show: http://www.snpp.com/other/articles/pinsky.html Jeff N. In a message dated 5/13/02 10:57:57 AM Central Daylight Time, paul.lake at mail.atu.edu writes: > Was the impersonation mocking or respectful? > > Paul Lake > _____________________________________________________________________ Jeffrey L. Newberry *JD is Peepin'" Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Mon May 13 15:14:11 2002 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 14:14:11 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Animated Poets In-Reply-To: Message-ID: on 5/13/02 1:58 PM, JackKerouac25 at aol.com at JackKerouac25 at aol.com wrote: > It was respectful, I believe. The Pinsky character was reading at a coffee > house called the "Kafe Kafka," I believe, and though the jokes escape me, > there were a few more jabs at coffee house culture. > > The funniest moment comes as Pinsky describes some of his exploits as the > White House as he served as Poet Laureate. The character describes walking > past the president's office (Clinton, I presume) and the president yelling, > "Pinsky, I need another poem." Pinsky explains that he "made one up on the > spot." The president then says, "By God, Pinsky, you've done it again." > > His appearance was funny and well-intentioned satire. Pinsky himself loves > the show: > > http://www.snpp.com/other/articles/pinsky.html > > Jeff N. > > In a message dated 5/13/02 10:57:57 AM Central Daylight Time, > paul.lake at mail.atu.edu writes: > >> Was the impersonation mocking or respectful? >> >> Paul Lake >> > > _____________________________________________________________________ > > Jeffrey L. Newberry > *JD is Peepin'" > 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 > Thanks, Jeff, for the info. We had kind of an ongoing inaugural poet comedy going on here in Arkansas during Clinton's tenure. It was widely believed throughout the state, prior to the first inauguration, that Miller Williams would read at the inauguration. He'd been a kind of poetry advisor to Clinton since Clinton's days a law professor at U. of A. There were even profiles of Williams in the papers up until the actual event. But then Clinton surprised everyone with the more politically expedient choice of Angelou. Miller Williams did, however, get to read at the second inauguration. Paul Lake From Simon at IPFW.EDU Mon May 13 15:34:15 2002 From: Simon at IPFW.EDU (Simon_Beth) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 14:34:15 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Animated Poets Message-ID: in that sequence, the pinksy character uses the great line "pulled it out of my ass" beth > The funniest moment comes as Pinsky describes some of his exploits as the > White House as he served as Poet Laureate. The character describes walking > past the president's office (Clinton, I presume) and the president yelling, > "Pinsky, I need another poem." Pinsky explains that he "made one up on the > spot." The president then says, "By God, Pinsky, you've done it again." > > Jeff N. From gmcvay at patriot.net Mon May 13 15:39:09 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 15:39:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Animated Poets In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Paul, perhaps rather than Angelou's being a politically expedient choice for the first inauguration, Clinton picked somebody who would reliably generate a poem that was almost completely content-free. And lo, she did. Gwyn (Her *memoirs,* I like, but the poems... egad) --- "We share half our genome with the banana. This is more evident in some of my acquaintances than others." Sir Robert May, President of the Royal Society of London From barr at mail.rochester.edu Mon May 13 15:42:15 2002 From: barr at mail.rochester.edu (Brandon Thomas Barr) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 15:42:15 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Animated Poets In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Pinksy's portrayal was quite respectful, and accurate (he voiced it). I'm sure they are respectful to him, particularly because he wrote very nicely about the series in the NY Times a few years ago. Brandon On Mon, 13 May 2002, Paul Lake wrote: > on 5/13/02 9:26 AM, JackKerouac25 at aol.com at JackKerouac25 at aol.com wrote: > > > Am I the only one who saw Robert Pinsky on The Simpsons last night? > > > > Might this be the first instance of a poet appearing on a cartoon broadcast? > > > > JLN > > _____________________________________________________________________ > > Jeffrey L. Newberry > > *FEAR J.D.* > > 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 > > > Was the impersonation mocking or respectful? > > Paul Lake > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 13 15:57:37 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 15:57:37 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is poetry? In-Reply-To: <200205131427.g4DERE651399@mx12.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3CDFE271.5736.147A87@localhost> > Gwyn: > > I'm not. It's okay for a mainstream free-verse lyric poem.<< > > >Marcus: I'm saying it's poor even by that low standard.<< > Graham: > A while back I accused Marcus of not liking free verse very > much. Q.E.D.<< I think I was objecting more to "mainstream ... lyric" than to "free- verse". Either way, the standard is pretty low for publishing "mainstream free-verse lyrics" -- I mean, just read the ones that are published! It's not a claim that "mainstream free-verse lyric" poems are not "real poems" to say that the contemporary standard for publishing -- or writing -- them is low. Nice try, though. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 13 16:05:16 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 16:05:16 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" In-Reply-To: References: <3CDF6C13.12608.842650@localhost> Message-ID: <3CDFE43C.4117.1B7B0D@localhost> > > Well, I can't disagree with you about Maya Angelou and I agree > > enthusiastically about Mattie JT Sepanek. But what do those > > things have to do with the poem at issue? There are always going > > to be egregiously bad examples of verse out there -- is it your new > > position that as long as any poem is better than something really > > really egregiously bad it's good? Gwyn: > As you are not my husband, it is quite unlikely that you will witness my > new position.<< You still haven't found the hidden web-cam, eh? Bwahahahaha! Gwyn: > But I'm just wondering why the poem at hand is being piled onto quite so > vigorously....<< Because it's there. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Mon May 13 15:58:17 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 14:58:17 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is poetry? Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E54@mail.ripon.edu> Interesting to see you duck the obvious so strenuously, Marcus. I do wonder why. You've made your distrust and distaste for most free verse abundantly clear, yet when I point this out, you run for cover. Remember writing this, for example? "The systemic and endemic intellectual confusion on the parts of those who want 'free verse'" to be both 'free' and 'verse' at the same time have long been pointed out with great amusement by generations of people, now. And very amusing it remains." So, applying Balesean logic, we learn that free verse *cannot* be verse, don't we? Denying that free verse is verse strikes me as *somewhat* of a bias against it. . . . Yet when I call attention to this bias of yours, you often take evasive action. Odd. Nice try, though. David Graham P.S. By the way, the "standard" for publishing *all* verse is low. Is, was, and ever shall be, as any historian knows. Red herring. . . . ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== > ---------- > > I think I was objecting more to "mainstream ... lyric" than to "free- > verse". Either way, the standard is pretty low for publishing > "mainstream free-verse lyrics" -- I mean, just read the ones that are > published! > > It's not a claim that "mainstream free-verse lyric" poems are not > "real poems" to say that the contemporary standard for publishing -- > or writing -- them is low. > > Nice try, though. > > Marcus Bales > > From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 13 16:10:43 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 16:10:43 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Cash really is better than checks, and I can prove it In-Reply-To: References: <3CDF6C13.5852.842637@localhost> Message-ID: <3CDFE583.3823.2078F5@localhost> Gwyn: > I am saying that part of the line's poetic quality comes from the > pause > for reflection it invites. Why, indeed, would the speaker feel it > important to say such a seemingly obvious thing? Maybe it's worth reading > the poem a second time... etc. << But why not write a GOOD line to do that? Otherwise it's easy to claim that any bad line is there ... to make you read the poem again; to make you think; to make the line "poetic". It won't wash, Gwyn, because such a position (hi to your husband!) invites lazy or, worse, fraudulent writing. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Mon May 13 15:58:11 2002 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 15:58:11 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem References: <43.b626d0c.2a1081f1@aol.com> Message-ID: <006c01c1fab8$83042d20$5b28fea9@j1c1k6> > > The best definitions of poetry, > > like the best definitions of everything else, > > are scientific. They are therefore shunned by > > most poets. Prove what? I haven't done a count, but certainly here at new-poetry have paid close to no attention at all to anything resembling an objective (or scientific) definition of poetry, in spite of long discussions about what poetry is. Not a proof but certainly a demonstration--and near proof, taken with the paucity of poets' who have written about what poetry is as opposed to effused about how it makes them feel or the like, and all the poets who have written about dissection, etc. As for proving that the best definitions of poetry are scientific, that'd be too much trouble since we'd have to start with a definition of definition, and then define "scientific," and figure out what "better" means. But if you want a term to communicate something, then its definition must be objective, and distinguish what it defines clearly from all that it is not, which must be substantial-- to begin with. Such a "scientific" definition has to be better than a definition that could apply to most things in the world from some point-of-view, and can change with each user of the definition. --Bob G. From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Mon May 13 16:09:25 2002 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 16:09:25 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a poem References: <200205130121.g4D1Lal41804@mx13.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <007201c1faba$152cc080$5b28fea9@j1c1k6> "Manywhere at Once" is lovely. I like the notion of flow-breaks, too, which puts me in mind of a favorite passage (I'm sure I've quoted it before) from Wendell Berry: "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." --fr. "Standing By Words." Yes, that's well-stated, and a basis of my belief in flow-breaks as the defining attributes of poems-- because they (1) tell the reader to slow down because he's in a poem, and (2) MAKE him slow down because they disrupt the flow of his reading. So they do close to what James thinks makes a poem a poem: someone's saying it is: that is, they are signs in a poem saying it is a poem. But they also do the first thing a poem must do, which is obstruct the reader from staying in the reading part of his brain. That they are effective at objectively indicating a poem is a bonus (though, of course, there will still be texts people will not be able to conslusive categorize as poem or prose work because, while they have flow-breaks, whether they are numerous enough and/or significant enough to make the text a poem will be near-impossible to determine. No definition can be perfect. --Bob G. From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 13 16:30:34 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 16:30:34 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is poetry? In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E54@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <3CDFEA2A.1666.32A581@localhost> > Interesting to see you duck the obvious so strenuously, Marcus. I do > wonder why. You've made your distrust and distaste for most free verse > abundantly clear, yet when I point this out, you run for cover. > Remember writing this, for example? > "The systemic and endemic intellectual confusion on the parts of those who > want 'free verse'" to be both 'free' and 'verse' at the same time have long > been pointed out with great amusement by generations of people, now. And > very amusing it remains."<< Yep -- and the confusion about "free verse" is just that it opens so widely the door to lazy and even fraudulent attempts at writing poetry. That's not to say that some good free verse poems haven't been written. It's only to say that the bad ones are bad in a way that rubs me more abrasively wrong than the bad ones that are bad in metered verse. But the percentage is surely about the same -- Sturgeon's Law applies in poetry as in everything else. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Mon May 13 16:36:14 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 15:36:14 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is poetry? Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E55@mail.ripon.edu> I pretty much agree, Marcus, that laziness is a problem for us all. And no skin off my back if most free verse's particular badness rubs you the wrong way. Different strokes and all. But one qualification: I'm not sure that it isn't just as easy for the lazy, whoever they are, to crank out bad metered poetry, once one has gotten over the initial hump of how-to. It may simply be that we're out of practice, relatively speaking, since the days of classroom recitations of Gitche-Gumee and such. In any case, many who have written both metered and free have testified that they found free verse harder to write well. For whatever that's worth. Probably different for different poets. I'm still trying to write my first publishable sonnet, myself, though the shipwrecked couplets and quatrains in my journal very nearly convince me that I never will. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== > > Interesting to see you duck the obvious so strenuously, Marcus. I do > > wonder why. You've made your distrust and distaste for most free verse > > abundantly clear, yet when I point this out, you run for cover. > > Remember writing this, for example? > > "The systemic and endemic intellectual confusion on the parts of those > who > > want 'free verse'" to be both 'free' and 'verse' at the same time have > long > > been pointed out with great amusement by generations of people, now. > And > > very amusing it remains."<< > > Yep -- and the confusion about "free verse" is just that it opens so > widely the door to lazy and even fraudulent attempts at writing > poetry. That's not to say that some good free verse poems haven't > been written. It's only to say that the bad ones are bad in a way > that rubs me more abrasively wrong than the bad ones that are bad > in metered verse. But the percentage is surely about the same -- > Sturgeon's Law applies in poetry as in everything else. > > > Marcus Bales > > From gmcvay at patriot.net Mon May 13 16:56:11 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 16:56:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Cash really is better than checks, and I can prove it In-Reply-To: <3CDFE583.3823.2078F5@localhost> Message-ID: Marcus, so is YOUR position that the poem is lazy and fraudulent? Gwyn (just so we're clear) From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 13 17:21:06 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 17:21:06 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Cash really is better than checks, and I can prove it In-Reply-To: References: <3CDFE583.3823.2078F5@localhost> Message-ID: <3CDFF602.25953.60EC30@localhost> > Marcus, so is YOUR position that the poem is lazy and fraudulent? > Gwyn (just so we're clear) At least lazy; I'm willing to give the poet the benefit of the doubt about fraudulent until I come across more of the body of her work (hope her husband doesn't catch me! -- why did you start this sexual allusion thing?). Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 13 17:26:21 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 17:26:21 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what is poetry? In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E55@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <3CDFF73D.24817.65BA69@localhost> Graham: > But one qualification: I'm not sure that it isn't just as easy for the > lazy, whoever they are, to crank out bad metered poetry, once one has gotten > over the initial hump of how-to. It may simply be that we're out of > practice, relatively speaking, since the days of classroom recitations of > Gitche-Gumee and such.<< May be -- certainly there was a lot of bad metered poetry churned out over the centuries. Graham: > In any case, many who have written both metered and free have testified that > they found free verse harder to write well. For whatever that's worth. > Probably different for different poets. << Perhaps it's just that it's harder to know what's well-written in free verse, and not actually harder to write -- or harder to persuade others that it is well-written. It seems unlikely to me that free verse is harder to write -- poetry is hard to write in any event. Who was it who said that poetry is easy to write if you don't know how? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From Robtberner at aol.com Mon May 13 17:38:53 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 17:38:53 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] fundamental misunderstandings Message-ID: <103.15416fcf.2a118c6d@aol.com> Marcus Bales writes: "I didn't harangue against Gwyyn McVay, but against the opinion she apparently holds." Is it not a common figure of speech to say, for example, "Johnson attacked Cibber," and mean thereby not that Johnson attacked the man physically, but, rather, that Johnson attacked Cibber's verse? Thus meant I when I spoke of "his lengthy harangue against McVay." Marcus goes on to speak of "the sort of personal attack in which Mr. Berner seems to want to engage." Now who's misunderstanding fundamentally? I suspect that Marcus is referring here to my suggestion that he is capable of writing things that show a sophistry only a first-year law student could admire. Remember, first year law students are taught that they must be able to argue both sides of a case convincingly. Indeed, have we not seen enough of Marcus' critical acumen to know that he could equally easily argue the exact opposite of every position he has taken so far? Thus, does not the gadfly choose which cattle to discomfit? As to sending some of my own poems for him to dissect, judge, and grade, I have previously posted two of my own scribblings. He could look them up. Robert Berner From gmcvay at patriot.net Mon May 13 18:31:52 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 18:31:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Cash really is better than checks, and I can prove it In-Reply-To: <3CDFF602.25953.60EC30@localhost> Message-ID: > At least lazy; I'm willing to give the poet the benefit of the doubt > about fraudulent until I come across more of the body of her work > (hope her husband doesn't catch me! -- why did you start this > sexual allusion thing?). > Because it was more entertaining than trying to figure out what in the spitting hell you could possibly mean by "fraudulent." I mean, Sharon Olds, just for one, admits quite openly that emotions, events, etc. that she represents as belonging to the I-speaker of her poems did not happen precisely that way, or, in some cases, at all. Does that make them fraudulent? After all, it could have happened -- and may have, to someone else. Robert Lowell has a poem in which baby Harriet's nurse is said to have tied suet to the trees in winter for the birds; Elizabeth Hardwick clarifies that this happened to a neighbor, not to them. Etc. etc. Gwyn From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Mon May 13 18:47:31 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 15:47:31 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] fundamental misunderstandings References: <103.15416fcf.2a118c6d@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CE04283.2E7761A0@earthlink.net> Robtberner at aol.com wrote: > > Marcus Bales writes: "I didn't harangue against Gwyyn McVay, but against > the opinion she apparently holds." Is it not a common figure of speech to > say, for example, "Johnson attacked Cibber," and mean thereby not that > Johnson attacked the man physically, but, rather, that Johnson attacked > Cibber's verse? Thus meant I when I spoke of "his lengthy harangue against > McVay." > Marcus goes on to speak of "the sort of personal attack in which Mr. > Berner seems to want to engage." Now who's misunderstanding fundamentally? I > suspect that Marcus is referring here to my suggestion that he is capable of > writing things that show a sophistry only a first-year law student could > admire. Remember, first year law students are taught that they must be able > to argue both sides of a case convincingly. Indeed, have we not seen enough > of Marcus' critical acumen to know that he could equally easily argue the > exact opposite of every position he has taken so far? Thus, does not the > gadfly choose which cattle to discomfit? Such a position (hi to your husband!) opens so widely the door to lazy and even fraudulent attempts the bad ones are bad in a way that rubs me more abrasively wrong than the bad ones but the percentage is surely about the same -- You still haven't found the hidden web-cam, eh? -- perhaps it's just that it's harder to know and not actually harder to write -- or harder to persuade others (hope her husband doesn't catch me! -- why did you start this sexual allusion thing?). as in everything else Sturgeon's Law applies because it's there Nice try, though - Guess who? From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 13 22:02:41 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 22:02:41 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Cash really is better than checks, and I can prove it In-Reply-To: References: <3CDFF602.25953.60EC30@localhost> Message-ID: <3CE03801.18584.4725DD@localhost> Gwyn: > ... trying to figure out what in the > spitting hell you could possibly mean by "fraudulent." I mean, Sharon > Olds, just for one, admits quite openly that emotions, events, etc. that > she represents as belonging to the I-speaker of her poems did not happen > precisely that way, or, in some cases, at all. Does that make them > fraudulent?< No, it makes it fiction. Do you know why books of poems don't have that disclaimer in front about "resemblances to persons living or dead are purely coincidental"? Because few people read poetry and fewer care. But that doesn't make poems any less fiction, or any less based on fact, than prose fiction. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 13 22:36:00 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 22:36:00 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] fundamental misunderstandings In-Reply-To: <103.15416fcf.2a118c6d@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CE03FD0.22039.65A7D3@localhost> > Marcus: > I didn't harangue against Gwyyn McVay, but against > the opinion she apparently holds.< Robert: > Is it not a common figure of speech to > say, for example, "Johnson attacked Cibber," and mean thereby not that > Johnson attacked the man physically, but, rather, that Johnson attacked > Cibber's verse? Thus meant I when I spoke of "his lengthy harangue against > McVay."< It's common enough -- but it's also common enough, particularly on the internet, to mean instead that "Johnson attacked Cibber" means "made an ad hominem attack" instead of "attacked Cibber's verse". Robert: > ... Remember, first year law students are taught that they must > be able to argue both sides of a case convincingly.< But, alas, most first year law students not only can't do that but can't appreciate it when it's done in front of them, so the import of your comment seems to be instead an attempt to dismiss what I said by comparing me to a caricature. It seemed, and seems, like an ad hominem. Robert: > As to sending some of my own poems for him to dissect, judge, > and grade, I have previously posted two of my own scribblings. > He could look them up.<< I offered to show why a good poem you wrote is a good poem, if you'd send some of your poems, and not that I would "dissect, judge, and grade" your poems. As for looking them up, it's enough work to write about why a good one is a good one without having to go read through the archive to find your posts that contain poems. Why not just send them again? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From tadrichards at prodigy.net Tue May 14 00:08:45 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 00:08:45 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" References: Message-ID: <005801c1fafd$0abccda0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> > > > Dear Marcus, > > As you are not my husband, it is quite unlikely that you will witness my > new position. Gwyn... no webcam? SITUATIONS pub date August 1 to order - or for more info http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards/situations.html From tadrichards at prodigy.net Tue May 14 00:51:40 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 00:51:40 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "what is poetry?" References: <005801c1fafd$0abccda0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Message-ID: <00b401c1fb03$0a8449c0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> > > > > > Dear Marcus, > > > > As you are not my husband, it is quite unlikely that you will witness my > > new position. > > > Gwyn... > > no webcam? > > > Apologies...a little late with this joke. From Robtberner at aol.com Tue May 14 10:17:32 2002 From: Robtberner at aol.com (Robtberner at aol.com) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 10:17:32 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] It Just Doesn't Matter Message-ID: <47.1cecee8e.2a12767c@aol.com> To Marcus Bales: I'm not doing this anymore. While young rhymers toss on their beds, you may continue to cough in ink though none of it will splatter me. And if the reference isn't clear, you can find it somewhere between Sturgeon's Law and You Asked For It. To the New-Poetry Network: Please delete me, or unsubscribe me, or do whatever it is you do in order not to send me any more new-po postings. I'm outta here. So long until forever, Robert Berner From marcus at designerglass.com Tue May 14 11:03:48 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 11:03:48 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] It Just Doesn't Matter In-Reply-To: <47.1cecee8e.2a12767c@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CE0EF14.1701.236363@localhost> > To Marcus Bales: I'm not doing this anymore. While young rhymers toss on > their beds, you may continue to cough in ink though none of it will splatter > me. And if the reference isn't clear, you can find it somewhere between > Sturgeon's Law and You Asked For It. > To the New-Poetry Network: Please delete me, or unsubscribe me, or do > whatever it is you do in order not to send me any more new-po postings. I'm > outta here. > So long until forever, > Robert Berner Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictious word, preserves contact -- it is silence that isolates. -Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain", 1924 Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From JSSYMMES at aol.com Tue May 14 11:19:58 2002 From: JSSYMMES at aol.com (JSSYMMES at aol.com) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 11:19:58 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] It Just Doesn't Matter Message-ID: Please delete my name from your site. I have tried repeatedly to use your instructions to do so, but they don't work. (I'm a fairly sophisticated computer user.) Your site is unpleasant and hostile, and, despite the good efforts of some participants, continually reverts to self-centered "can you top this" triviality, with little to do with poetry. Grow up. jssymmes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Tue May 14 11:46:04 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 10:46:04 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Fiat Lux II Message-ID: <200205141545.g4EFjPR54173@mx9.mx.voyager.net> Here are two more Thomas Lux poems, both from the new collection. The Road That Runs Beside The River follows the river as it bends along the valley floor, going the way it must go. Where water goes, goes the road, if there's room (not in a ravine, gorge) the river on your right, or left. Left is better, it's over your elbow across the road, when you're driving. You see the current ? which is what the river is : the river in the river, a thing sliding faster foward inside a thing sliding not so fast forward. Driving with, beside, the river's flow is good; another pleasure driving against it: it's the same river someone else will see somewhere downstream: same play, new theater, different set. Wide, shallow, fairly fast, roundy stone streamed; stony-land river, it turns there or here ? the ground telling it so ? draining dull mountains to the north, migrating, feeding a few hard-fleshed fish who live in it. One small sandbar splits the river, then it loops left, the road right, and the silver of it slips under the trees, into the forest and over the sharp perpendicular edge of the earth. --Thomas Lux ______________________ Unlike, for Example, the Sound of a Riptooth Saw gnawing through a shinbone, a high howl inside of which a bloody, slashed-by-growls note is heard, unlike *that* sound, and instead, its opposite: a barely sounded sound (put your nuclear ears on for it, your giant hearing horn, its cornucopia mouth wide) -- a slippery whoosh of rain sliding down a mirror leaned against a windfallen tree stump, the sound a child's head makes falling against his mother's breast, or the sound, from a mile away, as the town undertaker lets Grammy's wrist slip from his grip and fall to the shiny table. And, if you turn your head just right and open all your ears, you might hear this *finest* sound, this lost sound: a plow's silvery prow cleaving the earth (your finger dragging through milk, a razor cutting silk) like a clipper ship cuts the sea. If you do hear this sound, then follow it with your ear and also your eye as it and the tractor that pulls it disappear over a hill until it is no sound at all, until it comes back over the hill again, again dragging its furrow, its ground-rhythm, its wide open throat, behind it. --Thomas Lux * The Streets of Clocks*. Houghton Mifflin, , 2001. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From gmcvay at patriot.net Tue May 14 11:49:50 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 11:49:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] It Just Doesn't Matter In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 14 May 2002 JSSYMMES at aol.com wrote: > Please delete my name from your site. I have tried repeatedly to use your > instructions to do so, but they don't work. (I'm a fairly sophisticated > computer user.) Your site is unpleasant and hostile, and, despite the > good efforts of some participants, continually reverts to self-centered > "can you top this" triviality, with little to do with poetry. Grow up. > jssymmes > One idly muses (get it?) that a "fairly sophisticated computer user" would know the difference between a "site" and a listserv, but one also notes that a significant proportion of AOL users experience the same confusion with regard to the difference between a "site," a listserv, and a Usenet newsgroup. Oh well. Baiiiii! ^_^ Gwyn (cute and cuddly but no webcam) From JforJames at aol.com Tue May 14 22:16:30 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 22:16:30 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem Message-ID: <18f.7eae7f7.2a131efe@aol.com> In a message dated 5/13/02 4:00:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time, bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: > > The best definitions of poetry, > > > like the best definitions of everything else, > > > are scientific. They are therefore shunned by > > > most poets. > > Prove what? I haven't done a count, but certainly > here at new-poetry have paid close to no attention > at all to anything resembling an objective (or scientific) definition of > poetry, in spite of long > discussions about what poetry is. Not a proof > but certainly a demonstration--and near proof, taken with the paucity of > poets' who have written > about what poetry is as opposed to effused about > how it makes them feel or the like, and all the poets who have written about > dissection, etc. > > As for proving that the best definitions of poetry are scientific, that'd be > too much trouble since we'd have to start with a definition of definition, > and then define "scientific," and figure out what > "better" means. But if you want a term to communicate something, then its > definition must be objective, and distinguish what it defines clearly from > all that it is not, which must be substantial-- > to begin with. Such a "scientific" definition has to be better than a > definition that could apply to most things in the world from some > point-of-view, and can change with each user of the definition. Bob, I just don't understand how you can say a scientific definition is needed...and then not offer one? Poets and literary critics have offered serious and playful definitions throughout history; but all are subjective to a great degree. I'm not sure science can be of help here. Tomorrow, if I can find it on my hard drive, I'll post something I cooked up to answer the question What makes a good poem? It's not exactly scientific, but it does require the ability to add. The grades themselves are, alas, subjective...there is nothing like the Pathagorean Theorem when it comes to defining a poem. Finnegan From JforJames at aol.com Tue May 14 22:22:17 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 22:22:17 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] New titles from Green Integer Message-ID: <1bf.1d59769.2a132059@aol.com> Subj: New titles from Green Integer Date: 5/13/02 1:20:52 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: djmess at greeninteger.com (Douglas Messerli) To: UndisclosedRecipients CC: djmess at greeninteger.com (Douglas Messerli) Green Integer is pleased to announce two new titles, both reprinted from Sun & Moon Press. TENDER BUTTONS by Gertrude Stein ($10.95/1-931243-42-5), like its Sun & Moon predecessor, is shot from the original pages of Stein's Claire Marie (Donald Evans) edition of 1914. The Green Integer edition is covered by a photograph of Stein from 1914. DEFOE, by Leslie Scalapino, has been reformatted and re-typeset in the EL-E-PHANT format of Green Integer books (6 x 9). Defoe is an epic where images of battle become meditations, an epice wherein events flap in silence as the narrative moves toward a place where the reader and text become one. The images of this fiction don't resemble events, but are new occurrences in time and space. ($15.95/1-931243-44-1) If you plan to teach either of these popular titles, please remember to alert your bookstore that they must now order the Green Integer editions (as before from Consortium Booksales & Distribution in St. Paul or from Small Press Distribution in Berkeley) As usual, we are offering a 20% discount for all members of all our mailing list. Defoe is now priced at $12.76 plus $1.25 shipping/ Tender Buttons is $8.76 plus $1.25 shipping. Send checks and orders to EL-E-PHANT 6026 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036 (Do not write checks to Green Integer). Douglas Messerli From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Tue May 14 23:23:59 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 22:23:59 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Fooling With Hayden Message-ID: <200205150323.g4F3NKm68807@mx16.mx.voyager.net> On the Bill Moyers "Fooling With Words" web site (http://www.wnet.org/foolingwithwords/lesson2.html ) I discovered a nice collection of material on Robert Hayden--might be of interest particularly to those who teach him. Among other things, it includes an early draft of "Those Winter Sundays." Interesting in particular to see how clunky that famous final line was in its first incarnation: Those Winter Sundays (earlier version) Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the stiffening cold, and then with hands cracked and aching from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I'd wake and hear the cold splintering and breaking and smell the trellised blooming of the velvet heat. When the rooms were warm, he'd call me. Sighing I would rise and dress, dreading the chronic angers of that house, Dreading my father's kindness most of all; and had but monosyllables for him who'd driven out the cold -- who had as well polished my best shoes. What did I know of love's austere and rich and lonely offices? _____________________________ And, for comparison, here's the published version: Those Winter Sundays (final version) Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices? ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Wed May 15 06:06:54 2002 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 06:06:54 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem References: <18f.7eae7f7.2a131efe@aol.com> Message-ID: <005d01c1fbf8$3f30aba0$b8a0fea9@j1c1k6> By scientific definition, I mean an objective definition that indicates the attributes or cluster of attributes that the thing defined uniquely has. I have presented such a definition of poetry. > > Prove what? I haven't done a count, but certainly FEW > > here at new-poetry have paid close to no attention > > at all to anything resembling an objective (or scientific) definition of > > poetry, in spite of long > > discussions about what poetry is. Not a proof > > but certainly a demonstration--and near proof, taken with the paucity of > > poets' who have written > > about what poetry is as opposed to effused about > > how it makes them feel or the like, and all the poets who have written > about > > dissection, etc. > > > > As for proving that the best definitions of poetry are scientific, that'd > be > > too much trouble since we'd have to start with a definition of definition, > > and then define "scientific," and figure out what > > "better" means. But if you want a term to communicate something, then its > > definition must be objective, and distinguish what it defines clearly from > > all that it is not, which must be substantial-- > > to begin with. Such a "scientific" definition has to be better than a > > definition that could apply to most things in the world from some > > point-of-view, and can change with each user of the definition. > Bob, > I just don't understand how you can say a scientific definition > is needed...and then not offer one? Poets and literary critics > have offered serious and playful definitions throughout history; > but all are subjective to a great degree. As are all definitions. But scientific ones minimize the subjectivity. > I'm not sure science > can be of help here. Tomorrow, if I can find it on my hard > drive, I'll post something I cooked up to answer the question > What makes a good poem? It's not exactly scientific, > but it does require the ability to add. The grades themselves > are, alas, subjective...there is nothing like the Pathagorean Theorem > when it comes to defining a poem. > Finnegan I believe that science will soon be able to identify poems by scanning the brains of those auditing them: a poem will and only a poem will activate certain areas in the brain; the size of the area and intensity of the activation will indicate the value of the poem. Meanwhile, I'll be interested to see your concept of what makes a good poem. I suspect it won't be far from mine. --Bob G. From tadrichards at prodigy.net Wed May 15 08:07:21 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 08:07:21 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Scanners References: <18f.7eae7f7.2a131efe@aol.com> <005d01c1fbf8$3f30aba0$b8a0fea9@j1c1k6> Message-ID: <004b01c1fc0a$10772200$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> I just wanted to pull this out of Bob Grumman's last post, because I found it particularly intriguing. > > I believe that science will soon be able > to identify poems by scanning the brains of those > auditing them: a poem will and only a poem will > activate certain areas in the brain; the size of the area and intensity of > the activation will indicate > the value of the poem. > SITUATIONS pub date August 1 to order - or for more info http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards/situations.html From FanwoodJEL at aol.com Wed May 15 08:18:56 2002 From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 08:18:56 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Scanners Message-ID: <6917C0A6.11019498.0B0E6811@aol.com> Here at sit rep po-ops, aesthetics division, we've been working on the technology for years under a Readers' Digest grant. We think we're close -- very close -- and so far we've had some interesting and encouraging results. For example, we've seen an awful lot of brain activity when we expose laboratory rats to certain sections of The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, rivaled only by certain sections of the original advance galleys of Peter Benchley's *Jaws* Lest you deride the viability of results in lab rats, know that it's not easy getting people to sit still for those invasive probes. We find, in human subjects that the test tends to kill their interest in poems and, well, the subjects as well. Volunteers? What we do for love. Jeffrey In a message dated Wed, 15 May 2002 ?8:10:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time, "theoldmole" writes: >I just wanted to pull this out of Bob Grumman's last post, because I found >it particularly intriguing. > >> >> I believe that science will soon be able >> to identify poems by scanning the brains of those >> auditing them: a poem will and only a poem will >> activate certain areas in the brain; the size of the area and intensity of >> the activation will indicate >> the value of the poem. >> > > > >SITUATIONS >pub date August 1 >to order - or for more info >http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards/situations.html > > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From halvard at earthlink.net Wed May 15 09:29:16 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 09:29:16 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem In-Reply-To: <18f.7eae7f7.2a131efe@aol.com> Message-ID: { Poets and literary critics { have offered serious and playful definitions throughout history; { but all are subjective to a great degree. Here are a few that have been rattling around in my inbox: "Poetry proves again and again that any single overall theory of anything doesn't work. Poetry is always the cat concert under the window of the room in which the official version of reality is being written." - Charles Simic, ~A Fly in the Soup~ "It is not rhyming and versing that maketh poetry. One may be a poet without versing, and a versifyer without poetry." - Philip Sidney, ~Apologie for Poetrie~ "What is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is." - Samuel Johnson ~Boswell's Life~ "The question of what poetry communicates, if anything, has been largely forced upon us by the advent of 'modern' poetry. Some of that poetry is admittedly highly difficult - a very great deal of it is bound to appear difficult to the reader of conventional reading habits, even in spite of the fact - actually, in many cases, because of the fact - that he is a professor of literature. - Cleanth Brooks ~The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry~ Hal Serving the tri-state area. Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From marcus at designerglass.com Wed May 15 10:03:36 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 10:03:36 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Scanners In-Reply-To: <004b01c1fc0a$10772200$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Message-ID: <3CE23278.15767.28FB47@localhost> > > I believe that science will soon be able > > to identify poems by scanning the brains of those > > auditing them: a poem will and only a poem will > > activate certain areas in the brain; the size of the area and intensity of > > the activation will indicate > > the value of the poem. Scanners Live In Vain! Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Wed May 15 11:18:01 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 08:18:01 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem References: Message-ID: <3CE27C29.BB60F8BA@earthlink.net> A "good" poem is one that all your previous reading has prepared you for, one in which you know all the words, one that you "get" instantly, one that satisfies all the rules of poetry as you know them, one that covers its mouth when it burps after it's done. - Ameliorate Airhard Halvard Johnson wrote: > > { Poets and literary critics > { have offered serious and playful definitions throughout history; > { but all are subjective to a great degree. > > Here are a few that have been rattling around in my inbox: > > "Poetry proves again and again that any single overall theory of > anything doesn't work. Poetry is always the cat concert under the > window of the room in which the official version of reality is being > written." - Charles Simic, ~A Fly in the Soup~ > > "It is not rhyming and versing that maketh poetry. One may be a poet > without versing, and a versifyer without poetry." - Philip Sidney, > ~Apologie for Poetrie~ > > "What is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. > We all know what light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is." - > Samuel Johnson ~Boswell's Life~ > > "The question of what poetry communicates, if anything, has been > largely forced upon us by the advent of 'modern' poetry. Some of > that poetry is admittedly highly difficult - a very great deal of it > is bound to appear difficult to the reader of conventional reading > habits, even in spite of the fact - actually, in many cases, because > of the fact - that he is a professor of literature. - Cleanth Brooks > ~The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry~ > > Hal Serving the tri-state area. > > Halvard Johnson > =============== > email: halvard at earthlink.net > website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Wed May 15 11:35:27 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 08:35:27 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again Message-ID: <3CE2803E.2E6F92CA@earthlink.net> Rummaging around in the Atlantic Unbound, I found this: "The arguments against free verse are old. They are not, however, as old as free verse itself. When primitive and prehistoric man first spoke with cadence or color, making either musical meaning or melodic nonsense worth keeping and repeating for its definite and intrinsic values, then free verse was born, ages before the sonnet, the ballad, the verse forms wherein the writer or singer must be acutely conscious, even exquisitely aware, of how many syllables are to be arithmetically numbered per line." - "Those Who Make Poems," by Carl Sandburg,The Atlantic Monthly, March 1942 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This message, unless otherwise noted, is impermanent. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org/ Poetserv: http://www.poetserv.com/ Homepage: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/index.html Readings: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/readings.html From GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU Wed May 15 11:40:39 2002 From: GrahamD at Mail.Ripon.EDU (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 10:40:39 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD7599E86E59@mail.ripon.edu> And, as Auden said of Adrienne Rich, good poems "are neatly and modestly dressed, speak quietly but do not mumble, respect their elders but are not cowed by them, and do not tell fibs." Hoo, boy! Rich sure showed *him*! ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== > ---------- > From: James Cervantes > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 10:18 AM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem > > A "good" poem is one that all your previous reading has prepared you > for, one in which you know all the words, one that you "get" instantly, > one that satisfies all the rules of poetry as you know them, one that > covers its mouth when it burps after it's done. > > - Ameliorate Airhard > > From tadrichards at prodigy.net Wed May 15 11:57:30 2002 From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (theoldmole) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 11:57:30 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem References: <3CE27C29.BB60F8BA@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <00c001c1fc29$37e815a0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> I'll buy it except for "get instantly" -- there's a great passage in Proust about this, which I'll look up when I have the time. Headed for Santa Fe momently.... SITUATIONS pub date August 1 to order - or for more info http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards/situations.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "James Cervantes" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 11:18 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem > A "good" poem is one that all your previous reading has prepared you > for, one in which you know all the words, one that you "get" instantly, > one that satisfies all the rules of poetry as you know them, one that > covers its mouth when it burps after it's done. > > - Ameliorate Airhard > > Halvard Johnson wrote: > > > > { Poets and literary critics > > { have offered serious and playful definitions throughout history; > > { but all are subjective to a great degree. > > > > Here are a few that have been rattling around in my inbox: > > > > "Poetry proves again and again that any single overall theory of > > anything doesn't work. Poetry is always the cat concert under the > > window of the room in which the official version of reality is being > > written." - Charles Simic, ~A Fly in the Soup~ > > > > "It is not rhyming and versing that maketh poetry. One may be a poet > > without versing, and a versifyer without poetry." - Philip Sidney, > > ~Apologie for Poetrie~ > > > > "What is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. > > We all know what light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is." - > > Samuel Johnson ~Boswell's Life~ > > > > "The question of what poetry communicates, if anything, has been > > largely forced upon us by the advent of 'modern' poetry. Some of > > that poetry is admittedly highly difficult - a very great deal of it > > is bound to appear difficult to the reader of conventional reading > > habits, even in spite of the fact - actually, in many cases, because > > of the fact - that he is a professor of literature. - Cleanth Brooks > > ~The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry~ > > > > Hal Serving the tri-state area. > > > > Halvard Johnson > > =============== > > email: halvard at earthlink.net > > website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 DICK at watson.ibm.com Wed May 15 12:17:40 2002 From: DICK at watson.ibm.com (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Wed, 15 May 02 12:17:40 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] fiat lux I & II Message-ID: <200205151626.g4FGQDd32064@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Lux II contain many interestingly observed and described events, and the language is skillful, but it's not clear what feeling, if any, is being communicated. Why did he write the poems? They seem to be in response to assignments, "write a poem describing driving along a river," "write a poem describing sounds." Lux I, about plague-dead bodies being flung into the city under siege, seems to want to describe the depths of evil that humans are capable of, which is consistent with the feeling I have that Lux has a serious streak of misanthropy. This comes across in his readings, if you've ever heard him. Richard From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Wed May 15 12:26:55 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 09:26:55 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] fiat lux I & II References: <200205151626.g4FGQDd32064@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: <3CE28C4F.291A1ECF@earthlink.net> Cold craft? - Jim DICK at watson.ibm.com wrote: > > Lux II contain many interestingly observed and described > events, and the language is skillful, but it's not clear > what feeling, if any, is being communicated. Why did he > write the poems? They seem to be in response to assignments, > "write a poem describing driving along a river," "write a > poem describing sounds." > > Lux I, about plague-dead bodies being flung into the city > under siege, seems to want to describe the depths of evil > that humans are capable of, which is consistent with the > feeling I have that Lux has a serious streak of misanthropy. > This comes across in his readings, if you've ever heard him. > > Richard > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Wed May 15 12:28:50 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 09:28:50 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem References: <3CE27C29.BB60F8BA@earthlink.net> <00c001c1fc29$37e815a0$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Message-ID: <3CE28CC2.3DEACD1C@earthlink.net> Yeah, over the top for me. Maybe just "get"? Or, one that makes you nod appreciatively throughout? - Ameliorate Airhard theoldmole wrote: > > I'll buy it except for "get instantly" -- there's a great passage in Proust > about this, which I'll look up when I have the time. Headed for Santa Fe > momently.... > SITUATIONS > pub date August 1 > to order - or for more info > http://pages.prodigy.net/tadrichards/situations.html > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "James Cervantes" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 11:18 AM > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is a good poem > > > A "good" poem is one that all your previous reading has prepared you > > for, one in which you know all the words, one that you "get" instantly, > > one that satisfies all the rules of poetry as you know them, one that > > covers its mouth when it burps after it's done. > > > > - Ameliorate Airhard > > > > Halvard Johnson wrote: > > > > > > { Poets and literary critics > > > { have offered serious and playful definitions throughout history; > > > { but all are subjective to a great degree. > > > > > > Here are a few that have been rattling around in my inbox: > > > > > > "Poetry proves again and again that any single overall theory of > > > anything doesn't work. Poetry is always the cat concert under the > > > window of the room in which the official version of reality is being > > > written." - Charles Simic, ~A Fly in the Soup~ > > > > > > "It is not rhyming and versing that maketh poetry. One may be a poet > > > without versing, and a versifyer without poetry." - Philip Sidney, > > > ~Apologie for Poetrie~ > > > > > > "What is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. > > > We all know what light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is." - > > > Samuel Johnson ~Boswell's Life~ > > > > > > "The question of what poetry communicates, if anything, has been > > > largely forced upon us by the advent of 'modern' poetry. Some of > > > that poetry is admittedly highly difficult - a very great deal of it > > > is bound to appear difficult to the reader of conventional reading > > > habits, even in spite of the fact - actually, in many cases, because > > > of the fact - that he is a professor of literature. - Cleanth Brooks > > > ~The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry~ > > > > > > Hal Serving the tri-state area. > > > > > > Halvard Johnson > > > =============== > > > email: halvard at earthlink.net > > > website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > 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 From CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com Wed May 15 12:46:35 2002 From: CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com (Robert R.Cobb) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 09:46:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] philosphy/poetry/painting Message-ID: <20020515164635.6EA2336F9@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From marcus at designerglass.com Wed May 15 14:46:30 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 14:46:30 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again In-Reply-To: <3CE2803E.2E6F92CA@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <3CE274C6.11420.12C0376@localhost> > - "Those Who Make Poems," by Carl Sandburg,The Atlantic > Monthly, March 1942: > "The arguments against free verse are old. They are not, however, as old > as free verse itself. When primitive and prehistoric man first spoke with > cadence or color, making either musical meaning or melodic nonsense worth > keeping and repeating for its definite and intrinsic values, then free > verse was born, ages before the sonnet, the ballad, the verse forms > wherein the writer or singer must be acutely conscious, even exquisitely > aware, of how many syllables are to be arithmetically numbered per line." This is like claiming that because you have doubted personally what life is all about before you take any philosophy that you've put Descartes before the course. It's simply not the case. It was not that "free verse" was born before the sonnet or any other form -- you can't be "free" without there being a knowledge and awareness of constraints. What the cave-poets were doing was inventing verse, not inventing "free verse". Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From gmcvay at patriot.net Wed May 15 16:01:41 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 16:01:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again In-Reply-To: <3CE274C6.11420.12C0376@localhost> Message-ID: > It was not that "free verse" was born before the sonnet or any other > form -- you can't be "free" without there being a knowledge and > awareness of constraints. OUCH! Thank you, master, may I have another? OUCH! Thank you, master... Come on, Marcus, do you really believe that nobody was "free" to take an alcoholic drink in the US before Prohibition, Part I? Gwyn From JackKerouac25 at aol.com Wed May 15 16:07:47 2002 From: JackKerouac25 at aol.com (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 16:07:47 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again Message-ID: <16f.daf23b4.2a141a13@aol.com> Marcus, It might be helpful if you were to define exactly what you mean by free verse. Do you draw a distinction between free verse and open form? Do you draw a distinction between closed forms at all? Do you mean that fixed forms like sonnets, ghazals, and sestinas are in no way different from free verse? Is free versed defined as any kind of verse that has as identifiable meter and/or syllable count? Do you think that free verse is *not* poetry? What of forms like the fugue or the round that Weldon Kees devised? Do you consider these to be fixed forms? Bear in mind that I am not trying to pick a fight here. I just wonder what you mean. Jeff N. In a message dated 5/15/02 1:48:03 PM Central Daylight Time, marcus at designerglass.com writes: > It was not that "free verse" was born before the sonnet or any other > form -- you can't be "free" without there being a knowledge and > awareness of constraints. What the cave-poets were doing was > inventing verse, not inventing "free verse". _____________________________________________________________________ Jeffrey L. Newberry *FEAR YOU KNOW WHO* Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida www.uwf.edu/jnewberry From MillB at aol.com Wed May 15 19:27:47 2002 From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 19:27:47 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Please Help Calif Arts Council Message-ID: <114.116bb672.2a1448f3@aol.com> FYI Like the NEA a few years ago (and pretty much every year) the California Arts Council is in jeopardy of being eliminated. If you live in California, please write your governmental officials. Dear Friends..... Yesterday the Governor announced his May Revise (fiscal year 2002-03) which proposes reductions to the California Arts Council in the amount of $16.3 million. This is more than a 50% cut to our budget. Staff and programs will be cut. The Governor's plan calls for the elimination of the Traditional Folk Arts Program, Artists in Residence Program, Multicultural Arts Development Program, Artists Fellowship Program, Touring and Presenting Program, State Local Partnership Program, Infrastructure Initiative (includes California Indian Basketweavers Association, Pilipino Arts Network, California Asian American Pacific Islander Arts Network, Latino Arts Network, etc). Only two programs would be left, Organizational Support ($5 million) and Arts in Education Program ($6 million). The Governor's plan keeps $2 million for the Tools for Tolerance Program at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. This $2 million is not part of our program budget and does not go through a panel process. The money comes from the Governor's "pork" funds, but is dispersed through our office. You may want to contact California Arts Advocates for more information. If you have an opinion about these budget cuts and the impact it will have on the arts in California you may want to contact your legislator. If you attended the Joint Congress for the Arts last year, you may want to use the tools you gained regarding your impact on state legislation. You can reach the California Arts Advocates at the address listed below. Watch for Barry's Directors Weekly report for more information. My best to you.....Theresa California Arts Advocates 625 Broadway, Ste. 735 San Diego, CA 92101 (619) 239-8678 www.Calartsadvocates.org <http://www.calartsadvocates.org> Theresa Harlan Artists Fellowship Program Traditional Folk Arts Program California Arts Council For more information about programs and applications go to www.cac.ca.gov <http://www.cac.ca.gov> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From MillB at aol.com Wed May 15 19:30:11 2002 From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 19:30:11 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] More bad news about arts funding Message-ID: <1a9.24b0577.2a144983@aol.com> FYI May 15, 2002 Hello. Bad news. Very bad news. I. MAY REVISE BUDGET 'Mama said there'll be days like this, there'll be days like this my mama said ???.." The Governor's May Revise Budget proposes an additional $16.3 million (50%) in cuts to the California Arts Council Budget (additional to the $2 million previous cut). This would leave the agency with the following budget for FY 2002 - 2003: Arts Education - $6 million (down from $10 million) Organizational Support Program - $5 million (down from $10+ million) (In addition to OSP, this category includes Multicultural Advancement, Entry & Next Generation Programs) Simon Wiesenthal Center - $2 million. That's it. The following CAC Programs would be eliminated in accordance with direction from the Department of Finance. Performing Arts Touring & Presenting Inner City Presenting Artists in Residence State - Local Partnership Program Infrastructure Support Traditional Folk Arts Public Art & Design Interagency Artist Fellowships Special Initiatives (International, Cultural Tourism, Convenings, Research, etc.) I would hope that every program we have could continue. But as it stands, we have been left with no discretion in the matter. I would hope to make the case that this is not the best approach. Our Operations budget would be cut 50%, necessitating the termination of 25 to 30 CAC staff members. The severity of these cuts was unexpected. The convergence of the recession, energy costs, and 9/11 aftermath has left the state with an estimated $23+ billion deficit. This is the ultimate rock and a hard place. Governor Davis and the First Lady have been extraordinarily supportive of the arts. I hope in the next few weeks that we can work with the Governor, the Department of Finance, and the Legislature to crunch the numbers to arrive at the best way to allocate whatever funding is available to protect the integrity of the delicate arts structure we have all worked so hard to establish over the past six years. All indications are that the state will bounce back from this one-time emergency situation next year, and is poised to outpace the national recovery in terms of income and jobs created over the next five years. I want to make sure that the existence of all our programs are protected, and that the agency itself retains the capacity to be able to bounce back following the recovery. I know these cuts were painful for the Governor to make. I believe he genuinely appreciates and values the impact the arts have. If I didn't, I wouldn't stay in this position. But with the sheer size of the cuts necessary, he doubtless didn't have time to consider all of the ramifications of every cut. I will do every thing I can to work with the administration to insure that we do not lose the institutional memory, experience, talent, and skills we have, and that every program we have created to serve the arts community survives for a better day. We will have less money to distribute, but we can keep the programs alive, and position the community for the recovery. It will be tough, but we can make it. The arts community needs to make the case for a re-direction of the available funds to the maximum benefit for California - which is, in my opinion, to keep the agency staff and capacity intact (even with less money there will still be more work), and to keep every program alive - so that when the recovery comes, the arts are positioned to be made whole again, and the asset that is the arts and culture is not lost to California for years to come. It would be enormously beneficial for each of you to contact your legislators and the Governor's office to register the impact of these cuts in your communities, and the value of maintaining the existence of the whole of the infrastructure we have worked together to forge. I support fairness and an approach that does not single out any program for preferential treatment. I believe the entire state government matrix will feel the same way. The budget process will be complicated over the next few weeks. Many interests are impacted. Many cases will be made. Hard decisions have to be made. The overall health of the state is paramount. Other states are experiencing similar situations. The arts in Massachusetts are facing a proposed 48% cut; Kansas a 50% cut, and Arizona a 55% cut. Doubtless there will be others. This isn't anyone's fault. I know people will be outraged, angry, disappointed, even depressed. We must get past the shock - not give way to whining, complaining, or shouting, but think clearly, work together, approach the problem reasonably and constructively, and get down to business to find a solution that leaves us in the best possible place given the circumstances. Your voice needs to be heard to make that case. With concerted effort and sticking together, we will weather this storm too. I promise you that I will do everything I can to protect the investment in the arts made over the past six years. Help me. Think, then act, and whatever you do, Don't Quit! Barry barry at caartscouncil.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcus at designerglass.com Wed May 15 23:05:54 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 23:05:54 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again In-Reply-To: References: <3CE274C6.11420.12C0376@localhost> Message-ID: <3CE2E9D2.6346.43B53B@localhost> > > It was not that "free verse" was born before the sonnet or any other > > form -- you can't be "free" without there being a knowledge and > > awareness of constraints. Gwyn: > Come on, Marcus, do you really believe that nobody was "free" to take an > alcoholic drink in the US before Prohibition, Part I? There are two kinds of political systems, broadly speaking: those under which everything not expressly forbidden is permitted, and those under which everything not expressly allowed is forbidden. Fortunately, we live under one of the former. But political freedoms, such as whether alcohol is legal or not, is different from the kind of thing Sandburg (Sandburg! good lord -- could anyone have found a less authoritative authority?) was talking about: aesthetics. The notion Sandburg puts forward, that "free verse" existed before "formal verse" is simply a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument, to the extent that it's an argument at all. It's like saying that Newton didn't come up with Newtonian mechanics, he came up with pre- Einsteinian mechanics -- or like finding a coin marked "50 BCE". Nothing like "free verse" came first -- or *could* have come first -- because you can't have "BCE" stamped on your coins before there is a "Common Era" or the need to call it a common era. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Thu May 16 00:39:01 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 23:39:01 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] fiat lux I & II Message-ID: <200205160438.g4G4cMQ28172@mx7.mx.voyager.net> I've heard Lux read, but it was 20 years or more back, and I'm sure any misanthropy he displayed was hard to see through my own. (I'm much nicer now.) Back then I thought he was a little too thin & glib, as I recall, and my re-reading of his earlier poems confirms that impression a bit. But his newer poems I often like a good deal. In any case, I am puzzled when you say that "Plague Victims..." is misanthropic. I don't see it that way at all--but rather as David Walker did in his review, as an oddly charming bit of black comedy, very much in the Charles Simic vein. For those of you just tuning in, here it is again: Plague Victims Catapulted Over Walls into Besieged City Early germ warfare. The dead hurled this way like wheels in the sky. Look: there goes Larry the Shoemaker, barefoot, over the wall, and Mary Sausage Stuffer, see how she flies, and the Hatter twins, both at once, soar over the parapet, little Tommy's elbow bent as if in a salute, and his sister, Mathilde, she follows him, arms outstretched, through the air, just as she did on earth. - -Thomas Lux _______________ About the other concern, that Lux's poems lack feeling, well, I don't know exactly what that means. He's certainly not a wear-it-on-his-sleeve guy, no. But neither are many poets I admire--Elizabeth Bishop, for one. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== ---------- >From: DICK at watson.ibm.com >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: [New-Poetry] fiat lux I & II >Date: Wed, May 15, 2002, 11:17 AM > >Lux II contain many interestingly observed and described >events, and the language is skillful, but it's not clear >what feeling, if any, is being communicated. Why did he >write the poems? They seem to be in response to assignments, >"write a poem describing driving along a river," "write a >poem describing sounds." > >Lux I, about plague-dead bodies being flung into the city >under siege, seems to want to describe the depths of evil >that humans are capable of, which is consistent with the >feeling I have that Lux has a serious streak of misanthropy. >This comes across in his readings, if you've ever heard him. > >Richard >_______________________________________________ From JforJames at aol.com Thu May 16 09:09:29 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 09:09:29 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Shahid broadside Message-ID: X-From_: wcooper at sover.net Wed May 15 11:04:22 2002 In February of this year, in order to help celebrate the life and poetry of our dear friend Agha Shahid Ali, Shawna Parker and I designed and printed a letterpress broadside of Shahid's poem "Stationery." We wanted the broadside to have some connection to Shahid's roots, so we used deep blue lokta paper, which is handmade in the Himalayas. It contains specks of mica from the water there. We used gold ink, with the hope that the resulting broadside would look like something Shahid would have worn. Instead of making a large broadside, we decided to make this one the size of stationery-it measures 8 x 11 inches. We printed about 190 copies, of which about 100 are left. We are donating all profits to cancer research. The broadsides can be purchased at Atticus Books in Amherst, or by mailing a check (made out to Wyn Cooper) for $25 to Wyn Cooper, 45 Metcalf Lane, Brattleboro, VT 05301. STATIONERY The moon did not become the sun. It just fell on the desert in great sheets, reams of silver handmade by you. The night is your cottage industry now, the day is your brisk emporium. The world is full of paper. Write to me. --Agha Shahid Ali From marcus at designerglass.com Thu May 16 12:38:24 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 12:38:24 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] May Poems In-Reply-To: <200205160438.g4G4cMQ28172@mx7.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3CE3A840.10267.4A6E31@localhost> Once more into my arid days like dew Edna St. Vincent Millay Once more into my arid days like dew Like wind from an oasis, or the sound Of cold sweet water bubbling underground, A treacherous messenger--the thought of you Comes to destroy me; once more I renew Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found Long since to be but just one other mound Of sand whereon no green thing ever grew. And once again, and wiser is not wise, I chase your colored phantom on the air, And sob and curse and fall and weep and rise And stumble pitifully on to where, Miserable and lost, with stinging eyes, Once more I clasp--and there is nothing there. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From JforJames at aol.com Thu May 16 15:21:04 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 15:21:04 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Subject: poets and war resistance Message-ID: <16e.dbbcfdd.2a1560a0@aol.com> From: pmetres [mailto:pmetres at JCU.EDU] Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 2:50 PM Subject: poets and war resistance Fellow poets, I am currently engaged in a research project concerned with tracking the interactions between American poets and the peace movement; how poets = worked in activism and through symbolic actions (poetry and other = language-actions) in resisting war and forging a vision of peace. Background (I wrote my dissertation on American poets and war resistance from 1940 = to the present; some of the people who figured prominently were: Robert Lowell, William Stafford, Jackson Mac Low, and William Everson (WWII); Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, Daniel Berrigan, Robert Bly and John Balaban = (among others during the Vietnam War era); and more recent living poets = including June Jordan, Barrett Watten, and others (Persian Gulf War)--many = mainstream poets, some experimental--but all participating in the project of war resistance. The Call In particular, I am asking for poems that were written on/during/ the = Persian Gulf War and a short prose commentary (from the sender) regarding how = those poems/symbolic actions/language events were implemented as part of war resistance. I am interested in details regarding public spheres in = which these pieces were occurring, the response to them, and reflections on = the efficacy of such actions against other modes of "political activism." = These will form, at the very least, a mini-archive of possible poetry actions = for the future (perhaps to be published online, perhaps on paper--to be determined). I thank you in advance for your poems/commentaries. If there are other = lists that may also have poets interested in participating, feel free to let = me know or post this message directly to them. Please send your poems offlist = to me, Phil Metres at pmetres at jcu.edu "Don't use such an expression as 'dim lands of peace.' It dulls the = image" (Ezra Pound) From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Thu May 16 15:28:55 2002 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 14:28:55 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry and War Message-ID: A poet friend of mine named John Gery, who teaches at U of New Orleans, wrote a series of anti-Gulf War poems that helped him win an NEA grant. You might write to him at UNO. Here's my own--much broader--poem on the subject, from Walking Backward. Paul Lake PIECES The queen moves with unbounded liberty. Slant-eyed, a bishop offers up a prayer. A horse-faced gallant full of chivalry Enters the family trade, an officer. A rook, high as a silo, lets fire fall, Then ends its run behind a remnant pawn. The king strolls past his garden?s rose-grown wall To issue statements from the castle lawn. Only the pawns, bald-domed as army ants, Urged to the common good by stripes and prayers, Regard the board, cursed with their consciousness Of all the horror of those empty squares. From Thom424 at aol.com Thu May 16 15:58:43 2002 From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 15:58:43 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Subject: poets and war resistance Message-ID: <7B5DA469.249F33D6.001A46F6@aol.com> See: _After the Storm: Poems On the Persian Gulf War_. Eds. Jay Meek and F. D. Reeve. Washington, DC: Maisonneuve Press, 1992. Thom Tammaro Moorhead, MN 56560 From DICK at watson.ibm.com Thu May 16 17:48:20 2002 From: DICK at watson.ibm.com (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Thu, 16 May 02 17:48:20 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] ut Lux non erat Message-ID: <200205162150.g4GLoDk22990@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> David Graham wrote: >>In any case, I am puzzled when you say that "Plague Victims..." is >>misanthropic. I don't see it that way at all--but rather as David Walker >>did in his review, as an oddly charming bit of black comedy, very much in >>the Charles Simic vein. For those of you just tuning in, here it is again: >> >>Plague Victims Catapulted Over Walls into Besieged City >> >>Early germ >>warfare. The dead >>hurled this way like wheels >>in the sky. Look: there goes >>Larry the Shoemaker, barefoot, over the wall, >>and Mary Sausage Stuffer, see how she flies, >>and the Hatter twins, both at once, soar >>over the parapet, little Tommy's elbow bent >>as if in a salute, >>and his sister, Mathilde, she follows him, >>arms outstretched, through the air, >>just as she did >>on earth. >>- -Thomas Lux The bodies of twin children, dead from plague, being flung among citizens to kill more of them with plague, "charming" and comedic, even "oddly" or blackly? I'm amazed. I'm stupefied. I don't share your, or David Walker's, opinion. And surely you aren't ranking Lux anywhere in the same universe with Elizabeth Bishop. Richard From DICK at watson.ibm.com Thu May 16 17:56:46 2002 From: DICK at watson.ibm.com (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Thu, 16 May 02 17:56:46 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] bad poems Message-ID: <200205162209.g4GM9Yk19166@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> A while ago there was some discussion about what's worse, a bad free verse poem or a bad rhymed and metered poem - not a compelling question, sort of like would you prefer spoiled milk or spoiled wine. What bothers me much more is an otherwise good poem that's spoiled, for me, when I sense that some of it was put in to satisfy the rhyme and meter, at the expense of the integrity of the poem. For instance, Paul Lake's recent post: >> PIECES >> >> >>The queen moves with unbounded liberty. >>Slant-eyed, a bishop offers up a prayer. >>A horse-faced gallant full of chivalry >>Enters the family trade, an officer. >> >>A rook, high as a silo, lets fire fall, >>Then ends its run behind a remnant pawn. >>The king strolls past his garden s rose-grown wall >>To issue statements from the castle lawn. >> >>Only the pawns, bald-domed as army ants, >>Urged to the common good by stripes and prayers, >>Regard the board, cursed with their consciousness >>Of all the horror of those empty squares. I love the first stanza, up to but not quite including "officer." I think, without having to rhyme, Paul would have found a better word, although it's only a small problem. The last 2 lines of the 2nd stanza are soaking with the sweat to fit the form. "rose-grown" and "castle lawn" are inconsistent with the rest of the battlefield images. It doesn't fit to have the king at home, since, in chess, he's right in it, like it or not. The last stanza is perfect: this is what war is all about. I think this is more than a good poem; it is a very good poem. Richard From JforJames at aol.com Thu May 16 18:47:56 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 18:47:56 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Assay Test for Poetry Message-ID: <145.e985943.2a15911c@aol.com> Assay Test for Poetry: If Poem Doesn't Register A Score of 10 or More, Look Up the Word "Discernment" & Then Throw It Away? The Tier of "Material"? I. Content / Subject Matter Nonexistent / Insignificant 0 ____ A Small Matter / Quotidian 1 ____ Complex / Serious 2 ____ Universal or Unwieldy Subject 3 ____ II. Meaning / Intelligibility Devoid of Meaning / Opaque 0 ____ Ambiguous / Vague 1 ____ Difficult, But Not Beyond Ken 2 ____ Crystalline / Profound 3 ____ III. Imagery Washed Out / Overly Abstract 0 ____ Well-Rendered but Generic 1 ____ Unusual / Well-Seen 2 ____ Visionary / Unique / Transcendent 3 ____ The Tier of "Manner"? IV. Music Tinny / Arhythmic 0 ____ Very Subtle / Lilting 1 ____ Complementary / Captivating 2 ____ Orchestral / Ravishing 3 ____ V. Language Utilitarian Prose 0 ____ Shapely / Elevated Prose 1 ____ Extraordinary / Inventive 2 ____ Supreme / Innovative 3 ____ VI. Perspective Obvious / Conventional 0 ____ Generally Straightforward 1 ____ Oblique / Exploratory 2 ____ Enlightened / Revolutionary 3 ____ Total: ______ (Note: Poem cannot get to '10', even with a perfect score in one tier, unless it pulls down at least 1 point from the other tier.) SCORING SYSTEM: 0-4 Give up now; accounting is a fine trade too 5-8 Beginner/remedial coursework required 9-10 Find a master with whom to study. 11-13 Publishable but perishable 14-15 Anthology fodder 16-17 Encamped below the peak, you prepare for a final sortie to the summit. 18 Hangin' w/ the Parnassus Posse Finnegan From bardo at optonline.net Thu May 16 19:27:03 2002 From: bardo at optonline.net (Daniel Zimmerman) Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 19:27:03 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] bad poems References: <200205162209.g4GM9Yk19166@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: <000701c1fd31$2fa127c0$c1a1bf18@danielzi> Richard, It sounds to me like Paul refers to 'castling' the king to protect the piece, giving the king a probably exaggerated sense of security--enough to 'stroll' PAST his garden wall and 'issue orders'--an image of genteel arrogance of power. If the lines sound artificial, perhaps they reflect they strain and irrelevance of regal pomposity. Dan ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 5:56 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] bad poems A while ago there was some discussion about what's worse, a bad free verse poem or a bad rhymed and metered poem - not a compelling question, sort of like would you prefer spoiled milk or spoiled wine. What bothers me much more is an otherwise good poem that's spoiled, for me, when I sense that some of it was put in to satisfy the rhyme and meter, at the expense of the integrity of the poem. For instance, Paul Lake's recent post: >> PIECES >> >> >>The queen moves with unbounded liberty. >>Slant-eyed, a bishop offers up a prayer. >>A horse-faced gallant full of chivalry >>Enters the family trade, an officer. >> >>A rook, high as a silo, lets fire fall, >>Then ends its run behind a remnant pawn. >>The king strolls past his garden s rose-grown wall >>To issue statements from the castle lawn. >> >>Only the pawns, bald-domed as army ants, >>Urged to the common good by stripes and prayers, >>Regard the board, cursed with their consciousness >>Of all the horror of those empty squares. I love the first stanza, up to but not quite including "officer." I think, without having to rhyme, Paul would have found a better word, although it's only a small problem. The last 2 lines of the 2nd stanza are soaking with the sweat to fit the form. "rose-grown" and "castle lawn" are inconsistent with the rest of the battlefield images. It doesn't fit to have the king at home, since, in chess, he's right in it, like it or not. The last stanza is perfect: this is what war is all about. I think this is more than a good poem; it is a very good poem. Richard _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From JforJames at aol.com Thu May 16 22:39:10 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 22:39:10 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again Message-ID: <197.7133699.2a15c74e@aol.com> In a message dated 5/15/2002 2:48:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, marcus at designerglass.com writes: << rguments against free verse are old. They are not, however, as old > as free verse itself. When primitive and prehistoric man first spoke with > cadence or color, making either musical meaning or melodic nonsense worth > keeping and repeating for its definite and intrinsic values, then free > verse was born, ages before the sonnet, the ballad, the verse forms > wherein the writer or singer must be acutely conscious, even exquisitely > aware, of how many syllables are to be arithmetically numbered per line." This is like claiming that because you have doubted personally what life is all about before you take any philosophy that you've put Descartes before the course. It's simply not the case. It was not that "free verse" was born before the sonnet or any other form -- you can't be "free" without there being a knowledge and awareness of constraints. What the cave-poets were doing was inventing verse, not inventing "free verse". >> Marcus, are you being purposefully obtuse? He's obviously suggesting that formal poetry, being a "more organized" form of speech, followed a freer, less organized form of speech which was nonetheless poetic. No knowledge of the forms that would eventually hold sway could have been dreamt when the first makers made poems...so there was nothing for the early ungoverned tongues to resist. You could argue that they found their true course in forms like the sonnet...but is a sonnet some kind of true form in the Platonic sense? Finnegan From marcus at designerglass.com Thu May 16 22:57:19 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 22:57:19 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] bad poems In-Reply-To: <200205162209.g4GM9Yk19166@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: <3CE4394F.16673.2EE40E@localhost> > A while ago there was some discussion about what's worse, > a bad free verse poem or a bad rhymed and metered poem - > not a compelling question, sort of like would you prefer > spoiled milk or spoiled wine. This reflects, it seems to me, a lack of attention at least: the issue wasn't which would be worse, but whether ... oh, never mind. > >>The queen moves with unbounded liberty. > >>Slant-eyed, a bishop offers up a prayer. > >>A horse-faced gallant full of chivalry > >>Enters the family trade, an officer. > I love the first stanza, up to but not quite including > "officer." I think, without having to rhyme, Paul > would have found a better word, although it's only a > small problem. I thought the first stanza was weak -- the "unbounded liberty" phrase rummages around among its feet looking for a rhythm and the subsequent descriptions of the bishop and knight struggle to stay in the same rhetorical form (the queen this, the bishop that, the knight something else). I agree about the word "officer" -- but I want to note that the rhyme isn't even worth stretching to get. And neither is the liberty/chivalry one. The whole first stanza suffers, it seems to me, from something similar to what in the screen-writing business is called "Henchman Dialog": the labored and painful scenes where the henchman and the evil overlord tell one another things they each already know in order to fill the audience in on the circumstances leading up to the situation in which they find themselves. This is "Henchman Narrative" -- the writer telling us nothing much by way of scene-setting. > >>A rook, high as a silo, lets fire fall, > >>Then ends its run behind a remnant pawn. > >>The king strolls past his garden's rose-grown wall > >>To issue statements from the castle lawn. > The last 2 lines of the 2nd stanza are soaking with the > sweat to fit the form. "rose-grown" and "castle lawn" > are inconsistent with the rest of the battlefield images. > It doesn't fit to have the king at home, since, in chess, > he's right in it, like it or not. Well, not until the end-game if one is skillful or lucky. I think it might be interesting to start the poem off with the king and then re-describe the pieces in action terms more appropriate to their importance in the game. The ironic tone of voice used to describe their putative exploits contrasts badly, it seems to me, with the actual force with which such pieces move and sit. The first two lines seem to me to be weak. A rook (the castle) "high as a silo"? What an agrarian image to compare the castle tower to a silo! This is more of the sort of contemporary urban irony that undercuts the poem. If the pieces are ironically silos and passive prayers and full of shi... chivalry and the like, that notion eviscerates the idea pursued in the last stanza, and makes the empty squares not a horror at all, but rather empty merely -- for there is no danger there where the bishops only pray and all that is heard of the knight is the sound of his departing horse. > The last stanza is perfect: this is what war is all about. > >>Only the pawns, bald-domed as army ants, > >>Urged to the common good by stripes and prayers, > >>Regard the board, cursed with their consciousness > >>Of all the horror of those empty squares. This is very good all by itself; it doesn't need the labored set-up of the rest of the poem, it seems to me. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From marcus at designerglass.com Thu May 16 23:07:10 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 23:07:10 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again In-Reply-To: <197.7133699.2a15c74e@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CE43B9E.29853.37E93D@localhost> > Finnegan > [Sandburg's] obviously suggesting > that formal poetry, being a "more organized" form of speech, followed a > freer, less organized form of speech which was nonetheless > poetic. < And that's clearly an entirely different notion than that the cave- people invented "free verse" in anything resembling the sense we use the term. What Sandburg is doing is called "equivocation" -- he is using the same term, "free verse" in this case, in two different senses at the same time and hoping no one will catch him at it. Certainly there is a sense in which "free verse" is, as you say, verse that is not YET formal -- but that is an entirely different sense than that in which we commonly use the phrase, to mean verse that objects to being confined by forms. Sandburg is cheating, here -- using a logical fallacy to try to make his argument. It's a bad argument. > No knowledge of the forms that would eventually hold sway could have been > dreamt when the first makers made poems...so there was nothing for the > early ungoverned tongues to resist. << This is, of course, exactly what I am pointing out: there was no "free verse" in cave-people times in the sense that we use it now -- and that's why Sandburg is equivocating by using the same term to mean two different things. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From Serbpoet at aol.com Wed May 15 19:46:30 2002 From: Serbpoet at aol.com (Serbpoet at aol.com) Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 19:46:30 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse again Message-ID: <115.118ebf23.2a144d56@aol.com> Jeff N.: "Do you draw a distinction between free verse and open form?" Free verse is when the poet does not want to becomefrich off of his and her verse. They can give it away for free. But it is not open if there are unequalities. For example, indeed, the women have to shave there legs and armpit areas as unlike the men. Why not? Poetry is the same, but very different. There should be no difference based on the sex of somebody in poetry contests. Everybody can win the same money so this is not free verse. But and yet it can be open verse at the same time. Unlike saying that everybody has to shave it, (armpit and legs areas) as a womans poet. However the more famous you can be, you don't want to give your verse for free unless you are too open about it. Then what is the good of becoming famous for your verse? Anna From alphavil at ix.netcom.com Fri May 17 10:45:02 2002 From: alphavil at ix.netcom.com (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 10:45:02 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again References: <3CE43B9E.29853.37E93D@localhost> Message-ID: <3CE5176E.1402DC1B@ix.netcom.com> Staying focussed on the Sandburg quote I would have to agree with Marcus Bales' rejoinder on this one if only because any critical assessment of Sandburg's ubiquitous statement cries out for the kind of literal disassemblage congenial to Marcus's approach to poetry. Once when I was still on the Buffalo poetics list, the mathematician, Judy Roitman, in an attempt to convince me a of the fundamental efficacy of Language poetry insisted that Language poetry had been around for more than a hundred years. She claimed that Gerard Manley Hopkins was a Language poet as well as the Dadaists in general, Khlebnikov, Stein, of course, etc. If she had said precursor's that would have helped though not at all with Hopkins. But the attempt at appropriation was clear, as clear as in Sandburg. There are some good pieces on the origins of free verse online. Soon afterword I was gratefully thrown off of the Buffalo list. CP Marcus Bales wrote: > > Finnegan > > [Sandburg's] obviously suggesting > > that formal poetry, being a "more organized" form of speech, followed a > > freer, less organized form of speech which was nonetheless > > poetic. < > > And that's clearly an entirely different notion than that the cave- > people invented "free verse" in anything resembling the sense we > use the term. > > What Sandburg is doing is called "equivocation" -- he is using the > same term, "free verse" in this case, in two different senses at the > same time and hoping no one will catch him at it. > > Certainly there is a sense in which "free verse" is, as you say, > verse that is not YET formal -- but that is an entirely different sense > than that in which we commonly use the phrase, to mean verse > that objects to being confined by forms. Sandburg is cheating, > here -- using a logical fallacy to try to make his argument. It's a > bad argument. > > > No knowledge of the forms that would eventually hold sway could have been > > dreamt when the first makers made poems...so there was nothing for the > > early ungoverned tongues to resist. << > > This is, of course, exactly what I am pointing out: there was no > "free verse" in cave-people times in the sense that we use it now -- > and that's why Sandburg is equivocating by using the same term to > mean two different things. > > Marcus Bales > > marcus at designerglass.com > http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com Fri May 17 10:47:46 2002 From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton) Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 15:47:46 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse again References: <115.118ebf23.2a144d56@aol.com> Message-ID: <022201c1fdb3$545deee0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> In a grumpy mood. I'm not absolutely sure I can +believe+ this ... > Jeff N.: "Do you draw a distinction between free verse and open form?" The +first+ distinction between Open Form and Closed Form WAY predates free verse. Open Form is couplets, terza rima, blank verse ... There's no closure built into the form. Closed Form is sonnets, sestinas, villanelles -- when you start, you know when you're going to finish. The second sense of Open Form is WCW to (the definition in Olsen's "Projective Verse") and -- the archetypical example -- Robert Duncan. THIS (modern) version of Open Form was played out AGAINST free verse. "Free verse" arrived in about 1910 as a revolt (Pound) against the tyranny of the iamb. Open Form (version 2) arrived MUCH later (and as a specifically American term) with Olsen, trying to carve a niche WITHIN free verse. Back to lurking. Robin Hamilton > Free verse is when the poet does not want to becomefrich off of his and her > verse. They can give it away for free. But it is not open if there are > unequalities. For example, indeed, the women have to shave there legs and > armpit areas as unlike the men. Why not? Poetry is the same, but very > different. There should be no difference based on the sex of somebody in > poetry contests. Everybody can win the same money so this is not free verse. > But and yet it can be open verse at the same time. Unlike saying that > everybody has to shave it, (armpit and legs areas) as a womans poet. However > the more famous you can be, you don't want to give your verse for free unless > you are too open about it. Then what is the good of becoming famous for your > verse? > > Anna > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From alphavil at ix.netcom.com Fri May 17 11:05:50 2002 From: alphavil at ix.netcom.com (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 11:05:50 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again References: <3CE43B9E.29853.37E93D@localhost> <3CE5176E.1402DC1B@ix.netcom.com> Message-ID: <3CE51C4E.3B2FDB9D@ix.netcom.com> On second thought, "ubiquitous" does not fit in the Sandburg instance nearly as well as what Adorno calls "ahistorical rationalism" e.g. applying the magical ability of mathematical commutability to historicity; to the arrow of time. Sandburg would have been unaware of such influence, an example of poetry's reduced and servile status in light of our dominant epistemologies. CP "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" wrote: > Staying focussed on the Sandburg quote I would have to agree with Marcus Bales' > rejoinder on this one if only because any critical assessment of Sandburg's > ubiquitous statement cries out for the kind of literal disassemblage congenial > to Marcus's approach to poetry. > > Once when I was still on the Buffalo poetics list, the mathematician, Judy > Roitman, in an attempt to convince me a of the fundamental efficacy of Language > poetry insisted that Language poetry had been around for more than a hundred > years. She claimed that Gerard Manley Hopkins was a Language poet as well as > the Dadaists in general, Khlebnikov, Stein, of course, etc. If she had said > precursor's that would have helped though not at all with Hopkins. But the > attempt at appropriation was clear, as clear as in Sandburg. > > There are some good pieces on the origins of free verse online. > > Soon afterword I was gratefully thrown off of the Buffalo list. CP > > Marcus Bales wrote: > > > > Finnegan > > > [Sandburg's] obviously suggesting > > > that formal poetry, being a "more organized" form of speech, followed a > > > freer, less organized form of speech which was nonetheless > > > poetic. < > > > > And that's clearly an entirely different notion than that the cave- > > people invented "free verse" in anything resembling the sense we > > use the term. > > > > What Sandburg is doing is called "equivocation" -- he is using the > > same term, "free verse" in this case, in two different senses at the > > same time and hoping no one will catch him at it. > > > > Certainly there is a sense in which "free verse" is, as you say, > > verse that is not YET formal -- but that is an entirely different sense > > than that in which we commonly use the phrase, to mean verse > > that objects to being confined by forms. Sandburg is cheating, > > here -- using a logical fallacy to try to make his argument. It's a > > bad argument. > > > > > No knowledge of the forms that would eventually hold sway could have been > > > dreamt when the first makers made poems...so there was nothing for the > > > early ungoverned tongues to resist. << > > > > This is, of course, exactly what I am pointing out: there was no > > "free verse" in cave-people times in the sense that we use it now -- > > and that's why Sandburg is equivocating by using the same term to > > mean two different things. > > > > Marcus Bales > > > > marcus at designerglass.com > > http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 marcus at designerglass.com Fri May 17 11:46:22 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 11:46:22 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again In-Reply-To: <3CE51C4E.3B2FDB9D@ix.netcom.com> Message-ID: <3CE4ED8E.10708.270CCA@localhost> C.Parcelli" wrote: > On second thought, "ubiquitous" does not fit in the Sandburg instance nearly as > well as what Adorno calls "ahistorical rationalism" e.g. applying the magical > ability of mathematical commutability to historicity; to the arrow of time. > Sandburg would have been unaware of such influence, an example of poetry's reduced > and servile status in light of our dominant epistemologies. CP Sandburg's claim seems clearly one of deliberately attempted appropriation rather than of mistaken historicity. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From alphavil at ix.netcom.com Fri May 17 11:48:54 2002 From: alphavil at ix.netcom.com (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 11:48:54 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again References: <3CE4ED8E.10708.270CCA@localhost> Message-ID: <3CE52666.85F06809@ix.netcom.com> Not "mistaken historicity" but a lack of any historicity at all. Again, the unconscious borrowing from the dominant, one might say to extend Adorno and Horkheimer, oppressive epistemologies. What is poetry now if not oppressed and, because of its lack of understanding of its current historical situation, oppressive. Sandburg's statement is a clumsy attempt at hermeneutical time travel, a fictive condition borrowed entirely without any awareness on S.'s part from the sciences. He is not alone. Our whole cultural syntax responds as though it were constructed entirely of tachyons. This is not just uncritical but dangerous. The trees around here in Washington have a sense of urgency about them. CP Marcus Bales wrote: > C.Parcelli" wrote: > > On second thought, "ubiquitous" does not fit in the Sandburg instance nearly as > > well as what Adorno calls "ahistorical rationalism" e.g. applying the magical > > ability of mathematical commutability to historicity; to the arrow of time. > > Sandburg would have been unaware of such influence, an example of poetry's reduced > > and servile status in light of our dominant epistemologies. CP > > Sandburg's claim seems clearly one of deliberately attempted > appropriation rather than of mistaken historicity. > > Marcus Bales > > marcus at designerglass.com > http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From marcus at designerglass.com Fri May 17 13:46:30 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 13:46:30 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again In-Reply-To: <3CE52666.85F06809@ix.netcom.com> Message-ID: <3CE509B6.26806.950E77@localhost> > Marcus Bales wrote: > > Sandburg's claim seems clearly one of deliberately attempted > > appropriation rather than of mistaken historicity. > Not "mistaken historicity" but a lack of any historicity at all.<< Well, it seems to me that the tone of the Sandburg quote is so deliberately an attempt at appropriation that I don't see a lack of historicity. Further, the attempt is a bad argument based on a logical fallacy. This isn't a matter of ignorance on Sandburg's part but of policy, it seems to me -- he is trying to make far far too large a claim -- not only is he using the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but it is, I think, also an example of the fallacy of special pleading. Sandburg was a free verse poet, and was trying to justify his practice. It seems less a matter of ignorance and more a matter of a deliberate attempt to equivocate in the service of special pleading. > ... What is poetry now if not oppressed and, because of its lack of > understanding of its current historical situation, oppressive.< I don't understand why you say poetry is oppressed. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Fri May 17 13:42:39 2002 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 12:42:39 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] bad poems In-Reply-To: <200205162209.g4GM9Yk19166@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: on 5/16/02 4:56 PM, DICK at watson.ibm.com at DICK at watson.ibm.com wrote: > A while ago there was some discussion about what's worse, > a bad free verse poem or a bad rhymed and metered poem - > not a compelling question, sort of like would you prefer > spoiled milk or spoiled wine. > > What bothers me much more is an otherwise good poem that's > spoiled, for me, when I sense that some of it was put in > to satisfy the rhyme and meter, at the expense of the > integrity of the poem. For instance, Paul Lake's recent post: > >>> PIECES >>> >>> >>> The queen moves with unbounded liberty. >>> Slant-eyed, a bishop offers up a prayer. >>> A horse-faced gallant full of chivalry >>> Enters the family trade, an officer. >>> >>> A rook, high as a silo, lets fire fall, >>> Then ends its run behind a remnant pawn. >>> The king strolls past his garden s rose-grown wall >>> To issue statements from the castle lawn. >>> >>> Only the pawns, bald-domed as army ants, >>> Urged to the common good by stripes and prayers, >>> Regard the board, cursed with their consciousness >>> Of all the horror of those empty squares. > > I love the first stanza, up to but not quite including > "officer." I think, without having to rhyme, Paul > would have found a better word, although it's only a > small problem. > > The last 2 lines of the 2nd stanza are soaking with the > sweat to fit the form. "rose-grown" and "castle lawn" > are inconsistent with the rest of the battlefield images. > It doesn't fit to have the king at home, since, in chess, > he's right in it, like it or not. > > The last stanza is perfect: this is what war is all about. > > I think this is more than a good poem; it is a very good poem. > > Richard > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > Thanks, Richard. One quibble,though. When a king is "castled," he's taken refuge in a privileged way unavailable to other pieces. And the "rose grown" and "castle lawn" are allusion to the American President, in his rose garden or issuing statements from the White House lawn. Glad you liked the poem. Paul From alphavil at ix.netcom.com Fri May 17 14:56:41 2002 From: alphavil at ix.netcom.com (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 14:56:41 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again References: <3CE509B6.26806.950E77@localhost> Message-ID: <3CE55268.4F061FCF@ix.netcom.com> Its one thing to claim that Sandburg simply had an agenda and quite another to describe the epistemological roots of that agenda which actaully might be interesting. If one was to, say, make claims for the Second Law of Thermodynamics it would be one thing to ground his/her taxonomy in 18th, 19th and 20th century physics. But if one were to claim that the Sumerians had evidence of thermodynamics, one is on shaky ground. At the very least he or she does the Sumerians a great disservice and the metaphorical isomorphicisms required to establish a comparison become very quickly silly. See Feyerabend, Koyre, Aage Petersen, Russell Hanson ad nauseam. The chauvinism is apparent though not popular among the oppressors. This is utterly demonstrable in U.S. foreign policy as expressed in Game Theory where your opponent much be rendered as much like the game theorist as possible and all cultural differences must be mathematically scraped away. See the Nitze image in my Tale of the Tribe as well as section on Game Theory, Thermodynmics, Chess and the Invasion of Vietnam in the same poem. "Nitze feels Ivan's paw test the knot of his tie." So to make claims for the inviolable historicity of the Second Law, is like making claims for 'free verse' among the Sumerians. The claims of the 'timelessness' of the Second Law must come from elsewhere (not history) and, as we all know, that elsewhere, is mathematical quantification which requires commutativity e.g. the reduction of time to the non-temporal or quantified. Poetry now labors under these ubiquitous cultural doctrines. You yourself have argued in support of the difference/superiority of such assumptions, and quite uncritically I might add. Thus poetry is oppressed and, in turn, by being so hermeneutically pigeonholed produces work that is oppressive because it demonstrates no epistemological courage even in the face of dire ethical realities arising from near eschatological conditions. So Sandburg unlike Heidegger for example is an unwitting dupe to the dominant epistemology---a victim. In Being and Time and elsewhere Heidegger uses philology as an historical grounding demonstrating that term and concepts alter over time. Thus the Logical Positivists, the philosophical movement most congenial to the myopia of the sciences, despised Heidegger as being too metaphysical when Heidegger was far more historically/philologically grounded than they were. As far as poetry being oppressed, your own posts are far more informative on that matter than mine. There are more to words than the words. CP > > Marcus Bales wrote: > > > Sandburg's claim seems clearly one of deliberately attempted > > > appropriation rather than of mistaken historicity. > > > Not "mistaken historicity" but a lack of any historicity at all.<< > > Well, it seems to me that the tone of the Sandburg quote is so > deliberately an attempt at appropriation that I don't see a lack of > historicity. > > Further, the attempt is a bad argument based on a logical fallacy. > This isn't a matter of ignorance on Sandburg's part but of policy, it > seems to me -- he is trying to make far far too large a claim -- not > only is he using the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but it is, I > think, also an example of the fallacy of special pleading. Sandburg > was a free verse poet, and was trying to justify his practice. It > seems less a matter of ignorance and more a matter of a deliberate > attempt to equivocate in the service of special pleading. > > > ... What is poetry now if not oppressed and, because of its lack of > > understanding of its current historical situation, oppressive.< > > I don't understand why you say poetry is oppressed. > > Marcus Bales > > marcus at designerglass.com > http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Fri May 17 17:12:35 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 16:12:35 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: ut Lux non erat Message-ID: <200205172111.g4HLBtr55438@mx5.mx.voyager.net> Richard, no I don't put Lux in Bishop's class--I was responding to your sentiment that his work seems to lack emotional fireworks. Seems to me one can be a good poet while also being a bit reserved in that department, and Bishop is a good example, isn't she? As for the tone of the plague poem, well, I don't think it's the subject that's charming, but the treatment. Lux comes at these historical enormities with a nearly childish, folk-tale innocence, with at least a couple layers of irony. Isn't is what black humor traditionally does: uses absurdist comedy as a way of thinking about the unthinkable, etc.? But I'm not out to convert you to my opinion. With tonal matters, that's really tilting at windmills. Thanks for taking a look at Lux, anyway. Always happy to see actual poems pondered on this list! David Graham >The bodies of twin children, dead from plague, being flung >among citizens to kill more of them with plague, "charming" >and comedic, even "oddly" or blackly? > >I'm amazed. I'm stupefied. >I don't share your, or David Walker's, opinion. > >And surely you aren't ranking Lux anywhere in the same universe >with Elizabeth Bishop. > >Richard ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From Serbiapoet at aol.com Fri May 17 21:28:56 2002 From: Serbiapoet at aol.com (Serbiapoet at aol.com) Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 21:28:56 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse again Message-ID: <112.11a838a4.2a170858@aol.com> J or James had blackedballs me from the New Listeners. Please save me because of my spelling and hurricane yarns are not my fault. Or else I can change names. However, but I probably will probably be blackedballs again when James finds this out that I am Serbiapoet at this juncture. I agree there, that it is not enough talk about poetries on this list because everey vesre should be free. It should not cost to much, and also according to somebodies gender. Why do only women only have to shave theier legs areas and armpits areas? Write to James and tell him not to please not blackedballs me again. He is the boss I think. If he says it, it goes like that. Probably, goodbye. Anna From Serbiapoet at aol.com Fri May 17 21:44:35 2002 From: Serbiapoet at aol.com (Serbiapoet at aol.com) Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 21:44:35 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] etc. Message-ID: <190.72ed0b9.2a170c03@aol.com> J or James had blackedballs Serbpoet in secristy. So I had had to become serbiapoet. That is a long story about James. Littl by more and more however I am getting better inside myself. Now I am serbiapoet. That is not my real name. It is only when I become Mrs. Very Sad. So James said I am not to be trusted. That is why james lives so close to Jesus. Please save me from BLAckEDBALLSING me!!!!! Anna From gmcvay at patriot.net Sat May 18 01:05:40 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 01:05:40 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] bad poems References: Message-ID: <3CE5E10B.594A62EE@patriot.net> Paul, I liked the poem as well, although I agree that the "silo" seems way too agrarian for the austerity of the poem as a whole. I did like the rook being "high" as something, as I thought of the European bird before the chess piece. (It's an Audubon Society bias...) "Issue statements," although an obvious reference to the American presidency, also seems too contemporary a phrasing for the quasi-medieval world of the chess pieces. I think of a king as proclaiming, more than issuing. Those quibbles aside, it's in the category of "damn good." I like the rhythm of "ENters the FAMily TRADE, an OFF-i-CER." Gwyn From marcus at designerglass.com Sat May 18 06:20:49 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 06:20:49 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again In-Reply-To: <3CE55268.4F061FCF@ix.netcom.com> Message-ID: <3CE5F2C1.21052.25F0E8F@localhost> > Its one thing to claim that Sandburg simply had an agenda and quite another > to describe the epistemological roots of that agenda which actaully might > be interesting.<< Well, I think the claim and the support for that claim are not "one thing and quite another". > If one was to, say, make claims for the Second Law of Thermodynamics it > would be one thing to ground his/her taxonomy in 18th, 19th and 20th > century physics. But if one were to claim that the Sumerians had evidence > of thermodynamics, one is on shaky ground. At the very least he or she does > the Sumerians a great disservice and the metaphorical isomorphicisms > required to establish a comparison become very quickly silly.<< No doubt -- but that's just what Sandburg is doing in the quote in question. I'm merely pointing out that we agree on that. > ... The chauvinism > is apparent though not popular among the oppressors. This is utterly > demonstrable in U.S. foreign policy as expressed in Game Theory ...< The chauvinism of Game Theory? Isn't that going rather far along the path of using one metaphor to think about another metaphor you're using to think? > So to make claims for the inviolable historicity of the Second Law, is like > making claims for 'free verse' among the Sumerians.<< Yes, and all this seems to be saying you and I agree on the Sandberg quote as unauthoritative at least. What I don't understand is your apparent insistence that we are disagreeing at some level. > You yourself have argued in support of the difference/superiority > of such [mathematical quantification which requires > commutativity e.g. the reduction of time to the non-temporal] > assumptions ... << Perhaps you'd be so kind as to give an example. In the Sandburg instance I was arguing *against* the reduction of time to the non- temproral that Sandburg was making by his equivocal and _post hoc ergo propter hoc_ attempt to justify his own poetic practice. > Thus poetry is oppressed > and, in turn, by being so hermeneutically pigeonholed produces > work that is oppressive because it demonstrates no > epistemological courage even in the face of dire ethical realities > arising from near eschatological conditions.<< If I understand you correctly, you're saying that poetry is oppressed by the assumption by contemporary poets and critics that time is non-temporal, and that every age's notions are vulnerable to judgment on contemporary criteria. Is that what you're saying? > So Sandburg unlike Heidegger for example is an unwitting dupe to the > dominant epistemology---a victim.<< Not only, then, are contemporary poets such victimized dupes in your view, but modern ones as well -- and perhaps, since you seem to cite Heidegger as the first philosopher to see through a dominant epistemology, all poets before Heidegger, too? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From alphavil at ix.netcom.com Sat May 18 08:36:15 2002 From: alphavil at ix.netcom.com (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli) Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 08:36:15 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse! free verse! free Huey References: <3CE5F2C1.21052.25F0E8F@localhost> Message-ID: <3CE64ABF.1B5201@ix.netcom.com> We do agree about the Sandburg quote. My point would be that your position, as far as you seem capable of examining it, on the Second Law operates under the same epistemological umbrella as Sandburg's on 'free verse,' that both include unconscious cultural assumptions revolving around the mathematical commutativity of time. As evidenced by your posts, you have inherited all the tedium, dare I say oppressiveness, of this positivist position. Your reliance on basic logic rather than substance is illustrative of my point so I'm not going to waste my time again detailing my position. Of course, you are among the gathering of 'poets' whose scope, commitment and understanding of poetry does not extend beyond that of a poetry workshop consisting of octogenarian nuns. We are occasionally treated to some of this nursing home verse. Understandably others might find this oppressive, as I do, even though they are not particularly interested in tracing its reactionary and predictable epistemological roots. You yourself have said you think that poetry can only be 'predictable,' that is follow established themes. You must feel like you've found Mecca on this list. Now, if you'll excuse me; I'm going to devote the rest of my poetic life to writing a 'paean' to Regis Philbin. CP Marcus Bales wrote: > > Its one thing to claim that Sandburg simply had an agenda and quite another > > to describe the epistemological roots of that agenda which actaully might > > be interesting.<< > > Well, I think the claim and the support for that claim are not "one > thing and quite another". > > > If one was to, say, make claims for the Second Law of Thermodynamics it > > would be one thing to ground his/her taxonomy in 18th, 19th and 20th > > century physics. But if one were to claim that the Sumerians had evidence > > of thermodynamics, one is on shaky ground. At the very least he or she does > > the Sumerians a great disservice and the metaphorical isomorphicisms > > required to establish a comparison become very quickly silly.<< > > No doubt -- but that's just what Sandburg is doing in the quote in > question. I'm merely pointing out that we agree on that. > > > ... The chauvinism > > is apparent though not popular among the oppressors. This is utterly > > demonstrable in U.S. foreign policy as expressed in Game Theory ...< > > The chauvinism of Game Theory? Isn't that going rather far along > the path of using one metaphor to think about another metaphor > you're using to think? > > > So to make claims for the inviolable historicity of the Second Law, is like > > making claims for 'free verse' among the Sumerians.<< > > Yes, and all this seems to be saying you and I agree on the > Sandberg quote as unauthoritative at least. What I don't understand > is your apparent insistence that we are disagreeing at some level. > > > You yourself have argued in support of the difference/superiority > > of such [mathematical quantification which requires > > commutativity e.g. the reduction of time to the non-temporal] > > assumptions ... << > > Perhaps you'd be so kind as to give an example. In the Sandburg > instance I was arguing *against* the reduction of time to the non- > temproral that Sandburg was making by his equivocal and _post > hoc ergo propter hoc_ attempt to justify his own poetic practice. > > > Thus poetry is oppressed > > and, in turn, by being so hermeneutically pigeonholed produces > > work that is oppressive because it demonstrates no > > epistemological courage even in the face of dire ethical realities > > arising from near eschatological conditions.<< > > If I understand you correctly, you're saying that poetry is oppressed > by the assumption by contemporary poets and critics that time is > non-temporal, and that every age's notions are vulnerable to > judgment on contemporary criteria. Is that what you're saying? > > > So Sandburg unlike Heidegger for example is an unwitting dupe to the > > dominant epistemology---a victim.<< > > Not only, then, are contemporary poets such victimized dupes in > your view, but modern ones as well -- and perhaps, since you > seem to cite Heidegger as the first philosopher to see through a > dominant epistemology, all poets before Heidegger, too? > > Marcus Bales > > marcus at designerglass.com > http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Sat May 18 12:06:51 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 11:06:51 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Mekeel McBride Message-ID: <200205181606.g4IG6BT26516@mx4.mx.voyager.net> A poet I've never paid much attention to is Mekeel McBride. She's been around a long time, of course, and published multiple books with good presses. How many hundreds (thousands?) of good poets, I wonder, are flying under my radar at any given point? This poem from her most recent book struck me--a worthy entry in the endless anthology of poems after Whitman, I'd say. I Want To Be A Ferris Wheel For Russ Hall This soft body turned into shining steel, stretching toward farms and spiders and the clean windows of the Midwest. Neon lights on me, that weird kind of green that a tree wouldn't really recognize but aliens might, if they happened to be looking in this direction. A skinny kid, blond, named Joey, not one tattoo on him, hits the switch and the big green wheel just rolls real slow through the darkening air, like dreaming. Whoever needs to can just sit back and be carried into heaven over and over. I don't care if there are owls or stars or clouds or even an Elvis sighting in the sky. I just want to be carried, everyone spinning together in this one big circle that is the same and in the stationary turning isn't the same at all; air smelling of ponies and gear grease, burning leaves, fried dough, the end of summer; everybody wanting to kiss someone real bad even if they're in a seat alone. And my heart, as dependable as the engine, being fed by power from some waterfall full of fat salmon all the guys with hooks can't figure out how to find; a waterfall so fierce meteor showers of August hurl half their fiery selves there to cool off and not even one scrap of water sizzles. And the wheel scratching out declarations of love to wheat fields and empty cinemas, to garage mechanics in blue cover-alls who still adore every old car with fins and just this once making a song as stringy as Christmas lights on plastic palms in Florida, a song for cows still awake in the slaughterhouse, for the undertaker painting violets on a dead girl's closed eyes, for insomniac sisters playing mah-jongg by aquarium light; a song for whoever needs it. In late wind, green wheel communing with car chrome, running dreams of collarless dogs, and the electro-deluxe, gone-to-dawn stars. --Mekeel McBride. *The Deepest Part of the River*. Carnegie-Mellon, 2001. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From hruggier at localnet.com Sat May 18 13:07:16 2002 From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri) Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 13:07:16 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Mekeel McBride References: <200205181606.g4IG6BT26516@mx4.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3CE68A43.846B5506@localnet.com> Given all the bs on this site, I'm happy to find something snagged in the aether which is compelling. Your choices are usually interesting (DG) but this McBride - I'll have to get the book. Thanks, Helen David Graham wrote: > A poet I've never paid much attention to is Mekeel McBride. She's been > around a long time, of course, and published multiple books with good > presses. > > How many hundreds (thousands?) of good poets, I wonder, are flying under my > radar at any given point? > > This poem from her most recent book struck me--a worthy entry in the endless > anthology of poems after Whitman, I'd say. > > I Want To Be A Ferris Wheel > > For Russ Hall > > This soft body turned into shining steel, > stretching toward farms and spiders > and the clean windows of the Midwest. > Neon lights on me, that weird kind of green > that a tree wouldn't really recognize > but aliens might, if they happened to be > looking in this direction. A skinny kid, > blond, named Joey, not one tattoo on him, > hits the switch and the big green wheel > > just rolls real slow through the darkening air, > like dreaming. Whoever needs to > can just sit back and be carried into heaven > over and over. I don't care if there are owls > or stars or clouds or even an Elvis sighting > in the sky. I just want to be carried, everyone > spinning together in this one big circle > that is the same and in the stationary turning > isn't the same at all; air smelling > > of ponies and gear grease, burning leaves, > fried dough, the end of summer; everybody > wanting to kiss someone real bad even if > they're in a seat alone. And my heart, > as dependable as the engine, being fed > by power from some waterfall > full of fat salmon all the guys with hooks > can't figure out how to find; a waterfall > so fierce meteor showers of August > > hurl half their fiery selves there to cool off > and not even one scrap of water sizzles. > And the wheel scratching out declarations > of love to wheat fields and empty cinemas, > to garage mechanics in blue cover-alls > who still adore every old car with fins > and just this once making a song as stringy > as Christmas lights on plastic palms > in Florida, a song for cows > > still awake in the slaughterhouse, > for the undertaker painting violets > on a dead girl's closed eyes, > for insomniac sisters playing mah-jongg > by aquarium light; a song for whoever > needs it. In late wind, green wheel > communing with car chrome, > running dreams of collarless dogs, > and the electro-deluxe, gone-to-dawn stars. > > --Mekeel McBride. *The Deepest Part of the River*. Carnegie-Mellon, 2001. > > ======================================== > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > Home Page: > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html > Poetry Library: > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html > ======================================== > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From JforJames at aol.com Sat May 18 14:39:52 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 14:39:52 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again Message-ID: <3f.ba418d1.2a17f9f8@aol.com> In a message dated 5/17/02 1:39:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time, marcus at designerglass.com writes: > This isn't a matter of ignorance on Sandburg's part but of policy, it > seems to me -- he is trying to make far far too large a claim -- not > only is he using the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but it is, I > think, also an example of the fallacy of special pleading. Sandburg > was a free verse poet, and was trying to justify his practice. It > seems less a matter of ignorance and more a matter of a deliberate > attempt to equivocate in the service of special pleading. Marcus, harping on this by finding fault in the logic of Sandburg's statement belies your own verse-centered agenda. Let me suggest that it is the term "free verse" that is the cause of problem (if there is one). It's well known that "free verse," like many terms we have to work with, is flawed in various ways. But it is the term we have and that Sandburg had to work with... Sandburg: "Arguments against ( ) are old. They are not, however, as old > as ( ) itself. When primitive and prehistoric man first spoke with > cadence or color, making either musical meaning or melodic nonsense worth > keeping and repeating for its definite and intrinsic values, then ( ) > was born, ages before the sonnet, the ballad, the verse forms > wherein the writer or singer must be acutely conscious, even exquisitely > aware, of how many syllables are to be arithmetically numbered per line." What if we substitute a less charged yet clunkier term like "nonformal poetry"?...Doesn't the statement make sense? Certainly he's reaching to make a point: The new poetry that is free verse could be said to be a harkening back to or reclaiming of the first poetry, a poetic speech that, very likely, was less systematic, less formally contrained. Finnegan From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Sat May 18 15:03:41 2002 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 14:03:41 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] bad poems In-Reply-To: <3CE5E10B.594A62EE@patriot.net> Message-ID: on 5/18/02 12:05 AM, Gwyn McVay at gmcvay at patriot.net wrote: > Paul, > > I liked the poem as well, although I agree that the "silo" seems way too > agrarian for the austerity of the poem as a whole. I did like the rook > being "high" as something, as I thought of the European bird before the > chess piece. (It's an Audubon Society bias...) "Issue statements," > although an obvious reference to the American presidency, also seems too > contemporary a phrasing for the quasi-medieval world of the chess > pieces. I think of a king as proclaiming, more than issuing. > > Those quibbles aside, it's in the category of "damn good." I like the > rhythm of "ENters the FAMily TRADE, an OFF-i-CER." > > Gwyn > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry Thanks, Gwyn. Paul From JforJames at aol.com Sat May 18 15:26:11 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 15:26:11 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Selected Poems of Jaime Saenz A Bilingual Edition Message-ID: NEW RELEASE Jaime Saenz Immanent Visitor Selected Poems of Jaime Saenz A Bilingual Edition check out: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9502.html Translated from the Spanish by Kent Johnson and Forrest Gander Immanent Visitor is the first English-language translation of the work of Bolivia's greatest and most visionary twentieth-century poet. A po?te maudit, Jaime Saenz rejected the conventions of polite society and became a monk in service of his own imagination. Apocalyptic and occult in his politics, a denizen of slum taverns, unashamedly bisexual, insistently nocturnal in his artistic affairs, and secretive in his leadership of a select group of writers, Saenz mixed the mystical and baroque with the fantastic, the psychological, and the symbolic. In masterly translations by two poet-translators, Kent Johnson and Forrest Gander, Saenz's strange, innovative, and wildly lyrical poems reveal a literary legacy of fierce compassion and solidarity with indigenous Bolivian cultures and with the destitute, the desperate, and the disenfranchised of that unreal city, La Paz. In long lines, in odes that name desire, with Whitmanesque anaphora, in exclamations and repetitions, Saenz addresses the reader, the beloved, and death in one extended lyrical gesture. The poems are brazenly affecting. Their semantic innovation is notable in the odd heterogeneity of formal and tonal structures that careen unabashedly between modes and moods; now archly lyrical, now arcanely symbolic, now colloquial, now trancelike. As Saenz's reputation continues to grow throughout the world, these inspired translations and the accompanying Spanish texts faithfully convey the poet's unique vision and voice to English-speaking readers. From DICK at watson.ibm.com Sat May 18 19:39:01 2002 From: DICK at watson.ibm.com (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Sat, 18 May 02 19:39:01 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] (no subject) Message-ID: <200205190010.g4J0A4k40514@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Subject:Paul Lake's "Pieces" (gotta' change that tag line) Marcus Bales wrote: >>> A while ago there was some discussion about what's worse, >>> a bad free verse poem or a bad rhymed and metered poem - >>> not a compelling question, sort of like would you prefer >>> spoiled milk or spoiled wine. >> >>This reflects, it seems to me, a lack of attention at least: the issue >>wasn't which would be worse, but whether ... oh, never mind. Could be - but I think you agree with "not .. compelling" >>> >>The queen moves with unbounded liberty. >>> >>Slant-eyed, a bishop offers up a prayer. >>> >>A horse-faced gallant full of chivalry >>> >>Enters the family trade, an officer. >>I thought the first stanza was weak -- the "unbounded liberty" >>phrase rummages around among its feet looking for a rhythm and >>the subsequent descriptions of the bishop and knight struggle to >>stay in the same rhetorical form (the queen this, the bishop that, >>the knight something else). >> This evaluation illustrates another problem of insisting too much on received form: because the first line isn't lock-step iambic-pentameter or whatever, Marcus misses, or doesn't appreciate, the terrific wit and irony of the descriptions of the slant-eyed (diagonal-moving, insincerely blessing the holiness of the war) bishop, the horse-faced noble. Pretty enjoyable "henchman dialog." I think the "Rose garden" (White House? War of the Roses?) reference restricts the generality of the poem, not to its advantage. >>This is very good all by itself; it doesn't need the labored set-up of >>the rest of the poem, it seems to me. This looks to me like a very clear example of the fallacy that shows up in workshops all the time; having seen the context established, the workshoppers chime, "you can do without...." Sort of like the judge instructing the jury to ignore what they've just seen of inadmissable evidence (I mean the poem can no longer be seen as if it didn't contain the setup.) I don't understand the objections to the silo: did silos not exist in medieval times, when castles and kings did? Perhaps they didn't. But, thanks again to Paul for the poem, and to Marcus too for his well-expressed opinion, both much to be preferred to the odd and annoying shenanigans that show up here from time to time. Richard From DICK at watson.ibm.com Sat May 18 20:13:10 2002 From: DICK at watson.ibm.com (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Sat, 18 May 02 20:13:10 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] ut non erat lux Message-ID: <200205190029.g4J0TKk41078@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> (Aside: would anyone on this list that might actually know Latin correct the above, if necessary? Thanks.) David Graham wrote: >>Richard, no I don't put Lux in Bishop's class--I was responding to your >>sentiment that his work seems to lack emotional fireworks. Seems to me one >>can be a good poet while also being a bit reserved in that department, and >>Bishop is a good example, isn't she? David, I'm certainly with you in respecting poetry that doesn't "wear its heart on its sleeve," or set off "emotional fireworks." In fact, I far prefer it. I meant to say that I didn't really see the point of his 1st 2 poems that you posted - they were somewhat interesting descriptions, but they felt to me like exercises. I have to admit that I'm put off by Lux's personality - he comes across as negatively intense, insistent, and quite humorless, actually to me, having heard him read a couple of times, and, for example, introduce Robert Creeley with the praise that he "gave poetry a kick in the ass that it needed..." OK, call me stodgy. Once I heard him talk of rewriting a poem "48 times," - I think it was the one about stuff stuck on the refrigerator. >>Always happy to see actual poems pondered on this list! Me too! Richard From marcus at designerglass.com Sat May 18 23:05:09 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 23:05:09 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse! free verse! free Huey In-Reply-To: <3CE64ABF.1B5201@ix.netcom.com> Message-ID: <3CE6DE25.21247.2FC065@localhost> >> ... the Second Law [of Thermodynamics] operates under the > same epistemological umbrella as Sandburg's on 'free verse,' that both include > unconscious cultural assumptions revolving around the mathematical commutativity > of time.< Well, of course, the second law of thermodynamics IS a mathematical construct, while Sandburg's opinion about when "free verse" was "invented" is a transparent attempt to appropriate a term within the context of a cultural dispute. None of our contemporaries, that I know of, tries to justify the use of the phrase "the second law of thermodynamics" on the grounds that the Sumerians tried to use physics to explain their world. In fact, that's an excellent way to show just how illegitimately appropriating Sandburg's attempt is! > As evidenced by your posts, you have inherited all the tedium, > dare I say oppressiveness, of this positivist position.<< Well, it's certainly evident that you'd like to impute a positivist position to me, but it's not certain at all that I hold one -- or that using logic implies that one must be a positivist, unless you want to use Sandburg's illegitimate appropriation technique to argue that anyone who's EVER used logic MUST be "a positivist" in the same way that Ayer was a positivist. Such a position would be, of course, as mistaken as Sandburg's. > Your > reliance on basic logic rather than substance is illustrative of my > point so I'm not going to waste my time again detailing my > position.< Well, some positions, such as Sandburg's, are so ill-thought-out that logic is all one needs to point out the ill-thought-out-ness of that position -- to expose it for the attempt at appropriation that it is. There is no "substance" to Sandburg's position in the first place, so there is no way to use "substance" to object to it -- and the attempt to try to use substance to object to it would only lend credence to Sandburg's position by implying that there was some substance to discuss. There is none, though, so logic suffices in this instance. But that doesn't mean I hold that logic is the only means one must or may ever use in any instance. > ...You yourself have said you think that poetry can only be > 'predictable,' that is follow established themes. You must feel like > you've found Mecca on this list.< First, that's not what I said, but even if it were your attempt to say that I favored such poetry by criticizing just such poetry is as outrageous an attempt to mis-appropriate a term as Sandburg's. > Now, if you'll excuse me; I'm going to devote the rest of my poetic life to > writing a 'paean' to Regis Philbin. CP There are frauds in the country and city Both singly and met in committee They can sometimes pretend To be serious, friend, But they cannot pretend to be witty. A friend said this might not be true -- That he knew of somebody who Pretends to be funny And makes lots of money By shouting fake jokes at a shrew. So I turned on the kitchen TV -- It was worse than I thought it would be: Those joke-toids from Regis Were truly egregious And my family thought it was me! There are frauds in the country and city Both singly and met in committee They can sometimes pretend To be serious, friend, But they cannot pretend to be witty. A friend said this might not be true -- That he knew of somebody who Pretends to be funny And makes lots of money By shouting fake jokes at a shrew. So I turned on the kitchen TV -- It was worse than I thought it would be: Those joke-toids from Regis Were truly egregious And my family thought it was me! Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From marcus at designerglass.com Sat May 18 23:26:06 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 23:26:06 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] free verse, again In-Reply-To: <3f.ba418d1.2a17f9f8@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CE6E30E.7717.42EF5A@localhost> > > This isn't a matter of ignorance on Sandburg's part but of policy, it > > seems to me -- he is trying to make far far too large a claim -- not > > only is he using the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but it is, I > > think, also an example of the fallacy of special pleading. Sandburg > > was a free verse poet, and was trying to justify his practice. It > > seems less a matter of ignorance and more a matter of a deliberate > > attempt to equivocate in the service of special pleading. Finegan: > "Arguments against ( ) are old. They are not, however, as old > > as ( ) itself. When primitive and prehistoric man first spoke > with > > cadence or color, making either musical meaning or melodic nonsense worth > > keeping and repeating for its definite and intrinsic values, then ( > ) > > was born, ages before the sonnet, the ballad, the verse forms > > wherein the writer or singer must be acutely conscious, even exquisitely > > aware, of how many syllables are to be arithmetically numbered per line." > What if we substitute a less charged yet clunkier term like "nonformal > poetry"?<< No -- because Sandburg is clearly making an appropriationist argument here, trying consciously and deliberately to defend a particular term by using two different logical fallacies, and not trying to find a congenial term with which to enter into a cultural dispute. Sandburg was an advocate of the sort of "free verse" that came after Pound, and not of the sort of "free verse" that came before the sonnet. The two terms are ostensive: they simply refer to different things. Just because we CAN apply, sort of, the same phrase to two different notions doesn't mean that the two notions are not different or are the same. If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Four -- because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. And calling pre-form verse "free verse" doesn't make it post-Poundian "free verse". Finnegan: >...Doesn't the statement make sense?<< Sure, coming from you who seems to be trying to find a term congenial to the cultural discussion. Finnegan: > ... Certainly he's reaching > to make a point: The new poetry that is free verse could be said > to be a harkening back to or reclaiming of the first poetry, a poetic > speech that, very likely, was less systematic, less formally constrained.< Not at all! That former speech, that first poetry, was NOT "less formally constrained" in the sense that we mean post-Poundian "free verse" is "less formally constrained". You're making the same Sandburgian claim all over again, just with different words. You're trying to argue, here, that "free verse" has a pedigree it simply doesn't have. That "first poetry" was not "less constrained" by the sonnet or by iambic pentameter -- there was no sonnet or iambic pentameter to constrain it! This is just the same post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy Sandburg used. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From marcus at designerglass.com Sun May 19 00:00:50 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 00:00:50 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <200205190010.g4J0A4k40514@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: <3CE6EB32.17298.62BD49@localhost> Richard: > ... the terrific wit and irony of the descriptions of the slant-eyed > (diagonal-moving, insincerely blessing the holiness of the war) > bishop, the horse-faced noble. Pretty enjoyable "henchman dialog."< _de gustibus_ -- it seems pretty ordinary and obvious to me. The irony I see inheres in the notion that by dismissing the power of the pieces by such "ironic" language Lake destroys the battlefield horror of the empty squares the pawns have to face. Richard: > This looks to me like a very clear example of the fallacy that shows > up in workshops all the time; having seen the context established, > the workshoppers chime, "you can do without...."< Chess is a game that either one is familiar enough with to get the pawns' horror at the empty squares, or not -- and if not, no short lyric assertion of the bishops' lying and the knights' cowardice or the Kings' pacing will be enough to create the necessary familiarity. And if one is familiar enough with chess to get the notion of the pawns' horror, one doesn't need the rest of the under- cutting ironic treatment of the pieces. I think that by titling the final quatrain "Pieces" and referring to the pawns that's all the set-up one needs to create the horror of the empty squares in the knowledgeable readers' minds. Richard: > ... Sort of like the > judge instructing the jury to ignore what they've just seen of > inadmissable evidence (I mean the poem can no longer be seen as if it didn't > contain the setup.)<< Sure it can. Chess is an ubiquitous (pace Carlo) game and the use of chess as a metaphor for battle or life is very nearly as common. The notion that a good reader who's familiar with chess can't separate the final quatrain from the rest of the poem and see it as a stand-alone poem isn't viable, it seems to me, *because* chess is so common a metaphor for battle or life. And this poem's set-up actually undercuts the horror of battle by arguing in its ironic presentation of the pieces that the pieces aren't actually powerful enough to invest the battlefield with the horror on which the final quatrain relies to create its power. This set-up undermines the ending, instead of re-inforcing it. > I don't understand the objections to the silo: did silos not exist > in medieval times, when castles and kings did? Perhaps they didn't.< My objection is that comparing a castle tower to a silo is like comparing a ploughshare to a sword: there are some elements in common, but describing a knight as wielding a ploughshare is like describing him riding his prancing nag or his spavined steed -- there is a radical disconnect for me. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From FanwoodJEL at aol.com Sun May 19 13:57:17 2002 From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com) Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 13:57:17 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Reminder, Reading Tonight Message-ID: <19f.27d35d6.2a19417d@aol.com> Please Join Us Tonight, 7:30 pm for the third installment in the TUPELO PRESS VILLAGE READING SERIES at Pangea Readers: Vijay Seshadri, Joshua Beckman, and Patricia Ferrell. Hot and cold running spirits, whispering muses. Fancy bookmarks. Authentic gurgling sounds from espresso machine. Pangea Bar & Restaurant ~ NYC, 178 Second Avenue, btwn 12th & 11th Streets ~ 212-995-0900--no cover Jeffrey Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Sun May 19 22:04:24 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 22:04:24 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Fooling With Hayden Message-ID: <177.8873a7e.2a19b3a8@cs.com> In a message dated 5/14/2002 10:24:47 PM Central Daylight Time, grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: > > On the Bill Moyers "Fooling With Words" web site > (http://www.wnet.org/foolingwithwords/lesson2.html ) I discovered a nice > collection of material on Robert Hayden--might be of interest particularly > to those who teach him. > > Among other things, it includes an early draft of "Those Winter Sundays." > Interesting in particular to see how clunky that famous final line was in > its first incarnation: > > Those Winter Sundays (earlier version) > > Sundays too my father got up early > and put his clothes on in the stiffening cold, > and then with hands cracked and aching > from labor in the weekday weather made > banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. > > I'd wake and hear the cold splintering > and breaking and smell the trellised blooming of > the velvet heat. When the rooms were warm, > he'd call me. Sighing I would rise and dress, > dreading the chronic angers of that house, > > Dreading my father's kindness most of all; > and had but monosyllables for him > who'd driven out the cold -- who had as well > polished my best shoes. What did I know > of love's austere and rich and lonely offices? > _____________________________ > > And, for comparison, here's the published version: > > Those Winter Sundays (final version) > > Sundays too my father got up early > and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, > then with cracked hands that ached > from labor in the weekday weather made > banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. > > I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. > When the rooms were warm, he'd call, > and slowly I would rise and dress, > fearing the chronic angers of that house, > > Speaking indifferently to him, > who had driven out the cold > and polished my good shoes as well. > What did I know, what did I know > of love's austere and lonely offices? > This should be given to every creative writing class as a textbook example of the joys of revision. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Mon May 20 09:33:59 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 06:33:59 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Sherry Rind Message-ID: <3CE8FB47.CAA9973A@earthlink.net> The Morality of Sea Cucumbers They cannot worry about the doings of the right or left hand because they have no right or left, no front or back. They assumed their form half a billion years ago when few things were as they are today. Living by excess with five major arteries, five sets of each organ, they leave parts of themselves in a predator's grip or expel their insides and begin anew. Sea cucumbers have no eyes. Like a family, they cannot see the organism their parts make up; they cannot admire their own garden of swirls and stripes. If the ocean floor is rich they might sit without moving for a year or two. Where the ocean bottoms out few others can live but sea cucumbers who suck the world's dirt and filter it through their simple gut, leaving clean prints in the sand. - Sherry Rind, _A Fall Out the Door_, Confluence Press, 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This message, unless otherwise noted, is impermanent. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org/ Poetserv: http://www.poetserv.com/ Homepage: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/index.html From JforJames at aol.com Mon May 20 10:52:03 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 10:52:03 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Rain Taxi online Message-ID: <13c.e9b83a3.2a1a6793@aol.com> Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 12:19:50 -0700 From: Rain Taxi Reply-To: editor at raintaxi.com To: Rain Taxi Subject: upgrade and afterlife a Dear Readers, We are delighted to report that the upgraded Rain Taxi website is up and running--please check in and take a look around. While we are still installing some pages and polishing others, the new site features online ordering capabilities, and will soon have a working search engine and more information than ever. Also just posted: our new ONLINE EDITION, featuring reviews of Alice Notley, Bruce Andrews, Susan Daitch, Kenneth Goldsmith, Elizabeth Robinson, and many, many others, plus an interview with John Bennett and an essay on the Black Mountain roots of the Poetry Project. All for you at www.raintaxi.com! Those of you who have lists or literary colleagues, if you can spread the word we are grateful. -- Rain Taxi Review of Books PO Box 3840 Minneapolis, MN 55403 http://www.raintaxi.com From JforJames at aol.com Mon May 20 12:43:43 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 12:43:43 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] goodfoot looking for submissions Message-ID: <49.1daf5d4f.2a1a81bf@aol.com> goodfootmagazine.com is looking for submissions. i't's a new mag that's been put together by graduates of the New School in NYC... their second issue just came out and looks pretty good... check out: goodfootmagazine.com if you're interested From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Mon May 20 16:57:50 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 15:57:50 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Never Graham Message-ID: <200205202057.g4KKv8B46382@mx14.mx.voyager.net> Sven Birkerts's review of Jorie Graham's collection *Never*, recently out in the New York Times Book Review, is worth looking at. His title is "The Participial Drama of Jorie Graham's Poetry," and his argument seems to be that she's headed into a dead end. Here is his conclusion: __________________ But the struggle of sense-making provokes Graham into what can feel like endless motion-study breakdowns of what happens when the self meets the world. Her drive to be exhaustive, to do full justice to the ramified density of these moments of being, brings out her worst effects. Graham's poems become a kind of compositor's fever dream. Parentheses and brackets, meant to mark the intricacies of perceptual subordination and the digressive tendency of thought, sprout up with the intruding vigor of weeds. At times there is no piece of turf that is not fenced in by these enclosures, which suggests -- possibly against Graham's intent -- that the natural flow of perception has been put to rout. Could this be her point? I don't know. But consider how, unlike the gulls described above, these frigate birds, observed, become the occasion of a terrifying lunge into the mind's chaos: then circling back above the fishing spot, the break, and just behind the break, the lull (how can I say how much is in the lull)[in pursuit of] [casual booty] [casual beauty] [(who) had territorial ambitions carrying downriver towards this mouthing] I have great patience for poetry that would celebrate the subtle pulsations of being and probe the architectures of perception, and I assume a certain elusive difficulty may result. But passages like the one I just cited -- and they abound -- have me questioning the viability of poetry as an instrument of philosophy. It seems to me that the disappearance of the perceived thing or the felt experience into the inconclusive enactments of process points to a dead end in Graham's art. No one doubts that Eliot or Rilke knew what this perceptual overflow, this chaos of mind and spirit, was about; they knew to winnow the self in the service of the poem. Throat-clearings and stutters were cleansed from the presentation. That Graham seems now to refuse the idea of the poem except as an occasion for the renewal of the process, the participial drama, implies that there is nowhere to get to. This documentation of every twitch and buffet of self-greeting-world presupposes a reader's boundless interest in that self. --Sven Birkerts __________________ Read the whole review at: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/19/books/review/19BIRK.html ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Mon May 20 21:20:44 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 18:20:44 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Never Graham References: <200205202057.g4KKv8B46382@mx14.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3CE9A0ED.94D764EA@earthlink.net> I (or who, it, whence) think that [causal booty] Birkerts has described [non-expansive, curl of dependent clausality] my reactions (readings, gasps of, short-shifted apprehensions) to Gra [between black and white] ham's (piglet's sortie) self-reflexive [( . . . )] put-out. Indy 500 runs in a circle too. How fast they go! A winner every time!!! - (fan) Jim [reader] David Graham wrote: > > Sven Birkerts's review of Jorie Graham's collection *Never*, recently out in > the New York Times Book Review, is worth looking at. His title is "The > Participial Drama of Jorie Graham's Poetry," and his argument seems to be > that she's headed into a dead end. > > Here is his conclusion: > __________________ > But the struggle of sense-making provokes Graham into what can feel like > endless motion-study breakdowns of what happens when the self meets the > world. Her drive to be exhaustive, to do full justice to the ramified > density of these moments of being, brings out her worst effects. Graham's > poems become a kind of compositor's fever dream. Parentheses and brackets, > meant to mark the intricacies of perceptual subordination and the digressive > tendency of thought, sprout up with the intruding vigor of weeds. At times > there is no piece of turf that is not fenced in by these enclosures, which > suggests -- possibly against Graham's intent -- that the natural flow of > perception has been put to rout. Could this be her point? I don't know. But > consider how, unlike the gulls described above, these frigate birds, > observed, become the occasion of a terrifying lunge into the mind's chaos: > > then circling back > above the fishing spot, the break, and just > behind the break, the lull (how can I say > how much is in the lull)[in pursuit of] [casual booty] > [casual beauty] [(who) had territorial ambitions > carrying downriver towards this mouthing] > > I have great patience for poetry that would celebrate the subtle pulsations > of being and probe the architectures of perception, and I assume a certain > elusive difficulty may result. But passages like the one I just cited -- and > they abound -- have me questioning the viability of poetry as an instrument > of philosophy. It seems to me that the disappearance of the perceived thing > or the felt experience into the inconclusive enactments of process points to > a dead end in Graham's art. No one doubts that Eliot or Rilke knew what this > perceptual overflow, this chaos of mind and spirit, was about; they knew to > winnow the self in the service of the poem. Throat-clearings and stutters > were cleansed from the presentation. That Graham seems now to refuse the > idea of the poem except as an occasion for the renewal of the process, the > participial drama, implies that there is nowhere to get to. This > documentation of every twitch and buffet of self-greeting-world presupposes > a reader's boundless interest in that self. > --Sven Birkerts > __________________ > > Read the whole review at: > http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/19/books/review/19BIRK.html > > ======================================== > David Graham > grahamd at mail.ripon.edu > Home Page: > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html > Poetry Library: > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html > ======================================== > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From jholmes at boisestate.edu Tue May 21 11:49:36 2002 From: jholmes at boisestate.edu (Janet Holmes) Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 09:49:36 -0600 Subject: [New-Poetry] Offlist for a time Message-ID: Hi all-- I'm going offlist for the time being (summer in writing mode, fall doing study-abroad duty in England). See you after Christmas! Janet Holmes Ahsahta Press http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu From JBCM2 at aol.com Tue May 21 13:21:18 2002 From: JBCM2 at aol.com (JBCM2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 13:21:18 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Help.... Message-ID: Subj: philosophy and literature Date: 05/21/2002 1:14:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: rravensc at ssc.wisc.edu To: working-class-list at listserv.liu.edu CC: philoperros at onebox.com Sent from the Internet (Details) Hi all, This request comes to you from a non-list member, but from a good friend of mine and fellow working-class academic in California. She (Camille) is preparing to teach a class on philosophy and literature. She is a philosophy professor and is looking for a reader or other source of short stories, long poems, etc... with philosophical content or ramifications... something that asks philosophical questions. Any suggestions? We've already discussed "The Lottery" and "The Lorax" (by Dr. Seuss). Neither one of us is particularly up to date on the lit. field. Help? Bonus points for anything class-related! Send suggestions directly to her or to the list (It might be interesting!) or both. Camille Atkinson, philoperros at onebox.com Thanks! rebekah ______________________ -- Rebekah Ravenscroft-Scott Graduate Student/Teaching Assistant Sociology and Rural Sociology University of Wisconsin-Madison 7110 Social Science 1180 Observatory Dr. Madison WI 53706 rravensc at ssc.wisc.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbyrne at olemiss.edu Tue May 21 13:42:51 2002 From: mbyrne at olemiss.edu (Mairead Byrne) Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 12:42:51 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Help.... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Ursula LeGuin, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" Mairead On Tue, 21 May 2002 JBCM2 at aol.com wrote: > Subj: philosophy and literature > Date: 05/21/2002 1:14:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time > From: rravensc at ssc.wisc.edu > To: working-class-list at listserv.liu.edu > CC: philoperros at onebox.com > Sent from the Internet (Details) > > > > Hi all, > > > This request comes to you from a non-list member, but from a good friend of > mine and fellow working-class academic in California. > > > She (Camille) is preparing to teach a class on philosophy and literature. She > is a philosophy professor and is looking for a reader or other source of > short stories, long poems, etc... with philosophical content or > ramifications... something that asks philosophical questions. > Any suggestions? We've already discussed "The Lottery" and "The Lorax" (by > Dr. Seuss). Neither one of us is particularly up to date on the lit. field. > Help? Bonus points for anything class-related! > > > Send suggestions directly to her or to the list (It might be interesting!) or > both. > > > Camille Atkinson, philoperros at onebox.com > Thanks! > rebekah > ______________________ > > > -- > Rebekah Ravenscroft-Scott > Graduate Student/Teaching Assistant > Sociology and Rural Sociology > University of Wisconsin-Madison > 7110 Social Science > 1180 Observatory Dr. > Madison WI 53706 > rravensc at ssc.wisc.edu > > From marcus at designerglass.com Tue May 21 14:59:21 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 14:59:21 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Help.... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3CEA60C9.16783.2D0FFD@localhost> > She (Camille) is preparing to teach a class on philosophy and literature. She > is a philosophy professor and is looking for a reader or other source of > short stories, long poems, etc... with philosophical content or > ramifications... something that asks philosophical questions. > Any suggestions? << What kind of philosophical questions? Anything lang-po might be a claim that words have no content, for example, while something such as Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" would ask questions about what is a good life, for another. And Hecht's "Dover Bitch" mocks asking such questions. Cummings's "plato told" raises issues about war and philosophy. The possibilities are nearly endless, though most if not all poems have nothing whatever new to say in a substantive philosophic sense. Poems concern themselves with how a thing is said, not with what is said, but lots of poems stir up philosophical questions, or can if presented that way. So what kind of philosophical questions does your friend most want to raise for this class? Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From FanwoodJEL at aol.com Tue May 21 21:23:27 2002 From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com) Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 21:23:27 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Tupelo Press Village Reading Series: Lux & Woloch Message-ID: Please Join Us Sunday, June 9th (7:30 pm) as the TUPELO PRESS VILLAGE READING SERIES at Pangea continues Readers: Thomas Lux & Cecilia Woloch Hot and cold running spirits, whispering muses. Fancy bookmarks. Authentic gurgling sounds from espresso machine. After: dinner if you want, po-talk, po-gossip, channel Keats. Pangea Bar & Restaurant ~ NYC, 178 Second Avenue, btwn 12th & 11th Streets ~ 212-995-0900 -- No Cover Jeffrey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Tue May 21 22:04:47 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 22:04:47 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Offlist for a time Message-ID: Lucky you! Who's going to take care of Al? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Tue May 21 22:10:00 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 22:10:00 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Help.... Message-ID: <26.27f6ebd3.2a1c57f8@cs.com> In a message dated 5/21/2002 12:23:08 PM Central Daylight Time, JBCM2 at aol.com writes: > > > Hi all, > > > This request comes to you from a non-list member, but from a good friend of > mine and fellow working-class academic in California. > > > She (Camille) is preparing to teach a class on philosophy and literature. > She is a philosophy professor and is looking for a reader or other source > of short stories, long poems, etc... with philosophical content or > ramifications... something that asks philosophical questions. > Any suggestions? We've already discussed "The Lottery" and "The Lorax" (by > Dr. Seuss). Neither one of us is particularly up to date on the lit. field. > Help? Bonus points for anything class-related! > > > Send suggestions directly to her or to the list (It might be interesting!) > or both. > At the risk of sounding self-promoting, I suggest you look at my anthology, Literature: A Pocket Anthology. I have numerous subject cross-references in the appendix, and there's certainly enough there to keep students busy for a semester. You can check out the contents at Amazon.com or at ablongman.com. If you have any questions, let me know. The anthology is relatively cheap, which would make it good if you're also including philosophical texts. R. S. Gwynn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Wed May 22 08:58:32 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 08:58:32 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: John Gallaher, "A Guidebook to *The Learning Curve*" Message-ID: A Guidebook to *The Learning Curve* The disaster had begun. The route to Cazan was filled with fugitives on foot, in cars, alone, or occupied with the long line of furniture. We took a ride for the length of the river, moved, as we are, by their Spring fashions. Speaking of continuing education, Ed's interested in bayonets and T'ai Chi. It's been at least a half an hour so far, the band'll be starting soon. Both Sylvie and Jane agree, though the birds are circling each other, and children march by in columns. And the domes and minarets, the class notices. And lactation as well, Sylvie says, for most of her miserable life. Another case involves couples struggling to find a way to disappear. They've decided this road isn't stylish, or warm. They obviously hadn't seen the Winchester alongside my leg, Jane says. And every now and then a cappuccino. What a March! we say. Into the vasty deeps, the class adds. They've sayings for most things, like One more year and we'll be vested. And Please, get us out of here. Anything. --John Gallaher [publ. *Chicago Review*, Summer 2001] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From halvard at earthlink.net Wed May 22 09:04:30 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 09:04:30 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "My 9/11 Poem" Message-ID: My 9/11 Poem Waking from the dream of safety, we slip into the dream of danger. Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Wed May 22 09:42:02 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 06:42:02 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Foreign Poets Message-ID: <3CEBA02A.A8956AC2@earthlink.net> In my mailbox this morning there was a message from an unnamed source informing me that dozens of foreign poets had slipped into the U.S. with forged student visas. When confronted with this rumor, Billy Collins, Poet Laureate of the U.S.A., said that the poetry establishment knew of this threat to the homegrown suburban lyric but that the foreign poets were little threat to expansive narrative. Ex-Poet Laureate Robert Pinksy, however, contradicted Collins by saying that the foreign poets had at their disposal great epics that were being sent to them piecemeal via innocent-looking e-mails, and that we should expect publication at any time, possibly as early as tomorrow, next week, or next year. Collins countered by saying that even if that were so, the epics had little chance of winning any major prizes as screeners and judges would lose patience with anything over 30 lines. Still, it would be best for the security of the poetic community to be on the lookout for epics disguised as sequences of short lyrics. - over and out From hruggier at localnet.com Wed May 22 10:52:06 2002 From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri) Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 10:52:06 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Help.... References: Message-ID: <3CEBB096.3E9273A1@localnet.com> There's an anthology called WRITING WORK: WRITERS ON WORKING-CLASS WRITING available from Bottom Dog Press - lsmithdog at aol.com Bottom Dog specializes in Working Class writing JBCM2 at aol.com wrote: > Subj: philosophy and literature > Date: 05/21/2002 1:14:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time > From: rravensc at ssc.wisc.edu > To: working-class-list at listserv.liu.edu > CC: philoperros at onebox.com > Sent from the Internet (Details) > > > > Hi all, > > > This request comes to you from a non-list member, but from a good > friend of mine and fellow working-class academic in California. > > > She (Camille) is preparing to teach a class on philosophy and > literature. She is a philosophy professor and is looking for a reader > or other source of short stories, long poems, etc... with > philosophical content or ramifications... something that asks > philosophical questions. > Any suggestions? We've already discussed "The Lottery" and "The Lorax" > (by Dr. Seuss). Neither one of us is particularly up to date on the > lit. field. Help? Bonus points for anything class-related! > > > Send suggestions directly to her or to the list (It might be > interesting!) or both. > > > Camille Atkinson, philoperros at onebox.com > Thanks! > rebekah > ______________________ > > > -- > Rebekah Ravenscroft-Scott > Graduate Student/Teaching Assistant > Sociology and Rural Sociology > University of Wisconsin-Madison > 7110 Social Science > 1180 Observatory Dr. > Madison WI 53706 > rravensc at ssc.wisc.edu > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Wed May 22 14:16:18 2002 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 13:16:18 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Simon Says Read This Message-ID: SIMON SAYS We?re playing Simon Says. Remember how? (Simon says remember how, so it?s okay.) It?s not enough to do what Simon says, It?s what he says he says that you obey. The rules are Simon?s. All right, let?s begin. Simon says, Don?t read this sentence or you?re out. You did? That?s it, game?s over, Simon wins, However much you plead, protest, or pout. Bound by the iron chain of such curved sense, Simon himself must discontinue play. There?s no appeal to gray omnipotence. What Simon says he says he can?t unsay. Paul Lake from Walking Backward From sholman at mac.com Wed May 22 17:18:11 2002 From: sholman at mac.com (Shannon Holman) Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 17:18:11 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] "My 9/11 Poem" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Tense We collected the burned papers that perfect morning. Perfect: that is, completed. The missing figures kept shifting. It was right or wrong to remember we missed Star Trek Voyager. A little later, to feel something, we started buying shoes and water. Shannon Holman -- Shannon Holman work: 212.545.6089 home: 718.638.1239 cell: 917.655.2415 email: sholman at mac.com -- http://www.onemississippi.com From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Wed May 22 18:08:56 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 15:08:56 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] whither reviews of electronic publications? Message-ID: <3CEC16F7.BA9F6191@earthlink.net> I'm having a helluva time finding online journals that review electronic publications of poetry (collections, not magazines) So far, Electronic Book Review http://altx.com:80/ebr/ seems to be it, though they do not focus much on poetry published online. Many other online journals carry reviews, but those are of print publications. Any suggestions would be appreciated. - Jim ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This message, unless otherwise noted, is impermanent. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org/ Poetserv: http://www.poetserv.com/ Homepage: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/index.html From bardo at optonline.net Wed May 22 20:25:27 2002 From: bardo at optonline.net (Daniel Zimmerman) Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 20:25:27 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] bad poems References: Message-ID: <010401c201f0$56d56680$c1a1bf18@danielzi> Gwyn: OFF-i-CER? OFF-i-cer? AN-a-pest? Dan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Lake" To: Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 3:03 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] bad poems on 5/18/02 12:05 AM, Gwyn McVay at gmcvay at patriot.net wrote: > Paul, > > I liked the poem as well, although I agree that the "silo" seems way too > agrarian for the austerity of the poem as a whole. I did like the rook > being "high" as something, as I thought of the European bird before the > chess piece. (It's an Audubon Society bias...) "Issue statements," > although an obvious reference to the American presidency, also seems too > contemporary a phrasing for the quasi-medieval world of the chess > pieces. I think of a king as proclaiming, more than issuing. > > Those quibbles aside, it's in the category of "damn good." I like the > rhythm of "ENters the FAMily TRADE, an OFF-i-CER." > > Gwyn > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry Thanks, Gwyn. Paul _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From gmcvay at patriot.net Thu May 23 11:01:51 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 11:01:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] bad poems In-Reply-To: <010401c201f0$56d56680$c1a1bf18@danielzi> Message-ID: On Wed, 22 May 2002, Daniel Zimmerman wrote: > Gwyn: > > OFF-i-CER? > OFF-i-cer? > AN-a-pest? > Around here we emphasize the "sir" part so they don't shoot you for drawing your wallet. Gwyn From Henry_Gould at brown.edu Thu May 23 11:15:51 2002 From: Henry_Gould at brown.edu (Henry Gould) Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 11:15:51 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] bad poems In-Reply-To: References: <010401c201f0$56d56680$c1a1bf18@danielzi> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20020523111221.00ab8900@postoffice.brown.edu> Yore UNda arREST, Miz GWYN MikVAY, Fer BEin in PUBlic - AN a PEST - toDAY. > > >Around here we emphasize the "sir" part so they don't shoot you for >drawing your wallet. > >Gwyn From sholman at mac.com Thu May 23 12:27:12 2002 From: sholman at mac.com (Shannon Holman) Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 12:27:12 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Babelfish In-Reply-To: <002101c1f8a2$3098df80$6401a8c0@hvc.rr.com> Message-ID: Sorry for the delay in responding; I've been out of town. Here are links to the Babelfish poems: http://homepage.mac.com/sholman/poems/lastwords.html http://homepage.mac.com/sholman/poems/initiate.html Shannon on 5/11/02 12:13 AM, theoldmole at tadrichards at prodigy.net wrote: > Shannon...frontchannel? > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Shannon Holman" > To: > Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 11:16 AM > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Babelfish > >> >> I have a couple of poems written with Babelfish. One starts with Plath > and >> one with Simic, and both go from English to English by way of French, >> German, and Portugese. Backchannel me if you wanna have a look. >> >> >> -- >> Shannon Holman >> work: 212.545.6089 >> home: 718.638.1239 >> cell: 917.655.2415 >> email: sholman at mac.com >> -- >> http://www.onemississippi.com >> From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Thu May 23 20:23:12 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 19:23:12 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: McBride Message-ID: <200205240022.g4O0MTa02479@mx9.mx.voyager.net> The Goldfish It was a feeder which means it was supposed to get fed to something bigger like a barracuda. But I put the ten cent comet in clean water with enough food, no predators and it grew into a radiant glitter full of happy appetite. That was the truth of it for a long time and then the fish, for no reason that I could see, suddenly curled upside down into a red question mark. Now, its golden scales drop off like sequins from a museum dress and its mouth forms over and over into the same empty O. Though I wish to there's no way to free it, even for a second, from its own slow death. You say this fish is the least of it, that I had better start worrying about what's really wrong: a child chained somewhere in a basement, starving, the droop-eyed man, cooking up, in a cast iron kettle, germ stew that will end the world. But that's *exactly* what I just said. The golden thing is dying right on the other side of the glass; I can see it and there's nothing I can do. --Mekeel McBride. *The Deepest Part of the River*. Carnegie Mellon UP, 2001. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From JBCM2 at aol.com Thu May 23 20:33:54 2002 From: JBCM2 at aol.com (JBCM2 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 20:33:54 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] New Formalists discovered in West Africa! Message-ID: <106.12735899.2a1ee472@aol.com> Chimps Fashion Hammers to Crack Nuts By RAUL RECTUM .c The Assassinated Press WASHINGTON (May 23) - A band of poet chimpanzees in West Africa routinely swing crude stone hammers to crack open nuts, while chanting new formalist poetry, a primitive use of language the apes have been teaching to each new generation for more than a century. Using carefully selected nuts weighing up to 33 pounds, the chimps pound the tough shell of the panda nut to extract a high-energy kernel that is an important part of the animal's diet, researchers report Friday in the journal Science. As they pound, that chant precision verse in iambic pentameter. ''The poetry reflects a very skillful behavior that takes up to seven years for them to learn,'' said Melissa Wanker, a George Washington University researcher and co-author of the study. ''It looks easy, but if humans who sit down and try it find that it is a very difficult task.'' ''What is remarkable is that they are controlling the meter precisely,'' she added. ''This is really interesting,'' she said. ''I applaud their work.'' AP-NY-05-23-02 1546EDT Copyright 2002 The Assassinated Press. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Fri May 24 00:53:00 2002 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 00:53:00 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] New Formalists discovered in West Africa! Message-ID: <109.12dcf2c5.2a1f212c@cs.com> In a message dated 5/23/2002 7:35:00 PM Central Daylight Time, JBCM2 at aol.com writes: > Chimps Fashion Hammers to Crack Nuts > > By RAUL RECTUM > .c The Assassinated Press > > WASHINGTON (May 23) - A band of poet chimpanzees in West Africa routinely > swing crude stone hammers to crack open nuts, while chanting new formalist > poetry, a primitive use of language the apes have been teaching to each new > generation for more than a century. > > Using carefully selected nuts weighing up to 33 pounds, the chimps pound > the tough shell of the panda nut to extract a high-energy kernel that is an > important part of the animal's diet, researchers report Friday in the > journal Science. As they pound, that chant precision verse in iambic > pentameter. > > ''The poetry reflects a very skillful behavior that takes up to seven years > for them to learn,'' said Melissa Wanker, a George Washington University > researcher and co-author of the study. ''It looks easy, but if humans who > sit down and try it find that it is a very difficult task.'' > > > ''What is remarkable is that they are controlling the meter precisely,'' > she added. > > > ''This is really interesting,'' she said. ''I applaud their work.'' > > AP-NY-05-23-02 1546EDT > > Copyright 2002 The Assassinated Press. Merci, M. Rectum. Them as can, can; them as can't, can't; them as cant, cant. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JBCM2 at aol.com Fri May 24 10:31:46 2002 From: JBCM2 at aol.com (JBCM2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 10:31:46 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] New Formalists discovered in West Africa! Message-ID: <1a1.2b8c24d.2a1fa8d2@aol.com> In a message dated 05/24/2002 12:54:04 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com writes: > In a message dated 5/23/2002 7:35:00 PM Central Daylight Time, JBCM2 at aol.com > writes: > >> Chimps Fashion Hammers to Crack Nuts >> >> By RAUL RECTUM >> .c The Assassinated Press >> >> WASHINGTON (May 23) - A band of poet chimpanzees in West Africa routinely >> swing crude stone hammers to crack open nuts, while chanting new formalist >> poetry, a primitive use of language the apes have been teaching to each >> new generation for more than a century. >> >> Using carefully selected nuts weighing up to 33 pounds, the chimps pound >> the tough shell of the panda nut to extract a high-energy kernel that is >> an important part of the animal's diet, researchers report Friday in the >> journal Science. As they pound, that chant precision verse in iambic >> pentameter. >> >> ''The poetry reflects a very skillful behavior that takes up to seven >> years for them to learn,'' said Melissa Wanker, a George Washington >> University researcher and co-author of the study. ''It looks easy, but if >> humans who sit down and try it find that it is a very difficult task.'' >> >> >> ''What is remarkable is that they are controlling the meter precisely,'' >> she added. >> >> >> ''This is really interesting,'' she said. ''I applaud their work.'' >> >> AP-NY-05-23-02 1546EDT >> >> Copyright 2002 The Assassinated Press. > > > Merci, M. Rectum. Them as can, can; them as can't, can't; them as cant, > cant. yeah, and them that kant, kant.... RM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From DICK at watson.ibm.com Fri May 24 18:26:33 2002 From: DICK at watson.ibm.com (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Fri, 24 May 02 18:26:33 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] other people's poems Message-ID: <200205242236.g4OMagk28422@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> I guess this is about the first world being shallow and concerned with its own trivial concerns rather than the real troubles befalling those caught in the turmoil of the other worlds. I'm sure not sure, though. Butbutbutbut... where is Cazan? for starters. And... is it poetry to string together such flat, affectless, dull prose - where any detail could as easily have been replaced by any of many others? This reads like the coming attraction of a melodrama. - where each scene lasts a fraction of a second. ????? Richard >>A Guidebook to *The Learning Curve* >> >>The disaster had begun. The route >>to Cazan was filled with fugitives >>on foot, in cars, alone, or occupied >> >>with the long line of furniture. We took >>a ride for the length of the river, >>moved, as we are, by their Spring >> >>fashions. Speaking of continuing >>education, Ed's interested >>in bayonets and T'ai Chi. >> >>It's been at least a half >>an hour so far, the band'll be >>starting soon. Both Sylvie and >> >>Jane agree, though the birds >>are circling each other, and >>children march by in columns. >> >>And the domes and minarets, >>the class notices. And >>lactation as well, Sylvie >> >>says, for most of her miserable >>life. Another case involves >>couples struggling to find >> >>a way to disappear. They've decided >>this road isn't stylish, or >>warm. They obviously hadn't >> >>seen the Winchester alongside >>my leg, Jane says. And every >>now and then a cappuccino. >> >>What a March! we say. Into the >>vasty deeps, the class adds. >>They've sayings for most >> >>things, like One more year >>and we'll be vested. And Please, >>get us out of here. Anything. >> >>--John Gallaher >> >>[publ. *Chicago Review*, Summer 2001] >> From halvard at earthlink.net Sat May 25 10:25:53 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 10:25:53 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Carl Rakosi, "Poem" Message-ID: Poem The ants came to investigate the dead bull snake, nibbled at the viscera and hurried off with full mouths, waving wild antennae. Moths alighted. Beetles swarmed. Flies buzzed in the stomach. Three crows tugged and tore and flew off to their oak tree with the skin. In every house men, women and children were chewing beef. Who was it said "The wonder of the world is its comprehensibility"? --Carl Rakosi [fr. *Ere-Voice* : New Directions, 1975] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Sat May 25 13:31:48 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 12:31:48 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] When Lilacs Message-ID: <200205251731.g4PHVI783792@mx12.mx.voyager.net> The lilacs are a bit late this year here in chilly Wisconsin, but I've been sustaining myself seeking out lilac poems. It strikes me that you could probably put together an anthology just of stealing-lilacs poems. I've run across two or three just in the past couple days. Here's one by Frank X. Gaspar, whose most recent book has been one of my very favorites of the last few years. I keep returning to it, impressed by its range and clarity of vision. His best poems tend to be longer and more layered than this one, I think, with an obvious debt to Whitman. But I like this little lilac poem. When Lilacs The pine fence rotted and collapsed, and then there was nothing between us and the abandoned lot of the fish- packing company, its wild outbuildings, the forges and pumps, the truck barn, the coopery, the workshops, silent and weedgrown, and the counting-house, ivy-choked and gone to pigeons and feral cats ? and the lilac tree, stooped with blossoms, and my mother stealing among them like a ragged queen, snipping and gathering, filling milkbottles with the nodding clusters: she would choke the house's sorrows with the lilacs in the kitchen with its pinched windows, on the sills and shelves and sinkboard, on the red round table and the stove's back, and lilac water in the vases and jars ? and in every cluttered room, we, who tilled no gardens and tended nothing but the tedious rosary of one day at a time, suddenly rolling among the crowns of flowers, breathing whatever fever it was that sweetened the air for that one time, the time the dead fence crumbled and nothing stood between us and the rich swollen purses of the lilacs. Frank X. Gaspar *A Field Guide to the Heavens* The University of Wisconsin Press, 1999 ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From antrobin at clipper.net Sat May 25 15:21:34 2002 From: antrobin at clipper.net (Anthony Robinson) Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 12:21:34 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] new journal References: <3CEC16F7.BA9F6191@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <001f01c20421$6974f660$8baeefd8@0021936706> Introducing Canary River Review, an new journal of poetry, fiction, and poetics. This first bi-annual issue will appear in October 2002. We begin reading submissions for the second issue in September 2002. Poetry, fiction, reviews, and short essays on poetry and poetics and/or politics are welcome. Contributors include: Ron Padgett, Charles Wright, Mike Topp, Aaron Belz, Joyelle McSweeney, Ben Doyle, Matthea Harvey, Carl Dennis, Vincent Katz, Rebecca Wolf, Timothy Liu, Nick Flynn, and more. You can pre-order the premiere issue here: www.canaryriver.com Anthony Robinson Poetry Editor, Canary River Review *** "The incredible never surprises us because it is the incredible." Emily Dickinson *** "The Romantic movement left, when it departed, a tremendous gap in poetry which could be filled by criticism and by literary theory but which would be better left alone." Kenneth Koch *** ...theres some thing in us it dont have no name...it aint us but yet its in us. Its looking out thru our eye hoals. Russell Hoban, "Riddley Walker" ----- Original Message ----- From: "James Cervantes" To: "new-poetry" Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 3:08 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] whither reviews of electronic publications? > I'm having a helluva time finding online journals that review > electronic publications of poetry (collections, not magazines) So far, > Electronic Book Review http://altx.com:80/ebr/ seems to be it, though > they do not focus much on poetry published online. Many other online > journals carry reviews, but those are of print publications. > > Any suggestions would be appreciated. > > - Jim > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > This message, unless otherwise noted, is impermanent. > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > James Cervantes: jvcervantes at earthlink.net > Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org/ > Poetserv: http://www.poetserv.com/ > Homepage: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/index.html > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Sat May 25 17:37:09 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 16:37:09 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gaspar Too Message-ID: <200205252136.g4PLah061890@mx14.mx.voyager.net> Seems to be a quiet day at NewPo. . . . So here's another poem by Frank X. Gaspar. This one is a bit more characteristic of the bulk of the book, I think, in its layerings of narrative and meditation, and its large thematic sweep. The Lilies of the Field One of those early summer days, driving west on Carson Street, heading for parts unknown, singing aloud in my head, saying *Lord, Lord, what am I to do?* Not a heaviness in my heart, not a lightness in my heart, but the usual hum and rush of living in this city of bungalows and smokestacks and barges and ocean. I was trying to keep my promises, but I didn't know how--I wasn't expecting a sign, exactly. I wasn't expecting the family on the parkway strip, right there on Carson Street, the old pickup truck, and the blankets spread in a row on the grass--and they were selling their things, everything, from the look of it, the quick backward-rolling look you get from a motoring car, the one way to see the world at this hour in our century, the *elect* way because the dimension of time doesn't allow you a single chance to delude yourself: *this is the universe expanding*--shirts, pants, a child's car-seat, bright plastic things spread like a rummage sale, but right there on the parkway grass, the traffic swooshing by, and that family--five, six of them, kids, everyone, out on the grass selling things no one would ever want to buy. You had to ask yourself, you had to feel things: how did they come to this? All this in an instant, in the passing shot, in the frame of a car window. You had to consider how much of the Sermon on the Mount was ambiguous. You had to at least entertain the idea that the Buddha was clearer in his communications. You had to marvel at the enormous figure of the angel Gabriel giving shorthand to Mohammed. I don't think that family spoke English well. You could get a sense of that by the look of them. We've all been there: you nod and smile and point, you pull out a few words, they pull out a few words, there is a little embarrassment, those small laughs that are accompanied by a quick forward jerk of the head. It's how to get along. You can buy a pair of shoes that way for a dollar and a half. You can get a Webster's dictionary for fifty cents. You can get a King James Bible for nothing if you don't mind the inked inscription inside the front cover: *Presented to Bruce Stotley by the North Long Beach Presbyterian Church, September 29, 1958*. I know that the dangerous thing is believing you love everyone, every suffering thing, even while you know you would tear out someone's lungs or step on a person's heart in the right hour of the right day. How the sun sits so high these days, so different from its low, pale winter path--how everything is exfoliated in the light, how everything begs to mean something other than itself. I am not talking about the problem of meaning one thing, but the truth about meaning all things, all at the same time. *Behold the lilies of the field*, for instance. *Behold the birds*. Behold the tattered colors of worldly possessions spread out on the city green, their sudden speed, backward in the side windows of the automobile. How they vanish, but never really vanish. How they persist. How *everything* toils. --Frank X. Gaspar. *A Field Guide to the Heavens*. U Wisconsin, 1999. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From Arielpf123 at aol.com Sat May 25 18:19:54 2002 From: Arielpf123 at aol.com (Arielpf123 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 18:19:54 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Gaspar Too Message-ID: <19e.2ca766a.2a21680a@aol.com> In a message dated 5/25/02 5:37:47 PM, grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: << So here's another poem by Frank X. Ga >> Let me second David's praise of Frank Gaspar's Field Guide etc.. I own the book and admire it so much that (though I don't know him) I wrote to him praising it and have done that with a stranger before. The language is wonderful; the ideas have much depth....the book is just stunning....one of my recent favorites. pat fargnoli From halvard at earthlink.net Sun May 26 08:36:09 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 08:36:09 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gaspar Too In-Reply-To: <19e.2ca766a.2a21680a@aol.com> Message-ID: { Let me second David's praise of Frank Gaspar's Field Guide etc.. I own the { book and admire it so much that (though I don't know him) I wrote to him { praising it and have done that with a stranger before. I hope it was as good for you as it was for him, Pat. There's at least a second time for everything, eh? Halvard Johnson, N.C.V. =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From halvard at earthlink.net Sun May 26 08:53:47 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 08:53:47 -0400 Subject: FW: [New-Poetry] Gaspar Too Message-ID: Talk about a self-illustrating message! Many apologies. I should at least have changed the subject line to "Gaspar Too Too." { Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] Gaspar Too { { { { { Let me second David's praise of Frank Gaspar's Field Guide etc.. I own the { { book and admire it so much that (though I don't know him) I wrote to him { { praising it and have done that with a stranger before. { { I hope it was as good for you as it was for him, Pat. There's at least a { second time for everything, eh? Halvard Johnson, N.C.V. =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From Arielpf123 at aol.com Sun May 26 09:12:51 2002 From: Arielpf123 at aol.com (Arielpf123 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 09:12:51 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Gaspar Too Message-ID: <1a6.2cefb37.2a223953@aol.com> should have been "never done that for a stranger!!? Gulp! Gwen's weekend pastimes must be getting to you Hal. patf From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Sun May 26 09:18:20 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 06:18:20 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Gaspar Too References: <1a6.2cefb37.2a223953@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CF0E099.8B583F39@earthlink.net> Actually, if you think about it, we often do it with a stranger. - Jim, in depth Arielpf123 at aol.com wrote: > > should have been "never done that for a stranger!!? Gulp! Gwen's weekend > pastimes must be getting to you Hal. > > patf > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From halvard at earthlink.net Sun May 26 12:52:57 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 12:52:57 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: don marquis, "archy interviews a pharaoh" Message-ID: archy interviews a pharaoh boss i went and interviewed the mummy of the egyptian pharaoh in the metropolitan museum as you bade me to do what ho my regal leatherface says i greetings little scatter footed scarab says he kingly has been says i what was your ambition when you had any insignificant and journalistic insect says the royal crackling in my tender prime i was too dignified to have anything as vulgar as ambition the ra ra boys in the seti set were too haughty to be ambition we used to spend our time feeding the ibises and ordering pyramids sent home to try on but if i had my life to live over again i would give dignity the regal razz and hire myself out to work in a brewery old tan and tarry says i i detect in your speech the overtones of melancholy yes i am sad says the majestic mackeral i am as sad as the song of a soudanese jackal who is wailing for the blood red moon he cannot reach and rip on what are you brooding with such a wistful wishfulness there in the silences confide in me my imperial pretzel says i i brood on beer my scampering whiffle snoot on beer says he my sympathies are with your royal dryness says i my little pest says he you must be respectful in the presence of a mighty desolation little archy forty centuries of thirst look down upon you oh by isis and by osiris says the princely raisin and by pish and phthush and phthah by the sacred book perembru and all the gods that rule from the upper cataract of the nile to the delta of the duodenum i am dry i am as dry as the next morning mouth of a dissipated desert as dry as the hoofs of the camels of timbuctoo little fussy face i am as dry as the heart of a sand storm at high noon in hell i have been lying here and there for four thousand years with silicon in my esophagus and gravel in my gizzard thinking thinking thinking of beer divine drouth says i imperial fritter continue to think there is no law against that in this country old salt codfish if you keep quiet about it not yet what country is this asks the poor prune my reverend juicelessness this is a beerless country says i well well said the royal desiccation my political opponents back home always maintained that i would wind up in hell and it seems they had the right dope and with these hopeless words the unfortunate residuum gave a great cough of despair and turned to dust and debris right in my face it being the only time i ever actually saw anybody put the cough into sarcophagus dear boss as i scurry about i hear of a great many tragedies in our midsts personally i yearn for some dear friend to pass over and leave to me a boot legacy yours for the second coming of gambrinus archy --don marquis Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu Sun May 26 13:51:46 2002 From: Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu (Edward Byrne) Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 12:51:46 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos Message-ID: I just stumbled across a really interesting source, the collected photographs of poets from all issues of _American Poetry Review_ between 1971 and 1998. You can find it at the following: http://www.library.upenn.edu/special/photos/APR/index.html I looked up my own photograph which appeared with a couple of my poems in APR and was taken for promotion of my first book, and now I wish I hadn't. I suddenly feel a whole lot older! However, as I browse the pictures of many friends in the collection, I realize everyone else does as well. If you are curious, my photo is at the following: http://www.library.upenn.edu/special/photos/APR/265.html --Ed -------------------------------------------------- Edward Byrne Department of English 322 Huegli Hall Valparaiso University Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493 E-mail: edward.byrne at valpo.edu http://www.valpo.edu/home/faculty/ebyrne/homepage/ Editor, Valparaiso Poetry Review E-mail: vpr at valpo.edu http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/ Office Phone: (219) 464-5278 Fax: (219) 464-5511 -------------------------------------------------- From gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Sun May 26 16:35:49 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 15:35:49 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Nice 'stache, Ed. No one could disagreee that the '70s look's a pretty distinctive one. You look sort of like John Ashbery there, but with a thinner face and more intelligent eyes. Gabe On Sun, 26 May 2002, Edward Byrne wrote: > I just stumbled across a really interesting source, the collected > photographs of poets from all issues of _American Poetry Review_ > between 1971 and 1998. You can find it at the following: > http://www.library.upenn.edu/special/photos/APR/index.html > > I looked up my own photograph which appeared with a couple of my > poems in APR and was taken for promotion of my first book, and now I > wish I hadn't. I suddenly feel a whole lot older! However, as I browse > the pictures of many friends in the collection, I realize everyone else > does as well. > > If you are curious, my photo is at the following: > http://www.library.upenn.edu/special/photos/APR/265.html > > --Ed > > -------------------------------------------------- > > Edward Byrne > Department of English > 322 Huegli Hall > Valparaiso University > Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493 > > E-mail: edward.byrne at valpo.edu > http://www.valpo.edu/home/faculty/ebyrne/homepage/ > > Editor, Valparaiso Poetry Review > E-mail: vpr at valpo.edu > http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/ > Office Phone: (219) 464-5278 > Fax: (219) 464-5511 > > -------------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From Arielpf123 at aol.com Sun May 26 17:16:04 2002 From: Arielpf123 at aol.com (Arielpf123 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 17:16:04 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos Message-ID: <160.e453709.2a22aa94@aol.com> In a message dated 5/26/02 1:51:50 PM, Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu writes: << I looked up my own photograph which appeared with a couple of my poems in APR and was taken for promotion of my first book, >> Whew....i am impressed...you were gorgeous!!! patf :-) From mbyrne at olemiss.edu Sun May 26 17:58:07 2002 From: mbyrne at olemiss.edu (Mairead Byrne) Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 16:58:07 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Edward, Do you think there's any chance we might be related? There isn't a family resemblance, it's true, but you look a little like my fourth sister's French husband, soon to be ex unfortunately. Also, "Edward" or "Edmund" is a Byrne family name, in my branch of the Byrnes, or Burnses, or Burnseses, depending how recessive your habitat. In any case, even the first cousin prohibition has recently been melted, I hear. Mairead On Sun, 26 May 2002, Edward Byrne wrote: > I just stumbled across a really interesting source, the collected > photographs of poets from all issues of _American Poetry Review_ > between 1971 and 1998. You can find it at the following: > http://www.library.upenn.edu/special/photos/APR/index.html > > I looked up my own photograph which appeared with a couple of my > poems in APR and was taken for promotion of my first book, and now I > wish I hadn't. I suddenly feel a whole lot older! However, as I browse > the pictures of many friends in the collection, I realize everyone else > does as well. > > If you are curious, my photo is at the following: > http://www.library.upenn.edu/special/photos/APR/265.html > > --Ed > > -------------------------------------------------- > > Edward Byrne > Department of English > 322 Huegli Hall > Valparaiso University > Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493 > > E-mail: edward.byrne at valpo.edu > http://www.valpo.edu/home/faculty/ebyrne/homepage/ > > Editor, Valparaiso Poetry Review > E-mail: vpr at valpo.edu > http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/ > Office Phone: (219) 464-5278 > Fax: (219) 464-5511 > > -------------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From mbyrne at olemiss.edu Sun May 26 18:13:59 2002 From: mbyrne at olemiss.edu (Mairead Byrne) Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 17:13:59 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This is so disappointing: I looked up "Kent Johnson," as listed in the APR archives but, wouldn't you know, the document is missing (though the date of the missing photo is "1930s" ...). I thought I was going to see The Man. Mairead From gmcvay at patriot.net Sun May 26 19:32:21 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 19:32:21 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos References: Message-ID: <3CF17084.57BC3A1E@patriot.net> Oh, behave, Mairead! I saw him first! I can verify that, whatever his sometimes bizarre sociopolitical viewpoints (tongue is firmly in cheek here), Ed is a handsome chap, with whom it is pleasant to imbibe gin-and-tonics. Gwyn From JforJames at aol.com Sun May 26 21:10:21 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 21:10:21 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] long awaited history of contemporary American poetry Message-ID: TALISMAN: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics _____ The long awaited history of contemporary American poetry, Talisman #23-26, is to be published in early August. More than 700 pages long, this special volume surveys major developments in avant-garde American poetry from 1970 to the present. The World in Time and Space: Reviews/Essays/Interviews on the Revolution in American Poetry and Poetics at the End of the Twentieth Century and the Beginning of the Twenty-First includes contributions by major critics and poets including Bruce Andrews, Daniel Barbiero, Christopher Beach, Michael Boughn, Peter Bushyeager, David Clippinger, Michel Delville, Brent Edwards, Steve Evans, Dan Featherston, Thomas Fink, Norman Finkelstein, Alan Golding, Jeanne Heuving, W. Scott Howard, Andrew Joron, Burt Kimmelman, David Landrey, Kathryne V. Lindberg, Stephen-Paul Martin, Stephen Paul Miller, Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Alice Notley, Peter O'Leary, Marjorie Perloff, Linda Russo, Standard Schaefer, Julie Schmid, Susan M. Schultz, Leonard Schwartz, ! Mark Scroggins, Mary Margaret Sloan, Gustaf Sobin, Brian Kim Stefans, Susan Vanderborg, and the editors, Joseph Donahue and Edward Foster. _____ This special history, encompassing four issues, is available to subscribers for only $21, including shipping. (Newsstands and bookstores will charge $24.95.) As a special bonus, subscriptions RECEIVED BEFORE JULY 10th will also include a copy of David Clippinger's The Body of This Life: Reading William Bronk with essays and memoirs by Don Adams, Robert J. Bertholf, Joseph Conte, Paul Christensen, David Clippinger, Ronald W. Collins, John Ernest, Norman Finkelstein, Edward Foster, Burton Hatlen, W. Sheldon Hurst, S. M. Kearns, Jack Kimball, Burt Kimmelman, David Landrey, Tom Lisk, Michael Perkins, Paul Pines, Gerald Schwartz, Rose Shapiro, Henry Weinfield, and Daniel Wolff. _____ .................................................................... Enclosed is my check or money order for $21. Please send a copy of the Talisman special four- issue history of avant-garde American poetry from 1970 to the present to: Name ______________________________________ Address ____________________________________ City _______________ State _________ Zip ______ I am subscribing before July 10th. Please include a copy of David Clippinger's The Body of This Life: Reading William Bronk. Send to: Talisman P.O. Box 3157 Jersey City, NJ 07303-3157 From Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu Mon May 27 01:59:12 2002 From: Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu (Edward Byrne) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 00:59:12 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos In-Reply-To: <160.e453709.2a22aa94@aol.com> Message-ID: Pat, It is that past tense "were" that feels so painful. --Ed B. > Whew....i am impressed...you were gorgeous!!! > > patf :-) -------------------------------------------------- Edward Byrne Department of English 322 Huegli Hall Valparaiso University Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493 E-mail: edward.byrne at valpo.edu http://www.valpo.edu/home/faculty/ebyrne/homepage/ Editor, Valparaiso Poetry Review E-mail: vpr at valpo.edu http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/ Office Phone: (219) 464-5278 Fax: (219) 464-5511 -------------------------------------------------- From Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu Mon May 27 02:14:06 2002 From: Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu (Edward Byrne) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 01:14:06 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos In-Reply-To: <3CF17084.57BC3A1E@patriot.net> Message-ID: Gwyn, Handsome, eh? Thanks, but before I feel real good about your compliment, just how many of those gin-and-tonics were you drinking? By the way, mine were scotch-and-water, and I also enjoyed our dance. --Ed > Ed is a handsome chap, with whom it is pleasant to imbibe > gin-and-tonics. > > Gwyn -------------------------------------------------- Edward Byrne Department of English 322 Huegli Hall Valparaiso University Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493 E-mail: edward.byrne at valpo.edu http://www.valpo.edu/home/faculty/ebyrne/homepage/ Editor, Valparaiso Poetry Review E-mail: vpr at valpo.edu http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/ Office Phone: (219) 464-5278 Fax: (219) 464-5511 -------------------------------------------------- From Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu Mon May 27 02:14:28 2002 From: Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu (Edward Byrne) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 01:14:28 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos Message-ID: Dear Mairead, I regret that we didn't get to meet at AWP in New Orleans. We almost did. I attended the reading by my old friend Dave Smith at the session you moderated, and I was hoping to have him introduce me to you afterwards; however, Barry Hannah read after Dave and I had to leave the session early for a dinner engagement with friends. I hope we have another chance sometime to meet and to discuss how far back our family links, if any, might have been. --Ed On Sun, 26 May 2002 16:58:07 -0500 (CDT) Mairead Byrne wrote: > Dear Edward, > > Do you think there's any chance we might be related? There isn't a family > resemblance, it's true, but you look a little like my fourth sister's > French husband, soon to be ex unfortunately. Also, "Edward" or "Edmund" > is a Byrne family name, in my branch of the Byrnes, or Burnses, or > Burnseses, depending how recessive your habitat. In any case, even the > first cousin prohibition has recently been melted, I hear. > > Mairead -------------------------------------------------- Edward Byrne Department of English 322 Huegli Hall Valparaiso University Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493 E-mail: edward.byrne at valpo.edu http://www.valpo.edu/home/faculty/ebyrne/homepage/ Editor, Valparaiso Poetry Review E-mail: vpr at valpo.edu http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/ Office Phone: (219) 464-5278 Fax: (219) 464-5511 -------------------------------------------------- From halvard at earthlink.net Mon May 27 11:13:27 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 11:13:27 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Kenward Elmslie, "Circus Nerves and Worries" Message-ID: Circus Nerves and Worries When that everybody's legal twin Mrs. Trio enters the casino, I expect personal disaster. Out of next winter's worst blizzard I'm convinced into the lobby and up the ladder she'll hustle holding that squeaky velvet purse to one ear. Placing one green and black peppermint-striped chip gingerly on zero, zero it is. Which is when I fall dead. In my shower while soaping. This very next year. Goony intuition? Well, once in April at the Cafe Jolie pointblank she asked, this terror at time in your eyes, wouldn't crossing a river help? How about now? Give up my innocence hunt, I exclaimed, intimacies with failure, all my 'sudden magic' hopes? And today came this dream about moths, I lied, mouthing, yes wisdoms. Only how to read their lips? Tell me! Tell me! I dream about vines, she said. Thank you and *ciao*. Yesterday I looked at my body. Fairly white. Today fairly white, the same. No betterment. Why can't I feel air? Or take in mountains? I lose my temper at pine needles, such small stabs. Breezes scratch me (different from feeling) and I long to breathe water. Agenda tomorrow: Cable her care of casino TIME TERROR GONE STOP SEAWEED DREAM GREAT STOP (actually a lie). --Kenward Elmslie [in Padgett and Shapiro, *An Anthology of New York Poets* New York: Vintage Books, 1970)] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Mon May 27 11:25:52 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 10:25:52 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: April Bernard Message-ID: <200205271525.g4RFPL598286@mx10.mx.voyager.net> NY Sch So I was sitting in the bathtub reading *Eichmann in Jerusalem*. The water was cold compared with the day but that's a minor prune-up compared with what unwrinkles, in memory, ''fresh as paint,'' so that, say, tears would have been a big relief even if they had squeezed out cold, too. But as David L. would point out I have betrayed what I set out to emulate, which comes of eating too many of those crackers, orange, alluding to fish. When Alice M. left a message I was long gone down Whitney Ave. for another sobering tour of the 25-ft. squid in the Peabody Museum, amid cunningly arranged bones that make enormous monsters for schoolchildren to name, in Latin. Everything had been dragged out from stacked layers beneath the sea which is not, after all, forgiving. --April Bernard. *New York Times* 5/26/02. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From halvard at earthlink.net Mon May 27 11:38:54 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 11:38:54 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Ezra Pound, "N.Y." In-Reply-To: <200205271525.g4RFPL598286@mx10.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: N. Y. My City, my beloved, my white! Ah, slender, Listen! Listen to me, and I will breathe into thee a soul. Delicately upon the reed, attend me! *Now do I know that I am mad, For here are a million people surly with traffic; This is no maid. Neither could I play upon any reed if I had one.* My City, my beloved, Thou art a maid with no breasts, Thou art slender as a silver reed. Listen to me, attend me! And I will breathe into thee a soul, And thou shalt live for ever. --Ezra Pound [fr. *Ripostes*, 1912] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Mon May 27 11:52:12 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 10:52:12 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Gwyn and Mairead, Kent has never had his photo in APR as far as I know. But the I think July/Aug issue of 1996 shows an ink drawing of Araki Yasusada. Anyway, I found a link to a photo of Kent, Mairead, so that you can see how he looks: www.englishlutheran.org/ pastors.html . He's the second one from teh top. G On Sun, 26 May 2002, Mairead Byrne wrote: > Dear Edward, > > Do you think there's any chance we might be related? There isn't a family > resemblance, it's true, but you look a little like my fourth sister's > French husband, soon to be ex unfortunately. Also, "Edward" or "Edmund" > is a Byrne family name, in my branch of the Byrnes, or Burnses, or > Burnseses, depending how recessive your habitat. In any case, even the > first cousin prohibition has recently been melted, I hear. > > Mairead > > > > On Sun, 26 May 2002, Edward Byrne wrote: > > > I just stumbled across a really interesting source, the collected > > photographs of poets from all issues of _American Poetry Review_ > > between 1971 and 1998. You can find it at the following: > > http://www.library.upenn.edu/special/photos/APR/index.html > > > > I looked up my own photograph which appeared with a couple of my > > poems in APR and was taken for promotion of my first book, and now I > > wish I hadn't. I suddenly feel a whole lot older! However, as I browse > > the pictures of many friends in the collection, I realize everyone else > > does as well. > > > > If you are curious, my photo is at the following: > > http://www.library.upenn.edu/special/photos/APR/265.html > > > > --Ed > > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > > Edward Byrne > > Department of English > > 322 Huegli Hall > > Valparaiso University > > Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493 > > > > E-mail: edward.byrne at valpo.edu > > http://www.valpo.edu/home/faculty/ebyrne/homepage/ > > > > Editor, Valparaiso Poetry Review > > E-mail: vpr at valpo.edu > > http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/ > > Office Phone: (219) 464-5278 > > Fax: (219) 464-5511 > > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Mon May 27 11:56:26 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 10:56:26 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Here Kent Johnson is again, also second from the top. He's a handsome devil. www.hansen.com/doc.asp?ID=106 g From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Mon May 27 11:54:33 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 10:54:33 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: August Kleinzahler Message-ID: <200205271554.g4RFs2q08780@mx5.mx.voyager.net> There seem to be no shortage of NYC poems. . . . Here's another. For Ann, Whose Studio Burnt to the Ground In the Big Futon Factory Fire Across the Freeway From the Coliseum A cinder in the leftfielder's eye, then a tear. It has been a bad swing west for the Yanks, ten behind the Sox coming in and, looks like, about to fall another game back tonight. In the shadows, between the bleachers and banks of floodlights high overhead on their stanchions, the radiance visible for miles from the freeway and hills, through the windows of planes as they dip, heading in and out, is an atmosphere, or strip of atmosphere, a kind of sedimentary layer of smoke and ash from ten thousand futons, plaster and industrial carpets, the bonsai next to the warehouse elevator along with your ellipsoids on canvas, arranged this way and that, rutabagas hard by summer squash, brushing up against buttocks and yams ? *sexual tubers*, I liked to call them and so did you. How nice to register the world in shapes you might squeeze or eat. Better than words, plus you can get your hands dirty, like work, but fun, like playing in the grass at night, pounding your mitt and thinking of yams. That big kid will be washed up in five years, coaching Pony League in Saranac Lake, and you, my friend, will be on to your next thing, a fresh vein, spaghetti creatures, papier m?ch?. Think, this summer forty years ago in Queens, Lenny Tristano's quartet was in the Sing Song Room of the Confucious Restaurant, playing "Mean to Me". They've played it every night for weeks, but tonight, when Konitz finishes his solo and Lennie digs back in, just then, the hair stands up on everyone's neck while the bass feeds him lines he tears into bits. The tape machine is on the blink that set, and those two solos, like a million more, escape through the exhaust fan and into the night, rising along with the car horns and shrieks until a breeze takes hold and carries them south over Brooklyn and the lights of Ebbets Field out to Sheepshead Bay and Rockaway Beach, swirling awhile then heading off to sea. August Kleinzahler. *Green Sees Things in Waves*, Farrar Straus, 1998. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== ---------- >From: "Halvard Johnson" >To: >Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Ezra Pound, "N.Y." >Date: Mon, May 27, 2002, 10:38 AM > > >N. Y. > >My City, my beloved, my white! Ah, slender, >Listen! Listen to me, and I will breathe into thee a soul. >Delicately upon the reed, attend me! > >*Now do I know that I am mad, >For here are a million people surly with traffic; >This is no maid. >Neither could I play upon any reed if I had one.* > >My City, my beloved, >Thou art a maid with no breasts, >Thou art slender as a silver reed. >Listen to me, attend me! >And I will breathe into thee a soul, >And thou shalt live for ever. > >--Ezra Pound > >[fr. *Ripostes*, 1912] > > >Hal > >Halvard Johnson >=============== >email: halvard at earthlink.net >website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard > > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From marcus at designerglass.com Mon May 27 12:36:45 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 12:36:45 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3CF2285D.13928.F80272@localhost> > Gwyn and Mairead, Kent has never had his photo in APR as far as I know. > But the I think July/Aug issue of 1996 shows an ink drawing of Araki > Yasusada. Anyway, I found a link to a photo of Kent, Mairead, so that you > can see how he looks: www.englishlutheran.org/ pastors.html . He's the > second one from teh top. Take the space between "...org/ pastors..." out and the link works. thus: www.englishlutheran.org/pastors.html Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From bardo at optonline.net Mon May 27 12:37:09 2002 From: bardo at optonline.net (Daniel Zimmerman) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 12:37:09 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos References: Message-ID: <002901c2059c$bf6fafc0$c1a1bf18@danielzi> www.jacket.zip.com.au/jacket10/johnson-iv-gould.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mairead Byrne" To: Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 6:13 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] poets' photos This is so disappointing: I looked up "Kent Johnson," as listed in the APR archives but, wouldn't you know, the document is missing (though the date of the missing photo is "1930s" ...). I thought I was going to see The Man. Mairead _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From barry.spacks at verizon.net Mon May 27 12:46:30 2002 From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 09:46:30 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: APR pix In-Reply-To: <200205271543.g4RFh3Q15894@wiz.cath.vt.edu> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20020527093714.009ed370@mail.verizon.net> At 11:43 AM 5/27/02 -0400, Edward Byrne wrote: >I just stumbled across a really interesting source, the collected >photographs of poets from all issues of _American Poetry Review_ >between 1971 and 1998. You can find it at the following: >http://www.library.upenn.edu/special/photos/APR/index.html ah, I wanted to check my phizz, suspecting I too may have aged a bit, but on my machine the APR photo-pages work through the "k"s but then "Document Not Found" takes over for the rest of the alphabet (yet one more sinister expungement-plot only capable of being properly expressed by archie). barry (too weak and not-there to press the CAPS key) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gmcvay at patriot.net Mon May 27 13:09:08 2002 From: gmcvay at patriot.net (Gwyn McVay) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 13:09:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Ed, I never drink more than one gin-and-tonic at a time; in fact, I suspected for years that the only reason Forche ever hung out with me was that I can never quite finish one entire drink, so whenever she poured a glass of white wine for each of us, she would end up with a glass and a half. Doug, rather than blaming my judgment of male beauty on alcohol, normally blames it on my nearsightedness. To each his own. Gwyn From halvard at earthlink.net Mon May 27 18:27:04 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 18:27:04 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] poets' photos In-Reply-To: Message-ID: { I never drink more than one gin-and-tonic at a time { { Gwyn Me too, Gwyn, but sometimes I've been known to have and second right after the first, and maybe a third after that. 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 From JforJames at aol.com Tue May 28 09:36:30 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 09:36:30 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] from a new e-journal of poetics: PORES Message-ID: <188.888fee1.2a24e1de@aol.com> http://www.bbk.ac.uk/pores/ an excerpt from 'The Necessity of Poetics' by Robert Sheppard... Credo of a Writing Studies Coordinator I believe all students of creative writing should be inaugurated in the activity of poetics, since it is, of necessity, a self-sustaining part of all writerly process, born of the critical need to change practice. I believe the higher education student should be enabled to make this discourse in its most explicit forms and, to some degree, to study it. I am often worried, in my teaching at Edge Hill, by what might be called student dependence upon workshop activities. This is perhaps an inevitable state among students whose only experience of writing creatively has been within the undergraduate subject area, especially as skills and technique teaching produces wonderful, but temporary, results, products that often surprise student and tutor alike. But, equally worrying, I have occasionally found something similar in more mature writers, coming onto the MA in Writing Studies, particularly those I uncharitably call ?workshop junkies?, who are capable of producing varied and interesting work, but often only as a response to a stimulus. They seem to possess no integral urgency, as though they are shells of performance, particularly in the experiential and supportive atmosphere of the workshop. From hruggier at localnet.com Tue May 28 10:32:33 2002 From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 10:32:33 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] QUERY ABOUT KENNETH REXROTH Message-ID: <3CF39501.1E9CBD83@localnet.com> .I read somewhere that Kenneth Rexroth had stated that he "faked" some of the translations from the Japanese. Does anyone know where I might find this reference again? Thanks, H. Ruggieri From hruggier at localnet.com Tue May 28 10:36:59 2002 From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 10:36:59 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] JACK GILBERT POEM Message-ID: <3CF3960B.1620E107@localnet.com> From halvard at earthlink.net Tue May 28 10:24:19 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 10:24:19 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] from a new e-journal of poetics: PORES In-Reply-To: <188.888fee1.2a24e1de@aol.com> Message-ID: Somehow, the excerpt doesn't begin to tempt me to read more of this. Hal "I need big art." --overheard in a Chelsea gallery Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard { http://www.bbk.ac.uk/pores/ { { an excerpt from 'The Necessity of Poetics' by Robert Sheppard... { { Credo of a Writing Studies Coordinator { { I believe all students of creative writing should be inaugurated in the { activity of poetics, since it is, of necessity, a self-sustaining part of all { writerly process, born of the critical need to change practice. I believe the { higher education student should be enabled to make this discourse in its most { explicit forms and, to some degree, to study it. { { I am often worried, in my teaching at Edge Hill, by what might be called { student dependence upon workshop activities. This is perhaps an inevitable { state among students whose only experience of writing creatively has been { within the undergraduate subject area, especially as skills and technique { teaching produces wonderful, but temporary, results, products that often { surprise student and tutor alike. { { But, equally worrying, I have occasionally found something similar in more { mature writers, coming onto the MA in Writing Studies, particularly those I { uncharitably call ?workshop junkies?, who are capable of producing varied { and interesting work, but often only as a response to a stimulus. They seem { to possess no integral urgency, as though they are shells of performance, { particularly in the experiential and supportive atmosphere of the workshop. { _______________________________________________ { New-Poetry mailing list { New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu { http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry { From halvard at earthlink.net Tue May 28 10:55:29 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 10:55:29 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Peter Schjeldahl, "To the National Arts Council" Message-ID: To the National Arts Council Hello America let's tell the truth! *Robert Lowell is the least distinguished poet alive*. And that's just a sample Of what it's going to be like now that us poets are in charge Of poetry, at last (it's all we ever wanted, really, But nobody would believe it), and from now on if You want literature you'll have to come to us And ask for it, *nicely*, and with a ready *checkbook*, And even so we may "not wish to be disturbed"-- Inconvenient, you bet, but then literature Has always been an inconvenient business, especially Since the 18th Century, and even in America Our favorite country! It's true, we like it here, So don't tell us to go back to Russia Or Parnassus--those places mean nothing to us. We'd prefer even Gary, or Mississippi, or The Mojave Desert, where at least there are people Speaking, seven days a week, the language we propose To glorify; and if you like that, fine! But you won't, or not much, because we reserve the right To be the "conscience" of America, without (mind You) being overly anguished about it, which means We'll say embarrassing things habitually, not giving A shit for "national unity" (the only "national unity" for us Is the national unity of poetry, which is meaningless But only us poets know *in what way* meaningless). So you'd best get set to like it or lump it when I tell you, Fellow Americans, that we are citizens of the stupidest "Imperial power" in all history, still fighting that mean And furtive little war for the Philippine Islands. How can you ever get over, Americans, That Aguinaldo once thought we were wonderful? He couldn't believe it when we started butchering his men, And now the whole world believes it only too well! And only us American poets still see the pure heart That beats in America, and profess it While having none of its blockhead "policies." We're tired Of being schizophrenic! Let America be schizophrenic for a change! And if this nation should go down in flames, that's Terrible! but there in the rubble you'd find us, not Learning Chinese, but correcting our American cadences, And if that isn't patriotism, America, *what is*? --Peter Schjeldahl [in Padgett and Shapiro, *An Anthology of New York Poets* New York: Vintage Books, 1970)] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From halvard at earthlink.net Tue May 28 11:07:34 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 11:07:34 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Peter Schjeldahl, "Citizen" Message-ID: Citizen No, I would not like to meet Bob Dylan. Yes, I would welcome the opportunity To visit Vienna in the company Of a cultured and relatively pro-American Resident of that city What could I say to Bob Dylan? I would have to "invent" something--ugh! To the native of Vienna I would say, To throw The "curve ball" hold it thusly, along The seams, and "snap" your wrist at the moment Of delivery If you are successful, the batter Should first lean back, then flail wildly At your accurate pitch, giving you a sense of satisfaction Understandable in any language --Peter Schjeldahl [in Padgett and Shapiro, *An Anthology of New York Poets* New York: Vintage Books, 1970)] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu Tue May 28 14:32:52 2002 From: rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu (rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 11:32:52 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Stefan Augustin Doinas Message-ID: <3.0.32.20020528113250.00dcae74@medicine.nodak.edu> By one or another news service, a day late, I have just learned that the Romanian poet Stefan Augustin Doinas died a couple of days ago, of health problems related to being 80 years old. His ballerina wife of 42 years then committed suicide, which (sadly) got more attention in our press than his death did. Could any of our resident scholars publish something by Doinas (in translation) on the list, and even better, some memorial or comment on his life as a poet? I could not find such on a quick Google and poetry-lists search (even David Graham's site). Do I understand that he was belatedly "rehabilitated" and honored after the Ciaocescu (sorry for the spelling) regime was deposed? Thanks for any poem(s) and/or information, Richard W. Wilsnack rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Tue May 28 12:33:55 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 11:33:55 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] from a new e-journal of poetics: PORES Message-ID: <200205281633.g4SGXNu08797@mx10.mx.voyager.net> Ditto, Hal. Do I think that graduate students in creative writing ought to know some things about literary theory? Sure. Especially if they plan to teach writing & literature. But luckily there are more than a few ways to skin that particular cat--not all of which result in phrases like "enabled to make this discourse in its most explicit forms. . . ." Whew! A number of assumptions in the passage quoted might be worth examining, I'd say. I wonder just what he meant, for example, by "skills and technique teaching produces wonderful, but temporary, results. . . ."? David Graham, licensed discourse-enabler (M.F.A., B.A., L.S.M.F.T.). ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== >Somehow, the excerpt doesn't begin to tempt me to read more >of this. > >Hal "I need big art." > --overheard in a Chelsea gallery >Halvard Johnson >=============== >{ http://www.bbk.ac.uk/pores/ >{ >{ an excerpt from 'The Necessity of Poetics' by Robert Sheppard... >{ >{ Credo of a Writing Studies Coordinator >{ >{ I believe all students of creative writing should be inaugurated in the >{ activity of poetics, since it is, of necessity, a self-sustaining part of all >{ writerly process, born of the critical need to change practice. I believe the >{ higher education student should be enabled to make this discourse in its most >{ explicit forms and, to some degree, to study it. >{ >{ I am often worried, in my teaching at Edge Hill, by what might be called >{ student dependence upon workshop activities. This is perhaps an inevitable >{ state among students whose only experience of writing creatively has been >{ within the undergraduate subject area, especially as skills and technique >{ teaching produces wonderful, but temporary, results, products that often >{ surprise student and tutor alike. >{ >{ But, equally worrying, I have occasionally found something similar in more >{ mature writers, coming onto the MA in Writing Studies, particularly those I >{ uncharitably call ?orkshop junkies? who are capable of producing varied >{ and interesting work, but often only as a response to a stimulus. They seem >{ to possess no integral urgency, as though they are shells of performance, >{ particularly in the experiential and supportive atmosphere of the workshop. From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Tue May 28 12:48:22 2002 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 11:48:22 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] new journal In-Reply-To: <001f01c20421$6974f660$8baeefd8@0021936706> Message-ID: on 5/25/02 2:21 PM, Anthony Robinson at antrobin at clipper.net wrote: > Introducing Canary River Review, an new journal of poetry, fiction, and > poetics. > > This first bi-annual issue will appear in October 2002. > > We begin reading submissions for the second issue in September 2002. > Poetry, fiction, reviews, and short essays on poetry and poetics and/or > politics are welcome. > > Contributors include: Ron Padgett, Charles Wright, Mike Topp, Aaron Belz, > Joyelle McSweeney, Ben Doyle, Matthea Harvey, Carl Dennis, Vincent Katz, > Rebecca Wolf, Timothy Liu, Nick Flynn, and more. > > You can pre-order the premiere issue here: www.canaryriver.com > > Anthony Robinson > Poetry Editor, Canary River Review > > > > *** > "The incredible never surprises us because it is the incredible." > Emily Dickinson > > *** > "The Romantic movement left, when it departed, a tremendous gap in poetry > which could be filled by criticism and by literary theory but which would be > better left alone." > Kenneth Koch > > *** > ...theres some thing in us it dont have no name...it aint us but yet its in > us. Its looking out thru our eye hoals. > Russell Hoban, "Riddley Walker" > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "James Cervantes" > To: "new-poetry" > Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 3:08 PM > Subject: [New-Poetry] whither reviews of electronic publications? > > >> I'm having a helluva time finding online journals that review >> electronic publications of poetry (collections, not magazines) So far, >> Electronic Book Review http://altx.com:80/ebr/ seems to be it, though >> they do not focus much on poetry published online. Many other online >> journals carry reviews, but those are of print publications. >> >> Any suggestions would be appreciated. >> >> - Jim >> >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> This message, unless otherwise noted, is impermanent. >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> James Cervantes: jvcervantes at earthlink.net >> Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org/ >> Poetserv: http://www.poetserv.com/ >> Homepage: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/index.html >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > Anthony, is this a print or online journal? Paul Lake From gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu Tue May 28 13:33:16 2002 From: gudding at sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu (Gabriel M. Gudding) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 12:33:16 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] QUERY ABOUT KENNETH REXROTH In-Reply-To: <3CF39501.1E9CBD83@localnet.com> Message-ID: Helen, those are Rexroth's "Marichiko" poems. They're in _The Love Poems of Marichiko_. Check out Cary Nelson's MAPS website (the one that corresponds to his _Modern American Poetry_ anthology (Oxford UP): http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rexroth/gutierrez.htm Good luck. Gabe On Tue, 28 May 2002, Helen Ruggieri wrote: > .I read somewhere that Kenneth Rexroth had stated that he "faked" some > of the translations from the Japanese. > > Does anyone know where I might find this reference again? > > Thanks, > > H. Ruggieri > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From DICK at watson.ibm.com Tue May 28 13:58:21 2002 From: DICK at watson.ibm.com (DICK at watson.ibm.com) Date: Tue, 28 May 02 13:58:21 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others Message-ID: <200205281808.g4SI8Nk57492@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> There've been quite a few poems by others posted lately, with virtually no comments from the list. Why not? I'll try. Aren't these two "poems" (is there any reason for any of the line breaks, in the first one at least?) kind of adolescent in their pointless expression of "attitude?" Is teaching a Viennese how to throw a curve ball, well, clever, or even interesting? Or is there some post-postmodern twist I'm missing? Richard >>To the National Arts Council >> >>Hello America let's tell the truth! >>*Robert Lowell is the least distinguished poet alive*. >>And that's just a sample >>Of what it's going to be like now that us poets are in charge >>Of poetry, at last (it's all we ever wanted, really, >>But nobody would believe it), and from now on if >>You want literature you'll have to come to us >>And ask for it, *nicely*, and with a ready *checkbook*, >>And even so we may "not wish to be disturbed"-- >>Inconvenient, you bet, but then literature >>Has always been an inconvenient business, especially >>Since the 18th Century, and even in America >>Our favorite country! It's true, we like it here, >>So don't tell us to go back to Russia >>Or Parnassus--those places mean nothing to us. >>We'd prefer even Gary, or Mississippi, or >>The Mojave Desert, where at least there are people >>Speaking, seven days a week, the language we propose >>To glorify; and if you like that, fine! >>But you won't, or not much, because we reserve the right >>To be the "conscience" of America, without (mind >>You) being overly anguished about it, which means >>We'll say embarrassing things habitually, not giving >>A shit for "national unity" (the only "national unity" for us >>Is the national unity of poetry, which is meaningless >>But only us poets know *in what way* meaningless). >>So you'd best get set to like it or lump it when I tell you, >>Fellow Americans, that we are citizens of the stupidest >>"Imperial power" in all history, still fighting that mean >>And furtive little war for the Philippine Islands. >>How can you ever get over, Americans, >>That Aguinaldo once thought we were wonderful? >>He couldn't believe it when we started butchering his men, >>And now the whole world believes it only too well! >>And only us American poets still see the pure heart >>That beats in America, and profess it >>While having none of its blockhead "policies." We're tired >>Of being schizophrenic! Let America be schizophrenic for a change! >>And if this nation should go down in flames, that's >>Terrible! but there in the rubble you'd find us, not >>Learning Chinese, but correcting our American cadences, >>And if that isn't patriotism, America, *what is*? >> >>--Peter Schjeldahl >> >> >> >>Citizen >> >>No, I would not like to meet Bob Dylan. >> >>Yes, I would welcome the opportunity >>To visit Vienna in the company >>Of a cultured and relatively pro-American >>Resident of that city >> >>What could I say to Bob Dylan? >>I would have to "invent" something--ugh! >> >>To the native of Vienna I would say, To throw >>The "curve ball" hold it thusly, along >>The seams, and "snap" your wrist at the moment >>Of delivery If you are successful, the batter >>Should first lean back, then flail wildly >>At your accurate pitch, giving you a sense of satisfaction >>Understandable in any language >> >>--Peter Schjeldahl >> >>[in Padgett and Shapiro, *An Anthology of New York >>Poets* New York: Vintage Books, 1970)] >> >> From marcus at designerglass.com Tue May 28 16:08:23 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 16:08:23 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] from a new e-journal of poetics: PORES In-Reply-To: <200205281633.g4SGXNu08797@mx10.mx.voyager.net> Message-ID: <3CF3AB77.16353.E8EAE@localhost> Graham: > A number of assumptions in the passage quoted might be worth examining, I'd say. I wonder just what he meant, for example, by "skills and technique teaching produces wonderful, but temporary, results. . . ."? Good thing he didn't post it here as a member of the group, though, eh, or you'd have had to defend all that against my objections to it. Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From marcus at designerglass.com Tue May 28 16:24:30 2002 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 16:24:30 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] The Ultimate Internet Warning In-Reply-To: <200205281808.g4SI8Nk57492@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: <3CF3AF3E.13701.1D4F6C@localhost> Check it out: http://pub104.ezboard.com/ftimelyfrm1.showMessage?topicID=1703.topic Marcus Bales marcus at designerglass.com http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely From JforJames at aol.com Tue May 28 17:43:40 2002 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 17:43:40 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] from a new e-journal of poetics: PORES Message-ID: <50.c1497d4.2a25540c@aol.com> David, I did read the whole piece from which that excerpt was lifted. A good portion of the piece is devoted to Sheppard's aphoristic assertions on what poetics is or should be. (He includes a couple of Charles Bernstein quotes along the way.) In large part I think the article deals with an oft-stated notion that avant-gardist writings well up out of a "poetics"...rather than the poetics being the "after-thinking" or the critical assessment of what preceded (the writing itself). I'm curious, and maybe Alan Golding knows this, whether the UK colleges and universities have experienced the "creative writing workshop" boom that we've seen in the US? I think the question he may be asking, the one I'm hoping he's asking, is whether in the creative writing programs are trying to engender within the students the kind of mission and impetus (vocation) that will sustain their interest in poetry long after their time in the program has passed. There is something artificial, in terms of the structure and the fact that one is sequestered, so to speak, in those 2-3 years spent in a writing program... so when all in said & done does the entire experience of being in a program become akin to large scale exercise or writing assignment? Finnegan In a message dated 5/28/02 12:34:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time, grahamd at mail.ripon.edu writes: > Do I think that graduate students in creative writing ought to know some > things about literary theory? Sure. Especially if they plan to teach > writing & literature. > > But luckily there are more than a few ways to skin that particular cat--not > all of which result in phrases like "enabled to make this discourse in its > most explicit forms. . . ." Whew! > > A number of assumptions in the passage quoted might be worth examining, I'd > say. I wonder just what he meant, for example, by "skills and technique > teaching produces wonderful, but temporary, results. . . ."? > From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Tue May 28 18:41:53 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 15:41:53 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] from a new e-journal of poetics: PORES References: <50.c1497d4.2a25540c@aol.com> Message-ID: <3CF407B0.9063AF65@earthlink.net> JforJames at aol.com wrote: > > David, > I did read the whole piece from which that excerpt was lifted. > A good portion of the piece is devoted to Sheppard's aphoristic > assertions on what poetics is or should be. (He includes a couple of > Charles Bernstein quotes along the way.) In large part I think the > article deals with an oft-stated notion that avant-gardist writings > well up out of a "poetics"...rather than the poetics being the > "after-thinking" or the critical assessment of what preceded > (the writing itself). Your post is a two-part question, so I'll ignore the second part until Golding responds. But, my hunch is that the following derives from a poetics. I found it on the Conjunctions web site while hunting for other items. Anyway, the odd piece that follows caught my attention *only* because of a phrase I'd found in a "Talisman" (mentioned in your post on Sunday) piece: "Ultimately, a story takes place in the gaps between textual sources . . . " In this case, a poem "takes place in the gaps between textual sources." A workshop/theory poem? - Jim from Vague Swimmers Thank you for saying pathos instead of pathetic, keeping us the same size as before. A picture choked down to a dot that stays. In staying suffers. In suffering is subject to brief instances of wakefulness inflicted as we go along. Not to forget how to get back. Once here, before we move, again, but when I got the chance to say it, it was late. Against hard effort answers slip from oblivion. Suddenly obvious falling glass before a catching gesture, close as clothes drawn tight against next breath, before the hand now, quickly dust, capable of being blown away to join the mass, the rest of the names accidentally removed during restoration. Not to forget how to get back. Once in, to enter again as same or similar. Unscathed. Exactly as we were. And wrapped his body in gauze so that it would be protected. Rubbed the gauze with camphor, fat and lime to warm preserve it, and let his foot stay out, including an additional arm, wrapped accidentally together omitting the mouth as the mouth would be useful for other things. To agree to, or join in. Afraid to be discovered. Or replaced, or improved upon with half a ball. With half a head. One ear. Speech half in code attempt--depending on how we hold our head--to hear half of the story with that ear ignoring the rest with the others, sad to be so ineffectual and so otherwise eligible. I will cut your days across, I will halve your hairs exactly, I would already split your head down the middle. Stay, stay, stay. ... A sign above the exit lit up telling us what to do if we had to ask questions to point to clap and laugh when the sign said the words for these we did. It is possible to identify potential problems in this model but difficult to express them as sets that retain their meaning in the context of ordinary life. ... - Heather Ramsdell http://www.conjunctions.com/webcon/ramsdell.htm From halvard at earthlink.net Wed May 29 10:28:19 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 10:28:19 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] NYC poems by others: Ron Padgett, "Strawberries in Mexico" Message-ID: Strawberries in Mexico At 14th Street and First Avenue Is a bank and in the bank the sexiest teller of all time Next to her the greatest thing about today Is today itself Through which I go up To buy books They float by under a bluer sky The girls uptown Quiet, pampered The sum of all that's terrible in women And much of the best And the old men go by holding small packages In a trance So rich even they can't believe it I think it's a red, white and blue letter day for them too You see, Con Ed's smokestacks are beautiful The way Queens is And horses: from a pleasant distance Or a fleet of turkeys Stuffed in a spotless window In two days they'll be sweating in ovens Thinking, "How did I ever get in a fix like this?" Light pouring over buildings far away Up here when someone says "Hey!" In the street you know they aren't going to kill you They're yelling to a friend of theirs named Hey John David Hey, perhaps And even the garbage goes out In big white billowy plastic bags tied at the top Even the people go out in them Some, now, are waiting At bus stops (for a probably nonexistent bus . . .) I thought it was garbage! It's so pretty! If you're classless or modern You can have fun by Walking into a high-class antique store So the stately old snob at the desk will ask In eternity "You're going where?" You get to answer "Up." I like these old pricks If you have an extra hair in the breeze Their eyes pop out And then recede way back As if to say, "That person is on . . . dope!" They're very correct But they're not in my shoes In front of a Dubuffet a circus that shines through A window in a bright all-yellow building The window is my eye And Frank O'Hara is the building I'm thinking about him like mad today (As anyone familiar with his poetry will tell) And about the way Madison Avenue really Does go to Heaven And then turns around and come back, disappointed Because up here you can sneer at a Negro Or pity the man And rent a cloud-colored Bentley and Architecture's so wonderful! Why don't I notice it more often? And the young girls and boys but especially the young girls Are drifting away from school In blue and white wool Wrapped in fur Are they French? They're speaking French! And they aren't looking for things to throw Skirts sliding up the legs of girls who can't keep from grinning Under beautiful soft brown American eyes At the whole world Which includes their plain Jane girlfriends She even smiled at me! I have about as much chance of fucking her as the girl at the bank But I stride along, a terrifying god Raunchy A little one day old beard And good grief I really did forget to brush my teeth this morning They're turning red with embarrassment Or is that blood I've been drinking--I ordered a black coffee Miss And then a black policeman comes in Unbuttoning his uniform at the warmish soda fountain While I pull the fleece over my teeth And stare innocently at the books I've bought One a book with a drawing By Apollinaire called "Les fraises au Mexique" "Strawberries in Mexico" But when I open the book to that page It's just a very blue sky I'm looking at --Ron Padgett [in Padgett and Shapiro, *An Anthology of New York Poets* New York: Vintage Books, 1970)] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From halvard at earthlink.net Wed May 29 10:39:22 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 10:39:22 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others In-Reply-To: <200205281808.g4SI8Nk57492@sp1n293en1.watson.ibm.com> Message-ID: { Is teaching { a Viennese how to throw a curve ball, well, clever, or even { interesting? Or is there some post-postmodern twist I'm { missing? { { Richard Think of it as cultural imperialism. Hal "If you can't stand Byzantine intrigue, get out of the cabal." --New Yorker cartoon Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Wed May 29 11:46:09 2002 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 08:46:09 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] unwriting #2 Message-ID: <3CF4F7C2.165C0092@earthlink.net> Vague Swimmers' Parallel Universe It is impossible to render as vague barren solutions in this chaos but easy to silence them as singularities that give up their nonsense in the vacuum of supernatural life. . . . A bulb above the entrance darkened asking us what to do if we had to give answers to misdirect to yawn and cry when the bulb asked the ga-ga for these we didn't. . . . We mended your nights down, we made whole your skin haphazardly, we joined your feet down the middle. Go, Go, Go. To disagree, or separate. Afraid to be lost. Or abandoned, or diminished within a hole squared. With an entire foot. Half an eye. Silence in ascii--depending on how we hold our feet--to say the whole story with that eye absorbing the activity with the other, happy to be so effectual and so otherwise ineligible. And unveiled his aura in cement so that it would be unprotected. Pounded the concrete with myrr, sinew and plasma to cold spoil it, and let his head stay in, excluding a missing spine, unwrapped purposely and separately incorporating the foot, as the foot would be useful for other imaginings. Remember how to go forward. Once out, to go out again as different or unlike. Injured. Far from what we weren't. Working with ease questions adhere to certainty. Slowly mysterious rising opaque behind a flattened affect, far as nakedness loosened with exhalations, behind the foot now, slowly water, incapable of being drawn in to leave the atom, none of the unnamed purposely incorporated during destruction. Remember how to go forward. Once gone, before we stilled, the first time, but when I lost the certainty to hear it, it was premature. Damn you for hearing indifference instead of different, changing us to different sizes. A dot explodes to a picture that goes. In leaving heals. In healing is immune from eternities of sleep healed as we stay still. - Inverted from, and contrary to "from Vague Swimmers," by Heather Ramsdell (http://www.conjunctions.com/webcon/ramsdell.htm) "from Vague Swimmers" Thank you for saying pathos instead of pathetic, keeping us the same size as before. A picture choked down to a dot that stays. In staying suffers. In suffering is subject to brief instances of wakefulness inflictedas we go along. Not to forget how to get back. Once here, before we move, again, but when I got the chance to say it, it was late. Against hard effort answers slip from oblivion. Suddenly obvious falling glass before a catching gesture, close as clothes drawn tight against next breath, before the hand now, quickly dust, capable of being blown away to join the mass, the rest of the names accidentally removed during restoration. Not to forget how to get back. Once in, to enter again as same or similar. Unscathed. Exactly as we were. And wrapped his body in gauze so that it would be protected. Rubbed the gauze with camphor, fat and lime to warm preserve it, and let his foot stay out, including an additional arm, wrapped accidentally together omitting the mouth as the mouth would be useful for other things. To agree to, or join in. Afraid to be discovered. Or replaced, or improved upon with half a ball. With half a head. One ear. Speech half in code attempt--depending on how we hold our head--to hear half of the story with that ear ignoring the rest with the others, sad to be so ineffectual and so otherwise eligible. I will cut your days across, I will halve your hairs exactly, I would already split your head down the middle. Stay, stay, stay. ... A sign above the exit lit up telling us what to do if we had to ask questions to point to clap and laugh when the sign said the words for these we did. It is possible to identify potential problems in this model but difficult to express them as sets that retain their meaning in the context of ordinary life. ... - Heather Ramsdell http://www.conjunctions.com/webcon/ramsdell.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This message, unless otherwise noted, is impermanent. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: jvcervantes at earthlink.net Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org/ Poetserv: http://www.poetserv.com/ Homepage: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/index.html From grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Wed May 29 11:59:57 2002 From: grahamd at mail.ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 10:59:57 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] NYC poems About Frank O'Hara Message-ID: <200205291559.g4TFxOZ73311@mx4.mx.voyager.net> City Midnight Junk Strains --*for Frank O'Hara* Switch on the lights yellow as the sun in the bedroom . . . The gaudy poet dead Frank O'Hara's bones under cemetery grass An emptiness at 8 p.m. in the Cedar Bar Throngs of drunken guys talking about paint & lofts, and Pennsylvania youth. Kline attacked by his heart & chattering Frank stopped forever -- Faithful drunken adorers, mourn. The busfare's a nickel more past his old apartment 9th Street by the park. Delicate Peter loved his praise, I wait for the things he says about me -- Did he think me an Angel as angel I am still talking into earth's microphone willy nilly -- to come back as words ghostly hued by early death but written so bodied mature in another decade. Chatty prophet of yr own loves, personal memory feeling fellow Poet of building-glass I see you walking you said with your tie flopped over your shoulder in the wind down 5th Ave under the handsome breasted workmen on their scaffolds ascending Time & washing the windows of Life -- off to a date with martinis & a blond beloved poet far from home -- with thee and Thy sacred Metropolis in the enormous bliss of a long afternoon where death is the shadow cast by Rockefeller Center over your intimate street. Who were you, black suited, hurrying to meet, Unsatisfied one? Unmistakable, Darling date for the charming solitary young poet with a big cock who could fuck you all night long till you never came, trying your torture on his obliging fond body eager to satisfy god's whim that made you Innocent, as you are. I tried your boys and found them ready sweet and amiable collected gentlemen with large sofa apartments lonesome to please for pure language; and you mixed with money because you knew enough language to be rich if you wanted you walls to be empty -- Deep philosophical terms dear Edwin Denby serious as Herbert Read with silvery hair announcing your dead gift to the grave crowd whose historic op art frisson was the new sculpture you big blue wounded body made in the Universe when you went away to Fire Island for the weekend tipsy with a family of decade-olden friends Peter stares out the window at robbers the Lower East Side distracted in Amphetamine I stare into my head & look for your / broken roman nose your wet mouth-smell of martinis & a big artistic tipsy kiss. 40's only half a life to have filled with so many fine parties and evenings' interesting drinks together with one faded friends or new understanding social cat ... I want to be there in your garden party in the clouds all of us naked strumming our harps and reading each other new poetry in the boring celestial Friendship Committee Museum. You're in a bad mood? Take an Aspirin. In the Dumps? I'm falling asleep safe in you thoughtful arms. Someone uncontrolled by History would have to own Heaven, on earth as it is. I hope you satisfied your childhood love Your puberty fantasy your sailor punishment on your knees your mouth-suck Elegant insistency on the honking self-prophetic Personal as Curator of funny emotions to the mob, Trembling One, whenever possible, I see New York thru your eyes and hear of one funeral a year nowadays -- from Billie Holiday's time appreciated more and more a common ear for our deep gossip. July 29, 1966 --Allen Ginsberg. *Collected Poems: 1947-1980*, 1984. ======================================== David Graham grahamd at mail.ripon.edu Home Page: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html Poetry Library: http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html ======================================== From hruggier at localnet.com Wed May 29 14:55:28 2002 From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri) Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 14:55:28 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] QUERY ABOUT KENNETH REXROTH References: Message-ID: <3CF52420.CE6E452E@localnet.com> Yep, there it was. Thanks for the memory. Helen "Gabriel M. Gudding" wrote: > Helen, those are Rexroth's "Marichiko" poems. They're in _The Love Poems > of Marichiko_. Check out Cary Nelson's MAPS website (the one that > corresponds to his _Modern American Poetry_ anthology (Oxford UP): > > http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rexroth/gutierrez.htm > > Good luck. > > Gabe > > On Tue, 28 May 2002, Helen Ruggieri wrote: > > > .I read somewhere that Kenneth Rexroth had stated that he "faked" some > > of the translations from the Japanese. > > > > Does anyone know where I might find this reference again? > > > > Thanks, > > > > H. Ruggieri > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 acgold01 at gwise.louisville.edu Thu May 30 13:32:19 2002 From: acgold01 at gwise.louisville.edu (Alan C Golding) Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 13:32:19 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] UK Writing Programs Message-ID: Having left the UK in 1974, I have very little first-hand knowledge about the status of creative writing programs over there, so what I have to say will be fragmentary at best. (When I left, even American Studies was somewhat exotic; I graduated from one of 8 or 9 such programs in the whole country, though even then that was on the verge of changing.) But for what it's worth . . . I *do* think that more and more of what Americans would recognize as "creative writing programs" have been instituted over the last few years, in a way that seems part of a general trend toward a more US American model of higher education in the post-Thatcher years: more colleges and universities opening up (or being converted to universities from being two-year institutions), significantly reduced government funding for students. As recently as 1996, when I did some cursory research on this issue for a conference talk, there were still very few such programs, but I believe there are quite a lot more now. One of the few early programs was / is the longstanding program at the University of East Anglia, started by Malcolm Bradbury and (I think but am not sure) David Lodge. This different history does have some implications, I think, for folks' responses to the cited passage by Robert Shappard. To the extent that CW programs in the UK are a recent phenomenon, they are also a "post-theory" phenomenon. That is, their establishment postdates the universities' embrace of various forms of poststructuralist theory, and often (not always) the writing programs, as far as I can tell, exist in a much less troubled and anxious relationship to those theoretical discourses than many of their US counterparts. (For evidence that that anxiety still exists in influential places, I'd point to Mark Levine's essay, "Writing It: Some Observations on the Poetics of Territoriality," in the latest *Iowa Review*.) The same observation apparently applies, I've learned recently, to Australia. I was a reader for a doctoral dissertation by Paul Dawson at the U. of Melbourne, and he offers the first history of creative writing in Australia (somewhat like what D. G. Myers does for the US scene). Part of his argument involves the relatively untroubled crossovers between "theory" and "creative writing" in English departments that on the whole seem a good deal more interdisciplinary than their US equivalents. Robert Sheppard's program at Edge Hill University in Liverpool (itself one of the new institutions I mentioned) is something like an MA in poetry and poetics--I'm not sure exactly how it bills itself--that does indeed have what one might call a "theory" component. Sheppard himself is a poet, editor, publisher, and critic with a scholarly PhD (from East Anglia) who came somewhat late to academia; the closest analogy might be with some of the US Language poets who entered the academy in mid-career and mid-life, and with Charles Bernstein's founding of the Poetics Program at Buffalo--*except* that Buffalo doesn't do creative writing, of course, even if there's a ton of writers in the program. Another UK program that engages a wide range of media and theoretical discourses (itself a "theory" term, I know) is Caroline Bergvall and cris cheek's Performance Writing Program at Dartington College (though cris has just left). One other big difference: to the extent that there's a (perception of a) "mainstream" in UK poetry (please excuse the shorthand), it's not associated with creative writing programs in the way that it historically has been here. If there are Brits who are closer to the scene on the list, it'd be interesting to hear from them--or from Nate Dorward or Keith Tuma, the Norteamericanos who probably know more about this issue than anyone stateside. Alan G. From Cadaly at aol.com Thu May 30 13:40:11 2002 From: Cadaly at aol.com (Cadaly at aol.com) Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 13:40:11 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] UK Writing Programs Message-ID: <82.1c4f0fb3.2a27bdfb@aol.com> A former student of mine just applied to several MA creative writing programs in the UK -- none offered MFA -- not having written recommendations for any US MFA programs, I was surprised that in addition to potential as a scholar and teacher, I was ask to recommend her in terms of the originality of her work. There was all the usual stuff about playing well with others in a workshop environment and ability to deliver and take criticism, but there were these added requests for quite detailed specifics. Be well, Catherine Daly cadaly at pacbell.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com Thu May 30 14:16:00 2002 From: thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com (bob cooper) Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 18:16:00 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] The Ultimate Internet Warning Message-ID: Yeh, I like it, I like it Marcus. You've made my dirty harry of a day! (Maybe the guy who wants paragraphs, also wants to look in the mirror, and learn how to write, and learn how to smile...). Bob >From: "Marcus Bales" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: [New-Poetry] The Ultimate Internet Warning >Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 16:24:30 -0400 > >Check it out: > >http://pub104.ezboard.com/ftimelyfrm1.showMessage?topicID=1703.topic > >Marcus Bales > >marcus at designerglass.com >http://pub15.ezboard.com/btimely > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com From thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com Thu May 30 16:49:19 2002 From: thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com (bob cooper) Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 20:49:19 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] UK Writing Programs Message-ID: Scuse the rush of this reply. But Writing Programs in the UK... (and Program is a strange/alien word in the UK...) Yes, MAs in UK universities are in boom time. More & more places are offering courses. They?re expensive for students. But they?re regular money-earners for writers. Most places say they offer places to students who?re good writers rather than those who?ve got good academic qualifications. Acceptance depends, I guess, on a portfolio of work rather than paper qualifications. The University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (& I think one or two other places) offer an MA in Contemporary Poetry and Poetics that I wish existed when I lived there! I sense many courses are intended to produce novels, short stories, or portfolios of poetry with critical commentary that need not, necessarily, include too much knowledge of critical study and contemporary criticism. Like with politics, pragmatism rules. I guess another problem is that the MAs quality isn?t always higher than you can find at places that offer no academic qualifications alongside offering guidance and insights about writing. An MA however, when gained, can offer a qualification that opens doors where paid work can be done. An increasing number of first degrees also offer modules of Creative Writing as part of the process of being awarded a degree. An appreciation of how a poetry workshop works is part of the educational process. I may be wrong but I believe Creative Writing is a separate Department to the English Department in many, if not all, Umiversities. In most conversations about the subject Philip Hobsbaum is considered the originator of the poetry worshop movement, with a group he initially began in London in the 50s which he called The Group. He then he moved to Belfast and, eventually, Glasgow and set up similar groups. These were groups in Universities. Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Dereck Mahon and Paul Muldoon all attended the Belfast group (though Michael once told me he can?t remember going, and he told someone else, once in an interview, he only went once!). (At that time every poet had been through a University - and saying that mattered on the blurb on the books. There's been a shift, however, in how poets see themselves and write their blurbs.) Many think that The Group (and The corresponding Movement) was where the workshop pattern was established in the UK. But I like to think of the London Coffee Houses of the 18th Century (with Dryden, Pope, Gay, and the like) and Wordsworth and his pals in the Lake District show the idea of serious chattering about poetry and poetics wasn?t always University based and wasn't new. Workshop is also an ambiguous word. It can mean both a critical analyses of poems already written - or a place and time where prompts are given to a group of people for their poems to be created. Some poets carry the title Workshop Leader in their portfolios. Other poets carry the label Workshop Junky around their necks. Workshop has also become a verb. At readings I learnt not to cringe at the statement ?this one hasn?t been workshopped yet? before something was read! The hope was that the poem was better than the introduction! I've never heard of Edge Hill University in Liverpool! But I know they have a Metropolitan University that does an MA in Creative Writing (I once had a few beers with one of the tutors, and later met one of the students studying there... She thought it a canny course). Anyway, this?s my slightly jaundiced and rather hurried reply. Bob Cooper >From: "Alan C Golding" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: >Subject: [New-Poetry] UK Writing Programs >Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 13:32:19 -0400 > >Having left the UK in 1974, I have very little first-hand knowledge >about the status of creative writing programs over there, so what I have >to say will be fragmentary at best. (When I left, even American Studies >was somewhat exotic; I graduated from one of 8 or 9 such programs in the >whole country, though even then that was on the verge of changing.) But >for what it's worth . . . I *do* think that more and more of what >Americans would recognize as "creative writing programs" have been >instituted over the last few years, in a way that seems part of a >general trend toward a more US American model of higher education in the >post-Thatcher years: more colleges and universities opening up (or being >converted to universities from being two-year institutions), >significantly reduced government funding for students. As recently as >1996, when I did some cursory research on this issue for a conference >talk, there were still very few such programs, but I believe there are >quite a lot more now. One of the few early programs was / is the >longstanding program at the University of East Anglia, started by >Malcolm Bradbury and (I think but am not sure) David Lodge. > >This different history does have some implications, I think, for folks' >responses to the cited passage by Robert Shappard. To the extent that >CW programs in the UK are a recent phenomenon, they are also a >"post-theory" phenomenon. That is, their establishment postdates the >universities' embrace of various forms of poststructuralist theory, and >often (not always) the writing programs, as far as I can tell, exist in >a much less troubled and anxious relationship to those theoretical >discourses than many of their US counterparts. (For evidence that that >anxiety still exists in influential places, I'd point to Mark Levine's >essay, "Writing It: Some Observations on the Poetics of Territoriality," >in the latest *Iowa Review*.) The same observation apparently applies, >I've learned recently, to Australia. I was a reader for a doctoral >dissertation by Paul Dawson at the U. of Melbourne, and he offers the >first history of creative writing in Australia (somewhat like what D. G. >Myers does for the US scene). Part of his argument involves the >relatively untroubled crossovers between "theory" and "creative writing" >in English departments that on the whole seem a good deal more >interdisciplinary than their US equivalents. > >Robert Sheppard's program at Edge Hill University in Liverpool (itself >one of the new institutions I mentioned) is something like an MA in >poetry and poetics--I'm not sure exactly how it bills itself--that does >indeed have what one might call a "theory" component. Sheppard himself >is a poet, editor, publisher, and critic with a scholarly PhD (from East >Anglia) who came somewhat late to academia; the closest analogy might be >with some of the US Language poets who entered the academy in mid-career >and mid-life, and with Charles Bernstein's founding of the Poetics >Program at Buffalo--*except* that Buffalo doesn't do creative writing, >of course, even if there's a ton of writers in the program. Another UK >program that engages a wide range of media and theoretical discourses >(itself a "theory" term, I know) is Caroline Bergvall and cris cheek's >Performance Writing Program at Dartington College (though cris has just >left). > >One other big difference: to the extent that there's a (perception of >a) "mainstream" in UK poetry (please excuse the shorthand), it's not >associated with creative writing programs in the way that it >historically has been here. > >If there are Brits who are closer to the scene on the list, it'd be >interesting to hear from them--or from Nate Dorward or Keith Tuma, the >Norteamericanos who probably know more about this issue than anyone >stateside. > >Alan G. >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com Thu May 30 17:45:01 2002 From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton) Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 22:45:01 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] UK Writing Programs References: Message-ID: <016501c20823$41efb020$a0b5fea9@hamilton2hg13.btinternet.com> A few annotations around Bob's comments on The Group. << In most conversations about the subject Philip Hobsbaum is considered the originator of the poetry worshop movement, with a group he initially began in London in the 50s which he called The Group. >> The first Group began in Cambridge in the fifties, centred around students taught by F.R.Leavis, who wanted to apply Leavis' textual methods to their own work. This was primarily run by Philip Hobsbaum. (There's a chapter in Philip's _Theory of Communication_ that transcribes an entire session of the Cambridge Group.) Members of this Group included (among others) Philip Hobsbaum, Edward Lucie-Smith, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Peter Porter, David Wevill ... When everyone left, this divided, with Edward Lucie-Smith starting a London version (that never seemed to get much of anywhere, and rarely gets mentioned) And Philip Hobsbaum moving to Belfast. << He then he moved to Belfast and, eventually, Glasgow and set up similar groups. >> There were actually two fairly distinct Glasgow Groups (with an overlap) -- it's the second of these that took off. << These were groups in Universities. Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Dereck Mahon and Paul Muldoon all attended the Belfast group (though Michael once told me he can't remember going, and he told someone else, once in an interview, he only went once!). >> There was only really one Belfast Group, initiated when he was teaching there, and later run by Seamus Heaney. As to Michael Longley's (non)involvement, I believe there are still several of his poems (archived in the US university that bought-up the worksheets) showing changes he made as a result of the discussion. Also, I think Paul Muldoon (a student of Seamus Heaney at Belfast) only joined after Philip had departed for Glasgow in 1966, and Seamus Heaney had taken over the running. << Many think that The Group (and The corresponding Movement) >> The Movement -- the Children of Larkin -- was something else entirely, earlier, and a more conventional "poetic movement". But to bring this back to UK creative writing courses ... The Cambridge, Belfast, and Glasgow Groups were a bit university-centred, but had no formal academic status. (In fact, at Glasgow, it could be counter-productive -- takes time to write poetry, which could be more "profitably" employed in Academic Study, and no allowances were made.) But lo, how the whirligig of time brings its revenges!! The latest creative writing course to be set up was at Glasgow recently, headed by what was occasionally referred to as The Dream Team. The Professorship of Creative Writing ended up tripartite -- Tom Leonard, Alasdair Gray, and James Kelman. Tom was involved in both Glasgow Groups, Jim and Alasdair Gray joined when the first had fizzled and Philip formed the second (much less university based). Robin Hamilton From thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com Thu May 30 18:19:30 2002 From: thebobcooperfor at hotmail.com (bob cooper) Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 22:19:30 +0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] UK Writing Programs Message-ID: Yes Robin, Thanks for your corrections and additions! I wondered, after I'd sent the e-mail if I should have mentioned The Movement (but then it was too late, the damn thing was gone!). I had a suspscion that Tom Leonard was part of the Glasgow group, but I wasn't sure. And now Glasgow's got its own Creative Writing MA (I was told there was an article in The Guardian a few months back about it) and he's involved in it. I wouldn't have connected The Group and The Movement until I was pulled up and painstakingly told in a long conversation about people who'd been in one and were considered as partisans of the other. So, again, I'm glad I can now take what I was told with a modicum of salt. Now, salt to one side, my tummy's rumbling. Food... Bob Cooper >From: "Robin Hamilton" >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >To: >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] UK Writing Programs >Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 22:45:01 +0100 > >A few annotations around Bob's comments on The Group. > ><< >In most conversations about the subject Philip Hobsbaum is considered the >originator of the poetry worshop movement, with a group he initially began >in London in the 50s which he called The Group. > >> > >The first Group began in Cambridge in the fifties, centred around students >taught by F.R.Leavis, who wanted to apply Leavis' textual methods to their >own work. This was primarily run by Philip Hobsbaum. (There's a chapter >in >Philip's _Theory of Communication_ that transcribes an entire session of >the >Cambridge Group.) Members of this Group included (among others) Philip >Hobsbaum, Edward Lucie-Smith, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Peter Porter, David >Wevill ... > >When everyone left, this divided, with Edward Lucie-Smith starting a London >version (that never seemed to get much of anywhere, and rarely gets >mentioned) And Philip Hobsbaum moving to Belfast. > ><< >He then he moved to Belfast >and, eventually, Glasgow and set up similar groups. > >> > >There were actually two fairly distinct Glasgow Groups (with an overlap) -- >it's the second of these that took off. > ><< >These were groups in >Universities. Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Dereck Mahon and Paul Muldoon >all attended the Belfast group (though Michael once told me he can't >remember going, and he told someone else, once in an interview, he only >went >once!). > >> > >There was only really one Belfast Group, initiated when he was teaching >there, and later run by Seamus Heaney. As to Michael Longley's >(non)involvement, I believe there are still several of his poems (archived >in the US university that bought-up the worksheets) showing changes he made >as a result of the discussion. > >Also, I think Paul Muldoon (a student of Seamus Heaney at Belfast) only >joined after Philip had departed for Glasgow in 1966, and Seamus Heaney had >taken over the running. > ><< >Many think that The Group >(and The corresponding Movement) > >> > >The Movement -- the Children of Larkin -- was something else entirely, >earlier, and a more conventional "poetic movement". > >But to bring this back to UK creative writing courses ... The Cambridge, >Belfast, and Glasgow Groups were a bit university-centred, but had no >formal >academic status. (In fact, at Glasgow, it could be counter-productive -- >takes time to write poetry, which could be more "profitably" employed in >Academic Study, and no allowances were made.) > >But lo, how the whirligig of time brings its revenges!! > >The latest creative writing course to be set up was at Glasgow recently, >headed by what was occasionally referred to as The Dream Team. The >Professorship of Creative Writing ended up tripartite -- Tom Leonard, >Alasdair Gray, and James Kelman. > >Tom was involved in both Glasgow Groups, Jim and Alasdair Gray joined when >the first had fizzled and Philip formed the second (much less university >based). > >Robin Hamilton > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry _________________________________________________________________ Join the world?s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From wjbat at conncoll.edu Thu May 30 22:52:26 2002 From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin) Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 22:52:26 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] UK Writing Programs In-Reply-To: <82.1c4f0fb3.2a27bdfb@aol.com> Message-ID: <20020530225226.031031@oak.cc.conncoll.edu> wrote: >A former student of mine just applied to several MA creative writing programs >in the UK -- none offered MFA -- not having written recommendations for any >US MFA programs, I was surprised that in addition to potential as a scholar >and teacher, I was ask to recommend her in terms of the originality of her >work. That's terrifying. Do you mean no one ever asked you about the work in the States? It really is a comp-teacher's degree in the US? Wendy From JackKerouac25 at aol.com Fri May 31 11:05:30 2002 From: JackKerouac25 at aol.com (JackKerouac25 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 11:05:30 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] UK Writing Programs Message-ID: <93.1ddbe04c.2a28eb3a@aol.com> In a message dated 5/30/02 9:51:36 PM Central Daylight Time, wjbat at conncoll.edu writes: > That's terrifying. Do you mean no one ever asked you about the work in > the States? It really is a comp-teacher's degree in the US? > > Wendy > If you mean the MA, the answer is, unfortunately, yes. At least in my experience. However, I am pleased to announce that I have accepted an offer to teach at a small Ag college in southern Georgia: Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. It's my first tenure-track position, and just the prospect of the job makes me quite happy. Finally, my adjunct days are coming to an end. Jeff N. ____________________________________________________________________ Jeffrey L. Newberry Adjunct Instructor Department of English and Foreign Languages University of West Florida www.uwf.edu/jnewberry From halvard at earthlink.net Fri May 31 12:20:51 2002 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 12:20:51 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Karen Alkalay-Gut, "Crossing Legs" Message-ID: Crossing Legs So much of poetry depends on keeping legs crossed at the right moment but whether at my knee or your neck that is the question. * Don't waste time wondering when our paths or legs will cross. They won't or if they do it won't be because of a promise in a poem. --Karen Alkalay-Gut [from *Mechitza*, 1986; op but online at CAPA http://capa.conncoll.edu] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From acgold01 at gwise.louisville.edu Fri May 31 13:04:40 2002 From: acgold01 at gwise.louisville.edu (Alan C Golding) Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 13:04:40 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] UK Correction Message-ID: A small point, perhaps, but Edge Hill, where Robert Sheppard teaches, is a "College of Higher Education," not a university as I initially posted. Alan G. From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Fri May 31 15:02:03 2002 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 14:02:03 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] UK Writing Programs In-Reply-To: <93.1ddbe04c.2a28eb3a@aol.com> Message-ID: on 5/31/02 10:05 AM, JackKerouac25 at aol.com at JackKerouac25 at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 5/30/02 9:51:36 PM Central Daylight Time, > wjbat at conncoll.edu writes: > >> That's terrifying. Do you mean no one ever asked you about the work in >> the States? It really is a comp-teacher's degree in the US? >> >> Wendy >> > > If you mean the MA, the answer is, unfortunately, yes. > > At least in my experience. > > However, I am pleased to announce that I have accepted an offer to teach at a > small Ag college in southern Georgia: Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. > It's my first tenure-track position, and just the prospect of the job makes > me quite happy. Finally, my adjunct days are coming to an end. > > Jeff N. > > ____________________________________________________________________ > > Jeffrey L. Newberry > Adjunct Instructor > Department of English and Foreign Languages > University of West Florida > www.uwf.edu/jnewberry > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > Congratulations, Jeffrey. That's good news. Paul Lake From Cadaly at aol.com Fri May 31 15:19:07 2002 From: Cadaly at aol.com (Cadaly at aol.com) Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 15:19:07 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] UK Writing Programs Message-ID: <27.2840bde9.2a2926ab@aol.com> That's terrifying. Do you mean no one ever asked you about the work in the States? Nope. But I would hope the writing sample allows the programs to judge that. I really don't know how much "originality" has to do with it. I hear "quality" not "originality." > It really is a comp-teacher's degree in the US? The PhD creative writing is: USC applicants are asked to write a letter of application detailing why they want a career teaching comp. I would like to point out that many top tier U.S. universities and liberal arts colleges don't require comp, but still, comp and advanced comp are on the rise (Stanford's new 300-level advanced comp requirement), even at the graduate level (how to write a conference paper, how to plan a symposium, presentation skills, etc.). Be well, Catherine Daly cadaly at pacbell.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: