From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sat Nov  1 07:23:42 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 13:23:42 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: James Tate, "A More Prosperous Nation"
References: <BAY7-F6M0t2CD7Lsb0O0001e83a@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <002101c3a072$fd1f2ae0$d3607550@anny>

I have no access to it, can you please maybe copy and paste it? Thank you,

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky

From: "Jon Corelis" <joncpoetics at hotmail.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> I've written a similar surrealist prose poem (before I had read the James
> Tate piece,) so it may be relevant to this thread.  It ought to be seen
> formatted, which you can do if you have MsWord by going to:
>
>                   www.geocities.com/joncpoetics/EGG.doc
>
>
> ==================================================
>
> Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
> http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
>
> ==================================================
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Want to check if your PC is virus-infected?  Get a FREE computer virus
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From marcus at designerglass.com  Sat Nov  1 08:56:54 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 08:56:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <013701c3a00d$93ccd700$a35ffea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3FA37556.22038.1430FE@localhost>

> STATEMENT 1
> "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) collections
> of words concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant field
> who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority of
> the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
> and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with convincingly
> advocating a point of view; (b) collections of words less concerned
> (according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with
> convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying
> information to others that will increase their factual and/or
> conceptual knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with
> the latter than with eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections
> of words concerned more than anything else (according to a reasonably
> trustworthy consensus of readers) with eliciting an emotional
> response; and (d) texts that convey nothing meaningful (according to a
> reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers)."
> END OF STATEMENT 1

> I would say that if "5 + 7 = 75846?" were not clear, you would be
> unable to say it was false. <<

But my point is that it's not clear because that text purports to be 
math, consisting as it does of numbers and operants, and yet doesn't 
seem to make sense. So the questions start: what is the context? Are 
we in base ten? Are we missing a decimal point? Is it a joke? Is it a 
code? We strive to understand the texts we encounter on the general 
assumption that they are intentionally made in accordance with a set 
of guiding principles to communicate something to the audience. Only 
after saying "It isn't clear on the face of it" do we go on to 
examine what other contexts it might be clear in; and only after 
eliminating, to the best of our abilities, those contexts, do we say 
"This is nonsense -- or at least if it is sense I don't understand 
it."

> Okay, let me change my title to An Attempt At A Systefication Of
> Literature. I'll include a footnote defining "systefication" as a
> systematic classification of related items in groups and subgroups and
> subsubgroups, etc.,  the way that living organisms are classifed in
> biology into groups and subgroups and subsubgroups, etc.<

But Bob this is merely trying to hide your claim to scientific rigor 
in the footnotes: trying to say that your way of systeficationly 
classificating poetry (and just what is this apparent compulsion you 
have for redundant neologism? What's wrong with "a systematic 
classification" instead of "systification"?) is *the same* as the 
systematic classification of biology. If you can really provide 
scientific rigor, Bob, let me advise you NOT to hide it in the 
footnotes! But it seems to me that by apparently accepting that your 
classificatory systefication is a metaphor in the text and then 
claiming that it is the same as scientific rigor in the footnotes 
you're trying to put one over on the reader.

> Can we now begin on the question of whether Statement 1 is clear or
> not?

Clear in what context, Bob? Are you claiming you are doing science or 
that you're doing literary criticism?






From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Nov  1 09:13:49 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 09:13:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Types of discourse
References: <BAY7-F65GIYcxRXbMx90001e900@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <01cd01c3a082$5ff21880$d980fea9@j1c1k6>

Thanks for starting a separate thread from the MB / BG thread to post your
question on, Jon.  I want to keep the focus there on the clarity question.
Double thanks for finding my statement clear enough to throw test examples
at without trying to find out whether my statement was intended to be
science or literary criticism.
> Since the claim made below is that all verbal expression can be assigned
to
> one of the four stated categories, it seems reasonable to ask to which
> category each of the following verbal expressions ought to be assigned:

First, I should say that at one point in the other thread, I made a
disclaimer.  Marcus ignored it, and I dropped it to tend to what he was
saying.  In my disclaimer, I simply said that there would be some specimens
of verbal expression that it would be very difficult for a consensus to
decide on.  I should have slipped it into my statement itself.  I now will:
"Verbal expression, with the exception of a few meaninglessly rare cases,
can be of four and only four kinds."

Okay, to your examples.  I will give my opinion as to what they are, but
according to my statement, that determination must be made by the consensus
described.

>       a)  A man walking by himself down the street suddenly murmurs, "Got
to
> get that transmission
>            fixed."

A statement intended to convey factual information: the man has a
transmission that needs to be fixed.  He no doubt feels somewhat upset, so
is also trying to express an emotion, but I would claim that what's there in
the words is much more factual statement.

>       b)  A woman having an orgasm cries, "Oh ... shit!"

Words intended to elicit an emotional response.
Actually, words intended to convey an emotional response.  I think my
statement should include conveying.  Will change.  Thanks.

>       c)  A group of people standing in a church say in unison, "Our
Father,
> who art in heaven, hallowed
>            be thy name."

Factual statement that there is an entity that has a fatherly relation to
the people making the statement and occupies a location called "heaven."
His name should be hallowed.

>      d)  A homeless person tells a passer-by on the street, "This country
> isn't cool because it doesn't respect the rainbow." *

Words intended to be a factual statement, going by what they are on the
page.  But the person may have been trying to advocate his point of view or
trying to elicit an emotional response; it would all depend on his
presentation.

>      e)  A child playing with alphabet blocks says, "I've got the 'A'
block,
> I've got the 'A' block!"

Words intended to convey factual information, but similar to the previous
one in possibly being something else.

>      f)   A man taking a shower sings, "A rainy night in Georgia, it's a
> rainy night in Georgia..."

words intended to convey and/or elicit emotion

>      g)  The following statement of Gertrude Stein:  "A charm a single
charm
> is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if
> inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is
> upright. It is earnest."

Stein is hard.  I'm neutral as to whether this kind of thing is nonsense or
intended to elicit emotion.  I lean toward the latter because it was her
expressed purpose and because, as a critic specializing in what I call
burstnorm poetry, I tend to be able to find meanings in almost anything
(which is better than finding them almost nowhere).

Wait, this is definitely (c), a collection of words concerned more than
anything else with conveying and/or eliciting an emotional response.  The
phrase, "there is a gate surrounding it,' is a wonderful, highly meaningful
clause.  It suggests not the mere absence of a fence but the reverse of a
fence.  And it's about a rose--the rose has entry points into its varieties
of beauty everywhere.  Thanks for this.


> ----------------------------------
> * This actually happened one Fourth of July; the passerby was me.
>
>
> >"Verbal expression, with the exception of a few meaninglessly rare cases,
can be of four and only four kinds: (a) collections
> >of words concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> >reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> >majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant field
> >who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority of
> >the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
> >and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with convincingly
> >advocating a point of view; (b) collections of words less concerned
> >(according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with
> >convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying
> >information to others that will increase their factual and/or
> >conceptual knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with
> >the latter than with conveying and/or eliciting an emotional response;
(c) collections
> >of words concerned more than anything else (according to a reasonably
> >trustworthy consensus of readers) with conveying and/or eliciting an
emotional
> >response; and (d) texts
> >  that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> >consensus of readers)."
>
> Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
>



From marcus at designerglass.com  Sat Nov  1 10:19:22 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 10:19:22 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Types of discourse
In-Reply-To: <01cd01c3a082$5ff21880$d980fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3FA388AA.23273.5FAFD9@localhost>

> ... In my disclaimer, I simply said that there would be some
> specimens of verbal expression that it would be very difficult for a
> consensus to decide on.  I should have slipped it into my statement
> itself.  I now will: "Verbal expression, with the exception of a few
> meaninglessly rare cases, can be of four and only four kinds."<

Why not add more categories, such as "prayer", "thinking out loud" 
and the like?

> >       a)  A man walking by himself down the street suddenly murmurs,
> >       "Got to get that transmission fixed."
 
> A statement intended to convey factual information: the man has a
> transmission that needs to be fixed.  He no doubt feels somewhat
> upset, so is also trying to express an emotion, but I would claim that
> what's there in the words is much more factual statement.<<

So in other words it's a MIXED statement, right, Bob? Perhaps there's 
even an intent to entertain the passersby who overhear it?  This 
illustrates the difficulty of trying to taxonomize utterances in a 
natural language: it's hard to think of a "pure" utterance in terms 
of your "four and only four" types of utterance.

Note, too, that you are once again depending on "authorial intention" 
to determine where to categorize this utterance. You do NOT use your 
categorization scheme with an objective view to what the utterance 
itself MUST mean irrespective of the intention of the utterer -- you 
depend entirely on the utterer's intention in order to try to 
categorize the utterance. That's another significant and very likely 
insuperable difficulty with a scientific categorization of utterances 
in natural languages: because the intentions of the utterer are 
inferences, not deductions.

> >       b)  A woman having an orgasm cries, "Oh ... shit!"
 
> Words intended to elicit an emotional response.
> Actually, words intended to convey an emotional response. ...<

You are once again depending on "authorial intention" to determine 
where to categorize this utterance. You do NOT use your 
categorization scheme with an objective view to what the utterance 
itself MUST mean irrespective of the intention of the utterer -- you 
depend entirely on the utterer's intention in order to try to 
categorize the utterance. 

How do you, or Jon, for that matter, know that the woman is really 
having an orgasm? Is she trying to convey the fact of her real orgasm 
or convey the lie of a fake orgasm in order to prompt her partner to 
a quicker orgasm?

And speaking of lies, Bob -- where do lies fit into your system of 
categorization?

> >       c)  A group of people standing in a church say in unison, "Our
> Father, who art in heaven, hallowed  be thy name."
 
> Factual statement that there is an entity that has a fatherly relation
> to the people making the statement and occupies a location called
> "heaven." His name should be hallowed.<

How do you know they all believe? Is their public utterance enough to 
compel all auditors to believe they believe? What if they have 
doubts, or what if they're simply lying? What if the auditor doesn't 
believe that there is any such entity in any such relation or that 
such an entity in such a relation ought to be hallowed? Is the 
intention of the utterers enough to override the auditor's judgment?

Once again you are depending on "authorial intention" to determine 
where to categorize this utterance. You do NOT use your 
categorization scheme with an objective view to what the utterance 
itself MUST mean irrespective of the intention of the utterer -- you 
depend entirely on the utterer's intention in order to try to 
categorize the utterance. 

> >      d)  A homeless person tells a passer-by on the street, "This
> >      country isn't cool because it doesn't respect the rainbow." *
 
> Words intended to be a factual statement, going by what they are on
> the page.  But the person may have been trying to advocate his point
> of view or trying to elicit an emotional response; it would all depend
> on his presentation.<

But isn't this a frank admission not only that authorial intention is the real test, and not your categorization scheme by the reader, AND an admission that context ("depend on his presentation") is the other criterion? 
 
> >      e)  A child playing with alphabet blocks says, "I've got the
> >      'A' > block, I've got the 'A' block!"

> Words intended to convey factual information, but similar to the
> previous one in possibly being something else.<

Couldn't this be the child practicing at his poetry, though? Or at 
least entertainment for himself? And no matter which category you put 
it in, note again that you are once again depending on "authorial 
intention" to determine where to categorize this utterance. You do 
NOT use your categorization scheme with an objective view to what the 
utterance itself MUST mean irrespective of the intention of the 
utterer -- you depend entirely on the utterer's intention in order to 
try to categorize the utterance. 

> >      f)   A man taking a shower sings, "A rainy night in Georgia,
> >      it's a rainy night in Georgia..."
 
> words intended to convey and/or elicit emotion<

Intended to, eh? You are at least consistent in your error! The 
astonishing thing is that you are so consistent in using authorial 
intent to determine the category into which an utterance fits when 
you argue so determinedly that you never use authorial intent to 
determine the category into which an utterance fits!
 
> >      g)  The following statement of Gertrude Stein:  "A charm a
> >      single charm
> > is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it,
> > if inside is let in and there places change then certainly something
> > is upright. It is earnest."
 
> ...  I'm neutral as to whether this kind of thing is
> nonsense or intended to elicit emotion.<<

Once again authorial intention is the criterion you actually use 
while still claiming in your "theory" posts that you never use 
authorial intention as a criterion.





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Nov  1 11:00:47 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 11:00:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3FA37556.22038.1430FE@localhost>
Message-ID: <023701c3a091$50efc9e0$d980fea9@j1c1k6>

> Clear in what context, Bob? Are you claiming you are doing science or
> that you're doing literary criticism?

I'm claiming neither, as I've told you Marcus.  But I'll change my title to
"An Attempt At A Systematic Classification of Literature."  I assume that
now we can start?

In any case, here's the latest version of my Statement 1, with title:

AN ATTEMPT AT A SYSTEMATIC CLASSIFICATION OF LITERATURE

STATEMENT 1

"Verbal expression, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, can be of
four and only four kinds: (a) collections of words concerned as much or more
than anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
readers, or
agreement of the majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the
relevant field who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the
majority of the educated non-experts who are
cognizant of the experts' opinions and who have themselves examined the
matter concur) with convincingly advocating a point of view; (b) collections
of words less concerned (according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
readers) with convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying
information to others that will increase their factual and/or conceptual
knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than
with conveying or eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections of words
concerned more than anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy
consensus of readers) with conveying and/or eliciting an emotional response;
and (d) texts that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably
trustworthy consensus of readers)."

END OF STATEMENT 1

Note: I certainly hope to revise the above when we've established that its
content is clear.

--Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Nov  1 11:30:40 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 11:30:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Types of discourse
References: <3FA388AA.23273.5FAFD9@localhost>
Message-ID: <025d01c3a095$7d8a6920$d980fea9@j1c1k6>

> > ... In my disclaimer, I simply said that there would be some
> > specimens of verbal expression that it would be very difficult for a
> > consensus to decide on.  I should have slipped it into my statement
> > itself.  I now will: "Verbal expression, with the exception of a few
> > meaninglessly rare cases, can be of four and only four kinds."<
>
> Why not add more categories, such as "prayer", "thinking out loud"
> and the like?
> > ... In my disclaimer, I simply said that there would be some
> > specimens of verbal expression that it would be very difficult for a
> > consensus to decide on.  I should have slipped it into my statement
> > itself.  I now will: "Verbal expression, with the exception of a few
> > meaninglessly rare cases, can be of four and only four kinds."<
>
> Why not add more categories, such as "prayer", "thinking out loud"
> and the like?

Good idea.  I could have one for "collections of words by Marcus Bales."


I never denied that there are mixed verbal expressions.  Nor that authorial
intent may be a factor.  But I don't want to argue these kinds of things
with you right now, Marcus.  Let's work on whether my statements are clear
or not in the other thread for now, if you don't mind.

> > >       a)  A man walking by himself down the street suddenly murmurs,
> > >       "Got to get that transmission fixed."
>
> > A statement intended to convey factual information: the man has a
> > transmission that needs to be fixed.  He no doubt feels somewhat
> > upset, so is also trying to express an emotion, but I would claim that
> > what's there in the words is much more factual statement.<<
>
> So in other words it's a MIXED statement, right, Bob? Perhaps there's
> even an intent to entertain the passersby who overhear it?  This
> illustrates the difficulty of trying to taxonomize utterances in a
> natural language: it's hard to think of a "pure" utterance in terms
> of your "four and only four" types of utterance.

I never denied that there are mixed verbal expressions.  Nor that authorial
intent may be a factor.  But I don't want to argue these kinds of things
with you right now, Marcus.  Let's work on whether my statements are clear
or not in the other thread for now, if you don't mind.


> Note, too, that you are once again depending on "authorial intention"
> to determine where to categorize this utterance.

Nope.  The words "got to" suggest urgency, or an emotional desire to do
something.

You do NOT use your
> categorization scheme with an objective view to what the utterance
> itself MUST mean irrespective of the intention of the utterer -- you
> depend entirely on the utterer's intention in order to try to
> categorize the utterance. That's another significant and very likely
> insuperable difficulty with a scientific categorization of utterances
> in natural languages: because the intentions of the utterer are
> inferences, not deductions.

Right.  But I'll argue all that with you some other time.


> > >       b)  A woman having an orgasm cries, "Oh ... shit!"
>
> > Words intended to elicit an emotional response.
> > Actually, words intended to convey an emotional response. ...<
>
> You are once again depending on "authorial intention" to determine
> where to categorize this utterance. You do NOT use your
> categorization scheme with an objective view to what the utterance
> itself MUST mean irrespective of the intention of the utterer -- you
> depend entirely on the utterer's intention in order to try to
> categorize the utterance.

Her words are oral and contain her cry.  Sure, I took the the context of her
exclamation into consideration.  If I had only the words, "Oh, shit," I
would still have enough to categorize them objectively as intended to convey
and/or elicit an emotion.  But I don't want to get involved in all this with
you until we've worked out whether my statements on the other thread are
clear or not.


> How do you, or Jon, for that matter, know that the woman is really
> having an orgasm? Is she trying to convey the fact of her real orgasm
> or convey the lie of a fake orgasm in order to prompt her partner to
> a quicker orgasm?
>
> And speaking of lies, Bob -- where do lies fit into your system of
> categorization?

As opposed to fiction, I assume.  I'd say words intended to convey
information.  It's what the words do, not the authorial intent.  Same with
errors: "5 + 7 = 75846" is concerned with telling us that adding five and
seven yields 75846.  Categorizing it in my system has nothing to do with its
truth or falsity.  Again, though, I would prefer to argue about this kind of
thing later.

> > >       c)  A group of people standing in a church say in unison, "Our
> > Father, who art in heaven, hallowed  be thy name."
>
> > Factual statement that there is an entity that has a fatherly relation
> > to the people making the statement and occupies a location called
> > "heaven." His name should be hallowed.<
>
> How do you know they all believe? Is their public utterance enough to
> compel all auditors to believe they believe? What if they have
> doubts, or what if they're simply lying? What if the auditor doesn't
> believe that there is any such entity in any such relation or that
> such an entity in such a relation ought to be hallowed? Is the
> intention of the utterers enough to override the auditor's judgment?

I don't care.  The words objectively state what I've said they do.  I don't
care what the intentions of those saying the words are, only about what they
are clearly concerned with.

> Once again you are depending on "authorial intention" to determine
> where to categorize this utterance. You do NOT use your
> categorization scheme with an objective view to what the utterance
> itself MUST mean irrespective of the intention of the utterer -- you
> depend entirely on the utterer's intention in order to try to
> categorize the utterance.
>
> > >      d)  A homeless person tells a passer-by on the street, "This
> > >      country isn't cool because it doesn't respect the rainbow." *
>
> > Words intended to be a factual statement, going by what they are on
> > the page.  But the person may have been trying to advocate his point
> > of view or trying to elicit an emotional response; it would all depend
> > on his presentation.<
>
> But isn't this a frank admission not only that authorial intention is the
real test,

No.  I'm merely acknowledging that the classification of oral verbal
expressions depends on how they sound.  But I'll say more about this later.


>and not your categorization scheme by the reader, AND an admission that
context ("depend on his presentation") is the other criterion?

It depends on what's there.  If a context is there, fine.  It is objectively
part of the statement and can be used to classify it.  If not, a classifier
can only go by what's there on the page, or the equivalent.

> > >      e)  A child playing with alphabet blocks says, "I've got the
> > >      'A' > block, I've got the 'A' block!"
>
> > Words intended to convey factual information, but similar to the
> > previous one in possibly being something else.<
>
> Couldn't this be the child practicing at his poetry, though?

We don't know.

Or at
> least entertainment for himself? And no matter which category you put
> it in, note again that you are once again depending on "authorial
> intention" to determine where to categorize this utterance. You do
> NOT use your categorization scheme with an objective view to what the
> utterance itself MUST mean irrespective of the intention of the
> utterer -- you depend entirely on the utterer's intention in order to
> try to categorize the utterance.
>
> > >      f)   A man taking a shower sings, "A rainy night in Georgia,
> > >      it's a rainy night in Georgia..."
>
> > words intended to convey and/or elicit emotion<
>
> Intended to, eh? You are at least consistent in your error! The
> astonishing thing is that you are so consistent in using authorial
> intent to determine the category into which an utterance fits when
> you argue so determinedly that you never use authorial intent to
> determine the category into which an utterance fits!

I don't speak of authorial intent in my statement.  That's really all I'm
concerned with at this time with you, Marcus.  Let's you and I stick to
discussing my statement for now.

> > >      g)  The following statement of Gertrude Stein:  "A charm a
> > >      single charm
> > > is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it,
> > > if inside is let in and there places change then certainly something
> > > is upright. It is earnest."
>
> > ...  I'm neutral as to whether this kind of thing is
> > nonsense or intended to elicit emotion.<<
>
> Once again authorial intention is the criterion you actually use
> while still claiming in your "theory" posts that you never use
> authorial intention as a criterion.

I don't claim that in my statement.

--Bob G.



From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Nov  1 11:52:35 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 08:52:35 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Types of discourse
Message-ID: <BAY7-F78mCvoXM7e0C90001f9cf@hotmail.com>

BG's responses are informative and clarify things.  But they also raise some 
other questions.

One is that the categories seem to assume that all statements are in, or can 
be reduced to, the indicative mood.

Also, there may be a greater difference than is being recognized between 
statements expressing emotion and those evoking emotion.  A statement meant 
to evoke emotion must be, or seem, emotional, but a statement expressing 
emotion doesn't necessarily have to be directed to any other person.

As for Stein, I think the purpose of her statements is often to generate in 
the listener emotions the existence of which the listener has never 
imagined.  Stubbornly uncategorizable!

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Send instant messages to anyone on your contact list with  MSN Messenger 
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From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Nov  1 12:17:54 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 09:17:54 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: James Tate, "A More Prosperous Nation"
Message-ID: <BAY7-F33J8w52kNL13Y0001fc7b@hotmail.com>

I'm sorry Anny had trouble getting this, though it's in an area which is 
supposedly publicly available.  The  on line version (which again for 
reference is at www.geocities.com/joncpoetics/EGG.doc) is formatted to look 
like its subject, making it a concrete poem rather than a prose poem.  At 
Anny's request I give the prose-poem version of it below.  I've never been 
sure which version works better.  Anyway, I thought Tate's poem was 
remarkably like mine in technique, though not at all in tone.  (As I 
mentioned earlier, this is coincidental.)


---------------------------------


The Egg

Although he could remember a time when the egg had not yet appeared in the 
clearing, he could not recall any specific occasion on which he had first 
noticed the blank, porcelain-like ovoid, taller than a man, squatting 
placidly on the grass, nor had he ever heard any passer-by (for this 
clearing was not at all isolated) remark, "You know, in the days before the 
egg . . ." Indeed, no one other than himself paid it the slightest notice, 
although everyone was aware of the egg's existence: anyone to whom he 
mentioned the egg would reply with a smile and a brief platitude or small 
joke before changing the subject or hurrying on. Only an occasional child 
seemed to think that the egg was something special, staring at it long and 
long as if unsure whether it was attractive or repulsive, until being 
hustled off by a parent. Surely there was something wrong with him, that he 
alone inwardly made so much of the egg, wanting to attack it futilely with a 
hammer, or smash open his skull against it, desecrating its white perfection 
with his bloody brains, or drench the ground around it with his tears, or 
seize every person who passed through the clearing by the collar and hold 
them against the egg until one of them at last revealed why all men but he 
had joined themselves in a conspiracy to deny the egg's infinite 
significance. But he was as certain that everyone would consider such 
behavior insane as he was that everyone felt about the egg exactly as he did 
but refused to admit it. So now he simply sits on the grass staring at the 
egg and wondering whether sitting on the grass staring at the egg is the 
answer, or whether perhaps wondering whether sitting on the grass staring at 
the egg is the answer might be the answer.



==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

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Add MSN 8 Internet Software to your current Internet access and enjoy 
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Nov  1 12:19:53 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 12:19:53 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Types of discourse
References: <BAY7-F78mCvoXM7e0C90001f9cf@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <028f01c3a09c$5db52200$d980fea9@j1c1k6>

> BG's responses are informative and clarify things.  But they also raise
some
> other questions.
>
> One is that the categories seem to assume that all statements are in, or
can
> be reduced to, the indicative mood.

Not sure of this.  Imperative mood expressions would be in my category (a),
words intended to advocate something.


> Also, there may be a greater difference than is being recognized between
> statements expressing emotion and those evoking emotion.  A statement
meant
> to evoke emotion must be, or seem, emotional,

Maybe not.  "lighght" is not at all emotional but causes the emotion of
pleasure in those receptive to what it's doing.

> but a statement expressing
> emotion doesn't necessarily have to be directed to any other person.

Interesting area.  I tend to think all verbal expressions are communicative,
even if no one but the speaker is present.  Even then, the speaker is his
own audience.

As for my category, at its level of generality, it includes both conveying
and eliciting emotion.

Hmm, now that I think of it, maybe words intended to convey emotions are
fact-statements.  "Ugh," for example, being a factual statement that the
speaker is unhappy.  So now I think I'll retract that "conveying emotion"
part from my statement.

> As for Stein, I think the purpose of her statements is often to generate
in
> the listener emotions the existence of which the listener has never
> imagined.  Stubbornly uncategorizable!

I'm sure she hoped to do something like that.  The problem is whether she
succeeded.  She did, for me, at times.

--Bob G.



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sat Nov  1 13:08:04 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 11:08:04 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Types of discourse
References: <BAY7-F65GIYcxRXbMx90001e900@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <3FA3F683.281E015D@earthlink.net>

And you can mix them up:

"A charm a single charm is doubtful."
"I've got the 'A' block . . . "Our Father . . . ""This country

 ". . . then certainly something is upright."
isn't cool because it doesn't respect the rainbow."

who art in heaven," ("Contacting host 
www.kbtoys.com. Waiting for reply . . . ")

"If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it . . ."
 "Oh ... shit!" ". . . I've got the 'A' block!"  "A rainy night in
Georgia," 

"Got to get that transmission fixed." ". . .if inside is let in 
and their places change . . ." hallowed be thy name."

"it's a rainy night in Georgia..." "It is earnest."

- Jim

Jon Corelis wrote:
> 
> Since the claim made below is that all verbal expression can be assigned to
> one of the four stated categories, it seems reasonable to ask to which
> category each of the following verbal expressions ought to be assigned:
> 
>       a)  A man walking by himself down the street suddenly murmurs, "Got to
> get that transmission
>            fixed."
> 
>       b)  A woman having an orgasm cries, "Oh ... shit!"
> 
>       c)  A group of people standing in a church say in unison, "Our Father,
> who art in heaven, hallowed
>            be thy name."
> 
>      d)  A homeless person tells a passer-by on the street, "This country
> isn't cool because it doesn't respect the rainbow." *
> 
>      e)  A child playing with alphabet blocks says, "I've got the 'A' block,
> I've got the 'A' block!"
> 
>      f)   A man taking a shower sings, "A rainy night in Georgia, it's a
> rainy night in Georgia..."
> 
>      g)  The following statement of Gertrude Stein:  "A charm a single charm
> is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if
> inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is
> upright. It is earnest."
> 
> ----------------------------------
> * This actually happened one Fourth of July; the passerby was me.
> 
> >"Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) collections
> >of words concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> >reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> >majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant field
> >who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority of
> >the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
> >and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with convincingly
> >advocating a point of view; (b) collections of words less concerned
> >(according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with
> >convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying
> >information to others that will increase their factual and/or
> >conceptual knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with
> >the latter than with eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections
> >of words concerned more than anything else (according to a reasonably
> >trustworthy consensus of readers) with eliciting an emotional
> >response; and (d) texts
> >  that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> >consensus of readers)."
> ==================================================
> 
> Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
> http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
> 
> ==================================================
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Want to check if your PC is virus-infected?  Get a FREE computer virus scan
> online from McAfee.
> http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Sat Nov  1 14:36:34 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 12:36:34 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Types of discourse
References: <BAY7-F65GIYcxRXbMx90001e900@hotmail.com> <3FA3F683.281E015D@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <3FA40B42.7E49D497@earthlink.net>

Or you can ignore them altogether and ask yourself questions:

I can't keep my hands from my head.
I keep unearthing dandruff.
My scalp's going to fall off,
I know it is, like when I read
Emily's poems.  Or that time
I noticed my ears ringing.
Had they been ringing all the while?
Did it start after the divorce?
When I turned the corner on sixty?
Now my hands go to my ears -
earphones for a private hearing -
and there's suspicious silence.
I know they'll start ringing again,
but when?  When will they ring?

- Jim


Jon Corelis wrote:
> 
> Since the claim made below is that all verbal expression can be assigned to
> one of the four stated categories, it seems reasonable to ask to which
> category each of the following verbal expressions ought to be assigned:
> 
>       a)  A man walking by himself down the street suddenly murmurs, "Got to
> get that transmission
>            fixed."
> 
>       b)  A woman having an orgasm cries, "Oh ... shit!"
> 
>       c)  A group of people standing in a church say in unison, "Our Father,
> who art in heaven, hallowed
>            be thy name."
> 
>      d)  A homeless person tells a passer-by on the street, "This country
> isn't cool because it doesn't respect the rainbow." *
> 
>      e)  A child playing with alphabet blocks says, "I've got the 'A' block,
> I've got the 'A' block!"
> 
>      f)   A man taking a shower sings, "A rainy night in Georgia, it's a
> rainy night in Georgia..."
> 
>      g)  The following statement of Gertrude Stein:  "A charm a single charm
> is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if
> inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is
> upright. It is earnest."
> 
> ----------------------------------
> * This actually happened one Fourth of July; the passerby was me.
> 
> >"Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) collections
> >of words concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> >reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> >majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant field
> >who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority of
> >the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
> >and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with convincingly
> >advocating a point of view; (b) collections of words less concerned
> >(according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with
> >convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying
> >information to others that will increase their factual and/or
> >conceptual knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with
> >the latter than with eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections
> >of words concerned more than anything else (according to a reasonably
> >trustworthy consensus of readers) with eliciting an emotional
> >response; and (d) texts
> >  that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> >consensus of readers)."
> ==================================================
> 
> Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
> http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics


From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Sat Nov  1 16:16:49 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 16:16:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Types of discourse
References: <BAY7-F65GIYcxRXbMx90001e900@hotmail.com> <3FA3F683.281E015D@earthlink.net> <3FA40B42.7E49D497@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <000e01c3a0bd$76bc2250$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

My ears rang, but
it was for someone else.
It always is, and half
the time anymore I don't
pick up messages, except the ones
for the Russian girl, arbitrageur
of threesome futures, who claims
solutions to the supply and
demand sides of the world's most
markets, but will admit, if pressed
to the wall, that the model does not quite fit reality.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Cervantes" <jvcervantes at earthlink.net>
To: "new-poetry" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 2:36 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Types of discourse


> Or you can ignore them altogether and ask yourself questions:
>
> I can't keep my hands from my head.
> I keep unearthing dandruff.
> My scalp's going to fall off,
> I know it is, like when I read
> Emily's poems.  Or that time
> I noticed my ears ringing.
> Had they been ringing all the while?
> Did it start after the divorce?
> When I turned the corner on sixty?
> Now my hands go to my ears -
> earphones for a private hearing -
> and there's suspicious silence.
> I know they'll start ringing again,
> but when?  When will they ring?
>
> - Jim
>
>
> Jon Corelis wrote:
> >
> > Since the claim made below is that all verbal expression can be assigned
to
> > one of the four stated categories, it seems reasonable to ask to which
> > category each of the following verbal expressions ought to be assigned:
> >
> >       a)  A man walking by himself down the street suddenly murmurs,
"Got to
> > get that transmission
> >            fixed."
> >
> >       b)  A woman having an orgasm cries, "Oh ... shit!"
> >
> >       c)  A group of people standing in a church say in unison, "Our
Father,
> > who art in heaven, hallowed
> >            be thy name."
> >
> >      d)  A homeless person tells a passer-by on the street, "This
country
> > isn't cool because it doesn't respect the rainbow." *
> >
> >      e)  A child playing with alphabet blocks says, "I've got the 'A'
block,
> > I've got the 'A' block!"
> >
> >      f)   A man taking a shower sings, "A rainy night in Georgia, it's a
> > rainy night in Georgia..."
> >
> >      g)  The following statement of Gertrude Stein:  "A charm a single
charm
> > is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if
> > inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is
> > upright. It is earnest."
> >
> > ----------------------------------
> > * This actually happened one Fourth of July; the passerby was me.
> >
> > >"Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) collections
> > >of words concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> > >reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> > >majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant field
> > >who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority of
> > >the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
> > >and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with convincingly
> > >advocating a point of view; (b) collections of words less concerned
> > >(according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with
> > >convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying
> > >information to others that will increase their factual and/or
> > >conceptual knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with
> > >the latter than with eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections
> > >of words concerned more than anything else (according to a reasonably
> > >trustworthy consensus of readers) with eliciting an emotional
> > >response; and (d) texts
> > >  that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> > >consensus of readers)."
> > ==================================================
> >
> > Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
> > http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Sat Nov  1 22:04:05 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 03:04:05 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
Message-ID: <200311020301.hA231fST032760@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

Marcus Bales:
> &gt; Clear in what context, Bob? Are you claiming you are doing science or
> &gt; that you're doing literary criticism?

Bob Grumman: 
> I'm claiming neither, as I've told you Marcus. ...<<

Well, what ARE you claiming, then?

> AN ATTEMPT AT A SYSTEMATIC CLASSIFICATION OF LITERATURE
> STATEMENT 1
> "Verbal expression, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, can be of
> four and only four kinds: (a) collections of words concerned as much or more
> than anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
> readers, or
> agreement of the majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the
> relevant field who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the
> majority of the educated non-experts who are
> cognizant of the experts' opinions and who have themselves examined the
> matter concur) with convincingly advocating a point of view; (b) collections
> of words less concerned (according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
> readers) with convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying
> information to others that will increase their factual and/or conceptual
> knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than
> with conveying or eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections of words
> concerned more than anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> consensus of readers) with conveying and/or eliciting an emotional response;
> and (d) texts that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably
> trustworthy consensus of readers)."
> END OF STATEMENT 1




From marcus at designerglass.com  Sat Nov  1 22:22:55 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 03:22:55 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Types of discourse
Message-ID: <200311020320.hA23KVST000367@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

Bob Grumman:
> I never denied that there are mixed verbal expressions.  Nor that authorial
> intent may be a factor. <<

Yes, you have denied that there are mixed verbal expressions, Bob: when you say 
that all verbal expessions are of four and only four kinds. And yes, you have 
denied repeatedly that authorial intent is ANY factor out of one side of your 
mouth while explicitly and repeatedly using authorial intent almost exclusively 
as your criterion for categorizing the statements you're asked about. It's as 
if you were a Republican politician in the Bush White House: determined to try 
to simply and blankly deny that you're doing what you're doing.

Bob Grumman:
> ... The words "got to" suggest urgency, or an emotional desire to do
> something.<

This is so much dependent on context that I can't credit that you really 
believe that "got to" in ANY context ALWAYS suggests urgency or an emotional 
desire. Your notion of the words meaning objectively what they mean all the 
time is just horseshit, Bob -- words mean what they mean subjectively in 
context, and NOT what they mean all the time. You've admitted that words or 
phrases taken out of context can be, by putting them into another context, be 
made to seem diametrically the opposite of the original author's intent. How 
you can claim with a straight face that any given phrase must always mean any 
given thing is simply astonishing in the light of what you've already agreed to.

Bob Grumman:
> Her words are oral and contain her cry.  Sure, I took the the context of her
> exclamation into consideration.  If I had only the words, "Oh, shit," I
> would still have enough to categorize them objectively as intended to convey
> and/or elicit an emotion.<<

No, you don't -- because "Oh, shit" does not have to always convey or elicit 
emotion. It can be said sarcastically or tiredly or resignedly or any number of 
ways that neither convey nor elicit emotion.  But even if we take what you say 
at face value, you are STILL saying the words are "intended to convey ...", and 
relying exclusively on subjective authorial intention and NOT on 
any "objective" measure. 

Bob Grumman:
> ... The words objectively state what I've said they do.  I don't
> care what the intentions of those saying the words are, only about what they
> are clearly concerned with.<<

See? Here you are denying authorial intention! But at the same time you rely on 
authorial intention to categorize the statements. How can you justify relying 
on authorial intention while denying that you rely on authorial intention?

Bob Grumman:
> I don't speak of authorial intent in my statement....<<

Well that's a serious problem with your statement, then, isn't it, since you 
RELY on authorial intent consistently, explicitly, and continuously throughout 
your practice of categorization. Your statement is, therefore, UNclear, about 
as unclear as it can be -- it might even be said to be intellectually 
dishonest, since you're claiming something in your statement that you simply do 
not do in your practice.






From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Nov  1 22:27:01 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 22:27:01 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <200311020301.hA231fST032760@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <008101c3a0f1$2f27b600$fdcbfea9@j1c1k6>

> Bob Grumman:
> > I'm claiming neither, as I've told you Marcus. ...<<
>
> Well, what ARE you claiming, then?

I told you in a previous post.

Quote:  "I consider my statement to be the first statement of an attempt to
construct a taxonomy of literature that is rational, thorough, and
sufficiently objective to satisfy any reasonable person.   I believe I am
working in the field of asthetics, but don't know for sure, and don't much
care."

You replied: "That's fine, Bob.  My advice then is to abandon the word
'taxonomy' unless you clarify its metaphorical instead of scientific
intent."

This I did.  So why are you continuing not to say whether my statement is
clear or not?


 AN ATTEMPT AT A SYSTEMATIC CLASSIFICATION OF LITERATURE
(Latest Version)

STATEMENT 1

"Verbal expression, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, can be of
four and only four kinds: (a) collections of words concerned as much or more
than anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
readers, or
agreement of the majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the
relevant field who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the
majority of the educated non-experts who are
cognizant of the experts' opinions and who have themselves examined the
matter concur) with convincingly advocating a point of view; (b) collections
of words less concerned (according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
readers) with convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying
information to others that will increase their factual and/or conceptual
knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than
with eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections of words concerned
more than anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
readers) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d) texts that convey
nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably
trustworthy consensus of readers)."

END OF STATEMENT 1




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Nov  2 06:30:55 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 06:30:55 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Types of discourse
References: <200311020320.hA23KVST000367@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <006701c3a134$c84767c0$4835fea9@j1c1k6>

> Bob Grumman:
> > I never denied that there are mixed verbal expressions.  Nor that
authorial
> > intent may be a factor. <<
>
> Yes, you have denied that there are mixed verbal expressions, Bob: when
you say
> that all verbal expessions are of four and only four kinds. And yes, you
have
> denied repeatedly that authorial intent is ANY factor out of one side of
your
> mouth while explicitly and repeatedly using authorial intent almost
exclusively
> as your criterion for categorizing the statements you're asked about. It's
as
> if you were a Republican politician in the Bush White House: determined to
try
> to simply and blankly deny that you're doing what you're doing.
>
> Bob Grumman:
> > ... The words "got to" suggest urgency, or an emotional desire to do
> > something.<
>
> This is so much dependent on context that I can't credit that you really
> believe that "got to" in ANY context ALWAYS suggests urgency or an
emotional
> desire. Your notion of the words meaning objectively what they mean all
the
> time is just horseshit, Bob -- words mean what they mean subjectively in
> context, and NOT what they mean all the time. You've admitted that words
or
> phrases taken out of context can be, by putting them into another context,
be
> made to seem diametrically the opposite of the original author's intent.
How
> you can claim with a straight face that any given phrase must always mean
any
> given thing is simply astonishing in the light of what you've already
agreed to.
>
> Bob Grumman:
> > Her words are oral and contain her cry.  Sure, I took the the context of
her
> > exclamation into consideration.  If I had only the words, "Oh, shit," I
> > would still have enough to categorize them objectively as intended to
convey
> > and/or elicit an emotion.<<
>
> No, you don't -- because "Oh, shit" does not have to always convey or
elicit
> emotion. It can be said sarcastically or tiredly or resignedly or any
number of
> ways that neither convey nor elicit emotion.  But even if we take what you
say
> at face value, you are STILL saying the words are "intended to convey
...", and
> relying exclusively on subjective authorial intention and NOT on
> any "objective" measure.
>
> Bob Grumman:
> > ... The words objectively state what I've said they do.  I don't
> > care what the intentions of those saying the words are, only about what
they
> > are clearly concerned with.<<
>
> See? Here you are denying authorial intention! But at the same time you
rely on
> authorial intention to categorize the statements. How can you justify
relying
> on authorial intention while denying that you rely on authorial intention?
>
> Bob Grumman:
> > I don't speak of authorial intent in my statement....<<
>
> Well that's a serious problem with your statement, then, isn't it, since
you
> RELY on authorial intent consistently, explicitly, and continuously
throughout
> your practice of categorization. Your statement is, therefore, UNclear,
about
> as unclear as it can be -- it might even be said to be intellectually
> dishonest, since you're claiming something in your statement that you
simply do
> not do in your practice.
>
Good work, Marcus, you've defeated me yet again.  I concede on all points.
Now, can you tell me why my statement is unclear in the other thread
(focusing on that statement as it stands, without reference to what you
think I believe)?

--Bob G.



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sun Nov  2 16:18:37 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 22:18:37 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] paintings and photos
Message-ID: <001d01c3a186$e1b486a0$461c2dd5@anny>

Some museum-going for a long Sunday, I've just discovered this link:
http://www.mimieux.com/arthistory/

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky
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From ron.silliman at verizon.net  Mon Nov  3 07:03:30 2003
From: ron.silliman at verizon.net (Ron)
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 07:03:30 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog
Message-ID: <001a01c3a202$94572800$fd70ed41@Dell>

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

Dan Davidson's Culture -
when the "early work" is the only work

Philadelphia Progressive Poetry Calendar
(new to the list: readings by Sarah Schulman, 
David Antin, Chris Tysh, Anita Desai & Corina Copp)

Lyn Hejinian's My Life in the Nineties

Leslie Scalapino's sentence

Leslie Scalapino's Autobiography:
genre & rules in the family

Writing on the day job

Responding to Bill Lavender:
Close reading Jake Berry
& the issue of the overdetermined trope

Bill Lavender responds
to my review of Another South

Questions for George Stanley

Poetry & Empire:
my notes on the retreat

How do you write?
Starting with a Palm Pilot.

How do you write?
(An ode to Rhodia Bloc)

Can poetry challenge militarized language 
& propaganda?

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/






From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Mon Nov  3 08:58:45 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 14:58:45 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets' Corner
Message-ID: <005a01c3a212$992d4de0$d9737450@anny>

Dear All,
Here are my last updates on the Poets' Corner, 

Wolmar, Kenneth can be found at:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=66

Ruggieri, Helen:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=63

Mehta, Ram:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=58
with three poems: Radha-Krishna, The Tajmahal; and The Old Coat in Gudjurati with his English translation following the original scanned version

Carrega, Ugo and his visual work with more to come (as soon as I solved the problem with my scanner)
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=56

and Turrina, Riccarda
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=65

moreover, there are two poems by Longo, Freddy I translated into English:
Doppio Binario da San Francisco
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=288
and Panama
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=290

and Kelen, S.K.'s last contribution:
Red Dzao Village
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=290

Jonsdottir, Birgitta sent some of her visual work to be added to her poems, her link is at:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=9

To all my most felt remerciements, 
best,

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky
Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky
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From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Mon Nov  3 09:15:11 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 15:15:11 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets' Corner
References: <005a01c3a212$992d4de0$d9737450@anny>
Message-ID: <008f01c3a214$e551e120$d9737450@anny>

  Correction:

  and Kelen, S.K.'s last contribution:
  Red Dzao Village, can be found here:
  http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=306

  my apologies, anny



  From: Anny Ballardini 
  To: New Poetry 


  Dear All,
  Here are my last updates on the Poets' Corner, 

  Wolmar, Kenneth can be found at:
  http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=66

  Ruggieri, Helen:
  http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=63

  Mehta, Ram:
  http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=58
  with three poems: Radha-Krishna, The Tajmahal; and The Old Coat in Gudjurati with his English translation following the original scanned version

  Carrega, Ugo and his visual work with more to come (as soon as I solved the problem with my scanner)
  http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=56

  and Turrina, Riccarda
  http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=65

  moreover, there are two poems by Longo, Freddy I translated into English:
  Doppio Binario da San Francisco
  http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=288
  and Panama
  http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=290

  and Kelen, S.K.'s last contribution:
  Red Dzao Village
  http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=290

  Jonsdottir, Birgitta sent some of her visual work to be added to her poems, her link is at:
  http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=9

  To all my most felt remerciements, 
  best,

  Anny Ballardini

  http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

  Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
  (from Mantis)
  Louis Zukofsky
  Anny Ballardini

  http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

  Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
  (from Mantis)
  Louis Zukofsky
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From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Mon Nov  3 10:20:22 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (tadrichards at prodigy.net)
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 10:20:22 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets' Corner
Message-ID: <168270-22003111315202276@M2W068.mail2web.com>

Anny,

Wonderful site.

Tad

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Anny Ballardini anny.ballardini at tin.it
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 14:58:45 +0100
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets' Corner


Dear All,
Here are my last updates on the Poets' Corner, 

Wolmar, Kenneth can be found at:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_
categories&cid=66

Ruggieri, Helen:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_
categories&cid=63

Mehta, Ram:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_
categories&cid=58
with three poems: Radha-Krishna, The Tajmahal; and The Old Coat in
Gudjurati with his English translation following the original scanned
version

Carrega, Ugo and his visual work with more to come (as soon as I solved the
problem with my scanner)
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_
categories&cid=56

and Turrina, Riccarda
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_
categories&cid=65

moreover, there are two poems by Longo, Freddy I translated into English:
Doppio Binario da San Francisco
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=288
and Panama
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=290

and Kelen, S.K.'s last contribution:
Red Dzao Village
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=290

Jonsdottir, Birgitta sent some of her visual work to be added to her poems,
her link is at:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_
categories&cid=9

To all my most felt remerciements, 
best,

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky
Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .





From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Nov  3 10:54:00 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 10:54:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <008101c3a0f1$2f27b600$fdcbfea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3FA633C8.3591.C78F3F@localhost>

> > Bob Grumman:
> > > I'm claiming neither [to be doing science or to be doing
> > > literary criticism], as I've told you Marcus. ...<<

Marcus Bales:
> > Well, what ARE you claiming, then?

Bob Grumman: 
> I told you in a previous post.
> "I consider my statement to be the first statement of an
> attempt to construct a taxonomy of literature that is rational,
> thorough, and sufficiently objective to satisfy any reasonable person.<
> You replied: "That's fine, Bob.  My advice then is to abandon the word
> 'taxonomy' unless you clarify its metaphorical instead of scientific
> intent."
> This I did.  So why are you continuing not to say whether my statement
> is clear or not?

Because I think the question of whether you statement is clear or not 
has a good deal to do with the context in which you present it. That 
you will not, or cannot, say in what context you're presenting this 
attempt at a systematic classification of literature, together with 
its faux-scientific jargonesque construction, argue strongly that 
you're trying to put one over on your readers rather than trying to 
be clear in any serious sense.
 
>  AN ATTEMPT AT A SYSTEMATIC CLASSIFICATION OF LITERATURE
> (Latest Version)
> STATEMENT 1
> "Verbal expression, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, can be
> of four and only four kinds: (a) collections of words concerned as
> much or more than anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> consensus of readers, or agreement of the majority of a majority of
> the recognized experts in the relevant field who have examined the
> matter, and with whose judgement the majority of the educated
> non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions and who have
> themselves examined the matter concur) with convincingly advocating a
> point of view; (b) collections of words less concerned (according  to
> a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with convincingly
> advocating a point of view than with conveying information to others
> that will increase their factual and/or conceptual knowledge of
> reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than with
> eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections of words concerned
> more than anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> consensus of readers) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d)
> texts that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably
> trustworthy consensus of readers)."
> END OF STATEMENT 1




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Nov  3 14:02:10 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 14:02:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3FA633C8.3591.C78F3F@localhost>
Message-ID: <012301c3a23c$fcc34920$d28efea9@j1c1k6>


> > > Bob Grumman:
> > > > I'm claiming neither [to be doing science or to be doing
> > > > literary criticism], as I've told you Marcus. ...<<
>
> Marcus Bales:
> > > Well, what ARE you claiming, then?
>
> Bob Grumman:
> > I told you in a previous post.
> > "I consider my statement to be the first statement of an
> > attempt to construct a taxonomy of literature that is rational,
> > thorough, and sufficiently objective to satisfy any reasonable person.<
> > You replied: "That's fine, Bob.  My advice then is to abandon the word
> > 'taxonomy' unless you clarify its metaphorical instead of scientific
> > intent."
> > This I did.  So why are you continuing not to say whether my statement
> > is clear or not?
>
> Because I think the question of whether you statement is clear or not
> has a good deal to do with the context in which you present it. That
> you will not, or cannot, say in what context you're presenting this
> attempt at a systematic classification of literature, together with
> its faux-scientific jargonesque construction, argue strongly that
> you're trying to put one over on your readers rather than trying to
> be clear in any serious sense.

Okay, call it science the way Linnaeus's taxonomy was.  In that context tell
me what is unclear about.  Please resist telling me it's not science or that
it's nonsense, etc.  Just tell me, as you agreed to when we started this
thread, whether my statement is clear or not in context.

--Bob G.




From halvard at earthlink.net  Mon Nov  3 16:27:52 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 16:27:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Kenneth Koch, "You Were Wearing"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEAEIEHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

You Were Wearing

You were wearing your Edgar Allan Poe printed cotton blouse.
In each divided up square of the blouse was a picture of Edgar Allan Poe.
Your hair was blonde and you were cute. You asked me, "Do most boys
     think that most girls are bad?"
I smelled the mould of your seaside resort hotel bedroom on your hair
     held in place by a John Greenleaf Whittier clip.
"No," I said, "it's girls who think that boys are bad." Then we read
     *Snowbound* together
And ran around in an attic, so that a little of the blue enamel was
     scraped off my George Washington, Father of His Country, shoes.

Mother was walking in the living room, her Strauss Waltzes comb in
     her hair.
We waited for a time and then joined her, only to be served tea in
     cups painted with pictures of Herman Melville
As well as with illustrations from his book *Moby Dick* and from his
     novella, *Benito Cereno*.
Father came in wearing his Dick Tracy necktie: "How about a drink,
     everyone?"
I said, "Let's go outside a while." Then we went onto the porch and
     sat on the Abraham Lincoln swing.
You sat on the eyes, mouth, and beard part, and I sat on the knees.
In the yard across the street we saw a snowman holding a garbage can
     lid smashed into a likeness of the mad English king, George the
     Third.

--Kenneth Koch

fr. *Thank You and Other Poems*
[New York: Grove Press, 1962]


Hal         

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From JforJames at aol.com  Mon Nov  3 17:12:00 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 17:12:00 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
Message-ID: <26.40eaba45.2cd82cb0@aol.com>

http://www.poems.com/essaboru.htm

Marianne Boruch's piece on "automotive writing".

Here's an opportunity to invite poets on this list
to post favorite driving/car poems (yours or others').

Finnegan


From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Mon Nov  3 21:12:30 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 19:12:30 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
References: <26.40eaba45.2cd82cb0@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3FA70B0E.93BDF638@earthlink.net>

JforJames at aol.com wrote:
> 
> http://www.poems.com/essaboru.htm
> 
> Marianne Boruch's piece on "automotive writing".
> 
> Here's an opportunity to invite poets on this list
> to post favorite driving/car poems (yours or others').

This came up on another list I belong to.  Frankly, I'd never noticed
poems involving cars/driving, though in retrospect, I realized I
published one in The Salt River Review, Wendy Taylor Carlisle's
"Autobiography," whose dynamic movement though images won me over (how
could that happen without vehicle gaining the foregound of my consciousness?):

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

"Listen." I am driving home too fast, talking out loud
although I know you're not in the bucket seat. It's my auto-
biography I can't quite get my lips around
but it could also be my rendition of yours. "This is a fact."
All the words after that are something else.

To be convinced of someone else's fiction, (with its cat's paw
wind and its buoy tower,the boys who believe
they'll live forever, who climb the thirty foot ladder, accept the jump)
you must first remember a dark camp lake, Do-Wop
like moon on a swimmers back, and Jack who taught you
to use your mouth in the back seat of an Edsel with the headlights off,
then trust your own ribs, your breath, the tough climb
up Confederate Cemetery Hill.   Nothing primed any of us
to confess we weren't born into an ideal universe
(the ocean, the airplane, the crack of applause). When we talk about it,

our best stories have left and right-hand versions,
non-symmetrical as rogue particles-
Can we absolve each other for cunning fables,
for the real and fictitious us that came before?
Talk fast. Tell me everything in the car.

http://www.poetserv.org/SRR16/carlisle.html

My own, written after gaining awareness:

Accident Ahead


Early in the six-mile downhill run
before the s-curves tighten
the sign is lit: "Accident Ahead"

something that's happened
already past and moving 
from arrested movement

I will see it
in a fragment ahead
a bit of future

free and clear between embankments
rocks that have fallen
somehow blurring the cut

rocks that will fall -
will and have  -
seeing brake lights now

here it is: inert wreckage
dust that has settled.


- Jim, who hates to drive


From halvard at earthlink.net  Mon Nov  3 21:04:52 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 21:04:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars: "Nightride"
In-Reply-To: <26.40eaba45.2cd82cb0@aol.com>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOEIOHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Nightride

Moon came out from behind
a hill. Didn't talk to 
me much like it used to.
Moon was a waning gibbous,
hung like a ripe peach
over a small farmtown
and then moved on.

I was moving too. Down
below, me and my car, we 
moved this way and that
over dark country roads,
winding around in the dark,
except for moon.

Moon played cat and mouse,
first one place and then
another, first ahead and 
then behind, then off
to one side. Moon never
stands still. Neither do I.



--Halvard Johnson

===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard




From grahamd at ripon.edu  Mon Nov  3 21:48:39 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 20:48:39 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
In-Reply-To: <26.40eaba45.2cd82cb0@aol.com>
Message-ID: <BBCC6FA7.5120%grahamd@ripon.edu>

"How Would Jesus Drive?"

      --painted on a truck, Ohio Turnpike


Well, there would be no road rage, that's for sure.
Smoothly shifting down the entrance ramps,
never hogging the passing lane or driving
twenty miles with his left blinker on,
he would wave joyfully to kids in passing cars,
he would leave clear dry road behind
even in the worst sleet storm or blizzard.

In truth, he would be a bit of a pain in the butt,
lingering forever at intersections, letting others
go first, stopping motorists to alert them
to better driving techniques, announcing
to the big-rig drivers at the truckstop
that they should all abandon their loads
immediately, pile in his van for the long haul
to salvation?

              leaving those eighteen-wheelers
with emptied cabs in the parking lot,
rumbling as they spew diesel exhaust
into the sinful air, all their cargoes
of milk or oranges slowly going bad.

--David Graham.  fr. *Sweet Jesus:  Poems About the Ultimate Icon*.  Ed.
Nick Carb? & Denise Duhamel.  Los Angeles:  Anthology Press, 2002.

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at 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
> Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 17:12:00 EST
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
> 
> http://www.poems.com/essaboru.htm
> 
> Marianne Boruch's piece on "automotive writing".
> 
> Here's an opportunity to invite poets on this list
> to post favorite driving/car poems (yours or others').
> 
> Finnegan
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Mon Nov  3 23:23:18 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 20:23:18 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
Message-ID: <BAY7-F31icPSYex8m07000290b4@hotmail.com>

Freeway


Twice a day, they bathe in the airy sewer,
the half-mechanical centaurs
spitting and sucking poison.

Each larval fetus, slung
in its metal carapace,
grins like a grill, with blank and bulbous eyes.

Proud in isolation,
the human cells turn cancer,
burgeon, bleed, veer from their aggregate order,

and spread in a dry caked smear in the sun.  We have covered
our mother's body with scabs
and set our vermin to roam there.


==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Send a QuickGreet with MSN Messenger 
http://www.msnmessenger-download.com/tracking/cdp_games



From wwmorgan at mail.ilstu.edu  Mon Nov  3 22:36:10 2003
From: wwmorgan at mail.ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan)
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 22:36:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
In-Reply-To: <4.1.20031003133333.03bce0a8@mail.ilstu.edu>
References: <3F7DBD39.3AA18546@localnet.com>
 <3F7D3463.16297.345866@localhost>
Message-ID: <4.1.20031103223537.037dddb8@mail.ilstu.edu>

I Know a Man
by Robert Creeley

As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking, -- John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going.






From Thom424 at aol.com  Mon Nov  3 23:42:28 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 23:42:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
Message-ID: <14AE6380.236CC76A.001A46F6@aol.com>

This anthology might be of irelated nterest:

*Drive, They Said: Poems about Americans and Their Cars.*   Edited by Kurt Brown. Mpls: Milkweed Editions, 1994.

Thom Tammaro
Moorhead, MN   




From cstroffo at earthlink.net  Tue Nov  4 00:08:13 2003
From: cstroffo at earthlink.net (Chris Stroffolino )
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 21:08:13 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
Message-ID: <200311040454.hA44sK7q086200@pimout3-ext.prodigy.net>

Reminds me of the old joke

son says dad can i drive that car
dad says first you gotta cut that hair
son says dad well jesus had long hair
dad says that's right jesus walked everywhere

David---thanks for this
(i wonder about the phrase "to salvation")

C

----------
>From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
>To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
>Date: Mon, Nov 3, 2003, 6:48 PM
>

> "How Would Jesus Drive?"
>
>       --painted on a truck, Ohio Turnpike
>
>
> Well, there would be no road rage, that's for sure.
> Smoothly shifting down the entrance ramps,
> never hogging the passing lane or driving
> twenty miles with his left blinker on,
> he would wave joyfully to kids in passing cars,
> he would leave clear dry road behind
> even in the worst sleet storm or blizzard.
>
> In truth, he would be a bit of a pain in the butt,
> lingering forever at intersections, letting others
> go first, stopping motorists to alert them
> to better driving techniques, announcing
> to the big-rig drivers at the truckstop
> that they should all abandon their loads
> immediately, pile in his van for the long haul
> to salvation?
>
>               leaving those eighteen-wheelers
> with emptied cabs in the parking lot,
> rumbling as they spew diesel exhaust
> into the sinful air, all their cargoes
> of milk or oranges slowly going bad.
>
> --David Graham.  fr. *Sweet Jesus:  Poems About the Ultimate Icon*.  Ed.
> Nick Carb? & Denise Duhamel.  Los Angeles:  Anthology Press, 2002.
>
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at 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
>> Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 17:12:00 EST
>> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
>>
>> http://www.poems.com/essaboru.htm
>>
>> Marianne Boruch's piece on "automotive writing".
>>
>> Here's an opportunity to invite poets on this list
>> to post favorite driving/car poems (yours or others').
>>
>> Finnegan
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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  Tue Nov  4 07:50:24 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 07:50:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
In-Reply-To: <14AE6380.236CC76A.001A46F6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEJGHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

And yet another anthology of car poems:

	*Henry's Creature: Poems and Stories on the
	Automobile*
	[Windsor, Ontario: Black Moss Press, 2000]

Almost entirely poems, actually.

Hal                Serving the tri-state area.

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
   
{    This anthology might be of irelated nterest:
{    
{    *Drive, They Said: Poems about Americans and Their Cars.*   Edited by Kurt Brown. Mpls: Milkweed Editions, 1994.
{    
{    Thom Tammaro
{    Moorhead, MN  



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Tue Nov  4 07:54:19 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 05:54:19 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEJGHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <3FA7A179.387612CF@earthlink.net>

Wow.  I wouldn't have thunk it.  They're out there cover to cover,
idling on poetry's freeway.  They won't steer you wrong and won't take a
backseat to anybody.

- Jim

Halvard Johnson wrote:
> 
> And yet another anthology of car poems:
> 
>         *Henry's Creature: Poems and Stories on the
>         Automobile*
>         [Windsor, Ontario: Black Moss Press, 2000]
> 
> Almost entirely poems, actually.
> 
> Hal                Serving the tri-state area.
> 
> Halvard Johnson
> ===============
> email: halvard at earthlink.net
> website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
> 
> {    This anthology might be of irelated nterest:
> {
> {    *Drive, They Said: Poems about Americans and Their Cars.*   Edited by Kurt Brown. Mpls: Milkweed Editions, 1994.
> {
> {    Thom Tammaro
> {    Moorhead, MN
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Tue Nov  4 08:15:07 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 14:15:07 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars- A Joke
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEJGHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net> <3FA7A179.387612CF@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <000e01c3a2d5$ab427960$d21c2dd5@anny>

On the highway to heaven, cars and cars are diligently waiting. Once in a
while, because of the extreme heat, flies, acute sense of boredom (they all
exist also in the other world - note of the translator) a car tries to
overtake the one in front of him, but magnificent angels with shining swords
appear in all their imposing and majestic beauty, obliging the poor dead to
turn his/her wheel round and tuck down into his/her previous place. In the
suffocating ooziness of the eternal afternoon, here goes a _beep beep_ with
eardrums tearing music, mainly rock 'n roll, a very hippy kid driving with
some not well defined people with him (of the worst species) singing and
boozing and smoking, speeds up on the forbidden lane. _Who's that, who's
that_ echoes the same question among the stiff corpses, _Ah_ thunders the
benevolent voice of Saint Peter up there at the main gate, _the Boss' son_.

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky

From: "James Cervantes" <jvcervantes at earthlink.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> Wow.  I wouldn't have thunk it.  They're out there cover to cover,
> idling on poetry's freeway.  They won't steer you wrong and won't take a
> backseat to anybody.
>
> - Jim
>
> Halvard Johnson wrote:
> >
> > And yet another anthology of car poems:
> >
> >         *Henry's Creature: Poems and Stories on the
> >         Automobile*
> >         [Windsor, Ontario: Black Moss Press, 2000]
> >
> > Almost entirely poems, actually.
> >
> > Hal                Serving the tri-state area.
> >
> > Halvard Johnson
> > ===============
> > email: halvard at earthlink.net
> > website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
> >
> > {    This anthology might be of irelated nterest:
> > {
> > {    *Drive, They Said: Poems about Americans and Their Cars.*   Edited
by Kurt Brown. Mpls: Milkweed Editions, 1994.
> > {
> > {    Thom Tammaro
> > {    Moorhead, MN
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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 JforJames at aol.com  Tue Nov  4 08:53:40 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 08:53:40 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
Message-ID: <1e7.12a2a5b6.2cd90964@aol.com>

South of the Sky and North of Nowhere

You should've known better than to go back,
you should have learned your lesson the first go-round.
The elms are long dead, and now the maples are ailing.
There are so many potholes on Main Street
this town could be torn in half along such perforations.
Old friends look into your face and see only a stranger.
The police eye your car as it cruises through town.
You don't belong. You were not born here, your headstone
will never populate that cemetery on the hill.
The milemarkers on the highway are your address.
Tell them to forward your mail to some gas station
four or five tankfuls? drive from here, south
of the sky and north of nowhere, where the tread
of the world itself, with its skylines and mountainranges,
cuts into the asphalt-dark roads of the universe.



From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Nov  4 08:59:32 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 08:59:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
In-Reply-To: <BBCC6FA7.5120%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <26.40eaba45.2cd82cb0@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3FA76A74.6811.3A4061@localhost>

Waiting For The Light

We sat there in the car and fought,
	Waiting for the light,
We fought a fight we'd fought a lot,
Of what we had and hadn?t got;
The argument grew loud and hot
	Waiting for the light.

Everything was going wrong,
	Waiting for the light:
The car ahead?s exhaust was strong,
The speakers played some stupid song,
And traffic barely moved along,
	Waiting for the light.

We sputtered to a silent chill
	Waiting for the light;
And frozen will to frozen will
We waited for each other ?til
Too late.  Too late.  And now we?re still
	Waiting for the light.







From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Tue Nov  4 08:53:35 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 06:53:35 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: [Cafe-Blue] "What Poems Must Do"
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIEIGHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <3FA7AF5F.F1247E9F@earthlink.net>

What Poems Shouldn't Do

Stay up late and eat and drink
what is indigestible
and remember only nightmares.

Take their day to bed with them.
Wake to walk themselves, all leash
and no dog, sniffing nonetheless.

Tell their life stories to neighbors,
little snippets days apart,
first sex: best sex, yet revised.

Make noises in the peaceful night,
thump rythmically on the floor,
yell to themselves when they're done.

- Jim

Halvard Johnson wrote:
> 
> What Poems Must Do
> 
> Arise well before dawn to be
> there on the page well before
> their earliest readers arise.
> 
> Have a good breakfast, since, as
> they all know, breakfast is their
> most important meal of the day.
> 
> Bare just a bit of their soul to any
> who come looking, while keeping
> most of themselves to themselves.
> 
> Wait quietly in the dark, face to
> face with another, until some gentle
> reader sheds light on the page.
> 
> Hal
> 
> Halvard Johnson
> ===============
> email: halvard at earthlink.net
> website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Cafe-Blue discussion list
> Cafe-Blue at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://cafeblue.org/
> __________________


From CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com  Tue Nov  4 10:56:44 2003
From: CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com (CobbCoStudioArts)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 07:56:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
Message-ID: <20031104155644.F05333966@sitemail.everyone.net>

J for James,

I like your poem and the theme you have started.  I hope that
you will like one that your poem reminded me that I had written:

THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE     by Robert R. Cobb 

I have been there, 
to the "middle of nowhere", 
a gas station/restaurant. 
It does exist, "nowhere", that is! 

On U.S., Route 50, fifty miles 
from Anyplace Else, (Ely), Nevada. 
Stopped in one fine summer day, 
not a cloud in sight, no hint of rain. 

Needing gas, bladder relief too, 
stepped inside to seek a restroom, 
when, at that instant, I heard 
a thunderous BOOM!! 

"Was that thunder?" I asked 
to no one, nowhere.  A patron replied, 
"I think that was your car!"  I gave him 
a blank stare. 

Looked out the window, 
as steam clouds billowed, 
from radiator hose exploded! 
Family in wagon, trailer in tow, 

Hood in the air, all stunned 
by the blow!  Nowhere, no go! 
"Not a garage, only a trailer, out back", 
said a feller who wore a "Middle of Nowhere" cap. 

"Wait for the state police to give you a ride", 
was the suggestion given from the capped man inside. 
"We have no tow truck, just Mom's disabled Jeep", 
he added, "I'm sure that she is no longer asleep." 

"Perhaps a hose from her Jeep will fit your Ford", 
he knocked on the trailer door to get her word. 
Ten dollars later, used Jeep hose transplanted, 
we're on the road to anyplace else on the planet! 

Arriving in Ely, to the one garage in town, 
just as the Ford decided to reject its transplanted item. 
Another thunder BOOMER, another cloud of steam! 
Fortunately, proper repairs could here be found. 

"The Middle of Nowhere"< now only a dream, 
several hours later we camped near a babbling stream. 
Other incidents, less Ford traumatic, happened in 
another state of panic, Wyoming, but, that's another poem! 

Bob


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



--- JforJames at aol.com wrote:
South of the Sky and North of Nowhere

You should've known better than to go back,
you should have learned your lesson the first go-round.
The elms are long dead, and now the maples are ailing.
There are so many potholes on Main Street
this town could be torn in half along such perforations.
Old friends look into your face and see only a stranger.
The police eye your car as it cruises through town.
You don't belong. You were not born here, your headstone
will never populate that cemetery on the hill.
The milemarkers on the highway are your address.
Tell them to forward your mail to some gas station
four or five tankfuls? drive from here, south
of the sky and north of nowhere, where the tread
of the world itself, with its skylines and mountainranges,
cuts into the asphalt-dark roads of the universe.

_______________________________________________
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  Tue Nov  4 11:00:38 2003
From: alphavil at ix.netcom.com (R.Gancie/C.Parcelli)
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 11:00:38 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Lord Byron Speaks Out Against Globalization
References: <20031104155644.F05333966@sitemail.everyone.net>
Message-ID: <3FA7CD26.20F13B68@ix.netcom.com>

http://www.theassassinatedpress.com/byron.htm
GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON SPEAKS OUT AGAINST
GLOBALIZATION: AN ODE TO THE FRAMERS OF THE FRAME BILL, In Defense of the Luddites:
Or Proof Positive That Dana Gioia Is A Big Enough Fop And A Rotten
Enough Poet To Front The NEA
By LORD BYRON
Morning Chronicle
March 2, 1812 [The Year The British Burned Washington]
http://www.theassassinatedpress.com/

U.S. Army Reopens Tiger Force Case To Head Off Exposure:
Kerrey, Calley, Hue, My Lai 4, WHEELER WALLAWA, SPEEDY EXPRESS, Tiger Force, Strategic Hamlets, Free Fire
Zones, Phoenix and MACV---U.S. Atrocities As A Hue Of Life
By MUTCH SCHEISS
The Assassinated Press
October 31, 2003
http://www.theassassinatedpress.com/scheiss.htm

You Want Better Schools?
Bring Back the Draft:
No Child Left Behind---
While His Classmates Play Cops Of The World
"If The Guy On The Radio Ain't Talkin' About Who's Gettin' The Money,
He Ain't Talking Shit," Says A Clean Rush Limbaugh; Blames His Politics
On Drugs And Easy Money
By 'SPARE THE CHILD, SPOIL THE ROD' PAIGE &
YASO ADIODI
The Assassinated Press
http://www.theassassinatedpress.com/paige.htm



From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Tue Nov  4 14:03:53 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 13:03:53 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
In-Reply-To: <200311040454.hA44sK7q086200@pimout3-ext.prodigy.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031104130125.01261218@mail.ilstu.edu>

I have been writing a long poem in my Toyota ECHO during my by now 31 trips 
between Normal, Illinois and Providence, Rhode Island since June of 2002. I 
just got back this morning from another such trip. The journey one-way is 
18 hrs: 1,100 miles. The poem is called "rhode island notebook."

Gabe Gudding






From grahamd at ripon.edu  Tue Nov  4 20:34:26 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 19:34:26 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put
Message-ID: <BBCDAFC2.5155%grahamd@ripon.edu>

"The critic may so readily turn into the dogmatist who wants to extract the
message from the poem and throw the poem away--just as the sentimentalist
wants to enjoy his own feelings provoked by the poem and throw the poem
away."

--Robert Penn Warren.  "The Themes of Robert Frost."


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at 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  Tue Nov  4 20:38:58 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 20:38:58 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Need your help finding poems
Message-ID: <6e.3421fb60.2cd9aeb2@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/4/03 8:03:08 PM Eastern Standard Time, mreyna at snet.net 
writes:

> Hola todo el mundo.
>  An anthropologist friend is teaching a class about garbage, janitors,
>  garbage collectors,  in our society and she asked me
>  if I knew of poems dealing with this subject matter. I  remembered Fayad
>  Jamis to the garbage men and Martin Espada's "Jorge the
>  Church Janitor"
>  DO YOU HAVE ANY TITLES OR AUTHORS YOU KNOW OF?
>  Your help would be GREATLY appreciated.
>  Saludos
>  Bessy
>  

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Subject: Need your help finding poems
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From antrobin at clipper.net  Tue Nov  4 20:42:41 2003
From: antrobin at clipper.net (Anthony Robinson)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 17:42:41 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Need your help finding poems
In-Reply-To: <6e.3421fb60.2cd9aeb2@aol.com>
Message-ID: <011e01c3a33e$235ad100$0f391c40@Emily>

A.R. Ammons' "Garbage"


In a message dated 11/4/03 8:03:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mreyna at snet.net 
writes:

> Hola todo el mundo.
>  An anthropologist friend is teaching a class about garbage, janitors,

> garbage collectors,  in our society and she asked me  if I knew of 
> poems dealing with this subject matter. I  remembered Fayad  Jamis to 
> the garbage men and Martin Espada's "Jorge the  Church Janitor"
>  DO YOU HAVE ANY TITLES OR AUTHORS YOU KNOW OF?
>  Your help would be GREATLY appreciated.
>  Saludos
>  Bessy
>  





From Faustina1 at aol.com  Tue Nov  4 20:46:58 2003
From: Faustina1 at aol.com (Faustina1 at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 20:46:58 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Need your help finding poems
Message-ID: <1dd.13b6f7b7.2cd9b092@aol.com>

Wallace Stevens' "The Man on the Dump."  --Janet
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From JforJames at aol.com  Tue Nov  4 20:47:22 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 20:47:22 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
Message-ID: <55.4a3bee51.2cd9b0aa@aol.com>

THE SACRED
by Stephen Dunn

After the teacher asked if anyone had
   a sacred place
and the students fidgeted and shrunk

in their chairs, the most serious of them all
   said it was his car,
being in it alone, his tape deck playing

things he'd chosen, and others knew the truth
   had been spoken
and began speaking about their rooms,

their hiding places, but the car kept coming
   up, the car in motion,
music filling it, and sometimes one other person

who understood the bright altar of the dashboard
   and how far away
a car could take him from the need

to speak, or to answer, the key
  in having a key
and putting it in, and going.


From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Nov  4 20:48:23 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 01:48:23 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put
Message-ID: <200311050145.hA51jWST026492@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

> "The critic may so readily turn into the dogmatist who wants to extract the
> message from the poem and throw the poem away--just as the sentimentalist
> wants to enjoy his own feelings provoked by the poem and throw the poem
> away."
> --Robert Penn Warren.  "The Themes of Robert Frost."

The poem is the message. Poetry inheres in how what's said is said, and not in 
what is said -- and a good thing, too, since "what is said" in almost all poems 
is banal at best.








From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Nov  4 20:50:06 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 01:50:06 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Need your help finding poems
References: <6e.3421fb60.2cd9aeb2@aol.com>
Message-ID: <02fe01c3a33f$24e4d6f0$95b58051@MyPC>

There's James Fenton's "The Skip".

Robin Hamilton

> In a message dated 11/4/03 8:03:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mreyna at snet.net
> writes:
>
> > Hola todo el mundo.
> >  An anthropologist friend is teaching a class about garbage, janitors,
> >  garbage collectors,  in our society and she asked me
> >  if I knew of poems dealing with this subject matter. I  remembered
Fayad
> >  Jamis to the garbage men and Martin Espada's "Jorge the
> >  Church Janitor"
> >  DO YOU HAVE ANY TITLES OR AUTHORS YOU KNOW OF?
> >  Your help would be GREATLY appreciated.
> >  Saludos
> >  Bessy
> >
>
>




From wwmorgan at mail.ilstu.edu  Tue Nov  4 20:00:40 2003
From: wwmorgan at mail.ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan)
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 20:00:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Need your help finding poems
In-Reply-To: <011e01c3a33e$235ad100$0f391c40@Emily>
References: <6e.3421fb60.2cd9aeb2@aol.com>
Message-ID: <4.1.20031104200024.0384c828@mail.ilstu.edu>

Howard Nemerov's "The Town Dump"

At 05:42 PM 11/4/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>A.R. Ammons' "Garbage"
>
>
>In a message dated 11/4/03 8:03:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>mreyna at snet.net 
>writes:
>
>> Hola todo el mundo.
>>  An anthropologist friend is teaching a class about garbage, janitors,
>
>> garbage collectors,  in our society and she asked me  if I knew of 
>> poems dealing with this subject matter. I  remembered Fayad  Jamis to 
>> the garbage men and Martin Espada's "Jorge the  Church Janitor"
>>  DO YOU HAVE ANY TITLES OR AUTHORS YOU KNOW OF?
>>  Your help would be GREATLY appreciated.
>>  Saludos
>>  Bessy
>>  
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>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  Tue Nov  4 21:04:38 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 21:04:38 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put
Message-ID: <7f.3ead04f9.2cd9b4b6@aol.com>

are there any examples of poems out there that say nothing or say something 
banal but say them well? is that even a possibility?

thom tammaro
moorhead, mn
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From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Tue Nov  4 21:35:01 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 20:35:01 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put
In-Reply-To: <7f.3ead04f9.2cd9b4b6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031104202716.012bd670@mail.ilstu.edu>

Possibility? I would think it's the rule.

In fact, given the kinds of anthologies you find in B Dalton's and 
elsewhere, the following is true: Banality is a content requirement for 
most canonized poetry.

At 09:04 PM 11/4/2003 -0500, Thom424 at aol.com wrote:
>are there any examples of poems out there that say nothing or say 
>something banal but say them well? is that even a possibility?
>
>thom tammaro
>moorhead, mn
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Nov  4 21:37:30 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 21:37:30 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3FA633C8.3591.C78F3F@localhost>
Message-ID: <036101c3a345$c2ab8f40$3806fea9@j1c1k6>

I got into literary taxonomy by whatever name when I first tried to classify
various forms of verbo-visual work.  In order to do that properly, I found I
had to try to classify all forms of poetry.  That led to my partial attempt
to classify all forms of literature, and--on top of that--verbal expression.
Until the very last, I was dealing with complete works, not lines or
passages excerpted from complete works.  I didn't realize that I'd switched
to dealing with verbal expression of all sizes when I wrote the earliest
versions of my Statement 1.

Then, after not thinking about my taxonomy by whatever name for a longish
while, I impulsively started this discussion with Marcus.  Now I took the
first statement of my taxonomy by whatever name literally, forgetting
entirely that I was really dealing with complete works.  A day or two ago,
in trying to work out how to classify some single line or other, I realized
that context does count in determining what an excerpt from a work is most
concerned with--the sentences preceding and following, for instance, have to
count.  I don't want context to play much part in my project because I feel
that would needlessly over-complicate it.  (No, Marcus, I refuse to argue
this point; if I'm wrong, we'll later find out when--ha ha--we establish
that my statements are clear and we can discuss whether they are reasonable
and useful.)

I also realized that I'm not concerned with classifying individual words,
phrases or sentences--unless they are complete works.  I also want to
simplify my statement.  Ergo, here's a new version of it:


STATEMENT 1
revision of 4 November 2003

"Verbal works are of four and only four kinds: (a) collections of words
concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a reasonably
trustworthy consensus of readers, to be defined later) with convincingly
advocating a point of view; (b) collections of words less concerned
(according  to the same consensus) with convincingly advocating a point of
view than with conveying information to others that will increase their
factual and/or conceptual knowledge of reality, and more or equally
concerned with the latter than with eliciting an emotional response; (c)
collections of words concerned more than anything else (according to the
same consensus) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d) collections of
words that convey nothing meaningful (according to the same consensus)."

END OF STATEMENT 1

--Bob G.





From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Tue Nov  4 21:43:26 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 21:43:26 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put
References: <7f.3ead04f9.2cd9b4b6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <011401c3a346$96a01e60$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

far, far too many.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Thom424 at aol.com 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 9:04 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Well put


  are there any examples of poems out there that say nothing or say something banal but say them well? is that even a possibility?

  thom tammaro
  moorhead, mn 
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From Thom424 at aol.com  Tue Nov  4 21:52:56 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 21:52:56 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put
Message-ID: <91.353b5dc7.2cd9c008@aol.com>

i guess i was looking for names of specific poems that say nothing or say 
something banal but say it well...
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From wwmorgan at mail.ilstu.edu  Tue Nov  4 20:53:54 2003
From: wwmorgan at mail.ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan)
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 20:53:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put
In-Reply-To: <011401c3a346$96a01e60$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
References: <7f.3ead04f9.2cd9b4b6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <4.1.20031104205003.0384efc8@mail.ilstu.edu>

        Would somebody who believes that banality is required for canonical
success please name a canonical poem that's banal and explain why you consider
it banal?  I'll try to move things off empty by offering two that I believe are
*not* banal: 

                Auden, "Musee des Beaux Arts"
                Yeats, "Lapis Lazuli"

                                                        Bill Morgan

At 09:43 PM 11/4/2003 -0500, you wrote: 
>
> far, far too many.
>  
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: <mailto:Thom424 at aol.com>Thom424 at aol.com 
>> To: <mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
>> Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 9:04 PM 
>> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Well put
>>
>> are there any examples of poems out there that say nothing or say something
>> banal but say them well? is that even a possibility?
>>
>> thom tammaro 
>> moorhead, mn 
>
>
>
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Tue Nov  4 21:56:49 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 20:56:49 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put?
Message-ID: <BBCDC311.516A%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Not sure exactly how we got from R. P. Warren to quibbles about banality,
but I'm curious:  can anyone cite an example or three of clearly canonical,
clearly banal poetry?  Just so we know what we're talking about.

I mean, is Stevens's "The Snow Man" a banal poem? "Out of the Cradle
Endlessly Rocking"?  "I heard a fly buzz when I died"?  "The Waste Land"?
"Those Winter Sundays"?  "That time of year thou may'st in me behold"?
"Spring & All"?  

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at 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  Tue Nov  4 22:12:47 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 22:12:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put?
References: <BBCDC311.516A%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <001601c3a34a$b0355b20$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

"Bells For John Whiteside's Daughter"

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Graham" <grahamd at ripon.edu>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 9:56 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put?


> Not sure exactly how we got from R. P. Warren to quibbles about banality,
> but I'm curious:  can anyone cite an example or three of clearly
canonical,
> clearly banal poetry?  Just so we know what we're talking about.
>
> I mean, is Stevens's "The Snow Man" a banal poem? "Out of the Cradle
> Endlessly Rocking"?  "I heard a fly buzz when I died"?  "The Waste Land"?
> "Those Winter Sundays"?  "That time of year thou may'st in me behold"?
> "Spring & All"?
>
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at 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 antrobin at clipper.net  Tue Nov  4 23:07:18 2003
From: antrobin at clipper.net (Anthony Robinson)
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 20:07:18 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] banal poetry
In-Reply-To: <BBCDC311.516A%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <013401c3a352$57feada0$0f391c40@Emily>

How about Alan Dugan's "On A Seven Day Diary"

Oh I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate and talked and went to sleep.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
from work and ate and slept.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate and watched a show and slept.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate steak and went to sleep.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate and fucked and went to sleep.
Then it was Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!
Love must be the reason for the week!
We went shopping! I saw clouds!
The children explained everything!
I could talk about the main thing!
What did I drink on Saturday night
that lost the first, best half of Sunday?
The last half wasn't worth this "word."
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
from work and ate and went to sleep,
refreshed but tired by the weekend.

++
Tony




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Nov  5 06:07:45 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 06:07:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put?
References: <BBCDC311.516A%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <011001c3a38d$0b037cc0$b06efea9@j1c1k6>

> Not sure exactly how we got from R. P. Warren to quibbles about banality,

Marcus said, I believe, that the MESSAGE of every great poem was banal.  He
probably overstated his case, but he's basically right, if by message he
means a poem's "gross message."  For instance, the banal message of Keats's
"On Chapman's Homer" is "Chapman's Homer gave me a lot of pleasure."
Shakespeare's Sonnet 73, the one you mention, banally tells us that that the
poet is getting old but, because death is near, he all the more appreciates
the love of the person his poem is written to.  Etc.

--Bob G.


> but I'm curious:  can anyone cite an example or three of clearly
canonical,
> clearly banal poetry?  Just so we know what we're talking about.
>
> I mean, is Stevens's "The Snow Man" a banal poem? "Out of the Cradle
> Endlessly Rocking"?  "I heard a fly buzz when I died"?  "The Waste Land"?
> "Those Winter Sundays"?  "That time of year thou may'st in me behold"?
> "Spring & All"?

> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at 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 marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Nov  5 07:33:52 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 07:33:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put?
In-Reply-To: <001601c3a34a$b0355b20$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <3FA8A7E0.3092.136222@localhost>

> From: "David Graham" <grahamd at ripon.edu>
> > Not sure exactly how we got from R. P. Warren to quibbles about
> > banality, but I'm curious:  can anyone cite an example or three of
> > clearly canonical, clearly banal poetry?<<<

On 4 Nov 2003 at 22:12, TheOldMole wrote:
> "Bells For John Whiteside's Daughter"

Together with "Musee des Beaux Arts" and "Lapis Lazuli", already 
named, that's three.

The challenge is to find a poem the thought behind which, or the 
emotion underlying which, is NOT banal. The whole idea is to address 
the common ideas and emotions of the world, but do so in a way that 
makes the common, the banal, seem uncommon and fresh. It is the tone, 
manner, style, and the like, not the content, of a poem that makes it 
a poem at all, and that makes it good or bad, not whether it says 
"War is bad" or "No one gets out of here alive" or "Life is hard" and 
the like.






From marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Nov  5 07:33:52 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 07:33:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put
In-Reply-To: <7f.3ead04f9.2cd9b4b6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3FA8A7E0.12787.136330@localhost>

> are there any examples of poems out there that say nothing or say
> something banal but say them well? is that even a possibility?
> thom tammaro

Sure -- nearly all of them. The challenge is to find a poem that 
doesn't say something banal whether it says it well or not.







From marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Nov  5 07:33:53 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 07:33:53 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put
In-Reply-To: <4.1.20031104205003.0384efc8@mail.ilstu.edu>
References: <011401c3a346$96a01e60$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <3FA8A7E1.12911.136449@localhost>

On 4 Nov 2003 at 20:53, Bill Morgan wrote:
> Would somebody who believes that banality is required for 
> canonical success please name a canonical poem that's banal and 
> explain why you consider it banal? <<

Where did "is required for canonical success" come from? I said that 
what almost all poems say is banal and that what keeps the poem 
itself from being banal is how the poet presents the underlying 
banality.

Auden't "Musee des Beaux Arts", for example, says that life goes on 
even when famous people die, even while myths are being made. This is 
neither new nor news -- but Auden's presentation of it makes it pop.

Yeats's "Lapis Lazuli" says that even old people can and should be 
passionate -- again, neither new nor news; it is Yeats's presentation 
that makes it pop.






From rloden at concentric.net  Wed Nov  5 08:05:51 2003
From: rloden at concentric.net (Rachel Loden)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 05:05:51 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
In-Reply-To: <55.4a3bee51.2cd9b0aa@aol.com>
Message-ID: <008601c3a39d$8d438030$210110ac@GLASSCASTLE>

My parody of the Creeley poem. . .  


I KNOW A BRAND


As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always shopping,--John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the market sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a Jaguar XKR,

test drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, 4.9
seconds to 60 mph.





First appeared in the _North American Review_

----------------------------------------------------------
For the inhibiting and suppressing of all scurrilous and prophane
Play-books, Ballads, Poems, and Tale-bookes whatsoeuer.
                                               --Prynne (1628)

Rachel Loden
http://www.thepomegranate.com/loden/hotel.html
rloden at concentric.net
 








From Thom424 at aol.com  Wed Nov  5 08:20:18 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 08:20:18 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Chronicle article: Lines Online: Poetry Journals on the Web
Message-ID: <b2.24809a2d.2cda5312@aol.com>

This is a rather long article. If I sent the URL, you'd only get to the 
subscriber's sign in window of the on-line CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION. So, 
here's the entire article. I apologize ahead of time for the possibility of junking 
up your e-mailbox. Of course, the article is available in the print version 
of the CHRONICLE if you can get your hands on a copy.

Thom Tammaro
Moorhead, MN

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Subject: Chronicle article: Lines Online: Poetry Journals on the Web
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From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Wed Nov  5 08:20:51 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 06:20:51 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] "Poem On Vacation"
Message-ID: <3FA8F934.FBC9D796@earthlink.net>

Poem On Vacation


"Feed me," says Mr. Poem, "Anything 
you brought from the deli on the boardwalk."
Ah, to fulfill the promise of doing nothing!  
Mrs. Poem, about to descend, gazes 
at his pale dominance on the couch 
and thinks it was sun they came for, sun 
that they needed after months ensconced 
at retreats, all those late mornings in residence,  
hardly a watermark on the poet's page.  

But that was Mr. Poem's way of getting back 
at the poet, revenge for being forced 
into a catalogue of suburban detail when
he and Mrs. Poem just wanted to loll 
on a bench in a specific mall
like petals on a wet, black bough.
Now they felt like those children
who divorce their parents but tire
eventually of candy, but better
than being anthropomorphized.

Mrs. Poem could read Mr. Poem's mind,
and vice versa.  They were, after all,
as dreams that could wear anything
they wanted.  In the bungalo's kitchen,
Mr. Poem wanted to be an empty tin -
hell, several of them - and Mrs. Poem
a cookie sheet.  Mr. Poem lined himself
up on Mrs. Poem and declared them
a copper mine.  Let the frippin poet
make sense of that!  Time for the beach,
at any rate, time to cleanse themselves
of metaphor and be one again.

- Jim


From wwmorgan at mail.ilstu.edu  Wed Nov  5 07:41:21 2003
From: wwmorgan at mail.ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 07:41:21 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put?
In-Reply-To: <3FA8A7E0.3092.136222@localhost>
References: <001601c3a34a$b0355b20$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <4.1.20031105074039.03858df0@mail.ilstu.edu>

	No, I named "Musee des Beaux Arts" and "Lapis Lazuli" as canonical poems
that are *not* (I claim) banal.

At 07:33 AM 11/5/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>> From: "David Graham" <grahamd at ripon.edu>
>> > Not sure exactly how we got from R. P. Warren to quibbles about
>> > banality, but I'm curious:  can anyone cite an example or three of
>> > clearly canonical, clearly banal poetry?<<<
>
>On 4 Nov 2003 at 22:12, TheOldMole wrote:
>> "Bells For John Whiteside's Daughter"
>
>Together with "Musee des Beaux Arts" and "Lapis Lazuli", already 
>named, that's three.
>
>The challenge is to find a poem the thought behind which, or the 
>emotion underlying which, is NOT banal. The whole idea is to address 
>the common ideas and emotions of the world, but do so in a way that 
>makes the common, the banal, seem uncommon and fresh. It is the tone, 
>manner, style, and the like, not the content, of a poem that makes it 
>a poem at all, and that makes it good or bad, not whether it says 
>"War is bad" or "No one gets out of here alive" or "Life is hard" and 
>the like.
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>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 Nov  5 08:55:40 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 08:55:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Well put?
In-Reply-To: <4.1.20031105074039.03858df0@mail.ilstu.edu>
References: <3FA8A7E0.3092.136222@localhost>
Message-ID: <3FA8BB0C.31535.5E46B4@localhost>

On 5 Nov 2003 at 7:41, Bill Morgan wrote:
>  No, I named "Musee des Beaux Arts" and "Lapis Lazuli" as canonical
>  poems that are *not* (I claim) banal.

I only say that their "message" is banal, not that the poems are 
banal -- as I said in my reply to your comment. But the messages of 
those poems are indeed banal -- even though their presentations are 
not.

M

 
> At 07:33 AM 11/5/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> >> From: "David Graham" <grahamd at ripon.edu>
> >> > Not sure exactly how we got from R. P. Warren to quibbles about
> >> > banality, but I'm curious:  can anyone cite an example or three
> >> > of clearly canonical, clearly banal poetry?<<<
> >
> >On 4 Nov 2003 at 22:12, TheOldMole wrote:
> >> "Bells For John Whiteside's Daughter"
> >
> >Together with "Musee des Beaux Arts" and "Lapis Lazuli", already
> >named, that's three.
> >
> >The challenge is to find a poem the thought behind which, or the
> >emotion underlying which, is NOT banal. The whole idea is to address
> >the common ideas and emotions of the world, but do so in a way that
> >makes the common, the banal, seem uncommon and fresh. It is the tone,
> > manner, style, and the like, not the content, of a poem that makes
> >it a poem at all, and that makes it good or bad, not whether it says
> >"War is bad" or "No one gets out of here alive" or "Life is hard" and
> > the like.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >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 tadrichards at prodigy.net  Wed Nov  5 09:12:14 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (tadrichards at prodigy.net)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 09:12:14 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banal poetry
Message-ID: <157240-220031135141214344@M2W061.mail2web.com>

But this one is written to be banal. Not saying it doesn't succeed...

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Anthony Robinson antrobin at clipper.net
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 20:07:18 -0800
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: [New-Poetry] banal poetry


How about Alan Dugan's "On A Seven Day Diary"

Oh I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate and talked and went to sleep.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
from work and ate and slept.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate and watched a show and slept.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate steak and went to sleep.
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
and ate and fucked and went to sleep.
Then it was Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!
Love must be the reason for the week!
We went shopping! I saw clouds!
The children explained everything!
I could talk about the main thing!
What did I drink on Saturday night
that lost the first, best half of Sunday?
The last half wasn't worth this "word."
Then I got up and went to work
and worked and came back home
from work and ate and went to sleep,
refreshed but tired by the weekend.

++
Tony


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .





From hruggier at localnet.com  Wed Nov  5 10:42:00 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 10:42:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20031104130125.01261218@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <3FA91A48.E976846F@localnet.com>

Can't resist suggesting "From Normal to Providence" as a title. or from
providence to normal - you can't ask for better landarks than that.

Gabriel Gudding wrote:

> I have been writing a long poem in my Toyota ECHO during my by now 31 trips
> between Normal, Illinois and Providence, Rhode Island since June of 2002. I
> just got back this morning from another such trip. The journey one-way is
> 18 hrs: 1,100 miles. The poem is called "rhode island notebook."
>
> Gabe Gudding
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Wed Nov  5 10:37:23 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 09:37:23 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Need your help finding poems
In-Reply-To: <4.1.20031104200024.0384c828@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <BBCE7553.597F%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

Also check out Richard Wilbur's "Junk."

Paul Lake


on 11/4/03 7:00 PM, Bill Morgan at wwmorgan at mail.ilstu.edu wrote:

> Howard Nemerov's "The Town Dump"
> 
> At 05:42 PM 11/4/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>> A.R. Ammons' "Garbage"
>> 
>> 
>> In a message dated 11/4/03 8:03:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>> mreyna at snet.net 
>> writes:
>> 
>>> Hola todo el mundo.
>>>  An anthropologist friend is teaching a class about garbage, janitors,
>> 
>>> garbage collectors,  in our society and she asked me  if I knew of
>>> poems dealing with this subject matter. I  remembered Fayad  Jamis to
>>> the garbage men and Martin Espada's "Jorge the  Church Janitor"
>>>  DO YOU HAVE ANY TITLES OR AUTHORS YOU KNOW OF?
>>>  Your help would be GREATLY appreciated.
>>>  Saludos
>>>  Bessy
>>>  
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Wed Nov  5 10:59:52 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 16:59:52 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] From Today in LIterature
Message-ID: <006001c3a3b5$d9b917a0$4d1c2dd5@anny>

Today's Text:

"The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy," by Laurence Sterne:

      On the fifth day of November, 1718, which to the era fixed
on, was as near nine calendar months as any husband could in
reason have expected, -- was I Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,
brought forth into this scurvy and disastrous world of ours. -- I
wish I had been born in the Moon, or in any of the planets,
(except Jupiter or Saturn, because I never could bear cold
weather) for it could not well have fared worse with me in any of
them (tho' I will not answer for Venus) than it has in this vile,
dirty planet of ours ... for I can truly say, that from the first
hour I drew my breath in it, to this, that I can now scarce draw
it at all, for an asthma I got in skating against the wind in
Flanders; -- I have been the continual sport of what the world
calls Fortune.... 

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky
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From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Wed Nov  5 11:08:44 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 10:08:44 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
In-Reply-To: <3FA91A48.E976846F@localnet.com>
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20031104130125.01261218@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031105100039.01c26228@mail.ilstu.edu>

A thematic leitmotif is precisely that, yes, and believe me when I say that 
in many ways the trip (though perhaps not the work) does represent for me, 
very much, just such a journey. I have also used the headings "anabasis" 
(toward Providence) and "katabasis" (toward Normal), which loosely 
translate to "an advance" and "a retreat" -- but "katabasis" is also a term 
to describe a protagonist's descent into hell, whether it is Christ's 
harrowing or Virgil's or Persephone's. And a descent into hell, as much as 
I love Normal, is what a drive away from Providence is like -- but this 
katabatic/hell-descent sense has less to do with Normal and more to do with 
the protagonist.

_Anabasis_, by Xenophon, by the bye, is a gorgeous little book. It is 
sometimes translated as "the march up country."

At 10:42 AM 11/5/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Can't resist suggesting "From Normal to Providence" as a title. or from
>providence to normal - you can't ask for better landarks than that.
>
>Gabriel Gudding wrote:
>
> > I have been writing a long poem in my Toyota ECHO during my by now 31 trips
> > between Normal, Illinois and Providence, Rhode Island since June of 2002. I
> > just got back this morning from another such trip. The journey one-way is
> > 18 hrs: 1,100 miles. The poem is called "rhode island notebook."
> >
> > Gabe Gudding
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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 JforJames at aol.com  Wed Nov  5 11:12:11 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 11:12:11 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
Message-ID: <173.21807568.2cda7b5b@aol.com>

The Black Riviera 
 
    For Garrett Hongo

There they are again.  It's after dark.
The rain begins its sober comedy,
Slicking down their hair as they wait
Under a pepper tree or eucalyptus,
Larry Dietz, Luis Gonzalez, the Fitzgerald brothers,
And Jarman, hidden from the cop car
Sleeking innocently past.  Stoned,
They giggle a little, with money ready
To pay for more, waiting in the rain.

They buy from the black Riviera
That silently appears, as if risen,
The apotheosis of wet asphalt
And smeary-silvery glare
And plush inner untouchability.
A hand takes money and withdraws,
Another extends a plastic sack--
Short, too dramatic to be questioned.
What they buy is light rolled in a wave.

They send the money off in a long car
A god himself could steal a girl in,
Clothing its metal sheen in the spectrum
Of bars and discos and restaurants.
And they are left, dripping rain
Under their melancholy tree, and see time
Knocked akilter, sort of funny,
But slowing down strangely, too.
So, what do they dream?

They might dream that they are in love
And wake to find they are,
That outside their own pumping arteries,
Which they can cargo with happiness
As they sink in their little bathyspheres,
Somebody else's body pressures theirs
With kisses, like bursts of bloody oxygen,
Until, stunned, they're dragged up,
Drawn from drowning, saved.

In fact, some of us woke up that way.
It has to do with how desire takes shape.
Tapered, encapsulated, engineered
To navigate an illusion of deep water,
Its beauty has the dark roots
Of a girl skipping down a high-school corridor
Selling Seconal from a bag,
Or a black car gliding close to the roadtop,
So insular, so quiet, it enters the earth.
 

by Mark Jarman


From Thom424 at aol.com  Wed Nov  5 11:18:04 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 11:18:04 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars
Message-ID: <24A20A74.571A154E.001A46F6@aol.com>

Among the best: B.H. Fairchild's "The Blue Buick" in his marvelous collection with the marvelous title: *Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest* W. W. (Norton, 2002).

Thom Tammaro
Moorhead, MN


From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Wed Nov  5 11:24:04 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 17:24:04 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars - Normal
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20031104130125.01261218@mail.ilstu.edu> <5.1.1.6.0.20031105100039.01c26228@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <007801c3a3b9$3b6a3800$4d1c2dd5@anny>

Can you remember GG when JJ on the other list thought you were teasing her
when you said you lived in
_Normal_?
On the other hand you couldn't but live there, people need a sort of
balance...
and yes, I like the title:
from Normal to Providence and back,
:-)

From: "Gabriel Gudding" <gmguddi at ilstu.edu>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> A thematic leitmotif is precisely that, yes, and believe me when I say
that
> in many ways the trip (though perhaps not the work) does represent for me,
> very much, just such a journey. I have also used the headings "anabasis"
> (toward Providence) and "katabasis" (toward Normal), which loosely
> translate to "an advance" and "a retreat" -- but "katabasis" is also a
term
> to describe a protagonist's descent into hell, whether it is Christ's
> harrowing or Virgil's or Persephone's. And a descent into hell, as much as
> I love Normal, is what a drive away from Providence is like -- but this
> katabatic/hell-descent sense has less to do with Normal and more to do
with
> the protagonist.
>
> _Anabasis_, by Xenophon, by the bye, is a gorgeous little book. It is
> sometimes translated as "the march up country."
>
> At 10:42 AM 11/5/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> >Can't resist suggesting "From Normal to Providence" as a title. or from
> >providence to normal - you can't ask for better landarks than that.
> >
> >Gabriel Gudding wrote:
> >
> > > I have been writing a long poem in my Toyota ECHO during my by now 31
trips
> > > between Normal, Illinois and Providence, Rhode Island since June of
2002. I
> > > just got back this morning from another such trip. The journey one-way
is
> > > 18 hrs: 1,100 miles. The poem is called "rhode island notebook."
> > >
> > > Gabe Gudding
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > 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 ripon.edu  Wed Nov  5 11:29:11 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 10:29:11 -0600 
Subject: [New-Poetry] banal poetry
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A106@ariel.ripon.edu>

Of course, if you reduce a poem's effect to a bumper-sticker-size thematic
statement, the result will indeed be banal.  Not the poem, necessarily, but
the bumper sticker is banal.  This exercise can be hilarious, as in William
Matthews's immortal essay "Dull Subjects," in which he proposes "a short but
comprehensive summary of subjects for lyric poetry," to whit:  

1.  I went out into the woods today and it made me feel, you know, sort of
religious.

2.  We're not getting any younger.

3.  It sure is cold and lonely (a) without you, honey, or (b) with you,
honey.

4.  Sadness seems but the other side of the coin of happiness, and vice
versa, and in any case the coin is too soon spent and on we know not what.

     --William Matthews.  "Dull Subjects."  Curiosities.  U Michigan Press,
1989.
---------------------------------------

I don't have the essay in front of me, but Matthews goes on to find the
ur-theme of all lyrics in a TV Guide summary of a Bob Hope/Dorothy Lamour
movie:  "Amorous gorilla pursues Hope."  

Such a reductio is great fun, but I wouldn't want to confuse it with a
poem's actual themes, which inhere, yes, in the presentation.  But in a
successful poem, to my mind, the strands of profundity, simple truth,
observational accuracy, oddball perception, emotional depth and complexity,
and presentational guile and glitter are often--usually?-- hard to separate
out.  

Another wise essay on the subject is W. D. Snodgrass's on tact (can't recall
exact title).  He also makes the point (more subtly than it's been made by
anyone here, including me) that a lot of poems do not make profound or
original statements.  An exception, a poem that Snodgrass thinks really does
say something unusual, is Larkin's "Born Yesterday."  

Born Yesterday

Tightly folded bud,
I have wished you something
None of the others would:
Not the usual stuff
About being beautiful,
Or running off a spring
Of innocence and love--
They will all wish you that,
And should it prove possible,
Well, you're a lucky girl.

But if it shouldn't, then
May you be ordinary;
Have, like other women,
An average of talents:
Not ugly, not good-looking,
Nothing uncustomary
To pull you off your balance,
That unworkable itself,
Stops all the rest from working.
In fact, may you be dull--
If that is what a skilled,
Vigilant, flexible,
Unemphasized, enthralled
Catching of happiness is called.
	--Philip Larkin


============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Nov  5 11:31:48 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 11:31:48 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Need your help finding poems
Message-ID: <151.265d6adc.2cda7ff4@cs.com>

In a message dated 11/4/2003 7:44:14 PM Central Standard Time, 
JforJames at aol.com writes: 
> >Hola todo el mundo.
> >  An anthropologist friend is teaching a class about garbage, janitors,
> >  garbage collectors,  in our society and she asked me
> >  if I knew of poems dealing with this subject matter. I  remembered Fayad
> >  Jamis to the garbage men and Martin Espada's "Jorge the
> >  Church Janitor"
> >  DO YOU HAVE ANY TITLES OR AUTHORS YOU KNOW OF?
> >  Your help would be GREATLY appreciated.
> >  Saludos
> >  Bessy
> >  
Robert Lowell's "Memories of West Street and Lepke" has a brief mention of 
one.
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Nov  5 11:32:38 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 11:32:38 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Need your help finding poems
Message-ID: <43.2466c2c7.2cda8026@cs.com>

In a message dated 11/4/2003 8:03:36 PM Central Standard Time, 
wwmorgan at mail.ilstu.edu writes: 
> Hola todo el mundo.
> >>  An anthropologist friend is teaching a class about garbage, janitors,
> >
> >>garbage collectors,  in our society and she asked me  if I knew of 
> >>poems dealing with this subject matter. I  remembered Fayad  Jamis to 
> >>the garbage men and Martin Espada's "Jorge the  Church Janitor"
> >>  DO YOU HAVE ANY TITLES OR AUTHORS YOU KNOW OF?
> >>  Your help would be GREATLY appreciated.
> >>  Saludos
> >>  Bessy
> >>  
Wallace Stevens's "The Man on the Dump"
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From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Wed Nov  5 11:39:40 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 10:39:40 -0600 
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bells for John whiteside's Daughter
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A107@ariel.ripon.edu>

I've always hated that poem!  

Ransom's once-high reputation has always puzzled me a bit, I guess.

============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================


> ----------
> From: 	TheOldMole
> Reply To: 	new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Sent: 	Tuesday, November 4, 2003 9:12 PM
> To: 	new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: 	Re: [New-Poetry] Well put?
> 
> "Bells For John Whiteside's Daughter"
> 
> 


From FanwoodJEL at aol.com  Wed Nov  5 11:41:51 2003
From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 11:41:51 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Need your help finding poems
Message-ID: <29.4a76856c.2cda824f@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/5/2003 11:33:13 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
Rsgwynn1 at cs.com writes:


> In a message dated 11/4/2003 7:44:14 PM Central Standard Time, 
> JforJames at aol.com writes: 
> >> >Hola todo el mundo.
>> >  An anthropologist friend is teaching a class about garbage, janitors,
>> >  garbage collectors,  in our society and she asked me
>> >  if I knew of poems dealing with this subject matter. I  remembered Fayad
>> >  Jamis to the garbage men and Martin Espada's "Jorge the
>> >  Church Janitor"
>> >  DO YOU HAVE ANY TITLES OR AUTHORS YOU KNOW OF?
>> >  Your help would be GREATLY appreciated.
>> >  Saludos
>> >  Bessy
>> >  
> Robert Lowell's "Memories of West Street and Lepke" has a brief mention of 
> one. 

A.R. Ammons book-length poem, *Garbage* -- it's a marvel of a book.

-Jeffrey
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From FanwoodJEL at aol.com  Wed Nov  5 11:42:53 2003
From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 11:42:53 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in Cars - Normal
Message-ID: <cb.394ec7ba.2cda828d@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/5/2003 11:23:09 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
anny.ballardini at tin.it writes:


> The journey one-way
> is
> > > > 18 hrs: 1,100 miles. The poem is called "rhode island notebook."
> > > >
> 

I'd vote for *A Thousand Miles from Normal*
-Jeffrey
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Nov  5 12:05:24 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 12:05:24 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bells for John whiteside's Daughter
Message-ID: <de.404326a0.2cda87d4@cs.com>

In a message dated 11/5/2003 10:40:34 AM Central Standard Time, 
GrahamD at ripon.edu writes: 
> 
> I've always hated that poem!  
> 
> Ransom's once-high reputation has always puzzled me a bit, I guess.
> 
God, you're a hard man, David.  You need a granddaughter.
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From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Wed Nov  5 12:14:47 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 12:14:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bells for John whiteside's Daughter
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A107@ariel.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <009501c3a3c0$50fb4a40$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

Compare it to "First Death In Nova Scotia" for banality vs the real thing.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Graham, David" <GrahamD at ripon.edu>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 11:39 AM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bells for John whiteside's Daughter


> I've always hated that poem!  
> 
> Ransom's once-high reputation has always puzzled me a bit, I guess.
> 
> ============================================
> David Graham
> Department of English, Ripon College
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>      Home Page:  
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
>      My Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> 
> Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
> ============================================
> 
> 
> > ----------
> > From: TheOldMole
> > Reply To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 4, 2003 9:12 PM
> > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Well put?
> > 
> > "Bells For John Whiteside's Daughter"
> > 
> > 
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Wed Nov  5 12:49:28 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 12:49:28 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Need your help finding poems
Message-ID: <122.27d7bed9.2cda9228@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/5/03 11:33:13 AM Eastern Standard Time, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com 
writes:

> Robert Lowell's "Memories of West Street and Lepke" has a brief mention of 
>  one.
>  
Your mention of Lowell made my mind flash on the skunks nosing
in the garbage in "Skunk Hour."
Finnegan


From elemenope at icubed.com  Wed Nov  5 01:21:20 2003
From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 14:21:20 +0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, "Crickets."
In-Reply-To: <200311051628.hA5GS6ST030950@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200311051628.hA5GS6ST030950@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <a05100300bbce45ba9d5c@[204.215.201.193]>



CRICKETS


Crickets

Crickets

Crickets

Crickets

Crickets

Crickets

Crickets

Crickets

Crickets

Crickets

Crickets

Crickets

Crickets

Crickets



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


(First appeared in _Art and Literature_, Zurich, Switzerland, 196[?])

RD
-- 
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From elemenope at icubed.com  Wed Nov  5 01:35:52 2003
From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 14:35:52 +0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Tristram Shandy
In-Reply-To: <200311051628.hA5GS6ST030950@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200311051628.hA5GS6ST030950@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <a05100302bbce49356e94@[204.215.200.219]>

Watch carefully what happens, or what doesn't then happen, when the 
Chinese begin to probe the Moon.

RD
ELEMENOPE Productions

--__--__--

Message: 7
From: "Anny Ballardini" <anny.ballardini at tin.it>
To: "New Poetry" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 16:59:52 +0100
>Subject: [New-Poetry] From Today in LIterature
>Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>
>
>"The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy," by Laurence Sterne:
>
>       On the fifth day of November, 1718, which to the era fixed
>on, was as near nine calendar months as any husband could in
>reason have expected, -- was I Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,
>brought forth into this scurvy and disastrous world of ours. -- I
>wish I had been born in the Moon, or in any of the planets,
>(except Jupiter or Saturn, because I never could bear cold
>weather) for it could not well have fared worse with me in any of
>them (tho' I will not answer for Venus) than it has in this vile,
>dirty planet of ours ... for I can truly say, that from the first
>hour I drew my breath in it, to this, that I can now scarce draw
>it at all, for an asthma I got in skating against the wind in
>Flanders; -- I have been the continual sport of what the world
>calls Fortune....=20
>
>Anny Ballardini
>
>http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php
>
>Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
>>(from Mantis)
>>Louis Zukofsky

-- 


From halvard at earthlink.net  Wed Nov  5 15:01:15 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:01:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, "Crickets."
In-Reply-To: <a05100300bbce45ba9d5c@[204.215.201.193]>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOEMOHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, "Crickets."But this is either the condensed or
the bowdlerized version.
Can't remember which.

Hal

  CRICKETS




  Crickets


  Crickets


  Crickets


  Crickets


  Crickets


  Crickets


  Crickets


  Crickets


  Crickets


  Crickets


  Crickets


  Crickets


  Crickets


  Crickets






  --------------------------------------------------------------------------
------




  (First appeared in _Art and Literature_, Zurich, Switzerland, 196[?])


  RD
--
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From hruggier at localnet.com  Wed Nov  5 15:13:16 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 15:13:16 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, "Crickets."
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOEMOHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <3FA959DC.B18E3F3C@localnet.com>

enough of your stridulations . . . .


xxx

h

Halvard Johnson wrote:

> But this is either the condensed or the bowdlerized version.Can't
> remember which.Hal
>
>
>                                CRICKETS
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>                                Crickets
>
>       --------------------------------------------------------------------------------  (First
>      appeared in _Art and Literature_, Zurich, Switzerland,
>      196[?]) RD
>
>      --
>
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From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Wed Nov  5 16:47:36 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 15:47:36 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, "Crickets."
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOEMOHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
References: <a05100300bbce45ba9d5c@[204.215.201.193]>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031105154634.01e4b148@mail.ilstu.edu>

I've seen a bowdlerized version that reads,

"CRICKETS

Crickets

Crickets...."

At 03:01 PM 11/5/2003 -0500, Halvard Johnson wrote:
>But this is either the condensed or the bowdlerized version.
>Can't remember which.
>
>Hal
>
>CRICKETS
>
>
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>Crickets
>
>
>
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>(First appeared in _Art and Literature_, Zurich, Switzerland, 196[?])
>
>RD
>
>
>--
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From JforJames at aol.com  Wed Nov  5 17:07:44 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 17:07:44 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] UA Fanthorpe
Message-ID: <1d9.13b1821e.2cdaceb0@aol.com>

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/interviews/story.jsp?story=458901

UA Fanthorpe: Life of the English poet
UA Fanthorpe, iconic poet and 'national treasure', 
left Cheltenham Ladies' College to work in hospitals. 
She tells Christina Patterson about pain, laughter - and love


From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Wed Nov  5 17:18:15 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 15:18:15 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, "Crickets."
References: <a05100300bbce45ba9d5c@[204.215.201.193]> <5.1.1.6.0.20031105154634.01e4b148@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <3FA97727.C4838C9F@earthlink.net>

There's Crickets X 14.

- Jim

Gabriel Gudding wrote:
> 
> I've seen a bowdlerized version that reads,
> 
> "CRICKETS
> 
> Crickets
> 
> Crickets...."
> 
> At 03:01 PM 11/5/2003 -0500, Halvard Johnson wrote:
> 
> > But this is either the condensed or the bowdlerized version.
> > Can't remember which.
> >
> > Hal
> >
> >
> >                                 CRICKETS
> >
> >
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >                                 Crickets
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> >
> >      (First appeared in _Art and Literature_, Zurich, Switzerland,
> >      196[?])
> >
> >      RD
> >
> >      --
> >


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Nov  5 19:19:34 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 19:19:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, "Crickets."
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOEMOHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net> <3FA959DC.B18E3F3C@localnet.com>
Message-ID: <021701c3a3fb$a8da3f60$4cf4fea9@j1c1k6>

I like "Crickets" at lot--but not as much as Robert Lax's

river
river
river

river 
river
river

river
river
river

river 
river
river

This one so impressed me that I stole it, and put it in the middle of a visual poem of mine.  Frankly, I think I abused it, but Lax's literary executor liked what I did with it.

Of course, to appreciate poems like these you need a kind of haiku sense that not many people seem to have.

--Bob G.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Helen Ruggieri 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 3:13 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, "Crickets."


  enough of your stridulations . . . . 
    
  xxx 

  h 

  Halvard Johnson wrote: 

    But this is either the condensed or the bowdlerized version.Can't remember which.Hal 

      CRICKETS
         
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
        
      Crickets
         --------------------------------------------------------------------------------  (First appeared in _Art and Literature_, Zurich, Switzerland, 196[?]) RD 
--

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From CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com  Wed Nov  5 19:31:15 2003
From: CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com (CobbCoStudioArts)
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 16:31:15 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Need your help finding poems
Message-ID: <20031106003115.D6F5C3996@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Nov  6 05:52:55 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 05:52:55 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3FA633C8.3591.C78F3F@localhost>
Message-ID: <01d701c3a454$239ff700$09b1fea9@j1c1k6>

Marcus, are you still in this thread?  If you don't want to tackle the
clarity of my statement as a "scientific' statement, try it as literary
criticism, I don't care.

--Bob G.



From marcus at designerglass.com  Thu Nov  6 08:33:08 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 08:33:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banal poetry
In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A106@ariel.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3FAA0744.25241.421A7F@localhost>

> Of course, if you reduce a poem's effect to a bumper-sticker-size
> thematic statement, the result will indeed be banal.  Not the poem,
> necessarily, but the bumper sticker is banal.  ...
> Such a reductio is great fun, but I wouldn't want to confuse it with a
> poem's actual themes, which inhere, yes, in the presentation.  But in
> a successful poem, to my mind, the strands of profundity, simple
> truth, observational accuracy, oddball perception, emotional depth and
> complexity, and presentational guile and glitter are often--usually?--
> hard to separate out.<<

But this again confuses, as you yourself so often say, David, "good 
poetry" with "poetry".






From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Thu Nov  6 10:41:50 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 09:41:50 -0600 
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A10B@ariel.ripon.edu>

> > Of course, if you reduce a poem's effect to a bumper-sticker-size
> > thematic statement, the result will indeed be banal.  Not the poem,
> > necessarily, but the bumper sticker is banal.  ...
> > Such a reductio is great fun, but I wouldn't want to confuse it with a
> > poem's actual themes, which inhere, yes, in the presentation.  But in
> > a successful poem, to my mind, the strands of profundity, simple
> > truth, observational accuracy, oddball perception, emotional depth and
> > complexity, and presentational guile and glitter are often--usually?--
> > hard to separate out.<<
> 
> But this again confuses, as you yourself so often say, David, "good 
> poetry" with "poetry".
> 
> 
> 
I don't see the confusion here, but perhaps you'll inform me.  I'm not much
interested in the definitional issue of "what is poetry," as you know, but I
think that yes, it is quite possible to be reductive about less successful
poems along with good ones.

In any case, you seem to dodge the point *I* was making:  that it is
reductive to turn complex poems into bumper sticker slogans ("war is bad")
and then turn around and argue that said poem is banal.  Well, maybe so,
maybe not--you need to look at the whole poem, not the reductio.

The "war is bad" sort of summary is a slick rhetorical maneuver but doesn't
account for how poems typically work in the wild.  Good ones more
successfully than weaker ones, I would have thought it needless to add. . .
.  We *were* talking, you will recall, about accepted classics and whether
they were or were not banal.  

============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================




From marcus at designerglass.com  Thu Nov  6 10:56:36 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 10:56:36 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality
In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A10B@ariel.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3FAA28E4.25020.C5749F@localhost>

> In any case, you seem to dodge the point *I* was making:  that it is
> reductive to turn complex poems into bumper sticker slogans ("war is
> bad") and then turn around and argue that said poem is banal.  Well,
> maybe so, maybe not--you need to look at the whole poem, not the
> reductio.<<

But I didn't say and don't argue that the poem is banal because the 
message can be reduced to a banal bumpersticker message. I said that 
what makes a poem a poem is the presentation of the message, however 
banal, and not whether the message is banal or profound or 
interesting or whatever. I argue that poetry is rhetoric, not 
philosophy -- that the presentation is what matters in poetry, not 
the matter.
 




From halvard at earthlink.net  Thu Nov  6 11:10:11 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 11:10:11 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Hamilton Stone Review launching
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIEOIHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

I must confess that I did have a hand in this one, having 
done the poetry editing and much of the design for HSR. 
Hints, tips, encomia, raspberries, all cheerfully accepted. 
(Well, almost all.)

Hal

=====

Hamilton Stone Editions is proud to announce the first
issue of The Hamilton Stone Review, featuring

	poems by   James V. Cervantes
	                  Wendy Battin
                              Dick Allen
	                  Gwyn McVay

	stories by    Joan Newburger
                              Ellen Alexander Conley
                              Shelley Ettinger

 http://www.hamiltonstone.org/hsr.html



From chris at chrislott.org  Thu Nov  6 12:28:58 2003
From: chris at chrislott.org (Chris Lott)
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 08:28:58 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <01d701c3a454$239ff700$09b1fea9@j1c1k6>
References: <3FA633C8.3591.C78F3F@localhost> <01d701c3a454$239ff700$09b1fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3FAA84DA.8060606@chrislott.org>

Bob Grumman wrote:

> Marcus, are you still in this thread?  If you don't want to tackle the
> clarity of my statement as a "scientific' statement, try it as literary
> criticism, I don't care.

Mark this day as the first time the world has witnessed anyone trying to 
force the generally tenacious Marcus into providing more responses. 
Incidentally, I think that would be a good rap name: Tenacious MB.

c
-- 
Chris Lott (chris at chrislott.org)
http://www.chrislott.org/

"Laughter is the father of beauty." --William Matthews





From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Thu Nov  6 12:34:49 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 11:34:49 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality
In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A10B@ariel.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031106112851.01d83368@mail.ilstu.edu>

At 09:41 AM 11/6/2003 -0600, Graham, David wrote:
<<  that it is
>reductive to turn complex poems into bumper sticker slogans ("war is bad")
>and then turn around and argue that said poem is banal.  Well, maybe so,
>maybe not--you need to look at the whole poem, not the reductio.

Hate to butt in on the fun you two are having, but wanted to remind that 
Thom T.'s initial question was predicated on a split between what a poem 
says and how it says it -- the old content/form distinction. If you allow 
that distinction, you are allowing the reduction of a poem to a message. 
His query is this: "are there any examples of poems out there that say 
nothing or say something banal but say them well?"

But even beyond that, in the back of my mind, I also had in response to 
Thom the idea that most canonical poems develop, after time, a sense of 
banality merely by dint of familiarity.

Gabe
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From FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com  Thu Nov  6 12:59:09 2003
From: FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com (FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:59:09 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] to all who appreciate the poems of Frank Samperi
Message-ID: <1ab.1c7aa79c.2cdbe5ed@aol.com>

looking for anyone out there interested in
participating in a project on Samperi's life and work.

for more details, go to
http://phillysound.blogspot.com



From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Thu Nov  6 13:30:16 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 12:30:16 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20031106112851.01d83368@mail.ilstu.edu>
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A10B@ariel.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031106122551.01d8abb8@mail.ilstu.edu>

I wonder too if part of canonicity's historic function has not been, at 
certain times, more predictably governed by a desire to canonize around 
Theme and other modes of *accepted content.* Part of what's considered 
accepted content is going to be whatever is not considered offensive or 
terribly unusual by the literary elite (by literary elite I mean whatever 
group with access to means of production that might advocate and reproduce 
a given poem in anthologies, etc).



At 11:34 AM 11/6/2003 -0600, Gabriel Gudding wrote:
>At 09:41 AM 11/6/2003 -0600, Graham, David wrote:
><<  that it is
>>reductive to turn complex poems into bumper sticker slogans ("war is bad")
>>and then turn around and argue that said poem is banal.  Well, maybe so,
>>maybe not--you need to look at the whole poem, not the reductio.
>
>Hate to butt in on the fun you two are having, but wanted to remind that 
>Thom T.'s initial question was predicated on a split between what a poem 
>says and how it says it -- the old content/form distinction. If you allow 
>that distinction, you are allowing the reduction of a poem to a message. 
>His query is this: "are there any examples of poems out there that say 
>nothing or say something banal but say them well?"
>
>But even beyond that, in the back of my mind, I also had in response to 
>Thom the idea that most canonical poems develop, after time, a sense of 
>banality merely by dint of familiarity.
>
>Gabe
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From halvard at earthlink.net  Thu Nov  6 13:31:31 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 13:31:31 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality
In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20031106112851.01d83368@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEGEOPHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Also butting in, I'd say that Dr. Williams produced several good
examples of this. I'm thinking now of those plums untimely ripped
from the coldness of the fridge.

But, Gabe, I think your referring to overfamiliarity down below--
to me, not the same as banality. And, as Marcus has told us time
and time again (to coin a banality) it's the banal message that
the subject here. Banal poems, like cliches, are a dime a dozen.

Hal
  Hate to butt in on the fun you two are having, but wanted to remind that
Thom T.'s initial question was predicated on a split between what a poem
says and how it says it -- the old content/form distinction. If you allow
that distinction, you are allowing the reduction of a poem to a message. His
query is this: "are there any examples of poems out there that say nothing
or say something banal but say them well?"

  But even beyond that, in the back of my mind, I also had in response to
Thom the idea that most canonical poems develop, after time, a sense of
banality merely by dint of familiarity.

  Gabe
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From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Thu Nov  6 13:38:40 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 12:38:40 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031106123148.0253ace0@mail.ilstu.edu>

Indeed the very idea of belatedness would tend to bear this out somewhat: 
that it is only after poems become somewhat banal and familiar that they 
are safely reproduced en masse for literary consumption. 
Bridges/Hopkins  Higginson/Dickinson  or (in fiction) Matthiessen/Melville.

I think too about the role of nostalgia in the work of Heaney and, say, 
Walcott: that there is a certain belatedness of subject matter inhering 
there culturally. Heaney writing about rural Ireland just as rural Ireland 
is waning severly-- and his poems typically being consumed in a very 
sophisticated urban Ireland.  Walcott romanticizing certain features of 
afro-caribbean life. And, again in the realm of older canonized American 
fiction, James Fenimore Cooper's nostalgic renderings of Native Americans 
in the 1820-1830s, precisely during the years that NA are being officially 
disappeared and forcibly relocated from their lands means of national 
legislation.

Gabe

<<I wonder too if part of canonicity's historic function has not been, at 
certain times, more predictably governed by a desire to canonize around 
Theme and other modes of *accepted content.* Part of what's considered 
accepted content is going to be whatever is not considered offensive or 
terribly unusual by the literary elite (by literary elite I mean whatever 
group with access to means of production that might advocate and reproduce 
a given poem in anthologies, etc).>>



At 11:34 AM 11/6/2003 -0600, Gabriel Gudding wrote:
>At 09:41 AM 11/6/2003 -0600, Graham, David wrote:
><<  that it is
>>reductive to turn complex poems into bumper sticker slogans ("war is bad")
>>and then turn around and argue that said poem is banal.  Well, maybe so,
>>maybe not--you need to look at the whole poem, not the reductio.
>
>Hate to butt in on the fun you two are having, but wanted to remind that 
>Thom T.'s initial question was predicated on a split between what a poem 
>says and how it says it -- the old content/form distinction. If you allow 
>that distinction, you are allowing the reduction of a poem to a message. 
>His query is this: "are there any examples of poems out there that say 
>nothing or say something banal but say them well?"
>
>But even beyond that, in the back of my mind, I also had in response to 
>Thom the idea that most canonical poems develop, after time, a sense of 
>banality merely by dint of familiarity.
>
>Gabe
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From hruggier at localnet.com  Thu Nov  6 14:13:54 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (hruggier at localnet.com)
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 14:13:54 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, 'Crickets.'
In-Reply-To: <021701c3a3fb$a8da3f60$4cf4fea9@j1c1k6>
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOEMOHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
        <3FA959DC.B18E3F3C@localnet.com>
        <021701c3a3fb$a8da3f60$4cf4fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <4109.130.49.178.103.1068146034.squirrel@webmail.localnet.com>

Do you know Marcia?

>

I like "Crickets" at lot--but not as much as Robert Lax's
>
> river
> river
> river
>
> river
> river
> river
>
> river
> river
> river
>
> river
> river
> river
>
> This one so impressed me that I stole it, and put it in the middle of a
> visual poem of mine.  Frankly, I think I abused it, but Lax's literary
> executor liked what I did with it.
>
> Of course, to appreciate poems like these you need a kind of haiku
> sense that not many people seem to have.
>
> --Bob G.
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: Helen Ruggieri
>  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>  Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 3:13 PM
>  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, "Crickets."
>
>
>  enough of your stridulations . . . .
>
>  xxx
>
>  h
>
>  Halvard Johnson wrote:
>
>    But this is either the condensed or the bowdlerized version.Can't
>    remember which.Hal
>
>      CRICKETS
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>
>      Crickets
>         -------------------------------------------------------------------------------->          (First appeared in _Art and Literature_, Zurich, Switzerland,
>         196[?]) RD
> --





From hruggier at localnet.com  Thu Nov  6 14:15:31 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (hruggier at localnet.com)
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 14:15:31 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, 'Crickets.'
In-Reply-To: <3FA97727.C4838C9F@earthlink.net>
References: <a05100300bbce45ba9d5c@[204.215.201.193]>
        <5.1.1.6.0.20031105154634.01e4b148@mail.ilstu.edu>
        <3FA97727.C4838C9F@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <4114.130.49.178.103.1068146131.squirrel@webmail.localnet.com>

> Cricket Haiku

crickets crickets cri
kets crickets crickets crickets
crickets crickets cri

There's Crickets X 14.
>
> - Jim
>
> Gabriel Gudding wrote:
>>
>> I've seen a bowdlerized version that reads,
>>
>> "CRICKETS
>>
>> Crickets
>>
>> Crickets...."
>>
>> At 03:01 PM 11/5/2003 -0500, Halvard Johnson wrote:
>>
>> > But this is either the condensed or the bowdlerized version.
>> > Can't remember which.
>> >
>> > Hal
>> >
>> >
>> >                                 CRICKETS
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >                                 Crickets
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >      ------------------------------------------------------------------------------->> >
>> >
>> >
>> >      (First appeared in _Art and Literature_, Zurich, Switzerland,
>> >      196[?])
>> >
>> >      RD
>> >
>> >      --
>> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Thu Nov  6 14:25:21 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 14:25:21 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, 'Crickets.'
In-Reply-To: <4114.130.49.178.103.1068146131.squirrel@webmail.localnet.com>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEPFHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Not to mention

	Cuckoo Haiku

      cuckoo cuckoo cuc
      koo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo
      cuckoo cuckoo cuc

and

	Rooster Haiku

     cockadoodle-doo,
     dude, cockadoodle-doo, dude,
     cockadoodle-doo
     
      

   
{    > Cricket Haiku
{    
{    crickets crickets cri
{    kets crickets crickets crickets
{    crickets crickets cri



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Thu Nov  6 14:35:48 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 20:35:48 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, 'Crickets.'
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEPFHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <006701c3a49d$2ed5f360$14737450@anny>

You should have a reading with Animal Haikus, it would  receive the greatest
applause!

> Not to mention
>
> Cuckoo Haiku
>
>       cuckoo cuckoo cuc
>       koo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo
>       cuckoo cuckoo cuc
>
> and
>
> Rooster Haiku
>
>      cockadoodle-doo,
>      dude, cockadoodle-doo, dude,
>      cockadoodle-doo
>
>
>
>
> {    > Cricket Haiku
> {
> {    crickets crickets cri
> {    kets crickets crickets crickets
> {    crickets crickets cri
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Nov  6 15:42:52 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 15:42:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Banal Poem by Aram Saroyan, 'Crickets.'
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOEMOHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>       <3FA959DC.B18E3F3C@localnet.com>       <021701c3a3fb$a8da3f60$4cf4fea9@j1c1k6> <4109.130.49.178.103.1068146034.squirrel@webmail.localnet.com>
Message-ID: <01b501c3a4a6$8cf811e0$ce32fea9@j1c1k6>

> Do you know Marcia?
>
Yeah, I met her and her husband through Richard Kostelanetz.  They stopped
here for a visit--at his urging, I believe--a little over a year ago (I
think).  Super nice people.

--Bob G.




From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Nov  7 08:54:26 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 08:54:26 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20031106123148.0253ace0@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <3FAB5DC2.26305.CB802@localhost>

> ...  but wanted to
>     remind that Thom T.'s initial question was predicated on a split
>     between what a poem says and how it says it -- the old
>     content/form distinction. If you allow that distinction, you are
>     allowing the reduction of a poem to a message. His query is this:
>     "are there any examples of poems out there that say nothing or say
>     something banal but say them well?"<<

And I replied that yes, nearly all poems say something banal, when 
you look at message -- and good poems say that something banal well, 
while bad poems say that something banal badly. Poetry is rhetoric 
not philosophy: how the thing is said is what makes it poetry, not 
what it says.





From Thom424 at aol.com  Fri Nov  7 11:39:50 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 11:39:50 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
Message-ID: <18B281FD.0DCE10A3.001A46F6@aol.com>

i was also interested in seeing some examples of good poems that say something banal well...

another query: since nearly all poems say something banal, are any of the poets on the list interested in/satisfied with--either by intention or by default--writing a good poem that says something banal well? 

of course, i'm guessing all poets attempt/strive to say something new & extraordinary and say it well

thom tammaro
moorhead, mn


From kpaul at mallasch.com  Fri Nov  7 11:45:31 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 11:45:31 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <18B281FD.0DCE10A3.001A46F6@aol.com>
References: <18B281FD.0DCE10A3.001A46F6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <20031107114450.M20578@kpaul.spinweb.net>

example of

some-
thing
ban
-al


-kpaul

On Fri, 7 Nov 2003 Thom424 at aol.com wrote:

> i was also interested in seeing some examples of good poems that say something banal well...
>
> another query: since nearly all poems say something banal, are any of the poets on the list interested in/satisfied with--either by intention or by default--writing a good poem that says something banal well?
>
> of course, i'm guessing all poets attempt/strive to say something new & extraordinary and say it well
>
> thom tammaro
> moorhead, mn
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Fri Nov  7 11:52:11 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 10:52:11 -0600 
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A10D@ariel.ripon.edu>

Don't think I'm quite ready to agree that all or nearly all poems "say"
something banal.  One reason I've already noted-- soon as you begin to use
vocabulary like "this poem says" you are headed down the road of
reductiveness.  Another reason is that when I read a classic poem like
Stevens's "The Snow Man" (just one example of hundreds) I honestly don't see
the banality.  

So I, too, would be very interested in some concrete examples thrown into
the discussion.  

I agree with Marcus, too, that poems are rhetorical more than philosophical
by nature.  A lot of modernists and po-modernists snicker at Pope's "What
oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest," but I guess I don't.

Having called for examples, let me toss one out, without commentary.  Is
this a banal poem?

On Faith

How do people stay true to each other? 
When I think of my parents all those years
in the unmade bed of their marriage, not ever
longing for anything else-or: no, they must
have longed; there must have been flickerings, 
stray desires, nights she turned from him, 
sleepless, and wept, nights he rose silently, 
smoked in the dark, nights that nest of breath
and tangled limbs must have seemed
not enough. But it was. Or they just
held on. A gift, perhaps, I've tossed out, 
having been always too willing to fly
to the next love, the next and the next, certain
nothing was really mine, certain nothing
would ever last. So faith hits me late, if at all; 
faith that this latest love won't end, or ends
in the shapeless sleep of death. But faith is hard. 
When he turns his back to me now, I think: 
disappear . I think: not what I want . I think
of my mother lying awake in those arms
that could crush her. That could have. Did not. 

-- Cecilia Woloch, from Late (BOA Editions). 

============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================


> ----------
> From: 	Thom424 at aol.com
> Reply To: 	new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Sent: 	Friday, November 7, 2003 10:39 AM
> To: 	new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: 	Re: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
> 
> i was also interested in seeing some examples of good poems that say
> something banal well...
> 
> another query: since nearly all poems say something banal, are any of the
> poets on the list interested in/satisfied with--either by intention or by
> default--writing a good poem that says something banal well? 
> 
> of course, i'm guessing all poets attempt/strive to say something new &
> extraordinary and say it well
> 
> thom tammaro
> moorhead, mn
> 


From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Nov  7 11:53:42 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 11:53:42 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <18B281FD.0DCE10A3.001A46F6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEEEAPHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

    
{    i was also interested in seeing some examples of good poems that say something banal well...

Millions of those, Thom. All those sonnets on love, poems on mutability, etc. etc. etc.
   
{    another query: since nearly all poems say something banal, are any of the poets on the list interested in/satisfied 
{    with--either by intention or by default--writing a good poem that says something banal well? 

I myself would rather say nothing and say it well.

{    of course, i'm guessing all poets attempt/strive to say something new & extraordinary and say it well

What a poem says (if it says anything at all) is just a hook
to hang the poem on.

Hal         "I have nothing to say and I am saying it
               and that is poetry."       
                                --John Cage

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Nov  7 11:59:51 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 11:59:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A10D@ariel.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOEAPHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Whether the poem is banal or not isn't the question. The
"message" here--that love sometimes endures and sometimes
doesn't (probably misstated, at least in part) is banal and
commonplace. As is, the "message" that those who find
love difficulty perhaps envy those who seem not to have.

Hal

{    Having called for examples, let me toss one out, without commentary.  Is
{    this a banal poem?
{    
{    On Faith
{    
{    How do people stay true to each other? 
{    When I think of my parents all those years
{    in the unmade bed of their marriage, not ever
{    longing for anything else-or: no, they must
{    have longed; there must have been flickerings, 
{    stray desires, nights she turned from him, 
{    sleepless, and wept, nights he rose silently, 
{    smoked in the dark, nights that nest of breath
{    and tangled limbs must have seemed
{    not enough. But it was. Or they just
{    held on. A gift, perhaps, I've tossed out, 
{    having been always too willing to fly
{    to the next love, the next and the next, certain
{    nothing was really mine, certain nothing
{    would ever last. So faith hits me late, if at all; 
{    faith that this latest love won't end, or ends
{    in the shapeless sleep of death. But faith is hard. 
{    When he turns his back to me now, I think: 
{    disappear . I think: not what I want . I think
{    of my mother lying awake in those arms
{    that could crush her. That could have. Did not. 
{    
{    -- Cecilia Woloch, from Late (BOA Editions). 
{    
{    ============================================
{    David Graham
{    Department of English, Ripon College
{    grahamd at ripon.edu
{         Home Page:  
{    http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
{         My Poetry Library:
{    http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
{    
{    Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
{    ============================================
{    
{    
{    > ----------
{    > From: 	Thom424 at aol.com
{    > Reply To: 	new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    > Sent: 	Friday, November 7, 2003 10:39 AM
{    > To: 	new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    > Subject: 	Re: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
{    > 
{    > i was also interested in seeing some examples of good poems that say
{    > something banal well...
{    > 
{    > another query: since nearly all poems say something banal, are any of the
{    > poets on the list interested in/satisfied with--either by intention or by
{    > default--writing a good poem that says something banal well? 
{    > 
{    > of course, i'm guessing all poets attempt/strive to say something new &
{    > extraordinary and say it well
{    > 
{    > thom tammaro
{    > moorhead, mn
{    > 
{    _______________________________________________
{    New-Poetry mailing list
{    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Fri Nov  7 12:17:06 2003
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 09:17:06 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: the swag
In-Reply-To: <200311071701.hA7H13ST015104@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031107090808.00b5ca18@incoming.verizon.net>

At 12:01 PM 11/7/2003 -0500, Hal wrote:

>What a poem says (if it says anything at all) is just a hook
>to hang the poem on.
Eliot says (without banality) that theme is like the steak
the burglar carries to distract the family dog
while he "gets away with the swag." (quoted from memory).

Barry

               BANAL POEM

the parent birds know how to do it,
nudge you from the nest to freedom,

but we, with our words? hopeless;
so hush up the lecture, what's needed

is Strut, some louchy tap-dance
or those good old Fields of Asphodel

for the large eyes of the young ones
to loop through:

Dad in his Armani,
once-long-haired Mom in frenzy

worshipping in Cretan caves
sacred to Minerva,

in the sea turned turquoise
by the blood of Aphrodite.
-------------- next part --------------
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From chris at chrislott.org  Fri Nov  7 12:58:56 2003
From: chris at chrislott.org (Chris Lott)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 08:58:56 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A10D@ariel.ripon.edu>
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A10D@ariel.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3FABDD60.4010905@chrislott.org>

As far as I have ever seen, almost all good poems (and fiction, plays, 
films, etc) can be characterized as saying something that is banal in an 
interesting way. There aren't very many new ideas, and every piece can 
be "boiled down" to some basically trivial-- or at least repetitive-- 
idea. But what's the point? Most food can be boiled and pureed into a 
similarly tasteless mass but none of us are contemplating discontinuing 
eating. Love, sex, beauty, mechanics, and fountain pens can all suffer 
by placement in the appropriate textbook with an adequate definition of 
what what it is and why we might want to have, engage, admire, 
participate, or collect them-- but that has nothing to do with the 
objects themselves.

I think we are peering through the wrong end of the telescope here. 
Looking for a poem that is not based on some kind banality is in part 
the search for a poem that doesn't reduce to any kind of idea at all. 
And while I suspect more than a few poems of having precisely this 
characteristic (due to willful obscurity or lack of coherence), these 
aren't good poems either.

c
--
Chris Lott
http://www.chrislott.org/



From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Nov  7 13:34:10 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 13:34:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <3FABDD60.4010905@chrislott.org>
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A10D@ariel.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3FAB9F52.9731.10CD087@localhost>

On 7 Nov 2003 at 8:58, Chris Lott wrote:
> As far as I have ever seen, almost all good poems (and fiction, plays,
> films, etc) can be characterized as saying something that is banal in
> an interesting way. There aren't very many new ideas, and every piece
> can be "boiled down" to some basically trivial-- or at least
> repetitive-- idea. But what's the point? ...<<

The point is to dismiss the claims of those who want to do philosophy 
or sociology or simply effuse their vatic concerns in lineated prose 
and claim thereby to be poets -- because "poetry" and "poet" are 
still status markers in our culture, however unremunerated. It is a 
compliment to call someone a poet in most situations; and compliment 
to call something a poem or poetic. I don't think there's any 
disagreement about that, is there?

The point is to acknowledge that "poetry" is something with a 
definition and boundaries, even if there are grey areas around its 
boundaries, in order to be able to categorize some texts as poems and 
dismiss the claims of other texts to be poems.





From DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com  Fri Nov  7 13:37:09 2003
From: DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com (DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com)
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 03 13:37:09 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] banal poem
Message-ID: <200311071835.hA7IZPYk173360@northrelay01.pok.ibm.com>

***** Reply to your note of: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 12:01:03 -0500 **************
Banal in the extreme -- nor is it much of a poem, if a poem
says the banal well (I kinda' agree with that proposition.)

It's full of cliche's - tangled limbs, smoking in the night,
longing in the night, and on and on they pile. It's an old
child's version of "I'm bored."

Richard
>>On Faith
>>
>>How do people stay true to each other?
>>When I think of my parents all those years
>>in the unmade bed of their marriage, not ever
>>longing for anything else-or: no, they must
>>have longed; there must have been flickerings,
>>stray desires, nights she turned from him,
>>sleepless, and wept, nights he rose silently,
>>smoked in the dark, nights that nest of breath
>>and tangled limbs must have seemed
>>not enough. But it was. Or they just
>>held on. A gift, perhaps, I've tossed out,
>>having been always too willing to fly
>>to the next love, the next and the next, certain
>>nothing was really mine, certain nothing
>>would ever last. So faith hits me late, if at all;
>>faith that this latest love won't end, or ends
>>in the shapeless sleep of death. But faith is hard.
>>When he turns his back to me now, I think:
>>disappear . I think: not what I want . I think
>>of my mother lying awake in those arms
>>that could crush her. That could have. Did not.
>>
>>-- Cecilia Woloch, from Late (BOA Editions).
>>


From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Nov  7 14:57:50 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 14:57:50 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <18B281FD.0DCE10A3.001A46F6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3FABB2EE.14100.1596B1C@localhost>

On 7 Nov 2003 at 11:39, Thom424 at aol.com wrote:
> of course, i'm guessing all poets attempt/strive to say something new
> & extraordinary and say it well

I'm not persuaded that all, or even most, or even many poets strive 
to say something new at all. I am not even persuaded that most poets 
want to say something extraordinary. I am especially not persuaded, 
though, emphatically not persuaded, that most poets want to say 
whatever it is they do say well. I'd argue that from the evidence of 
their poems most poets aren't trying to say anything well at all -- 
their attempts are pretty clearly attempts to get something out there 
without any effort to get it across.





From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Nov  7 15:26:46 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 15:26:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A10D@ariel.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3FABB9B6.17719.173E786@localhost>

On 7 Nov 2003 at 10:52, Graham, David wrote:
> Don't think I'm quite ready to agree that all or nearly all poems
> "say" something banal.  One reason I've already noted-- soon as you
> begin to use vocabulary like "this poem says" you are headed down the
> road of reductiveness.<<

Well, this road to reductiveness is well-paved by English teachers 
from one's earliest days in school because it is enormously easier to 
reduce something to prose than it is to appreciate it as poetry. 
Poetry reading requires an integrative process of taking a text in 
that is much more difficult to teach than mere reading-for-
comprehension. There are two leaps one has to learn to make in 
reading, it seems to me, after reading-for-comprehension is 
reasonably straight-forward. First, becoming "a good reader" requires 
that one cease to really register the words as words and register 
instead the voice and intentions of the writer in getting across what 
he or she is trying to get across, whether fiction or non-fiction.  
Second, becoming a "poetry reader" requires that one both register 
the words and not register them at the same time while still getting 
the voice and intentions of what the writer is trying to get across.

The first, the "good reader" level, defeats most people, I think. And 
even most "good readers" are defeated by poetry -- they just don't 
get it. I think it's not a matter of people not being *able* to get 
it; I think it's a matter of misunderstanding what it is that one is 
supposed to be getting -- and English teachers who cannot teach "good 
reading" are going to have an even more serious problem with teaching 
"poetry reading", of course.

Poets write, it seems to me, for poetry readers -- for that group of 
people who get poetry, who are engaged in the process of serious play 
and playing seriously with how words and notions work and play 
together and apart. The "getting it across" that poets, in my view, 
are attempting is directed at poetry readers, not at good readers or 
readers-for-comprehension. Poetry is inherently an elitist endeavor.

> Another reason is that when I read a classic
> poem like Stevens's "The Snow Man" (just one example of hundreds) I
> honestly don't see the banality. 
> So I, too, would be very interested in some concrete examples thrown
> into the discussion.<<

Well the honestly not seeing the banality may be a function of your 
ability to read poetry well. You're too good a reader now even to 
remember the confusions of being not such a good reader, perhaps.

> Having called for examples, let me toss one out, without commentary. 
> Is this a banal poem?<<

I think this is the wrong question, at least in the context of the 
issue as it arose in this discussion.  I didn't, and I think no one 
else did either, suggest that because almost all poems can be reduced 
to a banal prose statement that almost all poems are banal. On the 
contrary, I said, and hold, that what makes a poem a poem is, in 
part, the necessity that it present the banal in a way that makes it 
seem important and significant in context.






From grahamd at ripon.edu  Fri Nov  7 17:40:39 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 16:40:39 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Every War Has Two Losers
Message-ID: <BBD17B87.5234%grahamd@ripon.edu>

A new book collecting work by William Stafford has appeared, titled *Every
War Has Two Losers*, ed. Kim Stafford (Milkweed).  I haven't seen it yet,
but, given the daily headlines, thought it might be worth noting.

"Book Description--
Throughout most of the 20th century, from World War I until his death in
1993, America poet and pacifist William Stafford remained convinced that
wars don?t work. In his poetry and other writing, he showed that it is
crucial to think independently when fanatics act and to speak for
reconciliation when nations take sides. This inspiring volume collects the
antiwar writings of this lifelong advocate for peace: journal excerpts,
pacifist poems, interviews, and an account of his own near-hanging at the
hands of American patriots. In thought-provoking passages sure to strike a
chord today, he assesses U.S. political habits and suggests that there are
always alternative approaches to aggression. This powerful book about
nonviolence includes never-before-published excerpts from William Stafford's
daily journal from 1951 to 1991."


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at 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  Fri Nov  7 19:04:59 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 19:04:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A10D@ariel.ripon.edu> <3FAB9F52.9731.10CD087@localhost>
Message-ID: <016901c3a58b$f3b3f440$394cfea9@j1c1k6>

> The point is to dismiss the claims of those who want to do philosophy
> or sociology or simply effuse their vatic concerns in lineated prose
> and claim thereby to be poets -- because "poetry" and "poet" are
> still status markers in our culture, however unremunerated. It is a
> compliment to call someone a poet in most situations; and compliment
> to call something a poem or poetic. I don't think there's any
> disagreement about that, is there?

Who knows?  We'd have to know what "most siturations" means before giving an
answer.

> The point is to acknowledge that "poetry" is something with a
> definition and boundaries, even if there are grey areas around its
> boundaries, in order to be able to categorize some texts as poems and
> dismiss the claims of other texts to be poems.

Can't be done.  Too subjective an area.

By the way, Marcus, are you dropping out of the MB / BG thread?

--Bob G.




From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Fri Nov  7 20:00:27 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 19:00:27 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] 2 gudding readings in nyc -- nov 10 nov 12
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031107185946.0276d488@mail.ilstu.edu>

If anyone on-list in or near Manhattan wants to meet up, I'll be reading 
twice this next week in the city. Would love to make some new friends, put 
faces to names, and toss back a few Pepsi's together --

1). First with Nin Andrews at KGB Bar on Monday, Nov. 10 @ 7:30pm.
[KGB Bar. 85 East 4th Street, near 2nd Ave. 212.505.3360. Admission is free.]

2). And also solo at the New School on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 6:30pm
[New School University Poetry Forum
Guest: Gabriel Gudding
Moderator: David Lehman
66 West 12th St., Room 510, NYC
For more info: (212) 229 5611
Free to students with ID. General public $5.00]

Gabe

http://www.bestamericanpoetry.com/schedule/








From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Fri Nov  7 20:42:27 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 17:42:27 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Canonicity to the right of them...
Message-ID: <BAY7-F339nH873ZwtbU0003bec6@hotmail.com>

  >> I think we are peering through the wrong end of the telescope here.
  >> Looking for a poem that is not based on some kind banality is in part
  >> the search for a poem that doesn't reduce to any kind of idea at all.

Chris Lott's comment above pretty clearly makes the point, which has also 
been made by one or two other people here.  Robert Frost may have put it 
best:  when someone asked him what one of his poems meant, he replied, "What 
do you want me to do, say it again in worse English?"

The point being that a poems's message -- any extractable paraphrase of it 
-- isn't what the poem means.   This was explained as long ago as Aristotle 
in the Poetics, which teaches us that art is the imitation of an action, and 
that the action of imitation is the meaning of a work of art.  A poem 
accordingly doesn't mean what it says, it means what it does.  Later the New 
Criticism and then structuralism both made essentially the same point with 
different jargon.  The Poetics, the New Criticism, and Structuralism may all 
seem in ways dated now, but one thing they have in common, and which is 
likely to be their most influential legacy, is the refutation of the notion 
that a poem has some  sort of extractable paraphrase by which its meaning 
can be determined and judged.

The problem with the poem by Cecilia Woloch is not that it's banal but that 
it's bad enough to make you say ouch.  Try reading it aloud:  I bet you 
won't get halfway through it before your voice perforce takes on comically 
exaggerated accents of self-induced rhetorical perplexity and wistful 
adolescent self pity.

Barry Spacks's "Banal Poem" is interesting.  I don't know what its message 
is and I don't care, but the vivid way it jumps around is far out.

But we were talking about canonicity.  In the interests of furthering 
discussion, I'll send in another message a copy of a brief article I 
originally published in Acumen on that most canonical of anthologies, The 
Oxford Book of English Poetry, which I'm sure many of you will disagree with 
so here's your chance to tell its author where to get off.  You can also 
find a link to a formatted version of it on my web site (see URL in sig 
below,) and I could just post the link, but I've found that when I post a 
link in a forum like this no one bothers to discuss what it leads to, so 
I'll just send the whole thing.  It's long, but no longer than some email 
messages other people have sent to this list.


==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Is your computer infected with a virus?  Find out with a FREE computer virus 
scan from McAfee.  Take the FreeScan now! 
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From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Fri Nov  7 20:43:32 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 17:43:32 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] OBEV and the canon
Message-ID: <BAY7-F678jtxGPAC6zt0003bc95@hotmail.com>

[The following article originally appeared in the British literary magazine 
Acumen. ]



THE ONE GREAT POEM:  THE POETRIES OF THE OXFORD BOOKS OF ENGLISH VERSE



   When The Oxford Book of English Verse by A.  T.  Quiller-Couch appeared 
in 1900, Punch recommended it as "a most useful book for those who, being 
not 'unaccustomed to public speaking' and loving to embellish their flow of 
language with quotations from poets whose works they have never read ...  
are only too grateful to any well-read collector placing so excellent a 
store as this at their service,"  and predicted that because those who owned 
his anthology would be spared the tedious necessity of actually reading 
poetry, "many an after-dinner and learned society speaker will bless the 
name of this 'Q.  C.'"   Behind its deadpan humor, this statement tells us 
quite a bit about taste and the anthologist's relation to it in the world 
into which the Oxford Book was born:  if the joke depends on the reality 
that few people read poetry, it equally depends on the pretence that 
everybody is supposed to, and it also implies a canon of poetry which one 
ought to read.  Such had certainly been the case in the day of Q's mentor 
Francis Palgrave, who said in his preface to The Golden Treasury, the 
progenitor of the three successive Oxford books here to be considered, that 
he would "regard as his fittest readers those who love poetry so well that 
he can offer them nothing not already known and valued,"  which assumes 
there exists a body of verse valued by social consensus. Q's own 
characterization of his job as "to bring home and render so great a spoil 
[of poetry] compendiously ...   to serve those who already love poetry and 
to implant that love in some young minds not yet initiated,"  places him 
squarely in his mentor's tradition as summarizer and transmitter of the 
nation's poetic taste.

   If Q then was following taste, where did it lead him?  Did he produce an 
anthology giving us a unified array of poems which are, in those words of 
Shelley which Palgrave had quoted as The Golden Treasury's program, 
"episodes to that great Poem which all poets, like the co-operating thoughts 
of one great mind, have built up since the beginning of the world"?  Does 
his book embody that one great poem?  And if so, what does it tell us about 
that one great mind?

   Reading the opening pages of Q's 1939 edition (on which the comments in 
this essay will be based), we may see them as an overture, presenting the 
motifs and tensions through which English poetry will evolve.  The very 
first poem, the "Cuckoo Song," with its joyous bird singing amid the 
irrepressible regeneration of the natural world, seems drawn from an England 
that existed before the English nation or even the English language, a pagan 
England in which nature did not have to be redeemed because it was already 
sacred.  This animist substrate of consciousness, usually incarnate (it is 
deeper than symbolism) in wild bird song, is a constant musical 
accompaniment to the subsequent voice of English lyric as recorded in Q's 
selections; often hushed, sometimes to silence, it breaks through 
ecstatically in the 15th century in the anonymous "Hit is full merry in 
feyre foreste to here the foulys song," becomes a continually interwoven 
lovers' refrain in the Renaissance with Sydney's Philomel "mournfully 
bewailing," Shakespeare's Amiens under the greenwood tree in uncruel Arden, 
who loves to "turn his merry note unto the sweet bird's throat," and Nashe's 
spring when "Young lovers meet" to the chorus of "Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, 
to-witta-woo!", and then for two centuries becomes occasional and tamed, a 
bird caged in metaphor, like Marvell's birdlike soul which "sits and sings, 
then whets and combs its silver wings," until the wild song is stunningly 
released again with a passion only made stronger by six generations of dour 
Puritanism and rationalist repression in Shelley, whose skylark "panted 
forth a flood of rapture so divine."

   The "Cuckoo Song" can stand as an example of the thematic nature of Q's 
volume.  We might also notice that Q's second piece, "The Irish Dancer," 
raises the question of the relationship of English poetry to English 
nationality, a problem to which all three editors of the Oxford books 
devised very different solutions, none of them to general satisfaction.  Or 
that the third piece, an erotic upgrading of one Alison in language which 
verges on liturgical, generates echoes of subsequent beloveds whose allure 
is set forth in terms of divine purity.  Those who smile at the attribution 
of such sophisticated programming to the old-fashioned Q ought to consider 
his comment that "the anthologist's is not quite the dilettante business for 
which it is too often and ignorantly derided."

   From such beginnings Q's anthology presents a poetry evolving by a 
dialectical process of opposition and reconciliation of fundamental cultural 
polarities:  Christian denial of the world against pagan celebration of 
nature, aristocratic elegance against homely virtue, and sensual 
gorgeousness against rational austerity, to mention only a few.  If this 
torrent of verse flows within the banks of a limited taste, it also proceeds 
with almost unremitting excellence until well into the nineteenth century , 
when it falters badly.  The last two hundred and fifty pages are a disaster. 
  Not all the poetry there is bad, and some which is has an excuse:  we may 
tolerate, for instance, encountering lines like "Riches I hold in light 
esteem, And Love I laugh to scorn," once we learn that they were written by 
Emily Bront?, and it must be admitted that some are poems, such as Cory's 
"Heraclitus," which we cherish exactly because they are bad, like some 
appalling lamp given us by Auntie twenty years ago which we have come to 
love not despite but because of its hideousness.  But what we have here for 
the most part is a parade of inexcusably bad versifiers, such as Rands, 
Dobson, Kendall, and others whom (to paraphrase Seneca) if you had ever 
read, you would have been better off forgetting.  The worst pieces, such as 
Blunt's, are so very bad that one is tempted to question not only the taste 
but the sanity of anyone who would take them seriously. Despite this 
deplorable ending, Q's version is still worth reading:  one can, after all, 
simply ignore much of the last fifth of it, and supplement it with a 
serviceable anthology of more recent poetry.

   Something of the sort was in fact done by Dame Helen Gardner in her New 
Oxford Book of English Verse in 1972.  G (to continue the naming convention) 
stated that her edition is "not a revision of Q's revision but a new 
anthology," though she admits that "I have in many ways followed my 
predecessor's example." Both remarks are justified:  G's one great poem, and 
the story and poet behind it, though recognizably the same as Q's, are 
reinterpreted from a different historical and critical perspective.  The 
cultural polarities being worked out are largely as before, but a different 
balance is achieved.  For instance, there is more churchgoing at the expense 
of dallying in the greenwood:  it is significant that though G's opening 
triad shares with Q's the "Cuckoo Song" and "The Irish Dancer," G has 
substituted for the exquisitely passionate "Alison" the exquisitely chaste 
"In Praise of Mary." Individual readers may welcome this or not, but one can 
only approve most of the revisions G has made.  Consider Donne, who in Q's 
selection and contexting seems a metaphysical curiosity, a poet who 
developed an eccentric, albeit interesting, version of Elizabethan lyric.  
G's Donne is revealed as one of the most vibrantly alive human beings who 
ever lived.  But it is after Keats, the section of Q's book which as G 
remarks with diplomatic mildness "had always given least satisfaction," 
where G has done what Q should have done in 1939.  Most of the clunky 
Victorian furniture has been hauled off to the Sally Ann (though G could not 
steel herself to throw out dear old Heraclitus, and that great enforcer of 
yawns Matthew Arnold is still droning on about his carefree Oxford days), 
and the nervous splendors of twentieth century verse are intelligently 
grafted onto tradition according to a program which clearly and properly 
divides them into the build-up to "The Waste Land", "The Waste Land", and 
the aftermath of "The Waste Land."

   One of the magical characteristics of great poetry is that it can alter 
the earlier poetry which influenced it.  No one who grew up reading "The 
Waste Land" will be able to rid Spenser or Shakespeare or Webster of the 
overtones which Eliot drew from them, and nobody who knows or cares anything 
about poetry would want to try.  The greatest achievement of G's edition is 
to give us modernism not only as an extension of tradition but as the climax 
of it, and the impact of "The Waste Land" in G's setting is the prime 
example of this:  the song of Eliot's nightingale arising from the 
frightening darkness of the urban wilderness, however tragic, is also 
consoling, since we realize we have been hearing it forever.

   And yet the advantages of G's critical perspective have ominous 
implications exactly because it is a critic's perspective.  In G, the 
balance between the critic as summarizer of taste and prescriptor of it has 
shifted in favor of the latter.  We can see this for instance in G's 
determination to open up the anthology to "satiric, political, epistolary, 
and didactic verse," a decision which however justifiable surely is not 
based on any growing popularity of those forms among the public between 1939 
and 1972.  It is based instead on the fact that the search of scholars for 
new topics to write about which do not already bear a crushing weight of 
commentary has resulted in those genres becoming recognized English 
department specializations.  Since academic politics requires that no one in 
the department  be left out, it is necessary that representatives of all 
these genres be included in the poetic canon, and anthologies are the 
primary means of communicating this judgment to the public.  We may see G's 
edition as standing at a crossroads, or perhaps a better metaphor would be a 
hilltop, a critical vantage point from which a broader and more judicious 
survey may be made than previously, but which is also farther removed from 
the ordinary social world.

	   With the publication of Christopher Ricks' 1999 edition of The Oxford 
Book of English Verse, this national monument slides down the far side of 
the hill.  Taken a few pages at a time, R's edition has many attractions.  
Scottish poetry, traditionally a poor cousin, has been given something like 
its proper prominence.  The selections from Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, 
whether or not they theoretically belong there, sure sound good.  Matthew 
Arnold has been kept to "Dover Beach" and a few other random stanzas; at 
this rate we may hope that by the edition of 2047 he will finally have been 
eased out the door.  But taken as a whole -- as that one great poem --  we 
find that the anthologist's mission of portraying the sweep and blood of 
poetic tradition has been sacrificed to the department head's need not to 
hurt the feelings of anyone at the faculty meeting.  It is not that the 
poems chosen are not worthwhile (though I for one could have done without 
Anthony Thwaite's tiresome poetry establishment in-joke of a poem consisting 
of all the names from Contemporary Poets, or Swinburne's really disgusting 
ode to foot fetishism and necrophilia, "The Leper"), it is that the 
necessity of satisfying all scholarly claimants leaves insufficient room for 
the actual poets who really count.  Thus we find in R's selections the 
ancient roots of English song cut back almost to nothing, Donne demoted 
again to an eccentric intellectual rake who got religion at the end, Byron a 
writer of verse novels which must have seemed quite shocking in their day, a 
Yeats unstained by politics, and an Eliot who wrote one memorable poem about 
a sad case named Prufrock wandering about London, as well as a number of 
interesting experiments.

   For R's omission of all but eight lines of  "The Waste Land" is as 
emblematic of his failure as G's inclusion of it was of her success.  
Whatever scholars may think of R's decision, the ordinary non-academic 
reader of poetry will be numbed by it.  I myself informed two members of 
this increasingly rare species that the new Oxford book had left out Eliot's 
masterpiece, and each of them responded:  "It what?" But perhaps it is 
appropriate for a collection which does not even attempt to give us our one 
great poem to omit the single piece which is its most powerful episode for 
our time.  The R edition of The Oxford Book of English Verse neither leads 
popular taste nor follows it; it is hermetically sealed from it, since in it 
that one great poet has become a professor.  Its poems are not episodes but 
specimens; it is not really an anthology but a syllabus, and it gives us the 
great body of English poetry with its heart cut out.



                                                                         -- 
Jon Corelis



==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Compare high-speed Internet plans, starting at $26.95.  
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Tue Nov  4 21:02:44 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 20:02:44 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Janitorial
In-Reply-To: <1dd.13b6f7b7.2cd9b092@aol.com>
Message-ID: <200311050206.hA526Lgu045742@mail5.mx.voyager.net>

Can't resist.  Here's one of mine.


Public Library

The asthmatic janitor lectures
his new charge, a real
leather-jacketed
scowler.  Summer kid,
by the look of him,
such as I once was
in another building
blessed with toilets.
It was no library, but I
honed the same sneer
and slouch, both still 
wrapper-fresh.

    *Wouldn?t believe it,
    but there are twelve toilets
    in this old place.  We
    hit ?em all by noon*. . . .

As they pass, hauling
mops in one of those
pails-on-wheels
that seems 
half hellish instrument,
half vaudeville prop,

the old man wheezes
to me, a pleasantry
marking time:

    *Thousands a books
    in the joint
    to give the people pleasure*. . .

(quick glance at this year?s James Dean)

    .  .  .  *I'M the only one
    gives ?em comfort.*


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================

> Hola todo el mundo.
>  An anthropologist friend is teaching a class about garbage, janitors,
>  garbage collectors,  in our society and she asked me
>  if I knew of poems dealing with this subject matter. I  remembered
Fayad
>  Jamis to the garbage men and Martin Espada's "Jorge the
>  Church Janitor"
>  DO YOU HAVE ANY TITLES OR AUTHORS YOU KNOW OF?
>  Your help would be GREATLY appreciated.
>  Saludos
>  Bessy
>   
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From JforJames at aol.com  Sat Nov  8 11:37:08 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 11:37:08 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
Message-ID: <14f.2642479e.2cde75b4@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/7/03 8:55:37 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
marcus at designerglass.com writes:

> nd I replied that yes, nearly all poems say something banal, when 
>  you look at message -- and good poems say that something banal well, 
>  while bad poems say that something banal badly. Poetry is rhetoric 
>  not philosophy: how the thing is said is what makes it poetry, not 
>  what it says.
>  
I'm late to this discussion, but I want to say "banal" could as easily
be substituted for life, the world in which we live, human history, etc.
Everything is as banal as it is humanly important. And it's impossible 
to separate the individual human experience from the emanation that
is the poem without devaluing both the life and the art. I think Hal said 
something about the "about" being just a peg to hang a poem on. 
I don't believe that for a moment. It's sort of the same as saying a novel 
can begin by thumbing through a book of plot summaries and picking one. 
I'm not saying it's not possible to sit down one day and say I'm going 
to wirte a important poem about the death of a  loved one, but I wouldn't 
recommend it. Poets need to take their (banal) lives a little more
seriously than that.  
Also, I'm one who often feels the presence of poetry when reading 
philosophy. 
Finnegan


From hruggier at localnet.com  Sat Nov  8 12:16:31 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 12:16:31 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A10D@ariel.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3FAD24EF.F59FC184@localnet.com>

Trying to teach evaluative skills to students probably makes you think about
this more
than you should, but I keep hearing the old advice - make it new!  How do
we make "it" new when there's nothing new under the sun?  We say it differently,

we make a new form, a new way, a new consciousness/understanding  of what poetry
should/can be..

Or is this back to the form/content dichotomy. . . .

Yeah,  I guess.  Nothing new here.

"Graham, David" wrote:

> Don't think I'm quite ready to agree that all or nearly all poems "say"
> something banal.  One reason I've already noted-- soon as you begin to use
> vocabulary like "this poem says" you are headed down the road of
> reductiveness.  Another reason is that when I read a classic poem like
> Stevens's "The Snow Man" (just one example of hundreds) I honestly don't see
> the banality.
>
> So I, too, would be very interested in some concrete examples thrown into
> the discussion.
>
> I agree with Marcus, too, that poems are rhetorical more than philosophical
> by nature.  A lot of modernists and po-modernists snicker at Pope's "What
> oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest," but I guess I don't.
>
> Having called for examples, let me toss one out, without commentary.  Is
> this a banal poem?
>
> On Faith
>
> How do people stay true to each other?
> When I think of my parents all those years
> in the unmade bed of their marriage, not ever
> longing for anything else-or: no, they must
> have longed; there must have been flickerings,
> stray desires, nights she turned from him,
> sleepless, and wept, nights he rose silently,
> smoked in the dark, nights that nest of breath
> and tangled limbs must have seemed
> not enough. But it was. Or they just
> held on. A gift, perhaps, I've tossed out,
> having been always too willing to fly
> to the next love, the next and the next, certain
> nothing was really mine, certain nothing
> would ever last. So faith hits me late, if at all;
> faith that this latest love won't end, or ends
> in the shapeless sleep of death. But faith is hard.
> When he turns his back to me now, I think:
> disappear . I think: not what I want . I think
> of my mother lying awake in those arms
> that could crush her. That could have. Did not.
>
> -- Cecilia Woloch, from Late (BOA Editions).
>
> ============================================
> David Graham
> Department of English, Ripon College
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>      Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
>      My Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
>
> Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
> ============================================
>
> > ----------
> > From:         Thom424 at aol.com
> > Reply To:     new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > Sent:         Friday, November 7, 2003 10:39 AM
> > To:   new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > Subject:      Re: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
> >
> > i was also interested in seeing some examples of good poems that say
> > something banal well...
> >
> > another query: since nearly all poems say something banal, are any of the
> > poets on the list interested in/satisfied with--either by intention or by
> > default--writing a good poem that says something banal well?
> >
> > of course, i'm guessing all poets attempt/strive to say something new &
> > extraordinary and say it well
> >
> > thom tammaro
> > moorhead, mn
> >
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sat Nov  8 12:39:00 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 18:39:00 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
References: <14f.2642479e.2cde75b4@aol.com>
Message-ID: <008d01c3a61f$3223a660$13737450@anny>

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <JforJames at aol.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 5:37 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity


> In a message dated 11/7/03 8:55:37 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> marcus at designerglass.com writes:
>
> > nd I replied that yes, nearly all poems say something banal, when
> >  you look at message -- and good poems say that something banal well,
> >  while bad poems say that something banal badly. Poetry is rhetoric
> >  not philosophy: how the thing is said is what makes it poetry, not
> >  what it says.
> >
> I'm late to this discussion, but I want to say "banal" could as easily
> be substituted for life, the world in which we live, human history, etc.
> Everything is as banal as it is humanly important. And it's impossible
> to separate the individual human experience from the emanation that
> is the poem without devaluing both the life and the art. I think Hal said
> something about the "about" being just a peg to hang a poem on.
> I don't believe that for a moment. It's sort of the same as saying a novel
> can begin by thumbing through a book of plot summaries and picking one.
> I'm not saying it's not possible to sit down one day and say I'm going
> to wirte a important poem about the death of a  loved one, but I wouldn't
> recommend it. Poets need to take their (banal) lives a little more
> seriously than that.
> Also, I'm one who often feels the presence of poetry when reading
> philosophy.
> Finnegan

I don't think many of you can read Italian - or Rumanian, for that reason,
if you wish I can translate these poems (they are brief anyhow --- 
consolation of the translators...), they are written by a young boy born in
1989. This is the Turoldo Prize, open until the end of November, I am in the
jury, and having read so much garbage, especially by young girls and their
_love_ (talk of banal!) I was almost close to the sick Punktum, but these
little poetic compositions, they are simply wonderful, and give some hope.
http://www.loso.it/poiein/premi_letterari/turoldo2003/cuculiuc.htm

It might also be interesting to notice that Cuculiuc studies violin and
piano at the Conservatory of Perugia.

On the other hand I agree with J. Finnegan. The list was sort of slowly
sloping down the hill of the boasting manner, I mean, I am bigger than that,
am I not buddy?
One has also to say that some experiences, like teaching creative writing
(how can you Helen?), can bring you to moments of discomfort, similar to the
one I experienced and mentioned above.

Take care, anny




From JforJames at aol.com  Sat Nov  8 13:52:48 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 13:52:48 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
Message-ID: <178.220f7284.2cde9580@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/8/03 12:12:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
hruggier at localnet.com writes:

> How do
>  we make "it" new when there's nothing new under the sun?  We say it 
> differently,
>  
>  we make a new form, a new way, a new consciousness/understanding  of what 
> poetry
>  should/can be..
>  
I think your right to push this question in this direction. I think
it's not simply form/content all over again. Content (even banal
or commonplace content) can be made new. It's really a question
of approach or angle of attack. Finding a new way into an old
theme/subject. For example, about two years ago I heard 
Linda McCarriston read a poem about Joan of Arc. Now we
all know the story of Joan of Arc...though history and legend
tend to blend in this case...but she came to the burning from
a different perspective. She found a new vector. She told the story
of Joan's horse being burnt at the same time. The whole story
was inflected in a different way. The animal's death, told with
a certain amount of romantic gusto, made the whole come
alive in new way.
http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=2651
Finnegan


From griffinbaker at shaw.ca  Sat Nov  8 22:23:05 2003
From: griffinbaker at shaw.ca (Mark Baker)
Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 19:23:05 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Canonicity to the right of them...
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F339nH873ZwtbU0003bec6@hotmail.com>
References: <BAY7-F339nH873ZwtbU0003bec6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <3FADB319.9030907@shaw.ca>


Jon Corelis wrote:

>
> Chris Lott's comment above pretty clearly makes the point, which has 
> also been made by one or two other people here.  Robert Frost may have 
> put it best:  when someone asked him what one of his poems meant, he 
> replied, "What do you want me to do, say it again in worse English?"
>

The Frost I learned about replied even more frostily: Frost replied, 
"What do you want me to do, say it again in worser English."

Mark Baker




From bardo at optonline.net  Sun Nov  9 00:47:14 2003
From: bardo at optonline.net (Daniel Zimmerman)
Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 00:47:14 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Shameless self-promotion
Message-ID: <00fe01c3a684$ed5cc640$6d94c044@MULDER>

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ibbetsonstreetpressupdate/message/2199

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From halvard at earthlink.net  Sun Nov  9 07:53:38 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 07:53:38 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Setting things straight at the NYT
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECEDOHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

from today's (11/9/03) NYT:

Correction

A headline last Sunday rendered a quotation
from President Bush incorrectly. As the article
reported, the president said, "I'll say that the
world is more peaceful and more free under
my leadership, and America is more secure"
(not "more free and more peaceful").


Hal                Serving the tri-state area.

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard




From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sun Nov  9 13:30:26 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 19:30:26 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] OBEV and the canon
References: <BAY7-F678jtxGPAC6zt0003bc95@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <001901c3a6ef$8c02e3a0$341c2dd5@anny>

From: "Jon Corelis" <joncpoetics at hotmail.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


>
> [The following article originally appeared in the British literary
magazine
> Acumen. ]
>
>
>
> THE ONE GREAT POEM:  THE POETRIES OF THE OXFORD BOOKS OF ENGLISH VERSE
>
>
>
>    When The Oxford Book of English Verse by A.  T.  Quiller-Couch appeared
> in 1900, Punch recommended it as "a most useful book for those who, being
> not 'unaccustomed to public speaking' and loving to embellish their flow
of
> language with quotations from poets whose works they have never read ...
> are only too grateful to any well-read collector placing so excellent a
> store as this at their service,"  and predicted that because those who
owned
> his anthology would be spared the tedious necessity of actually reading
> poetry, "many an after-dinner and learned society speaker will bless the
> name of this 'Q.  C.'"   Behind its deadpan humor, this statement tells us
> quite a bit about taste and the anthologist's relation to it in the world
> into which the Oxford Book was born:  if the joke depends on the reality
> that few people read poetry, it equally depends on the pretence that
> everybody is supposed to, and it also implies a canon of poetry which one
> ought to read.  Such had certainly been the case in the day of Q's mentor
> Francis Palgrave, who said in his preface to The Golden Treasury, the
> progenitor of the three successive Oxford books here to be considered,
that
> he would "regard as his fittest readers those who love poetry so well that
> he can offer them nothing not already known and valued,"  which assumes
> there exists a body of verse valued by social consensus. Q's own
> characterization of his job as "to bring home and render so great a spoil
> [of poetry] compendiously ...   to serve those who already love poetry and
> to implant that love in some young minds not yet initiated,"  places him
> squarely in his mentor's tradition as summarizer and transmitter of the
> nation's poetic taste.
>
>    If Q then was following taste, where did it lead him?  Did he produce
an
> anthology giving us a unified array of poems which are, in those words of
> Shelley which Palgrave had quoted as The Golden Treasury's program,
> "episodes to that great Poem which all poets, like the co-operating
thoughts
> of one great mind, have built up since the beginning of the world"?  Does
> his book embody that one great poem?  And if so, what does it tell us
about
> that one great mind?
>
>    Reading the opening pages of Q's 1939 edition (on which the comments in
> this essay will be based), we may see them as an overture, presenting the
> motifs and tensions through which English poetry will evolve.  The very
> first poem, the "Cuckoo Song," with its joyous bird singing amid the
> irrepressible regeneration of the natural world, seems drawn from an
England
> that existed before the English nation or even the English language, a
pagan
> England in which nature did not have to be redeemed because it was already
> sacred.  This animist substrate of consciousness, usually incarnate (it is
> deeper than symbolism) in wild bird song, is a constant musical
> accompaniment to the subsequent voice of English lyric as recorded in Q's
> selections; often hushed, sometimes to silence, it breaks through
> ecstatically in the 15th century in the anonymous "Hit is full merry in
> feyre foreste to here the foulys song," becomes a continually interwoven
> lovers' refrain in the Renaissance with Sydney's Philomel "mournfully
> bewailing," Shakespeare's Amiens under the greenwood tree in uncruel
Arden,
> who loves to "turn his merry note unto the sweet bird's throat," and
Nashe's
> spring when "Young lovers meet" to the chorus of "Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we,
> to-witta-woo!", and then for two centuries becomes occasional and tamed, a
> bird caged in metaphor, like Marvell's birdlike soul which "sits and
sings,
> then whets and combs its silver wings," until the wild song is stunningly
> released again with a passion only made stronger by six generations of
dour
> Puritanism and rationalist repression in Shelley, whose skylark "panted
> forth a flood of rapture so divine."
>
>    The "Cuckoo Song" can stand as an example of the thematic nature of Q's
> volume.  We might also notice that Q's second piece, "The Irish Dancer,"
> raises the question of the relationship of English poetry to English
> nationality, a problem to which all three editors of the Oxford books
> devised very different solutions, none of them to general satisfaction.
Or
> that the third piece, an erotic upgrading of one Alison in language which
> verges on liturgical, generates echoes of subsequent beloveds whose allure
> is set forth in terms of divine purity.  Those who smile at the
attribution
> of such sophisticated programming to the old-fashioned Q ought to consider
> his comment that "the anthologist's is not quite the dilettante business
for
> which it is too often and ignorantly derided."
>
>    From such beginnings Q's anthology presents a poetry evolving by a
> dialectical process of opposition and reconciliation of fundamental
cultural
> polarities:  Christian denial of the world against pagan celebration of
> nature, aristocratic elegance against homely virtue, and sensual
> gorgeousness against rational austerity, to mention only a few.  If this
> torrent of verse flows within the banks of a limited taste, it also
proceeds
> with almost unremitting excellence until well into the nineteenth century
,
> when it falters badly.  The last two hundred and fifty pages are a
disaster.
>   Not all the poetry there is bad, and some which is has an excuse:  we
may
> tolerate, for instance, encountering lines like "Riches I hold in light
> esteem, And Love I laugh to scorn," once we learn that they were written
by
> Emily Bront?, and it must be admitted that some are poems, such as Cory's
> "Heraclitus," which we cherish exactly because they are bad, like some
> appalling lamp given us by Auntie twenty years ago which we have come to
> love not despite but because of its hideousness.  But what we have here
for
> the most part is a parade of inexcusably bad versifiers, such as Rands,
> Dobson, Kendall, and others whom (to paraphrase Seneca) if you had ever
> read, you would have been better off forgetting.  The worst pieces, such
as
> Blunt's, are so very bad that one is tempted to question not only the
taste
> but the sanity of anyone who would take them seriously. Despite this
> deplorable ending, Q's version is still worth reading:  one can, after
all,
> simply ignore much of the last fifth of it, and supplement it with a
> serviceable anthology of more recent poetry.
>
>    Something of the sort was in fact done by Dame Helen Gardner in her New
> Oxford Book of English Verse in 1972.  G (to continue the naming
convention)
> stated that her edition is "not a revision of Q's revision but a new
> anthology," though she admits that "I have in many ways followed my
> predecessor's example." Both remarks are justified:  G's one great poem,
and
> the story and poet behind it, though recognizably the same as Q's, are
> reinterpreted from a different historical and critical perspective.  The
> cultural polarities being worked out are largely as before, but a
different
> balance is achieved.  For instance, there is more churchgoing at the
expense
> of dallying in the greenwood:  it is significant that though G's opening
> triad shares with Q's the "Cuckoo Song" and "The Irish Dancer," G has
> substituted for the exquisitely passionate "Alison" the exquisitely chaste
> "In Praise of Mary." Individual readers may welcome this or not, but one
can
> only approve most of the revisions G has made.  Consider Donne, who in Q's
> selection and contexting seems a metaphysical curiosity, a poet who
> developed an eccentric, albeit interesting, version of Elizabethan lyric.
> G's Donne is revealed as one of the most vibrantly alive human beings who
> ever lived.  But it is after Keats, the section of Q's book which as G
> remarks with diplomatic mildness "had always given least satisfaction,"
> where G has done what Q should have done in 1939.  Most of the clunky
> Victorian furniture has been hauled off to the Sally Ann (though G could
not
> steel herself to throw out dear old Heraclitus, and that great enforcer of
> yawns Matthew Arnold is still droning on about his carefree Oxford days),
> and the nervous splendors of twentieth century verse are intelligently
> grafted onto tradition according to a program which clearly and properly
> divides them into the build-up to "The Waste Land", "The Waste Land", and
> the aftermath of "The Waste Land."
>
>    One of the magical characteristics of great poetry is that it can alter
> the earlier poetry which influenced it.  No one who grew up reading "The
> Waste Land" will be able to rid Spenser or Shakespeare or Webster of the
> overtones which Eliot drew from them, and nobody who knows or cares
anything
> about poetry would want to try.  The greatest achievement of G's edition
is
> to give us modernism not only as an extension of tradition but as the
climax
> of it, and the impact of "The Waste Land" in G's setting is the prime
> example of this:  the song of Eliot's nightingale arising from the
> frightening darkness of the urban wilderness, however tragic, is also
> consoling, since we realize we have been hearing it forever.
>
>    And yet the advantages of G's critical perspective have ominous
> implications exactly because it is a critic's perspective.  In G, the
> balance between the critic as summarizer of taste and prescriptor of it
has
> shifted in favor of the latter.  We can see this for instance in G's
> determination to open up the anthology to "satiric, political, epistolary,
> and didactic verse," a decision which however justifiable surely is not
> based on any growing popularity of those forms among the public between
1939
> and 1972.  It is based instead on the fact that the search of scholars for
> new topics to write about which do not already bear a crushing weight of
> commentary has resulted in those genres becoming recognized English
> department specializations.  Since academic politics requires that no one
in
> the department  be left out, it is necessary that representatives of all
> these genres be included in the poetic canon, and anthologies are the
> primary means of communicating this judgment to the public.  We may see
G's
> edition as standing at a crossroads, or perhaps a better metaphor would be
a
> hilltop, a critical vantage point from which a broader and more judicious
> survey may be made than previously, but which is also farther removed from
> the ordinary social world.
>
>    With the publication of Christopher Ricks' 1999 edition of The Oxford
> Book of English Verse, this national monument slides down the far side of
> the hill.  Taken a few pages at a time, R's edition has many attractions.
> Scottish poetry, traditionally a poor cousin, has been given something
like
> its proper prominence.  The selections from Elizabethan and Jacobean
drama,
> whether or not they theoretically belong there, sure sound good.  Matthew
> Arnold has been kept to "Dover Beach" and a few other random stanzas; at
> this rate we may hope that by the edition of 2047 he will finally have
been
> eased out the door.  But taken as a whole -- as that one great poem --  we
> find that the anthologist's mission of portraying the sweep and blood of
> poetic tradition has been sacrificed to the department head's need not to
> hurt the feelings of anyone at the faculty meeting.  It is not that the
> poems chosen are not worthwhile (though I for one could have done without
> Anthony Thwaite's tiresome poetry establishment in-joke of a poem
consisting
> of all the names from Contemporary Poets, or Swinburne's really disgusting
> ode to foot fetishism and necrophilia, "The Leper"), it is that the
> necessity of satisfying all scholarly claimants leaves insufficient room
for
> the actual poets who really count.  Thus we find in R's selections the
> ancient roots of English song cut back almost to nothing, Donne demoted
> again to an eccentric intellectual rake who got religion at the end, Byron
a
> writer of verse novels which must have seemed quite shocking in their day,
a
> Yeats unstained by politics, and an Eliot who wrote one memorable poem
about
> a sad case named Prufrock wandering about London, as well as a number of
> interesting experiments.
>
>    For R's omission of all but eight lines of  "The Waste Land" is as
> emblematic of his failure as G's inclusion of it was of her success.
> Whatever scholars may think of R's decision, the ordinary non-academic
> reader of poetry will be numbed by it.  I myself informed two members of
> this increasingly rare species that the new Oxford book had left out
Eliot's
> masterpiece, and each of them responded:  "It what?" But perhaps it is
> appropriate for a collection which does not even attempt to give us our
one
> great poem to omit the single piece which is its most powerful episode for
> our time.  The R edition of The Oxford Book of English Verse neither leads
> popular taste nor follows it; it is hermetically sealed from it, since in
it
> that one great poet has become a professor.  Its poems are not episodes
but
> specimens; it is not really an anthology but a syllabus, and it gives us
the
> great body of English poetry with its heart cut out.
>
>
>
>                                                                          -
-
> Jon Corelis
>
>
>
> ==================================================
>
> Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
> http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
>
> ==================================================

An all encompassing work.

I wonder if this is only my problem: I can open your main page, but then
when I try to click on American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, my pc gets
stuck.

Take care,

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky




From halvard at earthlink.net  Sun Nov  9 16:05:22 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 16:05:22 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Carl Rakosi, "Short Story"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECEEMHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Last Thursday, Carl Rakosi was 100 years old. Today, he's
one hundred years and three days old.

=====

Short Story

Ah, toucan, we meet again!
Exactly as he looked ten years ago,
tall and slim as an Italian count,
the nose like that Bolivian bird.
Light and bouncy.
On his way to the same caper.

O for a quixotic tongue
to sparkle
               like this air!

If I were not related to the right people
would he greet me so extravagently?
Maybe it's embarrassment,
the paper bag he's carrying?

Business failure.
                        But a chaser?
So they say.
                   Strange tastes.
They must find him amorous.
Those ardent eyes
never leave theirs
till they yield.
Long and lovingly,
that's the ticket.
Too late then.
Might as well go on.
Just curious at first.
What is it like?
Those dark eyes
always urging,
imploring,
to bed!

Must be damned flattering.
Too much for them.
Out of reasons.
Tell themselves 
deserve a change
                          of luck.

Every inch the count,
though afterwards they like to tease:
what happened to you
                                  my little count?

And so he goes
                        under
those lacy frills
down down to woman
held by that musk.

Open! Open!

Tonight your wife
will bed down
with your ectoplasm.

Hasta la vista, 
                     toucan!
See you on the next round.

I'll be older.

--Carl Rakosi

fr. *Ere-Voice*
[New York: New Directions, 1971]


Hal                

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sun Nov  9 19:44:26 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 16:44:26 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Some netnotes
Message-ID: <BAY7-F119yWWORC05Br000418f3@hotmail.com>

Meaning a footnote put on the net to something previously put on the net.  
If this neologism catches on, remember where you read it first.

The "American Poetry" link which Anny Ballardini refers to is a link to the 
text of my review of the Library of America's anthology of American poetry, 
which originally appeared in Acumen.  The problem is probably that this link 
leads not to an HTML page but to an MS-Word .doc file, and apparently Anny 
either doesn't have MS-Word or her browser is not configured to 
automatically open .doc files in it.  I've e-mailed Anny a text version.

Since this seems an American-oriented group I might post the review here at 
some point, but I've already posted one long article this weekend (and how 
come there haven't been any indignant follow ups, are you really going to 
let me get away with saying those things?) so I'll wait until later.

As for the Frost quote, I've also seen it given as "What do you want me to 
do, say it again in different and less good words?",  ?What do you want me 
to do? Say it over again in worser English??, and probably some other 
variations I don't remember.  Maybe some biographer can give the verified 
authentic version, or maybe Frost told the story himself at various times 
using various forms.  Personally I don't like the "worser" form and wouldn't 
like it any better if it turned out to be the correct one:  it sounds too 
self-consciously country.  Frost, after all, was originally from San 
Francisco, and we don't talk like that out here.

If he ever really said it at all.  Maybe it's one of those apocryphal 
apothegms, like the definition of jazz, "If you have to ask, you're never 
going to know," which I've seen attributed to every major jazz figure from 
Jelly Roll Morton on.

I've enjoyed the poems by others posted here and would like to post some 
myself occasionally.  Since my selections may seem to some eccentric, I 
should say by way of preface that I'll choose pieces which seem to me for 
specific reasons particularly interesting and which many readers of poetry 
may not have encountered before.


==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Frustrated with dial-up? Get high-speed for as low as $26.95.  
https://broadband.msn.com (Prices may vary by service area.)



From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sun Nov  9 19:49:36 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 16:49:36 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others:  As it fell upon a day
Message-ID: <BAY7-F92v4BLe7s87eX00019f61@hotmail.com>

As it fell upon a day,
In the merry moneth of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade,
Which a grove of Mirtles made,
Beastes did leape, and birds did sing,
Trees did grow, and plants did spring,
Everything did banish moane,
Save the Nightingale alone.
Shee poore bird, as all forlorne,
Lean'd her breast against a thorne,
And there sung the dolefull'st Ditty,
That to heare it was great pitty.
Fie, fie, fie, now would she crie
Teru, Teru, by and by,
That to heare her so complaine,
Scarse I could from teares refraine.
For her greefes so lively showne,
Made me thinke upon mine owne.
Ah (thought I) thou mourn'st in vaine,
None takes pitty on thy paine.
Sencelesse trees, they cannot heare thee,
Ruthlesse beasts, they will not cheere thee.
King Pandion he is dead,
All thy friends are lapt in Lead.
All thy fellow birds doo sing,
Careless of thy sorrowing.
Even so poore bird like thee,
None a-live will pitty mee.



                                    Richard Barnfield, ca. 1598.





==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Great deals on high-speed Internet access as low as $26.95.  
https://broadband.msn.com (Prices may vary by service area.)



From trbell at comcast.net  Mon Nov 10 01:58:27 2003
From: trbell at comcast.net (tom bell)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 00:58:27 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fw: Wilfred Owen on Hiding Our Iraq War Dead
Message-ID: <015c01c3a758$0bc498a0$07e63644@rthfrd01.tn.comcast.net>

I saw the coffins at Clark AFB in 1965 before we had a war

I met a guardsman last week suffering from 'battle fatigue'

war does have real consequences the Washington cowboys would rather we
didn't see.

tom bell

----- Original Message -----
From: "Poets Against the War" <info at poetsagainstthewar.org>
To: <trbell at comcast.net>
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 11:54 PM
Subject: Wilfred Owen on Hiding Our Iraq War Dead


> We'd like to draw your attention to a powerful essay on the Op-Ed page of
> today's New York Times.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> What World War I's Greatest Poet Would Say About Hiding Our War Dead
>
> By ADAM COHEN
>
> Published: November 9, 2003
>
> When World War I broke out, the English saw going off to battle as a fine
> thing to do. They embraced the Latin poet Horace's dictum, "Dulce et
> decorum est, pro patria mori" - It is sweet and proper to die for one's
> country. But four years later, that romantic notion had been shattered by
> the grim reality of the mustard-gas-laced killing fields, and by the
bitter
> words of Wilfred Owen, a British officer now recognized as the greatest
> poet of the Great War. Owen reported from the battlefields of France that,
> contrary to the prettified accounts being served up, the war he witnessed
> was full of blood "gargling" up from "froth-corrupted lungs" and "vile,
> incurable sores on innocent tongues."
>
> Owen's subject was, he declared, "war, and the pity of war." He expressed
> it through dark word portraits, in which dead and dying young men were
> stripped of any glory or sentimentality. Owen himself became one of these
> inglorious casualties when he was killed in action at the age of 25, just
> days before the war's end, 85 years ago this week.
>
> A revered figure in England, Owen found a large American following during
> the Vietnam War. He is often portrayed as antiwar, which he was not. What
> he stood for was seeing war clearly, which makes him especially relevant
> today. The Bush administration has been loudly attacking the news media
for
> misreporting the Iraq conflict by leaving out good news. Owen would
counter
> - in vivid, gripping images - that it is the White House, with its
campaign
> to hide casualties from view, that is dangerously distorting reality.
>
> Owen was born in western England, near the Welsh border, to a middle-class
> family. When the clouds of war were gathering, he was embarking on a
> literary life. Like many young British men, he was caught up in war fever.
> As Dominic Hibberd, a leading Owen scholar, relates in a recent biography,
> Owen reacted to the German threat by writing a poem in which he
approvingly
> cited Horace's dictum, adding that it was "sweeter still" to die in war
> "with brothers." He wrote to his mother, "I now do most intensely want to
> fight."
>
> Owen got his wish. He volunteered for the army in the fall of 1915, and
was
> sent to France. Being there gave him a "fine heroic feeling," he wrote his
> mother a few months later. But before long, Owen was nearly killed by a
> German sniper. Then, while stumbling in the dark, he fell into a 15-foot
> pit and ended up with a concussion. "I have suffered seventh hell," he
> wrote his mother.
>
> A large shell exploded near his head weeks later, throwing him into the
> air, and another, ghoulishly, exhumed a comrade, depositing his corpse
> nearby. Owen was haunted by blood-soaked dreams and, after a diagnosis of
> shell shock, he was committed to a war hospital. He befriended a fellow
> patient, the poet Siegfried Sassoon, and embarked on his most prolific
> period of writing. For Owen, the romance of war was by now long gone. He
> wrote of one wounded soldier, "heavy like meat/And none of us could kick
> him to his feet."
>
> While convalescing, Owen wrote his greatest work, "Dulce et Decorum Est,"
> in which he provided a biting new take on Horace's assessment of death in
> battle. The poem is an account of a gas attack, and of one soldier too
slow
> to put on his "clumsy helmet" who ends up "guttering, choking, drowning."
> Owen concludes by caustically telling the reader that if he had been
there,
> "you would not tell with such high zest/To children ardent for some
> desperate glory/ The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori."
>
> When he recovered, Owen was sent back to France to fight. Ordered to lead
> his troops across a canal into heavy enemy machine gun and mortar fire, he
> was killed in the crossing. His mother received a telegram reporting his
> death on Nov. 11, 1918, the day the war officially ended.
>
> Owen, who was commended posthumously for inflicting "considerable losses
on
> the enemy," was no pacifist. He told his mother he had a dual mission: to
> lead his men "as well as an officer can" but also to watch their
> "sufferings that I may speak of them." Owen was right that an honorable
> approach to war requires both ably leading troops on the battlefield, and
> reporting honestly what occurs there.
>
> The Bush administration, however, is resisting this honorable approach. In
> its eagerness to convince the public that things are going well in Iraq,
it
> is leading troops into battle, while trying its best to obscure what
> happens to them. President Bush is not attending soldier funerals, as
> previous presidents have, avoiding a television image that could sow
doubts
> in viewers' minds. He avoids mentioning the American dead - and the
> injured, who are seven times as numerous. The Pentagon has sent out
> emphatic reminders that television and photographic coverage is not
allowed
> of coffins returning to Dover Air Force Base.
>
> There are already signs of public unease. Representative George
Nethercutt,
> a Republican running for the Senate in Washington, was criticized last
> month for saying the media were focusing on "losing a couple of soldiers
> every day" rather than the "better and more important" story of progress
in
> Iraq. (Mr. Nethercutt later complained that some accounts left out that he
> said losing the soldiers "heaven forbid, is awful.") But Mr. Nethercutt's
> was just the sort of bland formulation that would have driven Owen wild.
>
> Americans are already considering the relative merits of staying the
course
> in Iraq, putting in an international peacekeeping force, and even pulling
> out. It is a somber debate, with great consequences for this nation, and
> the world. We must enter into it with full information, without lapsing
> into what Owen trenchantly called "the old lie" - or new ones.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> For the complete story in the New York Times, go to:
>
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/opinion/09SUN3.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEdit
orials%20and%20Op%2dEd
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> How can you help?
>
> >> Organize a poetry reading against the war. Go to
> http://poetsagainstthewar.org/createreading.asp.
>
> >> Publish your poem against the war. Since August 1st, over 1500 new
> antiwar poems have been added to the Poets Against the War web site. Go to
> http://poetsagainstthewar.org/submitpoem.asp.
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> To change the email address we use to send you news or announcements about
> PAW, or to give us any additional info, please go to
> http://poetsagainstthewar.org/authoredit.asp.
>
> To unsubscribe: If you'd rather not receive any more email from us, please
> go to http://poetsagainstthewar.org/changesubscription.asp.
>
>
>
>
>



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Nov 10 06:18:44 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 06:18:44 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fw: Wilfred Owen on Hiding Our Iraq War Dead
References: <015c01c3a758$0bc498a0$07e63644@rthfrd01.tn.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <00f101c3a77c$6842d6e0$a0d0fea9@j1c1k6>

> I saw the coffins at Clark AFB in 1965 before we had a war
>
> I met a guardsman last week suffering from 'battle fatigue'
>
> war does have real consequences the Washington cowboys would rather we
> didn't see.
>
> tom bell

Well, I'm glad they are, Tom.  I would hate to find out that war isn't all
fun.  Still, we lost a lot more people in the 9/11 war than we have in this
one so far.  So, we're doing better.

--Bob G.





From ron.silliman at verizon.net  Mon Nov 10 07:01:51 2003
From: ron.silliman at verizon.net (Ron)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 07:01:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog -- 75,000 visitors
Message-ID: <001001c3a782$71b15520$b7fef343@Dell>

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

The 75,000th visitor arrives today!

Keston Sutherland:
What is vagueness?

Philadelphia Progressive Poetry Calendar
(new to the list: 
readings by Robert Creeley, Harryette Mullen
kari edwards & yours truly)

Gary Sullivan on Dan Davidson's Culture

In Maine: How does jazz figure into poetics?

Bruce Andrews:
Born to blog
(against "comfy" reading)

Jake Berry replies
to my review

Dan Davidson's Culture -
when the "early work" is the only work

Lyn Hejinian's My Life in the Nineties

Leslie Scalapino's sentence

Leslie Scalapino's Autobiography:
genre & rules in the family

Writing on the day job

Responding to Bill Lavender:
Close reading Jake Berry
& the issue of the overdetermined trope

Bill Lavender responds
to my review of Another South

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/






From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Nov 10 08:50:37 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 08:50:37 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <178.220f7284.2cde9580@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3FAF515D.11691.576A3B@localhost>

> ... Content (even banal or
> commonplace content) can be made new. It's really a question of
> approach or angle of attack. Finding a new way into an old
> theme/subject. ...<<

Just so. Poetry is a matter of finding a way to communicate notions 
effectively, not a matter of blurting out something that no one else 
has ever thought of.  





From halvard at earthlink.net  Mon Nov 10 08:58:52 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 08:58:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <3FAF515D.11691.576A3B@localhost>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEGEHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

 
{    > ... Content (even banal or
{    > commonplace content) can be made new. It's really a question of
{    > approach or angle of attack. Finding a new way into an old
{    > theme/subject. ...<<
{    
{    Just so. Poetry is a matter of finding a way to communicate notions 
{    effectively, not a matter of blurting out something that no one else 
{    has ever thought of.  

And what a debased notion of poetry that is--poetry as telegram.

Hal     "What, should we get rid of our ignorance,
            the very substance of our lives, merely in
            order to understand each other?"
                           --R. P. Blackmur
Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Nov 10 09:53:48 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 09:53:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEGEHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
References: <3FAF515D.11691.576A3B@localhost>
Message-ID: <3FAF602C.30248.9145B9@localhost>

> {    > ... Content (even banal or
> {    > commonplace content) can be made new. It's really a question of
> {    > approach or angle of attack. Finding a new way into an old {   
> > theme/subject. ...<< {    {    Just so. Poetry is a matter of
> finding a way to communicate notions {    effectively, not a matter of
> blurting out something that no one else {    has ever thought of.  
> 
> And what a debased notion of poetry that is--poetry as telegram.

Even if telegrams were virtuous paradigms of effective communication, 
as we all know they are not, you have no standing, Hal, to suggest 
that any kind of poetry is debased since you already hold that 
anything that anyone claims is poetry is poetry. How much more 
"debased" could any notion of poetry be than the one you already 
hold?






From halvard at earthlink.net  Mon Nov 10 10:17:40 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 10:17:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <3FAF602C.30248.9145B9@localhost>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEGEGHHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>


{    -----Original Message-----
{    From: new-poetry-admin at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    [mailto:new-poetry-admin at wiz.cath.vt.edu]On Behalf Of Marcus Bales
{    Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 9:54 AM
{    To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
{    
{    
{    > {    > ... Content (even banal or
{    > {    > commonplace content) can be made new. It's really a question of
{    > {    > approach or angle of attack. Finding a new way into an old {   
{    > > theme/subject. ...<< {    {    Just so. Poetry is a matter of
{    > finding a way to communicate notions {    effectively, not a matter of
{    > blurting out something that no one else {    has ever thought of.  
{    > 
{    > And what a debased notion of poetry that is--poetry as telegram.
{    
{    Even if telegrams were virtuous paradigms of effective communication, 
{    as we all know they are not, you have no standing, Hal, to suggest 
{    that any kind of poetry is debased since you already hold that 
{    anything that anyone claims is poetry is poetry. How much more 
{    "debased" could any notion of poetry be than the one you already 
{    hold?
{    
{    
{    
{    
{    _______________________________________________
{    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  Mon Nov 10 10:17:41 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 10:17:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <3FAF602C.30248.9145B9@localhost>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIEGHHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

{    > {    > ... Content (even banal or
{    > {    > commonplace content) can be made new. It's really a question of
{    > {    > approach or angle of attack. Finding a new way into an old {   
{    > > theme/subject. ...<< {    {    Just so. Poetry is a matter of
{    > finding a way to communicate notions {    effectively, not a matter of
{    > blurting out something that no one else {    has ever thought of.  
{    > 
{    > And what a debased notion of poetry that is--poetry as telegram.
{    
{    Even if telegrams were virtuous paradigms of effective communication, 
{    as we all know they are not, you have no standing, Hal, to suggest 
{    that any kind of poetry is debased since you already hold that 
{    anything that anyone claims is poetry is poetry. How much more 
{    "debased" could any notion of poetry be than the one you already 
{    hold?.

What I said, amigo, was that the notion of poetry you expressed
was debased. What I hold is another matter entirely, and one that
you know as little about as I do. Your question I take to be merely
rhetorical.

Hal         "I have the feeling that we are getting
               nowhere, and that is a pleasure."       
                                --John Cage

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard




From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Nov 10 10:38:39 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 10:38:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIEGHHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
References: <3FAF602C.30248.9145B9@localhost>
Message-ID: <3FAF6AAF.21951.BA544E@localhost>

> {    > {    > ... Content (even banal or
> {    > {    > commonplace content) can be made new. It's really a
> question of {    > {    > approach or angle of attack. Finding a new
> way into an old {   {    > > theme/subject. ...<< {    {    Just so.
> Poetry is a matter of {    > finding a way to communicate notions {   
> effectively, not a matter of {    > blurting out something that no one
> else {    has ever thought of.  {    > {    > And what a debased
> notion of poetry that is--poetry as telegram. {    {    Even if
> telegrams were virtuous paradigms of effective communication, {    as
> we all know they are not, you have no standing, Hal, to suggest {   
> that any kind of poetry is debased since you already hold that {   
> anything that anyone claims is poetry is poetry. How much more {   
> "debased" could any notion of poetry be than the one you already {   
> hold?.
 
> What I said, amigo, was that the notion of poetry you expressed
> was debased.<<

And you're wrong, for I do not hold the view that poetry is a 
telegram that you try to ascribe to me. I said that poetry inheres in 
the way one says the thing, not in the  thing one says.

> What I hold is another matter entirely ..<

No, what you hold is not another matter entirely, since what you hold 
truly is "debased" because nothing could "debase" poetry more than 
your homeopathic view of it.






From halvard at earthlink.net  Mon Nov 10 10:53:29 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 10:53:29 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <3FAF6AAF.21951.BA544E@localhost>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEGJHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

{    No, what you hold is not another matter entirely, since what you hold 
{    truly is "debased" because nothing could "debase" poetry more than 
{    your homeopathic view of it.

Then I've really sunk as low as I can sink? At last, some grounds
for hope!

Hal         "Things are more like they are now than
                they ever were."
                                --Dwight David Eisenhower
Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From trbell at comcast.net  Mon Nov 10 12:41:51 2003
From: trbell at comcast.net (tom bell)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 11:41:51 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fw: Wilfred Owen on Hiding Our Iraq War Dead
References: <015c01c3a758$0bc498a0$07e63644@rthfrd01.tn.comcast.net> <00f101c3a77c$6842d6e0$a0d0fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <020501c3a7b1$ee1af560$07e63644@rthfrd01.tn.comcast.net>

When you think about it, low body count is an 'odd' way to measure success?

tom

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 5:18 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Fw: Wilfred Owen on Hiding Our Iraq War Dead


> > I saw the coffins at Clark AFB in 1965 before we had a war
> >
> > I met a guardsman last week suffering from 'battle fatigue'
> >
> > war does have real consequences the Washington cowboys would rather we
> > didn't see.
> >
> > tom bell
>
> Well, I'm glad they are, Tom.  I would hate to find out that war isn't all
> fun.  Still, we lost a lot more people in the 9/11 war than we have in
this
> one so far.  So, we're doing better.
>
> --Bob G.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Mon Nov 10 11:51:18 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 10:51:18 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Carl Rakosi, "Short Story"
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECEEMHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <BBD51E26.59E1%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 11/9/03 3:05 PM, Halvard Johnson at halvard at earthlink.net wrote:

> 
> Last Thursday, Carl Rakosi was 100 years old. Today, he's
> one hundred years and three days old.
> 
> =====
> 
> Short Story
> 
> Ah, toucan, we meet again!
> Exactly as he looked ten years ago,
> tall and slim as an Italian count,
> the nose like that Bolivian bird.
> Light and bouncy.
> On his way to the same caper.
> 
> O for a quixotic tongue
> to sparkle
>              like this air!
> 
> If I were not related to the right people
> would he greet me so extravagently?
> Maybe it's embarrassment,
> the paper bag he's carrying?
> 
> Business failure.
>                       But a chaser?
> So they say.
>                  Strange tastes.
> They must find him amorous.
> Those ardent eyes
> never leave theirs
> till they yield.
> Long and lovingly,
> that's the ticket.
> Too late then.
> Might as well go on.
> Just curious at first.
> What is it like?
> Those dark eyes
> always urging,
> imploring,
> to bed!
> 
> Must be damned flattering.
> Too much for them.
> Out of reasons.
> Tell themselves 
> deserve a change
>                         of luck.
> 
> Every inch the count,
> though afterwards they like to tease:
> what happened to you
>                                 my little count?
> 
> And so he goes
>                       under
> those lacy frills
> down down to woman
> held by that musk.
> 
> Open! Open!
> 
> Tonight your wife
> will bed down
> with your ectoplasm.
> 
> Hasta la vista, 
>                    toucan!
> See you on the next round.
> 
> I'll be older.
> 
> --Carl Rakosi
> 
> fr. *Ere-Voice*
> [New York: New Directions, 1971]
> 
> 
> 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 E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 
Happy birthday, Carl Rakosi. When Jim Powell and I were directing a reading
series in San Francisco in 1980 at the San Francisco Art Institute, we had
Rakosi read, a delightful excursion into Objectivist poetics.

Paul Lake

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Nov 10 17:28:11 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 17:28:11 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fw: Wilfred Owen on Hiding Our Iraq War Dead
References: <015c01c3a758$0bc498a0$07e63644@rthfrd01.tn.comcast.net> <00f101c3a77c$6842d6e0$a0d0fea9@j1c1k6> <020501c3a7b1$ee1af560$07e63644@rthfrd01.tn.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <01f401c3a7d9$ed1c42e0$8207fea9@j1c1k6>

> When you think about it, low body count is an 'odd' way to measure
success?
>
> tom

In war?  I don't think so.  But that's not how I was using it.

--Bob G., who has nothing further to say on this topic.

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 5:18 AM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Fw: Wilfred Owen on Hiding Our Iraq War Dead
>
>
> > > I saw the coffins at Clark AFB in 1965 before we had a war
> > >
> > > I met a guardsman last week suffering from 'battle fatigue'
> > >
> > > war does have real consequences the Washington cowboys would rather we
> > > didn't see.
> > >
> > > tom bell
> >
> > Well, I'm glad they are, Tom.  I would hate to find out that war isn't
all
> > fun.  Still, we lost a lot more people in the 9/11 war than we have in
> this
> > one so far.  So, we're doing better.
> >
> > --Bob G.
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Nov 10 17:33:24 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 17:33:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
References: <3FAF515D.11691.576A3B@localhost>
Message-ID: <024301c3a7da$a7861fc0$8207fea9@j1c1k6>

> > ... Content (even banal or
> > commonplace content) can be made new. It's really a question of
> > approach or angle of attack. Finding a new way into an old
> > theme/subject. ...<<
>
> Just so. Poetry is a matter of finding a way to communicate notions
> effectively, not a matter of blurting out something that no one else
> has ever thought of.

Is that your scientific definition or your literary-critical definition,
Marcus?  Meanwhile, are you going to return to the MB / BG thread?  You have
been to it in a week.  Nor had the courtesy to let me know whether you've
given up trying reasonably to demonstrate that my taxonomy is unclear or
not.

--Bob G.



>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From trbell at comcast.net  Wed Nov 12 14:43:52 2003
From: trbell at comcast.net (tom bell)
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 13:43:52 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] print on demand
Message-ID: <00a401c3a955$4f382620$07e63644@rthfrd01.tn.comcast.net>

I'm interest in experiencs and recommendations on publish on demand
software.

tom bell



Some poetry available through geezer.com

Section editor for PsyBC www.psychbc.com

Write for the Health of It course at
http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17413/seminar
http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17413/overview/37900
not yet a crazy old man
hard but not yet hardening of the
art



From halvard at earthlink.net  Tue Nov 11 18:05:34 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 18:05:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others:  Wilfred Owen, "Dulce Et Decorum Est"
Message-ID: <001f01c3a8a8$4fe537a0$31f8c043@computer>

Dulce Et Decorum Est


Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

--Wilfred Owen  (1893-1918)




Hal

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard












From marcus at designerglass.com  Thu Nov 13 07:34:08 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 07:34:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Test np
In-Reply-To: <3FABB2EE.14100.1596B1C@localhost>
References: <18B281FD.0DCE10A3.001A46F6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3FB333F0.23800.DFA4F@localhost>

test




From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Nov 11 08:11:51 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 08:11:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <024301c3a7da$a7861fc0$8207fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3FB099C7.8579.2556BE@localhost>

> > > ... Content (even banal or
> > > commonplace content) can be made new. It's really a question of
> > > approach or angle of attack. Finding a new way into an old
> > > theme/subject. ...<<
> >
> > Just so. Poetry is a matter of finding a way to communicate notions
> > effectively, not a matter of blurting out something that no one else
> > has ever thought of.
 
> Is that your scientific definition or your literary-critical definition, Marcus?<<

Literary-critical, Bob, and thanks for asking. Who accused me of 
attempting the scientific inappropriately?

> Meanwhile, are you going to return to the MB / BG
> thread?  You have been to it in a week.  Nor had the courtesy to let
> me know whether you've given up trying reasonably to demonstrate that
> my taxonomy is unclear or not.<

Well I've demonstrated that your taxonomy is unclear already -- I 
point this out in the service of once again being an illustration of 
the carelessness with which you use words and put forward notions. 
Your other question, whether your Statement One is clear or not, I've 
also answered at length, pointing out that the lack of clarity 
inheres in your unwillingness to address the fundamental issue of 
whether you're trying to do science inappropriately in a non-
scientific field or trying to do literary criticism in the literary 
field after all.

Your repeated question about the merely verbal clarity of your 
Statement One is like someone asking the coroner who is trying to 
find out the cause of death "Is it a man or a woman! Is it a man or a 
woman!?"  Your question is irrelevant to the real issue immediately 
at hand, though your question has relevance later on in the 
investigative process.

Further, you have seemed to be willing to have your systematization 
attempts taken by me as either literary or scientific whichever I 
prefer. This, too, is an error because how the reader of your work 
takes the work cannot be dispositive. Suppose I take your work to be 
a satire on taxonomies, a luddite's attempt to be funny at the 
expense of science? Are you satisfied with that? Is my view of your 
work dispositive merely because I am a reader of it? Of course not! 
So your notion that I may take your work to be either literary or 
scientific at my whim or caprice is nonsensical trollery.

You must declare, Bob, what your purposes are. If you are seriously 
going to attempt to make a science of literary criticism by making a 
scientific taxonomy there are a number of issues you have to address 
before even beginning your taxonomy. If, however, you are just 
another literary critic attempting to make sense of the profusion 
then your employment of the scientific-sounding language and your 
pretense in calling it a taxonomy are themselves issues your readers 
may fairly address, as I have addressed them.







From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Nov 13 15:54:39 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 15:54:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
References: <3FB099C7.8579.2556BE@localhost>
Message-ID: <00d701c3aa28$5b1bace0$6eefa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> > Is that your scientific definition or your literary-critical definition,
Marcus?<<
>
> Literary-critical, Bob, and thanks for asking. Who accused me of
> attempting the scientific inappropriately?

What is a . . . never mind.

> > Meanwhile, are you going to return to the MB / BG
> > thread?  You have been to it in a week.  Nor had the courtesy to let
> > me know whether you've given up trying reasonably to demonstrate that
> > my taxonomy is unclear or not.<
>
> Well I've demonstrated that your taxonomy is unclear already -- I

You utterly failed to.  You said it was unclearly expressed and I asked you
to show what was unclear about it, step by step.  You were unable even to
begin to do that.

SNIP

> Your repeated question about the merely verbal clarity of your
> Statement One is like someone asking the coroner who is trying to
> find out the cause of death "Is it a man or a woman! Is it a man or a
> woman!?"  Your question is irrelevant to the real issue immediately
> at hand, though your question has relevance later on in the
> investigative process.

You said you could say what was unclear about the verbal expression of my
statement, but never tried to do so.

> Further, you have seemed to be willing to have your systematization
> attempts taken by me as either literary or scientific whichever I
> prefer. This, too, is an error because how the reader of your work
> takes the work cannot be dispositive. Suppose I take your work to be
> a satire on taxonomies, a luddite's attempt to be funny at the
> expense of science? Are you satisfied with that?

You could take it to be Spanish, if you want to, Marcus.  But I wanted you
to take it as English.  There is nothing about it to indicate satire.

> Is my view of your
> work dispositive merely because I am a reader of it? Of course not!
> So your notion that I may take your work to be either literary or
> scientific at my whim or caprice is nonsensical trollery.

You're supposed to take my work as English.  You know that you can't show it
to be unclear English, so you use other means to destroy it.

> You must declare, Bob, what your purposes are.

How would that be possible?  You'd just tell me my purpose was unclearly
defined.

>If you are seriously
> going to attempt to make a science of literary criticism by making a
> scientific taxonomy there are a number of issues you have to address
> before even beginning your taxonomy. If, however, you are just
> another literary critic attempting to make sense of the profusion
> then your employment of the scientific-sounding language and your
> pretense in calling it a taxonomy are themselves issues your readers
> may fairly address, as I have addressed them.

I'd love to see you try to tell us what poetry is, and defend your
definition.  You'd never dare.  All you're capable of doing is attacking
definitions you don't care for, by any means available.

--Bob G.




From marcus at designerglass.com  Thu Nov 13 16:38:31 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 16:38:31 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
In-Reply-To: <00d701c3aa28$5b1bace0$6eefa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <3FB3B387.10968.200611E@localhost>

> > Well I've demonstrated that your taxonomy is unclear already -- I
 
> You utterly failed to.  You said it was unclearly expressed and I
> asked you to show what was unclear about it, step by step.  You were
> unable even to begin to do that.<<

Once again, Bob, the lack of clarity I'm pointing out is the lack of 
conceptual clarity behind your endeavor. It doesn't do a nonsensical 
conception any good to be clearly explained -- though it makes it 
easier for those reading it to conclude that it is nonsense. Clear 
nonsense is still nonsense.

> You said you could say what was unclear about the verbal expression of
> my statement, but never tried to do so.<

My objection to your systematization of literary forms is clear, I 
hope: it's that no systematization can hope to systematize a field of 
endeavor where there is always an "avant garde" determined to 
undermine that systematization. The irony here is, of course, that 
you view yourself as a member of the avant garde and yet don't seem 
to realize that the moment you declare that your "taxonomy" is 
complete (on whatever grounds) you've necessarily transformed 
yourself into a conservative who must defend his categorization of 
what he himself has declared cannot be categorized insofar as he 
claims to be a member of the avant garde! Delicious.

> You could take it to be Spanish, if you want to, Marcus.  But I wanted
> you to take it as English.  There is nothing about it to indicate
> satire.<

There is a good deal about it to indicate that you intend it to be 
scientific -- but the problem is, of course, that you can't have 
scientific rigor investigating a subject where at the whim or caprice 
of those being investigated they can declare a new category at any 
time -- and it's especially odd that one of the people determined to 
declare new categories of poetry should be one of the people 
determined to set the categories unchangeably into a taxonomy!

But my point was that you cannot reasonably declare that it is how 
the reader takes any text that determines what kind of text it is if 
you hope to make a taxonomy work, even metaphorically, because that 
means that no matter what YOU, the taxonomist, calls the category any 
reader may call it anything else with impunity, thus destroying your 
taxonomy at his or her whim or caprice. You must, by the very attempt 
to determine categories, be in the business of dictating how your 
attempt must be taken. 

So, Bob, do you intend to do science or literary criticism?

If science, I think the lack of clarity in your conception of what 
science itself is severely limits your so-called "taxonomy", and I 
think you know it, to judge by the way you tack and jibe trying to 
avoid claiming you're doing science.

If literary criticism, well, then, what's with all the techno-
jargonesque neologistic wordplay and the elaborate clause-clotted 
prose that seems to want to emulate the least clear elements of how a 
scientist in a "hard science" tries to translate ideas from math or 
physics into English?

> You're supposed to take my work as English.  You know that you can't
> show it to be unclear English, so you use other means to destroy it.<

I have no personal interest in destroying your work because it's your 
work, Bob -- I have a sort of public-spirited interest in asking you 
the same hard questions I'd ask, that I have asked, others in the 
field of literary criticism who've claimed to have found a way to use 
scientific language to transform the subjective into the objective.

> I'd love to see you try to tell us what poetry is, and defend your
> definition.  You'd never dare.  All you're capable of doing is
> attacking definitions you don't care for, by any means available.

In fact I've done this several times on the net -- I don't recall, 
actually, if I've done it in New-Poetry or not. But my view of what 
poetry is or isn't, and my defenses of my views, are not really at 
issue here, Bob -- what's at issue is whether you're trying to do 
scientific investigation or literary criticism. Which is it?





From JforJames at aol.com  Thu Nov 13 17:22:05 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:22:05 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Some netnotes
Message-ID: <106.28dc2d00.2ce55e0d@aol.com>

I sent this a couple of days ago...but I think we were
having a system problems...

In a message dated 11/9/03 7:45:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
joncpoetics at hotmail.com writes:

> As for the Frost quote, I've also seen it given as "What do you want me to 
>  do, say it again in different and less good words?",  What do you want me 
>  to do? Say it over again in worser English?, and probably some other 
>  variations I don't remember.  Maybe some biographer can give the verified 
>  authentic version, or maybe Frost told the story himself at various times 
>  using various forms.  Personally I don't like the "worser" form and 
wouldn't 
>  like it any better if it turned out to be the correct one:  it sounds too 
>  self-consciously country.  Frost, after all, was originally from San 
>  Francisco, and we don't talk like that out here.

I heard Joseph Langland, a poet from the Amherst MA
area, tell a good Frost anecdote along these lines...
Frost was at a college literary event where some
student poets were reciting their work. One student
came to the  podium and proceeded to go into one of 
those long-winded and pretentious explanations
of the poem he was about to read. He then read
the poem, which was sonnet length at best. 
Frost, sitting in the audience, says drily: "Son, 
you said a better poem than you read."
Or so the story goes.
Finnegan


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Nov 13 20:40:22 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 20:40:22 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
References: <3FB3B387.10968.200611E@localhost>
Message-ID: <004901c3aa50$45376630$bdefa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 4:38 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity


> > > Well I've demonstrated that your taxonomy is unclear already -- I
>  
> > You utterly failed to.  You said it was unclearly expressed and I
> > asked you to show what was unclear about it, step by step.  You were
> > unable even to begin to do that.<<
> 
> Once again, Bob, the lack of clarity I'm pointing out is the lack of 
> conceptual clarity behind your endeavor. It doesn't do a nonsensical 
> conception any good to be clearly explained -- though it makes it 
> easier for those reading it to conclude that it is nonsense. Clear 
> nonsense is still nonsense.
> 
> > You said you could say what was unclear about the verbal expression of
> > my statement, but never tried to do so.<
> 
> My objection to your systematization of literary forms is clear, I 
> hope: it's that no systematization can hope to systematize a field of 
> endeavor where there is always an "avant garde" determined to 
> undermine that systematization. The irony here is, of course, that 
> you view yourself as a member of the avant garde and yet don't seem 
> to realize that the moment you declare that your "taxonomy" is 
> complete (on whatever grounds) you've necessarily transformed 
> yourself into a conservative who must defend his categorization of 
> what he himself has declared cannot be categorized insofar as he 
> claims to be a member of the avant garde! Delicious.
> 
> > You could take it to be Spanish, if you want to, Marcus.  But I wanted
> > you to take it as English.  There is nothing about it to indicate
> > satire.<
> 
> There is a good deal about it to indicate that you intend it to be 
> scientific -- but the problem is, of course, that you can't have 
> scientific rigor investigating a subject where at the whim or caprice 
> of those being investigated they can declare a new category at any 
> time -- and it's especially odd that one of the people determined to 
> declare new categories of poetry should be one of the people 
> determined to set the categories unchangeably into a taxonomy!
> 
> But my point was that you cannot reasonably declare that it is how 
> the reader takes any text that determines what kind of text it is if 
> you hope to make a taxonomy work, even metaphorically, because that 
> means that no matter what YOU, the taxonomist, calls the category any 
> reader may call it anything else with impunity, thus destroying your 
> taxonomy at his or her whim or caprice. You must, by the very attempt 
> to determine categories, be in the business of dictating how your 
> attempt must be taken. 
> 
> So, Bob, do you intend to do science or literary criticism?
> 
> If science, I think the lack of clarity in your conception of what 
> science itself is severely limits your so-called "taxonomy", and I 
> think you know it, to judge by the way you tack and jibe trying to 
> avoid claiming you're doing science.
> 
> If literary criticism, well, then, what's with all the techno-
> jargonesque neologistic wordplay and the elaborate clause-clotted 
> prose that seems to want to emulate the least clear elements of how a 
> scientist in a "hard science" tries to translate ideas from math or 
> physics into English?
> 
> > You're supposed to take my work as English.  You know that you can't
> > show it to be unclear English, so you use other means to destroy it.<
> 
> I have no personal interest in destroying your work because it's your 
> work, Bob -- I have a sort of public-spirited interest in asking you 
> the same hard questions I'd ask, that I have asked, others in the 
> field of literary criticism who've claimed to have found a way to use 
> scientific language to transform the subjective into the objective.
> 
> > I'd love to see you try to tell us what poetry is, and defend your
> > definition.  You'd never dare.  All you're capable of doing is
> > attacking definitions you don't care for, by any means available.
> 
> In fact I've done this several times on the net -- I don't recall, 
> actually, if I've done it in New-Poetry or not. But my view of what 
> poetry is or isn't, and my defenses of my views, are not really at 
> issue here, Bob -- what's at issue is whether you're trying to do 
> scientific investigation or literary criticism. Which is it?


Alas, you'll never find out, Marcus.

--Bob G.



From marcus at designerglass.com  Thu Nov 13 20:47:01 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 01:47:01 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
Message-ID: <200311140142.hAE1gj1G003212@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

Marcus:
> > ... Bob -- what's at issue is whether you're trying to do 
> > scientific investigation or literary criticism. Which is it?<<

Bob:
> Alas, you'll never find out, Marcus.<

Oh, I know what it is, Bob -- I think everyone who's followed this discussion 
in even the most casual way knows.  You're using scientific jargon as a sort of 
con-artist double-talk to try to make seem objective, and therefore legitimate, 
a view that is merely your subjective and, except for the sleight-of-mind taxo-
babble, no more legitimate than anyone else's.

Marcus






From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Thu Nov 13 22:45:26 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 19:45:26 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] System problems?
Message-ID: <BAY7-F122vLVKi3s1ws00005a36@hotmail.com>

I haven't seen any messages on this list from Tuesday afternoon to Thursday 
afternoon, and there aren't any in the archive.  Maybe nobody sent anything 
in that period, but if they did and it was about my postings, I didn't see 
it and that's why I haven't responded.

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Frustrated with dial-up? Get high-speed for as low as $26.95.  
https://broadband.msn.com (Prices may vary by service area.)



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Nov 14 06:10:36 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 06:10:36 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] System problems?
References: <BAY7-F122vLVKi3s1ws00005a36@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <003801c3aa9f$ee7ae7e0$7fefa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

I've seen very few posts during the past week, except for Tia's.  But they
seem to be starting up again.

--Bob G.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Corelis" <joncpoetics at hotmail.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 10:45 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] System problems?


> I haven't seen any messages on this list from Tuesday afternoon to
Thursday
> afternoon, and there aren't any in the archive.  Maybe nobody sent
anything
> in that period, but if they did and it was about my postings, I didn't see
> it and that's why I haven't responded.
>
> ==================================================
>
> Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
> http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
>
> ==================================================
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Frustrated with dial-up? Get high-speed for as low as $26.95.
> https://broadband.msn.com (Prices may vary by service area.)
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Fri Nov 14 07:46:57 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 07:46:57 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Alan Sondheim, "the dry"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIENKHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>


the dry

osprey sprays and preys in alligator holes, among the grays and ways, the
desiccated holes, fire give me strength, fire give me life, across the
breadth and length, the sloughs, the verge, the strife, all mating leads
to hating, all mating leads to life, all mating leads to loving, all
loving leads to life:in the winter season, in the winter season, among the
cypress-domes, among the cypress domes, there are worlds-creating, there
are worlds-creating, among the silicon, among the silicon, deep in the
marl prairies, deep in the marl prairies, among the winter season, among
the winter season, deep in the cypress-domes, deep in the cypress domes
:someone has to leave, someone has to come, someone's born with vision,
someone's dying dumb; someone's got to die, someone's got to live,
someone's never lied, someone's got to give; something's got to leave,
something's got to come; something's born with vision, something's dying
dumb; something's got to die, something's got to live; something's never
lied; something's got to give ::the blue highways and the hardwood
thickets ::the long thin highway and the tangled stream ::the blue
highways and the hardwood thickets ::the asphalt highways and the bayhead
thickets

--Alan Sondheim

in a posting to the UB Poetics Discussion Group--Tues., 5/14/2002


Hal

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
 



From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Nov 14 10:35:40 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 10:35:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] KGB
Message-ID: <001801c3aac4$f56a4440$aae8c043@computer>

KGB

Last evening, Lynda and I wandered over to the KGB Bar on E. 4th St. for
a reading.  4th St.'s eastern terminus is just a few blocks from where we live,
so we, going and coming, walked along that street, both of us, looking at
building numbers, realized after all these NYC years that below Washington
Square Park it's Broadway that divides streets east and west. It was our first
visit to the KGB (http://www.kgbbar.com/), which has an interesting history,
if not as long a one as some NYC watering spots. For more info, check out
(http://www.kgbbar.com/about.shtml). There's an anthology of KGB Bar
fiction (http://www.kgbbar.com/anthology.shtml), and also one of poems
(ed. David Lehman and Star Black) that doesn't seem to have won a place
on the bar's website as yet. (Well, it only came out in 2000.)

        The KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, or The
        Committee for State Security) was the name of the main Soviet
        external security and intelligence agency, as well as the main secret police
        agency from March 13, 1954 to November 6, 1991. The KGB's
        domain was roughly that of the American CIA and the counter-
        intelligence division of the FBI.

The bar is upstairs on the second floor, and its windows, which look like
they've never been cleaned--ever--look out over E. 4th St. at another
bar, this one just called BAR, according to its sign (much more brightly
prominent than the KGB sign). The interior decor is, as you'd expect,
burnished wood and red-painted walls, with KGB, Cold War-USSR
images and icons here and there--and, more surprisingly, Art Nouveau
hanging lamps, sconces and back-lit stained-glass shelf doors above the bar.

We took our seats in the farthest corner of the room (only one room here,
it seemed) by the western-most of the windows looking down on 4th St.
My back was to the wall, and Lynda's, until the readings began, was to
the lectern just a couple tables away, over toward the bar. Our glasses
of red wine cost six bucks, though we weren't required to buy anything,
or pay anything to get in.

The readers were father and daughter, and I pretty much managed not
to hear most of what they read. I guess, in my head, I was starting to write
this. The father read first, from a novella he'd written back in the late 70s--
something to do with a nut case out camping and then being picked up and
driven home by his mother. He didn't read all of it, but read three sections--
the beginning, something from the middle, and the end--summarizing the parts
he didn't read. There were some tepidly quirky bits, but, on the whole, as
I later joked to Lynda on our way home, I rather preferred the summaries.

        In March of 1953, Lavrenty Beria united the MVD and MGB into
        one body, the MVD. Within a year, Beria was executed and the
        MVD was split up. The reformed MVD retained its internal security
        functions while the new KGB took on external security functions. The
        KGB was subordinated to the Council of Ministers. On July 5, 1978
        the KGB was renamed the "KGB of the USSR" with the KGB Chairman
        given a seat on the council.

The second reader, the daughter, was younger and prettier, of course. She
read with her mouth an inch or less from the mike, and thus her initial p's,
b's, t's, etc. popped into the mike and exploded from the speakers hung
on two walls of the bar. Her story was from 1996 or thereabout, and (I
never could tell whether this was deliberate or not) was also about a camping
trip. She graciously claimed her story was not as good as her dad's, and noted
that hers involved her main character's meeting with a couple, as her dad's
did not. Her prose style, like her initial consonants, tended to pop--bits of
humor and 90s details studding a story I couldn't manage to follow, the humor,
at least a couple times, involving (if that's the word) Lance Armstrong's
missing balls (or was it ball).

        The KGB was dissolved due to the participation of its chief, Colonel
        General Vladimir Kryuchkov, in the August 1991 coup attempt designed
        to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev. He used many of the KGB's resources
        to aid the coup attempt. Kryuchkov was arrested, and General Vadim
        Bakatin was appointed Chairman on August 23, 1991 with a mandate to
        dismantle the KGB. On November 6, 1991 the Russian KGB officially
        ceased to exist, though its successor organization, the Federalnaya Sluzhba
        Bezopasnosti, or FSB, is functionally extremely similar to the KGB. Belarus
        is the only post-Soviet society where the successor organization continues
        to be called the KGB. Belarus is also where one of the founders of the
        KGB, Felix Dzerzhinsky ? who was born in a town now within Belarusian
        territory ? remains a national hero.

Lynda'd known these folks--father, daughter, divorced mother (who still lives
in our building and who sat with us through the first half of the reading)--so the
younger reader was someone who'd grown up knowing Lynda's kids. And here
she was, all grown up, with a husband and major-publisher book of her own.

Look, it's not that I have something against readings. Nowadays, it's that I seem
to have more and more against them. My wine glowed redly when I held the glass
up in front of the candle on the table. The window to my right was so dirty it wasn't
hard to imagine Soviet Moscow out there, mysterious figures emerging from the dim
recesses of cheery bars--where, happily, no readings were going on--pulling their
caps down over their eyes and vanishing from sight on somewhat furtive missions.


[KGB history fr. www.wikipedia.org]

Hal

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard




From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Fri Nov 14 11:35:59 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 10:35:59 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] KGB
In-Reply-To: <001801c3aac4$f56a4440$aae8c043@computer>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031114103338.01825d40@mail.ilstu.edu>

hal,

nin andrews and i had a good time reading at the bar monday nov 10. was 
very good to meet her. i didn't order any wine -- only a pepsi -- so i 
don't know about the cost of the wine. i know they have different series -- 
and sometimes open mikes -- there.

i wish you had shown up monday: i would have really liked seeing you again.

gabe

At 10:35 AM 11/14/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>KGB
>
>Last evening, Lynda and I wandered over to the KGB Bar on E. 4th St. for
>a reading.  4th St.'s eastern terminus is just a few blocks from where we 
>live,
>so we, going and coming, walked along that street, both of us, looking at
>building numbers, realized after all these NYC years that below Washington
>Square Park it's Broadway that divides streets east and west. It was our first
>visit to the KGB (http://www.kgbbar.com/), which has an interesting history,
>if not as long a one as some NYC watering spots. For more info, check out
>(http://www.kgbbar.com/about.shtml). There's an anthology of KGB Bar
>fiction (http://www.kgbbar.com/anthology.shtml), and also one of poems
>(ed. David Lehman and Star Black) that doesn't seem to have won a place
>on the bar's website as yet. (Well, it only came out in 2000.)
>
>         The KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, or The
>         Committee for State Security) was the name of the main Soviet
>         external security and intelligence agency, as well as the main 
> secret police
>         agency from March 13, 1954 to November 6, 1991. The KGB's
>         domain was roughly that of the American CIA and the counter-
>         intelligence division of the FBI.
>
>The bar is upstairs on the second floor, and its windows, which look like
>they've never been cleaned--ever--look out over E. 4th St. at another
>bar, this one just called BAR, according to its sign (much more brightly
>prominent than the KGB sign). The interior decor is, as you'd expect,
>burnished wood and red-painted walls, with KGB, Cold War-USSR
>images and icons here and there--and, more surprisingly, Art Nouveau
>hanging lamps, sconces and back-lit stained-glass shelf doors above the bar.
>
>We took our seats in the farthest corner of the room (only one room here,
>it seemed) by the western-most of the windows looking down on 4th St.
>My back was to the wall, and Lynda's, until the readings began, was to
>the lectern just a couple tables away, over toward the bar. Our glasses
>of red wine cost six bucks, though we weren't required to buy anything,
>or pay anything to get in.
>
>The readers were father and daughter, and I pretty much managed not
>to hear most of what they read. I guess, in my head, I was starting to write
>this. The father read first, from a novella he'd written back in the late 
>70s--
>something to do with a nut case out camping and then being picked up and
>driven home by his mother. He didn't read all of it, but read three sections--
>the beginning, something from the middle, and the end--summarizing the parts
>he didn't read. There were some tepidly quirky bits, but, on the whole, as
>I later joked to Lynda on our way home, I rather preferred the summaries.
>
>         In March of 1953, Lavrenty Beria united the MVD and MGB into
>         one body, the MVD. Within a year, Beria was executed and the
>         MVD was split up. The reformed MVD retained its internal security
>         functions while the new KGB took on external security functions. The
>         KGB was subordinated to the Council of Ministers. On July 5, 1978
>         the KGB was renamed the "KGB of the USSR" with the KGB Chairman
>         given a seat on the council.
>
>The second reader, the daughter, was younger and prettier, of course. She
>read with her mouth an inch or less from the mike, and thus her initial p's,
>b's, t's, etc. popped into the mike and exploded from the speakers hung
>on two walls of the bar. Her story was from 1996 or thereabout, and (I
>never could tell whether this was deliberate or not) was also about a camping
>trip. She graciously claimed her story was not as good as her dad's, and noted
>that hers involved her main character's meeting with a couple, as her dad's
>did not. Her prose style, like her initial consonants, tended to pop--bits of
>humor and 90s details studding a story I couldn't manage to follow, the humor,
>at least a couple times, involving (if that's the word) Lance Armstrong's
>missing balls (or was it ball).
>
>         The KGB was dissolved due to the participation of its chief, Colonel
>         General Vladimir Kryuchkov, in the August 1991 coup attempt designed
>         to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev. He used many of the KGB's resources
>         to aid the coup attempt. Kryuchkov was arrested, and General Vadim
>         Bakatin was appointed Chairman on August 23, 1991 with a mandate to
>         dismantle the KGB. On November 6, 1991 the Russian KGB officially
>         ceased to exist, though its successor organization, the 
> Federalnaya Sluzhba
>         Bezopasnosti, or FSB, is functionally extremely similar to the 
> KGB. Belarus
>         is the only post-Soviet society where the successor organization 
> continues
>         to be called the KGB. Belarus is also where one of the founders 
> of the
>         KGB, Felix Dzerzhinsky ? who was born in a town now within Belarusian
>         territory ? remains a national hero.
>
>Lynda'd known these folks--father, daughter, divorced mother (who still lives
>in our building and who sat with us through the first half of the 
>reading)--so the
>younger reader was someone who'd grown up knowing Lynda's kids. And here
>she was, all grown up, with a husband and major-publisher book of her own.
>
>Look, it's not that I have something against readings. Nowadays, it's that 
>I seem
>to have more and more against them. My wine glowed redly when I held the glass
>up in front of the candle on the table. The window to my right was so 
>dirty it wasn't
>hard to imagine Soviet Moscow out there, mysterious figures emerging from 
>the dim
>recesses of cheery bars--where, happily, no readings were going 
>on--pulling their
>caps down over their eyes and vanishing from sight on somewhat furtive 
>missions.
>
>
>[KGB history fr. www.wikipedia.org]
>
>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 halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Nov 14 11:44:11 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 11:44:11 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] KGB
In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20031114103338.01825d40@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEAEODHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Gabe--

I was torn, believe me. I knew you were reading at the New School
Wednesday and was planning to attend (in fact, told my students about
it, so maybe some of them showed up). My wife, though, desired an
escort, and that, I'm afraid, tipped the scales against you.

Another time? I'm sure.

How did it go at the NSU?

Hal

{    hal,
{
{    nin andrews and i had a good time reading at the bar monday nov 10. was
{    very good to meet her. i didn't order any wine -- only a pepsi -- so i
{    don't know about the cost of the wine. i know they have different series --
{    and sometimes open mikes -- there.
{
{    i wish you had shown up monday: i would have really liked seeing you again.
{
{    gabe
{
{    At 10:35 AM 11/14/2003 -0500, you wrote:
{    >KGB
{    >
{    >Last evening, Lynda and I wandered over to the KGB Bar on E. 4th St. for
{    >a reading.  4th St.'s eastern terminus is just a few blocks from where we
{    >live,
{    >so we, going and coming, walked along that street, both of us, looking at
{    >building numbers, realized after all these NYC years that below Washington
{    >Square Park it's Broadway that divides streets east and west. It was our first
{    >visit to the KGB (http://www.kgbbar.com/), which has an interesting history,
{    >if not as long a one as some NYC watering spots. For more info, check out
{    >(http://www.kgbbar.com/about.shtml). There's an anthology of KGB Bar
{    >fiction (http://www.kgbbar.com/anthology.shtml), and also one of poems
{    >(ed. David Lehman and Star Black) that doesn't seem to have won a place
{    >on the bar's website as yet. (Well, it only came out in 2000.)
{    >
{    >         The KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, or The
{    >         Committee for State Security) was the name of the main Soviet
{    >         external security and intelligence agency, as well as the main
{    > secret police
{    >         agency from March 13, 1954 to November 6, 1991. The KGB's
{    >         domain was roughly that of the American CIA and the counter-
{    >         intelligence division of the FBI.
{    >
{    >The bar is upstairs on the second floor, and its windows, which look like
{    >they've never been cleaned--ever--look out over E. 4th St. at another
{    >bar, this one just called BAR, according to its sign (much more brightly
{    >prominent than the KGB sign). The interior decor is, as you'd expect,
{    >burnished wood and red-painted walls, with KGB, Cold War-USSR
{    >images and icons here and there--and, more surprisingly, Art Nouveau
{    >hanging lamps, sconces and back-lit stained-glass shelf doors above the bar.
{    >
{    >We took our seats in the farthest corner of the room (only one room here,
{    >it seemed) by the western-most of the windows looking down on 4th St.
{    >My back was to the wall, and Lynda's, until the readings began, was to
{    >the lectern just a couple tables away, over toward the bar. Our glasses
{    >of red wine cost six bucks, though we weren't required to buy anything,
{    >or pay anything to get in.
{    >
{    >The readers were father and daughter, and I pretty much managed not
{    >to hear most of what they read. I guess, in my head, I was starting to write
{    >this. The father read first, from a novella he'd written back in the late
{    >70s--
{    >something to do with a nut case out camping and then being picked up and
{    >driven home by his mother. He didn't read all of it, but read three sections--
{    >the beginning, something from the middle, and the end--summarizing the parts
{    >he didn't read. There were some tepidly quirky bits, but, on the whole, as
{    >I later joked to Lynda on our way home, I rather preferred the summaries.
{    >
{    >         In March of 1953, Lavrenty Beria united the MVD and MGB into
{    >         one body, the MVD. Within a year, Beria was executed and the
{    >         MVD was split up. The reformed MVD retained its internal security
{    >         functions while the new KGB took on external security functions. The
{    >         KGB was subordinated to the Council of Ministers. On July 5, 1978
{    >         the KGB was renamed the "KGB of the USSR" with the KGB Chairman
{    >         given a seat on the council.
{    >
{    >The second reader, the daughter, was younger and prettier, of course. She
{    >read with her mouth an inch or less from the mike, and thus her initial p's,
{    >b's, t's, etc. popped into the mike and exploded from the speakers hung
{    >on two walls of the bar. Her story was from 1996 or thereabout, and (I
{    >never could tell whether this was deliberate or not) was also about a camping
{    >trip. She graciously claimed her story was not as good as her dad's, and noted
{    >that hers involved her main character's meeting with a couple, as her dad's
{    >did not. Her prose style, like her initial consonants, tended to pop--bits of
{    >humor and 90s details studding a story I couldn't manage to follow, the humor,
{    >at least a couple times, involving (if that's the word) Lance Armstrong's
{    >missing balls (or was it ball).
{    >
{    >         The KGB was dissolved due to the participation of its chief, Colonel
{    >         General Vladimir Kryuchkov, in the August 1991 coup attempt designed
{    >         to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev. He used many of the KGB's resources
{    >         to aid the coup attempt. Kryuchkov was arrested, and General Vadim
{    >         Bakatin was appointed Chairman on August 23, 1991 with a mandate to
{    >         dismantle the KGB. On November 6, 1991 the Russian KGB officially
{    >         ceased to exist, though its successor organization, the
{    > Federalnaya Sluzhba
{    >         Bezopasnosti, or FSB, is functionally extremely similar to the
{    > KGB. Belarus
{    >         is the only post-Soviet society where the successor organization
{    > continues
{    >         to be called the KGB. Belarus is also where one of the founders
{    > of the
{    >         KGB, Felix Dzerzhinsky ? who was born in a town now within Belarusian
{    >         territory ? remains a national hero.
{    >
{    >Lynda'd known these folks--father, daughter, divorced mother (who still lives
{    >in our building and who sat with us through the first half of the
{    >reading)--so the
{    >younger reader was someone who'd grown up knowing Lynda's kids. And here
{    >she was, all grown up, with a husband and major-publisher book of her own.
{    >
{    >Look, it's not that I have something against readings. Nowadays, it's that
{    >I seem
{    >to have more and more against them. My wine glowed redly when I held the glass
{    >up in front of the candle on the table. The window to my right was so
{    >dirty it wasn't
{    >hard to imagine Soviet Moscow out there, mysterious figures emerging from
{    >the dim
{    >recesses of cheery bars--where, happily, no readings were going
{    >on--pulling their
{    >caps down over their eyes and vanishing from sight on somewhat furtive
{    >missions.
{    >
{    >
{    >[KGB history fr. www.wikipedia.org]
{    >
{    >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
{
{
{    _______________________________________________
{    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  Fri Nov 14 13:54:40 2003
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 10:54:40 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Haibunski-KGB
In-Reply-To: <200311141600.hAEG021G025247@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031114105136.00b613c8@incoming.verizon.net>

At 11:00 AM 11/14/2003 -0500, Hal wrote:

>KGB
oKAY Hal -- a new kind of haibun-ish thing. More!

B.
-------------- next part --------------
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From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Fri Nov 14 14:42:21 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:42:21 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] KGB
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEAEODHLAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20031114103338.01825d40@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031114121805.01267728@mail.ilstu.edu>

Hal,

Thanks for asking about the New School reading. I felt really good about 
both readings, which is not normal for me: usually I come away from 
readings wishing I'd done this or that instead etc etc. But both readings 
were very positively received, I think. I brought 19 books with me and they 
all sold, nine at KGB and ten at NSU, so I was happy about that. The person 
selling my books at NSU said that I could have sold 20 more! (But as I 
lugged the books from Brooklyn, there is just no way I would have carried 
30 books in my satchel -- even if I had known in advance about the positive 
reception of the book). The NSU reading was packed and folks were standing 
at the back and sides, so I felt very very good about its attendance. It 
was fun to exchange repartee with Lehman. He's actually a very very funny 
guy. Sorry to have missed you.

It was nice to have a bacon and egg sandwich at Joe Jr's (on the Ave of the 
Americas) -- really great little diner.

Gabe

At 11:44 AM 11/14/2003 -0500, Halvard Johnson wrote:
>Gabe--
>
>I was torn, believe me. I knew you were reading at the New School
>Wednesday and was planning to attend (in fact, told my students about
>it, so maybe some of them showed up). My wife, though, desired an
>escort, and that, I'm afraid, tipped the scales against you.
>
>Another time? I'm sure.
>
>How did it go at the NSU?
>
>Hal
>
>{    hal,
>{
>{    nin andrews and i had a good time reading at the bar monday nov 10. was
>{    very good to meet her. i didn't order any wine -- only a pepsi -- so i
>{    don't know about the cost of the wine. i know they have different 
>series --
>{    and sometimes open mikes -- there.
>{
>{    i wish you had shown up monday: i would have really liked seeing you 
>again.
>{
>{    gabe
>{
>{    At 10:35 AM 11/14/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>{    >KGB
>{    >
>{    >Last evening, Lynda and I wandered over to the KGB Bar on E. 4th St. for
>{    >a reading.  4th St.'s eastern terminus is just a few blocks from 
>where we
>{    >live,
>{    >so we, going and coming, walked along that street, both of us, 
>looking at
>{    >building numbers, realized after all these NYC years that below 
>Washington
>{    >Square Park it's Broadway that divides streets east and west. It was 
>our first
>{    >visit to the KGB (http://www.kgbbar.com/), which has an interesting 
>history,
>{    >if not as long a one as some NYC watering spots. For more info, 
>check out
>{    >(http://www.kgbbar.com/about.shtml). There's an anthology of KGB Bar
>{    >fiction (http://www.kgbbar.com/anthology.shtml), and also one of poems
>{    >(ed. David Lehman and Star Black) that doesn't seem to have won a place
>{    >on the bar's website as yet. (Well, it only came out in 2000.)
>{    >
>{    >         The KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, or The
>{    >         Committee for State Security) was the name of the main Soviet
>{    >         external security and intelligence agency, as well as the main
>{    > secret police
>{    >         agency from March 13, 1954 to November 6, 1991. The KGB's
>{    >         domain was roughly that of the American CIA and the counter-
>{    >         intelligence division of the FBI.
>{    >
>{    >The bar is upstairs on the second floor, and its windows, which look 
>like
>{    >they've never been cleaned--ever--look out over E. 4th St. at another
>{    >bar, this one just called BAR, according to its sign (much more brightly
>{    >prominent than the KGB sign). The interior decor is, as you'd expect,
>{    >burnished wood and red-painted walls, with KGB, Cold War-USSR
>{    >images and icons here and there--and, more surprisingly, Art Nouveau
>{    >hanging lamps, sconces and back-lit stained-glass shelf doors above 
>the bar.
>{    >
>{    >We took our seats in the farthest corner of the room (only one room 
>here,
>{    >it seemed) by the western-most of the windows looking down on 4th St.
>{    >My back was to the wall, and Lynda's, until the readings began, was to
>{    >the lectern just a couple tables away, over toward the bar. Our glasses
>{    >of red wine cost six bucks, though we weren't required to buy anything,
>{    >or pay anything to get in.
>{    >
>{    >The readers were father and daughter, and I pretty much managed not
>{    >to hear most of what they read. I guess, in my head, I was starting 
>to write
>{    >this. The father read first, from a novella he'd written back in the 
>late
>{    >70s--
>{    >something to do with a nut case out camping and then being picked up and
>{    >driven home by his mother. He didn't read all of it, but read three 
>sections--
>{    >the beginning, something from the middle, and the end--summarizing 
>the parts
>{    >he didn't read. There were some tepidly quirky bits, but, on the 
>whole, as
>{    >I later joked to Lynda on our way home, I rather preferred the 
>summaries.
>{    >
>{    >         In March of 1953, Lavrenty Beria united the MVD and MGB into
>{    >         one body, the MVD. Within a year, Beria was executed and the
>{    >         MVD was split up. The reformed MVD retained its internal 
>security
>{    >         functions while the new KGB took on external security 
>functions. The
>{    >         KGB was subordinated to the Council of Ministers. On July 
>5, 1978
>{    >         the KGB was renamed the "KGB of the USSR" with the KGB Chairman
>{    >         given a seat on the council.
>{    >
>{    >The second reader, the daughter, was younger and prettier, of 
>course. She
>{    >read with her mouth an inch or less from the mike, and thus her 
>initial p's,
>{    >b's, t's, etc. popped into the mike and exploded from the speakers hung
>{    >on two walls of the bar. Her story was from 1996 or thereabout, and (I
>{    >never could tell whether this was deliberate or not) was also about 
>a camping
>{    >trip. She graciously claimed her story was not as good as her dad's, 
>and noted
>{    >that hers involved her main character's meeting with a couple, as 
>her dad's
>{    >did not. Her prose style, like her initial consonants, tended to 
>pop--bits of
>{    >humor and 90s details studding a story I couldn't manage to follow, 
>the humor,
>{    >at least a couple times, involving (if that's the word) Lance 
>Armstrong's
>{    >missing balls (or was it ball).
>{    >
>{    >         The KGB was dissolved due to the participation of its 
>chief, Colonel
>{    >         General Vladimir Kryuchkov, in the August 1991 coup attempt 
>designed
>{    >         to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev. He used many of the KGB's 
>resources
>{    >         to aid the coup attempt. Kryuchkov was arrested, and 
>General Vadim
>{    >         Bakatin was appointed Chairman on August 23, 1991 with a 
>mandate to
>{    >         dismantle the KGB. On November 6, 1991 the Russian KGB 
>officially
>{    >         ceased to exist, though its successor organization, the
>{    > Federalnaya Sluzhba
>{    >         Bezopasnosti, or FSB, is functionally extremely similar to the
>{    > KGB. Belarus
>{    >         is the only post-Soviet society where the successor 
>organization
>{    > continues
>{    >         to be called the KGB. Belarus is also where one of the founders
>{    > of the
>{    >         KGB, Felix Dzerzhinsky ? who was born in a town now within 
>Belarusian
>{    >         territory ? remains a national hero.
>{    >
>{    >Lynda'd known these folks--father, daughter, divorced mother (who 
>still lives
>{    >in our building and who sat with us through the first half of the
>{    >reading)--so the
>{    >younger reader was someone who'd grown up knowing Lynda's kids. And here
>{    >she was, all grown up, with a husband and major-publisher book of 
>her own.
>{    >
>{    >Look, it's not that I have something against readings. Nowadays, 
>it's that
>{    >I seem
>{    >to have more and more against them. My wine glowed redly when I held 
>the glass
>{    >up in front of the candle on the table. The window to my right was so
>{    >dirty it wasn't
>{    >hard to imagine Soviet Moscow out there, mysterious figures emerging 
>from
>{    >the dim
>{    >recesses of cheery bars--where, happily, no readings were going
>{    >on--pulling their
>{    >caps down over their eyes and vanishing from sight on somewhat furtive
>{    >missions.
>{    >
>{    >
>{    >[KGB history fr. www.wikipedia.org]
>{    >
>{    >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
>{
>{
>{    _______________________________________________
>{    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 james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Thu Nov 13 17:10:16 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 23:10:16 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry]  server access
Message-ID: <000201c3aafc$43bf5900$d487fac1@pavilion>

Problem James ?
----- Original Message -----
From: "james.alexander1" <james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu;
>
Cc: <JforJames at aol.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 11:03 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity - cars synergy


> banality -- canon-i-city - cars:
> synergy...  (Euros symbol is converted to question mark on cut & paste to
email hence attachments)
>
> " Cris du Co e u r" -  Cry from the Heart - Cris de la Cour  - [C o e u r
is converted to Court (Cours) on Outlook Express so I separated the letters
creative error, perhaps useful, I kept the addition )]
>
> Autobahn,
> Inhibition on Prohibition
> Unarmed Bobby - Foot-soldier's lament.
>
> Speed bonny boat
> Like a bird on the wing
> Over the seas to Sky-e
>
> Bad a' boom, rap-t
> Hot metal blues *$^/??#??
>
> Ban that car
> Ban that gun
> Ban that hand-gun
>
> Ban that motor
> Ban that bike
> Ban that motor-bike
>
> Ban that liquor
> Ban that finger
> On that damned trigger
>
> Bad a' boom, rap-t
> Hot metal blues *$^/??#??
>
> Swing high, swing low
> Sweet chariot
> Coming for to carry me home
> So soon, too soon
>
> Bad a' boom rap-t
>
> Post Scriptum,
>
> Ban that sentence
> Ban that one sentence
> sentence.
>
> Ragtime - razz ma tazz
> Come on a hear.
> Come on a hear
>
> Convention on
> Prevention
> Concentration
> Project.
>
> ? JA.       (originally for J to J's  call on cars / driving.)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> THE POOR GOLFER
>
>
>
> It's not at all what you think.
>
> The good golfer does not need all this space,
>
> But the bad one, erratic driving!
>
> Not to mention time, so much wasted.
>
>
>
> Life slipping through one's fingers
>
>
>
> Dispondent
>
> He sought inspiration in the setting sun
>
> What a hope, Twilight
>
> That yellow orange sarcastic face
>
> Looked on-
> Not to be looked upon
>
>
>
>
>
> Low in the sky, rays filtered by those damned oak leaves
>
> Diffused
>
> The ones that play "au chat et ? la souris"
>
> with a golf ball
>
> Confused.
>
> Uniform threads of pure light
>
> Beams
>
>
>
> Bullets in the night tracing      ("influence of the snippers affair in
US,
> I guess")
>
> discrete
>
>
>
> Small movements made wonderous patterns
>
> Multiple sources eyed him, aped him
>
> recognition
>
>
>
> 45? to the right                                            "a Literal
> description of 2 of my shots! - banana's"
>
> 45? to the left
>
> The road home,
>
> 45mns is the shortest walk!
>
>
>
> End Sept. 2002, 1st typed 1 Oct.2002 JA.  (safeguard due to Winchester
disc
> problems)
>
> 2nd Draft 12, Nov
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Thom424 at aol.com>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 5:39 PM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] banality -- canonicity
>
>
> > i was also interested in seeing some examples of good poems that say
> something banal well...
> >
> > another query: since nearly all poems say something banal, are any of
the
> poets on the list interested in/satisfied with--either by intention or by
> default--writing a good poem that says something banal well?
> >
> > of course, i'm guessing all poets attempt/strive to say something new &
> extraordinary and say it well
> >
> > thom tammaro
> > moorhead, mn
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Nov 14 20:48:29 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 20:48:29 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Verosopath
References: <200311140142.hAE1gj1G003212@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <01cf01c3ab1a$923aeae0$64efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

A Preliminary, Hit&Miss Exploration of the Psychology of The Verosopath,
with a Portion of a Case-History-in-Progress


From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Fri Nov 14 22:05:36 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 20:05:36 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Verosopath
References: <200311140142.hAE1gj1G003212@wiz.cath.vt.edu> <01cf01c3ab1a$923aeae0$64efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <3FB59801.153166@earthlink.net>

Beware of co-dependent relationships with verosopaths.  Or is that versopaths?

- Jim's first and last words

Bob Grumman wrote:
> 
> A Preliminary, Hit&Miss Exploration of the Psychology of The Verosopath,
> with a Portion of a Case-History-in-Progress
> 
> >From verosopher, or (approximately) "truth-seeker," we get verosopath.  The
> verosopath is to discussions of ideas as the sociopath is to social
> functioning. He has a set outlook on life that he is psychologically
> incapable of changing, so he spends most of his life protecting it from all
> comers. Since he lacks the mentality properly to defend it, he generally
> takes the offensive, attacking any statement that seems to contradict some
> tenet he is permanently committed to. Since he lacks the mentality to refute
> any statement that is at all intelligent, his tactics are usually to
> confuse, divert and annoy rather than to reason against the statement.
> However, sometimes he will make reasonable responses to an argument--if he
> is certain they will win points for him. As soon as any such responses meet
> strong opposition, he returns to his confuse/divert/annoy mode.
> 
> Specimen 1:
> 
> "Bob -- what's at issue is whether you're trying to do
>  scientific investigation or literary criticism. Which is it?"
> 
> Note how the verosopath refuses to answer any direct question, in this case,
> one stated in previous posts about whether a text was clearly expressed or
> not.  The idea is to (1) force the discussion away from anything the
> verosopath can't deal with, and into areas he thinks he can; (2) to multiply
> what is asked so as to (a) confuse, (b) annoy, and (c) enlarge the forest of
> the discussion so that important questions the verosopath can't deal with
> will have an improved chance of being lost track of
> 
> Specimen 2:
> 
> Statement: "You'll never find out (whether my text is intended as science or
> literary criticism)."
> 
> Response: "Oh, I know what it is, Bob -- I think everyone who's followed
> this discussion in even the most casual way knows.  You're using scientific
> jargon as a sort of con-artist double-talk to try to make seem objective,
> and therefore legitimate, a view that is merely your subjective and, except
> for the sleight-of-mind taxo-
> babble, no more legitimate than anyone else's."
> 
> Note the way the verosopath insults his opponent.  The idea is to annoy him
> in order to (1) get him to make the kinds of mistakes upset people are more
> likely to make than cool-headed people are; and (2) to get him to respond
> with more direct negativity than the verosopath believes he has used, so the
> verosopath can claim to be the injured party, which is the kind of victory
> he knows is the only one he has a chance at.
> 
> At the same time, the verosopath turns the discussion into irrelevancies
> about his opponent's (suspect) motives--again, to multiply the questions
> being considered, but also to divert his opponent from the main issue into
> defending himself.  This is usually a highly effective tactic since most
> people have trouble ignoring slams of their thinking and ethics, however far
> from any question under discussion those slams take them.
> 
> Specimen 3, from an earlier post (as are the remainder of the specimens):
> 
> "Once again, Bob, the lack of clarity I'm pointing out is the lack of
> conceptual clarity behind your endeavor. It doesn't do a nonsensical
> conception any good to be clearly explained -- though it makes it easier for
> those reading it to conclude that it is nonsense. Clear
> nonsense is still nonsense."
> 
> Note the way the verosopath revises the question being discussed, in this
> case, "What is unclear about my text?"  I consider the tendency to rephrase
> an opponent's argument (almost invariably inaccurately) to be the most
> salient symptom of verosopathy.  The aim, once more, is to annoy one's
> opponent, and draw him away from his main proposition, which the verosopath
> fears to tackle directly.
> 
> Specimen 4:
> 
> Statement: "You said you could say what was unclear about the verbal
> expression of my statement, but never tried to do so."
> 
> Response: "My objection to your systematization of literary forms is clear,
> I hope: it's that no systematization can hope to systematize a field of
> endeavor where there is always an 'avant garde' determined to undermine that
> systematization. The irony here is, of course, that
> you view yourself as a member of the avant garde and yet don't seem to
> realize that the moment you declare that your 'taxonomy' is complete (on
> whatever grounds) you've necessarily transformed yourself into a
> conservative who must defend his categorization of
> what he himself has declared cannot be categorized insofar as he claims to
> be a member of the avant garde! Delicious."
> 
> Note, again, the way the verosopath multiplies the insults of--oh, not his
> opponent, just his opponent's view and motives--at the same time as he
> evades a direct statement, this time not so much rephrasing it as completely
> replacing it with one he likes better.
> 
> Specimen 5:
> 
> Statement: "There is nothing about (my text) to indicate
> satire."
> 
> "There is a good deal about it to indicate that you intend it to be
> scientific -- but the problem is, of course, that you can't have scientific
> rigor investigating a subject where at the whim or caprice of those being
> investigated they can declare a new category at any time -- and it's
> especially odd that one of the people determined to declare new categories
> of poetry should be one of the people
> determined to set the categories unchangeably into a taxonomy!
> 
> "But my point was that you cannot reasonably declare that it is how the
> reader takes any text that determines what kind of text it is if you hope to
> make a taxonomy work, even metaphorically, because that means that no matter
> what YOU, the taxonomist, calls the category any
> reader may call it anything else with impunity, thus destroying your
> taxonomy at his or her whim or caprice. You must, by the very attempt to
> determine categories, be in the business of dictating how your attempt must
> be taken.
> 
> "So, Bob, do you intend to do science or literary criticism?"
> 
> Again, the verosopath's obsession with his opponent's motives, for the
> reasons already given, followed by criticism of an irrelevant set of his
> opponent's alleged beliefs.  The verosopath will almost never directly
> confront a simple statement with which he disagrees.
> 
> Specimen 6:
> 
> "If science, I think the lack of clarity in your conception of what science
> itself is severely limits your so-called 'taxonomy', and I think you know
> it, to judge by the way you tack and jibe trying to avoid claiming you're
> doing science.
> 
> "If literary criticism, well, then, what's with all the techno-
> jargonesque neologistic wordplay and the elaborate clause-clotted prose that
> seems to want to emulate the least clear elements of how a scientist in a
> 'hard science' tries to translate ideas from math or physics into English?"
> 
> Another prominent trait of the verosopath is verbosity and repetition.  The
> aim is to go further and further from the dreaded focal statement.  And
> always, too, the obsession with the opponent's motives and probable though
> concealed (suspect) outlook.
> 
> Specimen 7:
> 
> Statement: "You're supposed to take my work as English.  You know that you
> can't show it to be unclear English, so you use other means to destroy it."
> 
> Response: "I have no personal interest in destroying your work because it's
> your work, Bob -- I have a sort of public-spirited interest in asking you
> the same hard questions I'd ask, that I have asked, others in the
> field of literary criticism who've claimed to have found a way to use
> scientific language to transform the subjective into the objective."
> 
> Another evasion of the simple question the verosopath at one time agreed to
> try to answer, whether a given text was clearly-expressed or not.
> 
> Specimen 8:
> 
> Statement: "I'd love to see you try to tell us what poetry is, and defend
> your definition.  You'd never dare.  All you're capable of doing is
> attacking definitions you don't care for, by any means available."
> 
> Response: "In fact I've done this several times on the net -- I don't
> recall, actually, if I've done it in New-Poetry or not. But my view of what
> poetry is or isn't, and my defenses of my views, are not really at issue
> here, Bob -- what's at issue is whether you're trying to do scientific
> investigation or literary criticism. Which is it?"
> 
> The verosopath repeats his boiler plate incessantly, to annoy, distract,
> confuse.  He may claim to state some case of his own somewhere, but never
> truly does; he merely attacks any view that threatens his tiny cluster of
> narrownesses.
> 
> --Bob G.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Fri Nov 14 23:01:50 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 23:01:50 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] "Sonnet: How Are Things Going?"
Message-ID: <001e01c3ab2d$32796380$25e8c043@computer>

Sonnet:   How Are Things Going?

How are things really going in Idaho? A tricky question, at first, inherently
difficult to answer in terms of counterinsurgency warfare
and nation-building efforts. Small trees (and large) blown down,
their "client areas" damaging roofs and garage, cars parked in driveways.

Highly partisan debate dominates the breakfast-table chatter, the latest
violence there, beyond the window for all to see, impossible to ignore.
More than 50 neighbors affected by this latest storm, this newest trend dom-
inating news coverage for miles around, overshadowing more in-depth

analysis based on government information. Of course, this being war,
the rivers remain largely fluid, despite our best efforts to get a fix on them.
New charts shed light on evolving situations, and that's better than
nothing, let me tell you--better than a filtration system that no longer works.

Winning Idaho hearts and minds, and lowering crime rates in general, remain
our goals, even with water services at 80 percent of pre-war levels. 


Hal

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
 






From JforJames at aol.com  Sat Nov 15 10:26:47 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 10:26:47 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] 2004 TAMPA REVIEW PRIZE
Message-ID: <c5.3ac44c72.2ce79fb7@aol.com>

University of Tampa Press

401 West Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, FL 33606

Dear Writer,
This is just a brief reminder that the University of Tampa Press is currently 
accepting manuscripts for the 2004 TAMPA REVIEW PRIZE FOR POETRY. Postmark 
deadline is Dec.31, 2003.   Complete guidelines are available at this weblink:
http://tampareview.utampa.edu/tr_prize.html
Winners receive hardcoverand paperback book publication of their manuscript, 
a $1000 cash prize, and a portfolio of selected poems from the book previewed 
in Tampa Review.
We hope our judgeswill be able to consider your work!
Best Wishes,
Richard Mathews,Director
University of TampaPress

Hardback Book Publication ? $1,000Cash Award ? Selected Poems Previewed in 
Tampa Review
International Publicity andDistribution ? Royalties on all sales of your book




From JforJames at aol.com  Sat Nov 15 11:58:18 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 11:58:18 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] System problems?
Message-ID: <136.27161e21.2ce7b52a@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/13/2003 10:46:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
joncpoetics at hotmail.com writes:

> I haven't seen any messages on this list from Tuesday afternoon to Thursday 
> 
> afternoon, and there aren't any in the archive.  Maybe nobody sent anything 
> in that period, but if they did and it was about my postings, I didn't see 
> it and that's why I haven't responded.
> 

Jon, and others, 
I've not been able to determine what the problem was, but
no messages were getting out to the list for a couple days.  
Jim Finnegan
List Manager
 
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Nov 15 13:51:02 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 12:51:02 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry Yearly
Message-ID: <BBDBD1B6.5477%grahamd@ripon.edu>

At a bookstore last night I picked up my copy of the new Poetry Daily
anthology--despite what Amazon says, it's already out well in advance of its
December pub date.  It contains a year's worth of poems (366, a leap year)
selected from their first 6 years of online featured poems.

The title is *Poetry Daily*, editors are Dianne Boller, Don Selby, and
Chryss Yost, and the publisher is Sourcebooks.

They've limited their picks to one poem per poet, so it's quite a variety of
voices. Without getting into any debate about aesthetic range, I think it's
safe to say that regular visitors to the PD site will not be surprised by
what's included, the famous (Kunitz, Gioia, Creeley, Koch, Olds, Rich, Dove,
Ferlinghetti, Levine, Kizer, et al.) and the less so.  Including, in my
case, the much less so.  Scanning the table of contents I spotted any number
of familiar names, including Paul Lake, Daisy Fried, Sam Gwynn, Gabe
Gudding, and Janet Holmes.

Among the things I find notable about the PD operation is that, as the
book's intro makes clear, it is run not by poets or even academics, but by
poetry *readers*.  Thet believe that, contrary to common wisdom, there
exists a large and growing readership for poetry that is not entirely
congruent with po-biz.  I haven't done a study of such things, but my
impression, visiting the site on a daily basis, is that they do, indeed,
seem to publish more non-academic poets than many journals do.  In any case,
the democracy of the web has probably altered the audience for poetry
irrevocably, I suspect.



====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================




From FanwoodJEL at aol.com  Sat Nov 15 15:16:54 2003
From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 15:16:54 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry Yearly
Message-ID: <12e.353044d3.2ce7e3b6@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/15/2003 1:51:22 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
grahamd at ripon.edu writes:

> the famous (Kunitz, Gioia, Creeley, Koch, Olds, Rich, Dove,
> Ferlinghetti, Levine, Kizer, et al.) 

Thanks for ranking me with the famously famous in Poetry Daily, David. By the 
way, Phil Levine is also in the anthology. I hear he's a comer.

Jeffrey
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Nov 15 15:29:12 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 14:29:12 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Poetry Yearly
In-Reply-To: <12e.353044d3.2ce7e3b6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <BBDBE8B8.5484%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Just be glad your last name's not Ashbery, I say.

Ah, we should all form a club--those of us whose surnames have been usurped
by others.   Jorie's got "Graham" nailed down, apparently.  And I'm not sure
if Rosanna Warren will ever emerge from the broad shadow of her father's
name.

Then there are the several Williams's and the many Wrights:  James, Franz,
Charles, C. D., Carolyn . . . .   And -- surely you can answer this,
Jeffrey--I've always wanted to know if Jennifer Michael Hecht is related to
you-know-who?

I guess Carol & Richard are doing OK these days with the Frost franchise,
though.  

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================


From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com
Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 15:16:54 EST
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poetry Yearly


In a message dated 11/15/2003 1:51:22 PM Eastern Standard Time,
grahamd at ripon.edu writes:

the famous (Kunitz, Gioia, Creeley, Koch, Olds, Rich, Dove,
Ferlinghetti, Levine, Kizer, et al.)


Thanks for ranking me with the famously famous in Poetry Daily, David. By
the way, Phil Levine is also in the anthology. I hear he's a comer.

Jeffrey 


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From FanwoodJEL at aol.com  Sat Nov 15 16:00:01 2003
From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 16:00:01 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Poetry Yearly
Message-ID: <5f.41a8299c.2ce7edd1@aol.com>

Well, I'm delighted of course to be sharing an anthology with 
what's-his-name. And anyway, our work is a tad different, as is your'n and what's-her-name's, 
though I wonder . . . if you pureed your poems  . . .  

Jennifer Michael Hecht is utterly unrelated to you know who. Jennifer has two 
new books out, by the way. Both scholarly, though suffused with her 
inimitable wit and so entertaining and wholly approachable: _End of the Soul_ (Columbia 
University Press), and  _Doubt: A History : The Great Doubters and Their 
Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily 
Dickinson_ (Harper SanFrancisco). She was on NPR yesterday talking about Doubt.?You 
might like to see/hear:?

<A HREF="http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1505065.html">http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1505065.html</A>?


Jeffrey


In a message dated 11/15/2003 3:29:44 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
grahamd at ripon.edu writes:

> Just be glad your last name's not Ashbery, I say.
> 
> Ah, we should all form a club--those of us whose surnames have been usurped 
> by others.   Jorie's got "Graham" nailed down, apparently.  And I'm not sure 
> if Rosanna Warren will ever emerge from the broad shadow of her father's 
> name.
> 
> Then there are the several Williams's and the many Wrights:  James, Franz, 
> Charles, C. D., Carolyn . . . .   And -- surely you can answer this, 
> Jeffrey--I've always wanted to know if Jennifer Michael Hecht is related to 
> you-know-who?
> 

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From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sat Nov 15 16:41:48 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 14:41:48 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Poetry Yearly
References: <BBDBE8B8.5484%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3FB69D9C.B799876D@earthlink.net>

Ahem.  C-e-r-v-a-n-t-e-s?  At least my lineage has some history behind
it.  BTW, that woman named after a cookie is NOT of OUR lineage.  Harrumph.

- Jim

p.s. - And don't start talking about wheelwrights, and hoarfrost, and
Graham crackers.

David Graham wrote:
> 
> Just be glad your last name's not Ashbery, I say.
> 
> Ah, we should all form a club--those of us whose surnames have been
> usurped by others.   Jorie's got "Graham" nailed down, apparently.
>  And I'm not sure if Rosanna Warren will ever emerge from the broad
> shadow of her father's name.
> 
> Then there are the several Williams's and the many Wrights:  James,
> Franz, Charles, C. D., Carolyn . . . .   And -- surely you can answer
> this, Jeffrey--I've always wanted to know if Jennifer Michael Hecht is
> related to you-know-who?
> 
> I guess Carol & Richard are doing OK these days with the Frost
> franchise, though.
> 
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> ====================================================
> 
>      From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com
>      Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>      Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 15:16:54 EST
>      To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>      Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poetry Yearly
> 
>      In a message dated 11/15/2003 1:51:22 PM Eastern Standard
>      Time, grahamd at ripon.edu writes:
> 
>           the famous (Kunitz, Gioia, Creeley, Koch, Olds,
>           Rich, Dove,
>           Ferlinghetti, Levine, Kizer, et al.)
> 
>      Thanks for ranking me with the famously famous in Poetry
>      Daily, David. By the way, Phil Levine is also in the
>      anthology. I hear he's a comer.
> 
>      Jeffrey


From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sat Nov 15 17:09:46 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 23:09:46 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Poetry Yearly
References: <BBDBE8B8.5484%grahamd@ripon.edu> <3FB69D9C.B799876D@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <003401c3abc5$2e6b5940$fb607550@anny>

Oh poor Cervantes...
And besides that: Words and words and words! What are they compared to the
power on Music Ballard had at the Court of Louis XIV, Monsieur Le Roi
Soleil? Lully il ?tait l?, touts les jours, bien sur.
(But I like that _Harrumph_)

And what about Finnegans who is not allowed to sleep any more? Yes, James is
his name.

Be also careful with HR, Helen we have all read about, and Ruggieri comes
from _ruggire_, or?
:-)
a


From: "James Cervantes" <jvcervantes at earthlink.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> Ahem.  C-e-r-v-a-n-t-e-s?  At least my lineage has some history behind
> it.  BTW, that woman named after a cookie is NOT of OUR lineage.
Harrumph.
>
> - Jim
>
> p.s. - And don't start talking about wheelwrights, and hoarfrost, and
> Graham crackers.
>
> David Graham wrote:
> >
> > Just be glad your last name's not Ashbery, I say.
> >
> > Ah, we should all form a club--those of us whose surnames have been
> > usurped by others.   Jorie's got "Graham" nailed down, apparently.
> >  And I'm not sure if Rosanna Warren will ever emerge from the broad
> > shadow of her father's name.
> >
> > Then there are the several Williams's and the many Wrights:  James,
> > Franz, Charles, C. D., Carolyn . . . .   And -- surely you can answer
> > this, Jeffrey--I've always wanted to know if Jennifer Michael Hecht is
> > related to you-know-who?
> >
> > I guess Carol & Richard are doing OK these days with the Frost
> > franchise, though.
> >
> > ====================================================
> > David Graham
> > grahamd at ripon.edu
> > Home Page:
> > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> > Poetry Library:
> > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> > ====================================================
> >
> >      From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com
> >      Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> >      Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 15:16:54 EST
> >      To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> >      Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poetry Yearly
> >
> >      In a message dated 11/15/2003 1:51:22 PM Eastern Standard
> >      Time, grahamd at ripon.edu writes:
> >
> >           the famous (Kunitz, Gioia, Creeley, Koch, Olds,
> >           Rich, Dove,
> >           Ferlinghetti, Levine, Kizer, et al.)
> >
> >      Thanks for ranking me with the famously famous in Poetry
> >      Daily, David. By the way, Phil Levine is also in the
> >      anthology. I hear he's a comer.
> >
> >      Jeffrey
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Nov 15 19:26:05 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 16:26:05 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Sigh ...
Message-ID: <BAY7-F35JBjbUf9Sp2W0000bde1@hotmail.com>

Faintly amusing, faintly depressing article about Charles Simic at:


                       
http://www.modbee.com/arts/books/story/7714101p-8616821c.html


==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Shopping upgraded for the holidays!  Snappier product search... 
http://shopping.msn.com



From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Nov 15 19:48:36 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 16:48:36 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] 2004 TAMPA REVIEW PRIZE
Message-ID: <BAY7-F89O0ymoF46mRg0000c039@hotmail.com>

>Dear Writer,
>This is just a brief reminder that the University of Tampa Press is 
>currently accepting manuscripts for the 2004 TAMPA REVIEW PRIZE FOR POETRY. 
>Postmark deadline is Dec.31, 2003.   Complete guidelines are available at 
>this weblink:
>http://tampareview.utampa.edu/tr_prize.html

Where you'll find as expected that they want $20.00 to look at your 
miserable spew.  I personally am staunchly averse to paying such a fee.  Do 
you realize how much beer you can buy for twenty bucks?

-----

"Dear Editor:

   This is to announce that my poems are now available for your 
consideration for inclusion in your magazine.   If you would like to respond 
to this offer, please forward a stamped self-addressed envelope and a 
handling fee for EACH poem you would like to see of $25.00 for unpublished 
poems and $15.00 for previously published poems.  I look forward to hearing 
from you!  Yours truly ..."


==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Crave some Miles Davis or Grateful Dead?  Your old favorites are always 
playing on MSN Radio Plus. Trial month free! 
http://join.msn.com/?page=offers/premiumradio



From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Nov 15 19:59:12 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 16:59:12 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] RE:  Poetry Yearly
Message-ID: <BAY7-F93hKLcyyD8jbP0000c174@hotmail.com>

>  In any case,
>the democracy of the web has probably altered the audience for poetry
>irrevocably, I suspect.

In an article "From Scotland to Suburbia," published in 1994 in Chapman 
(full version available via my web site in the link in the signature below), 
I ventured some predictions on the effect of the internet on poetry as 
follows.  Though I'm speaking here in the context of British poetry, I think 
much of it applies, mutatis mutandis, to American.

===============
As I read through the current British verse available to me, I formed an 
impression of a rough but clear sort of cursus honorum among British poets, 
consisting of successive publication in 1) student and very local or 
short-lived poetry magazines, 2) small but well-established regional 
magazines which one British poet of my acquaintance has described as 
"hobbyist", 3) the more prominent regionally based magazines which have a 
national reputation, 4) major national magazines like Agenda, Chapman or 
London Magazine, or inclusion in an anthology published by a highly regarded 
commercial or academic publisher, leading finally to 5) induction into the 
Valhalla of an individual Selected or Collected poems by such a publisher. 
No doubt the situation is more complex than this, and I haven't been able to 
take into account such factors as performance or prize competitions, but at 
least a couple of the British poets to whom I have communicated this 
impression have told me that overall it is generally recognisable.

The key concept underlying such a situation is that of a hierarchy of 
prestige among the various channels for communicating poetry. At the very 
bottom are methods such as posting one's poems on the sides of buildings or 
reciting them in pubs in exchange for a pint: though this may be publication 
in the broad meaning of the term, it is not considered real publication in 
the careerist sense. Real publications have three characteristics: they are 
printed on paper bound into books or magazines, they are sold in shops or by 
subscription, and they are refereed by editors with generally recognised 
credentials for doing so. It is this last point that chiefly determines the 
amount of realness - that is, the prestige - of a given publication: the 
greater the respect commanded by the academic or commercial institutions 
with which the referees are associated, the more real, or prestigious, the 
publication will be.

The impact of this way of propagating poetry on the poetic life of a nation 
is immense, since it has the effect of establishing a structured class of 
literary mandarins as the arbiters of what type of poetry will be encouraged 
to establish itself. And because its own prestige depends on the legitimacy 
of current perceptions of literary and academic respectability, this class, 
whatever their politics may be, will in the literary sense be deeply 
conservative.

It is no doubt rash to predict the future course of either literature or 
technology, but since poets are supposed to be prophets, I will take the 
risk and predict that the Internet will bring about the end of the 
predominance of this hierarchy of poetic respectability. It will do so, I 
believe, by eroding that hierarchy's most fundamental power: the ability to 
attribute different amounts of realness to various publications. The 
appearance of on-line magazines with a professional level of design is 
already making it difficult to define a hierarchy of prestige in verse 
propagated via the Internet, and fortunately the situation is very likely in 
the future to become even more confusing. If these trends continue, the 
effect could be the increasing isolation, and eventually the supplanting, of 
the currently established hierarchy of verse publication by a much more 
freewheeling and diverse body of work which will be exempt from the 
necessity of conforming to the requirements of the literary mandarins and 
will thus really be free to establish its worth by competition in the 
marketplace of public taste.

===============

In retrospect, I think I can claim that so far, at any rate, my prophecy has 
come true only in a very limited sense.  The nature of the  poetry 
establishment in America seems not to have been changed at all as result of 
the internet.  But what is happening, as David Gramham's remark indicates, 
it that the internet is changing the nature of the audience for poetry.

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Compare high-speed Internet plans, starting at $26.95.  
https://broadband.msn.com (Prices may vary by service area.)



From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Nov 15 23:50:04 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 20:50:04 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Peoms by others:  Perhaps because ... by Peter russell
Message-ID: <BAY7-F6737W4jb8BGxW0000c64d@hotmail.com>

Perhaps because you are the fatal image
Of calm itself, always so dear to me,
Evening, come to my arms, serenity
And twilight silence, you who like a bridge
Over deep waters, on our pilgrimage,
Above the abyss, into eternity,
If only an instant, lift us, and we see
Clearly displayed our ancient heritage:

As though all language was at once green land
And an enchanted city made for souls
Who journey in imagination, not on wheels,
Reduce slow time to instants, squarely stand
On peaks of vision, and spread out all the scrolls
Upon the starry floor your dusk reveals.


                       -- Peter Russell
                          1921 - 2003


==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Frustrated with dial-up? Get high-speed for as low as $26.95.  
https://broadband.msn.com (Prices may vary by service area.)



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sun Nov 16 04:19:44 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 10:19:44 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] RE:  Poetry Yearly
References: <BAY7-F93hKLcyyD8jbP0000c174@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <003801c3ac22$c6855c00$a71c2dd5@anny>

From: "Jon Corelis" <joncpoetics at hotmail.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> >  In any case,
> >the democracy of the web has probably altered the audience for poetry
> >irrevocably, I suspect.
>
> In an article "From Scotland to Suburbia," published in 1994 in Chapman
> (full version available via my web site in the link in the signature
below),
> I ventured some predictions on the effect of the internet on poetry as
> follows.  Though I'm speaking here in the context of British poetry, I
think
> much of it applies, mutatis mutandis, to American.
>
> ===============
> As I read through the current British verse available to me, I formed an
> impression of a rough but clear sort of cursus honorum among British
poets,
> consisting of successive publication in 1) student and very local or
> short-lived poetry magazines, 2) small but well-established regional
> magazines which one British poet of my acquaintance has described as
> "hobbyist", 3) the more prominent regionally based magazines which have a
> national reputation, 4) major national magazines like Agenda, Chapman or
> London Magazine, or inclusion in an anthology published by a highly
regarded
> commercial or academic publisher, leading finally to 5) induction into the
> Valhalla of an individual Selected or Collected poems by such a publisher.
> No doubt the situation is more complex than this, and I haven't been able
to
> take into account such factors as performance or prize competitions, but
at
> least a couple of the British poets to whom I have communicated this
> impression have told me that overall it is generally recognisable.
>
> The key concept underlying such a situation is that of a hierarchy of
> prestige among the various channels for communicating poetry. At the very
> bottom are methods such as posting one's poems on the sides of buildings
or
> reciting them in pubs in exchange for a pint: though this may be
publication
> in the broad meaning of the term, it is not considered real publication in
> the careerist sense. Real publications have three characteristics: they
are
> printed on paper bound into books or magazines, they are sold in shops or
by
> subscription, and they are refereed by editors with generally recognised
> credentials for doing so. It is this last point that chiefly determines
the
> amount of realness - that is, the prestige - of a given publication: the
> greater the respect commanded by the academic or commercial institutions
> with which the referees are associated, the more real, or prestigious, the
> publication will be.
>
> The impact of this way of propagating poetry on the poetic life of a
nation
> is immense, since it has the effect of establishing a structured class of
> literary mandarins as the arbiters of what type of poetry will be
encouraged
> to establish itself. And because its own prestige depends on the
legitimacy
> of current perceptions of literary and academic respectability, this
class,
> whatever their politics may be, will in the literary sense be deeply
> conservative.
>
> It is no doubt rash to predict the future course of either literature or
> technology, but since poets are supposed to be prophets, I will take the
> risk and predict that the Internet will bring about the end of the
> predominance of this hierarchy of poetic respectability. It will do so, I
> believe, by eroding that hierarchy's most fundamental power: the ability
to
> attribute different amounts of realness to various publications. The
> appearance of on-line magazines with a professional level of design is
> already making it difficult to define a hierarchy of prestige in verse
> propagated via the Internet, and fortunately the situation is very likely
in
> the future to become even more confusing. If these trends continue, the
> effect could be the increasing isolation, and eventually the supplanting,
of
> the currently established hierarchy of verse publication by a much more
> freewheeling and diverse body of work which will be exempt from the
> necessity of conforming to the requirements of the literary mandarins and
> will thus really be free to establish its worth by competition in the
> marketplace of public taste.
>
> ===============
>
> In retrospect, I think I can claim that so far, at any rate, my prophecy
has
> come true only in a very limited sense.  The nature of the  poetry
> establishment in America seems not to have been changed at all as result
of
> the internet.  But what is happening, as David Gramham's remark indicates,
> it that the internet is changing the nature of the audience for poetry.
>
> ==================================================
>
> Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
> http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
>
> ==================================================
Hello Jon,

I agree with almost all what you have written here, and I have something to
add to your last comment, and to Graham's. I am very hopeful in the
Internet, and I think that the _revolutionary change_ you mentioned above
will take place, it anyhow needs time (I have always sided with Pierre
L?vy). Especially because of the strong opposition by those who have
important (read expensive) books on the market, and the publishing industry
in general.
The audience is different and the gap between the previous audience and this
new one will grow even more. Again time is needed to allow for such an
important and complete transformation which is mainly established (in
statistical terms with the highest figures) by the newly-developed
countries, and in a second time by the poorest nations. About 2 decades ago,
culture was in the hands of a very conservative and restricted power, I am
referring specifically to Italy (Pasolini and Pavese were able to record
what was happening), and I think - since you know Greece well, ---the same
goes for Spain and Portugal - that you can notice a similar progress in the
4 countries among the last generations. Opening which was first brought by
television (the little I evaluate it the highest importance it has at a
historical level), less than half a century ago (by this I mean a television
set in every house), and before by the radio, -in the specific field of
information, the two big wars had a weight.
Not only. In these days I was wondering also that newspapers will disappear
completely, maybe within a decade, unless some major twist takes place. This
is out of my direct experience. I collaborate with both, an art's magazine
online (for free) and there are usually from about 250 (lowest figure I
noticed) to 5-6-700 people online every time I access the site; the local
newspaper I work for and which should pay me some, is much lower as per
readers.

A good Sunday,

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

If you go with rivers, not roads, the trip
takes longer and you weave and see a lot more.
(from Houses)
Richard Hugo




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Nov 16 06:40:51 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 06:40:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Sigh ...
References: <BAY7-F35JBjbUf9Sp2W0000bde1@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <001201c3ac36$7d406710$6eefa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

Too me the depressing thing is not the students'; ignoring Simic, but the
author of the article's not.

--Bob G.




From hruggier at localnet.com  Sun Nov 16 11:33:32 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 11:33:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Poetry Yearly
References: <BBDBE8B8.5484%grahamd@ripon.edu> <3FB69D9C.B799876D@earthlink.net> <003401c3abc5$2e6b5940$fb607550@anny>
Message-ID: <3FB7A6DC.924F5ED@localnet.com>

Well, if you read your Dante, you'll find a Bishop Ruggieri in one of the lower
circles -
chewing on his intestines, or somebody else's . . . .

You folks might think of changing your name to something impossible for
Americans
to pronounce.


Anny Ballardini wrote:

> Oh poor Cervantes...
> And besides that: Words and words and words! What are they compared to the
> power on Music Ballard had at the Court of Louis XIV, Monsieur Le Roi
> Soleil? Lully il ?tait l?, touts les jours, bien sur.
> (But I like that _Harrumph_)
>
> And what about Finnegans who is not allowed to sleep any more? Yes, James is
> his name.
>
> Be also careful with HR, Helen we have all read about, and Ruggieri comes
> from _ruggire_, or?
> :-)
> a
>
> From: "James Cervantes" <jvcervantes at earthlink.net>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>
> > Ahem.  C-e-r-v-a-n-t-e-s?  At least my lineage has some history behind
> > it.  BTW, that woman named after a cookie is NOT of OUR lineage.
> Harrumph.
> >
> > - Jim
> >
> > p.s. - And don't start talking about wheelwrights, and hoarfrost, and
> > Graham crackers.
> >
> > David Graham wrote:
> > >
> > > Just be glad your last name's not Ashbery, I say.
> > >
> > > Ah, we should all form a club--those of us whose surnames have been
> > > usurped by others.   Jorie's got "Graham" nailed down, apparently.
> > >  And I'm not sure if Rosanna Warren will ever emerge from the broad
> > > shadow of her father's name.
> > >
> > > Then there are the several Williams's and the many Wrights:  James,
> > > Franz, Charles, C. D., Carolyn . . . .   And -- surely you can answer
> > > this, Jeffrey--I've always wanted to know if Jennifer Michael Hecht is
> > > related to you-know-who?
> > >
> > > I guess Carol & Richard are doing OK these days with the Frost
> > > franchise, though.
> > >
> > > ====================================================
> > > David Graham
> > > grahamd at ripon.edu
> > > Home Page:
> > > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> > > Poetry Library:
> > > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> > > ====================================================
> > >
> > >      From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com
> > >      Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > >      Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 15:16:54 EST
> > >      To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > >      Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poetry Yearly
> > >
> > >      In a message dated 11/15/2003 1:51:22 PM Eastern Standard
> > >      Time, grahamd at ripon.edu writes:
> > >
> > >           the famous (Kunitz, Gioia, Creeley, Koch, Olds,
> > >           Rich, Dove,
> > >           Ferlinghetti, Levine, Kizer, et al.)
> > >
> > >      Thanks for ranking me with the famously famous in Poetry
> > >      Daily, David. By the way, Phil Levine is also in the
> > >      anthology. I hear he's a comer.
> > >
> > >      Jeffrey
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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 anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sun Nov 16 15:49:35 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 21:49:35 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Poetry Yearly + Dante
References: <BBDBE8B8.5484%grahamd@ripon.edu> <3FB69D9C.B799876D@earthlink.net> <003401c3abc5$2e6b5940$fb607550@anny> <3FB7A6DC.924F5ED@localnet.com>
Message-ID: <006301c3ac83$252b6500$ca737450@anny>

From: "Helen Ruggieri" <hruggier at localnet.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> Well, if you read your Dante, you'll find a Bishop Ruggieri in one of the
lower
> circles -
> chewing on his intestines, or somebody else's . . . .
>
> You folks might think of changing your name to something impossible for
> Americans
> to pronounce.
>
Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini together with Ugolino di Guelfo della
Gherardesca, conte di Donoratico who ate his skull - Inferno - Canto XXXIII

Quand' ebbe detto ci?, con li occhi torti
riprese 'l teschio misero co' denti,
che furo a l'osso, come d'un can, forti.

Dante's political views were quite strong and fierce.
I had to go back and read on the net, taken from the etext on Gutenberg, I
can barely remember Dante wrote the Divine Comedy.
Here is an engraving of Count Ugolino who died out of hunger with his two
children and two nephews in the tower of the Muda, accused of betrayal, he
will have to eat Ruggieri's skull because he nourished himself of human
flesh before dying, and had previously listened to the Archbishop's advice.
They brought the Guelfi to power in Pisa, while Ugolino's family belonged to
the opposed party, the Ghibellini.
http://digilander.libero.it/karalinet/classe4/leggendaugolino.htm

Anny

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

If you go with rivers, not roads, the trip
takes longer and you weave and see a lot more.
(from Houses)
Richard Hugo




From halvard at earthlink.net  Sun Nov 16 15:46:54 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 15:46:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Poetry Yearly + Dante
In-Reply-To: <006301c3ac83$252b6500$ca737450@anny>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOEBBHMAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

  
{    > Well, if you read your Dante, you'll find a Bishop Ruggieri in one of the
{    lower
{    > circles -
{    > chewing on his intestines, or somebody else's . . . .

Well, I know they're not those of any of my ancestors.

Hal, always pleased to find no Johnsons in Dante's Hell

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sun Nov 16 16:22:31 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 22:22:31 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Poetry Yearly + Dante
References: <BBDBE8B8.5484%grahamd@ripon.edu> <3FB69D9C.B799876D@earthlink.net> <003401c3abc5$2e6b5940$fb607550@anny> <3FB7A6DC.924F5ED@localnet.com> <006301c3ac83$252b6500$ca737450@anny>
Message-ID: <007701c3ac87$bf4776c0$ca737450@anny>

Sorry, even more complicated, let me finish out of duty.

He was unjustly accused by the Archbishop Ruggieri of betrayal.

It was in 1275 that Count Ugolino agreed with his son-in-law Giovanni
Visconti to bring the Guelfis to power. As soon as the conspiracy was
discovered, he was banished, but the following year he came back to Pisa and
was able to conquer again both authority and prestige. After the defeat of
the Pisans in the battle of Meloria in 1284, he took the rule of the
municipality in the office of podest?. In 1288, the Gibellinis revolted
under the leadership of Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini together with the
Gualandi, Sismondi and Lanfranchi families.


> Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini together with Ugolino di Guelfo della
> Gherardesca, conte di Donoratico who ate his skull - Inferno - Canto
XXXIII
>
> Quand' ebbe detto ci?, con li occhi torti
> riprese 'l teschio misero co' denti,
> che furo a l'osso, come d'un can, forti.
>
> Dante's political views were quite strong and fierce.
> I had to go back and read on the net, taken from the etext on Gutenberg, I
> can barely remember Dante wrote the Divine Comedy.
> Here is an engraving of Count Ugolino who died out of hunger with his two
> children and two nephews in the tower of the Muda, accused of betrayal, he
> will have to eat Ruggieri's skull because he nourished himself of human
> flesh before dying, and had previously listened to the Archbishop's
advice.
> They brought the Guelfi to power in Pisa, while Ugolino's family belonged
to
> the opposed party, the Ghibellini.
> http://digilander.libero.it/karalinet/classe4/leggendaugolino.htm
>
> Anny
>
> Anny Ballardini
>
> http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php
>
> If you go with rivers, not roads, the trip
> takes longer and you weave and see a lot more.
> (from Houses)
> Richard Hugo
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From ron.silliman at verizon.net  Mon Nov 17 07:34:39 2003
From: ron.silliman at verizon.net (Ron)
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 07:34:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog
Message-ID: <000001c3ad07$2f746780$79f88044@Dell>

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

Jack Collom:
How to shut up in a poem

Writing after 60, after 70

Philadelphia Progressive Poetry Calendar

In memoriam: Mario Merz 
(Arts of Fibonacci)

Poetry & jazz

What do you support
if you publish in a journal that 
appears to exclude women 
or if you like Ezra Pound?

A new talk from 
William Carlos Williams:
The Basis of Poetic Form

Keston Sutherland:
What is vagueness?

Gary Sullivan on Dan Davidson's Culture

Bruce Andrews:
Born to blog
(against "comfy" reading)

Jake Berry replies
to my review

Dan Davidson's Culture -
when the "early work" is the only work

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/






From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Nov 17 08:21:10 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 08:21:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] verbal v conceptual clarity
In-Reply-To: <01e301c398fb$1ac16100$6b94fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3FB884F6.27327.222FF5@localhost>

Marcus:
> > > > Well I've demonstrated that your taxonomy is unclear
> > > > already...<<

Bob:
> > > You utterly failed to.  You said it was unclearly expressed and
> > > I asked you to show what was unclear about it, step by step. 
> > > You were unable even to begin to do that.<<

The central lack of clarity in your efforts to categorize poetry by 
apparently scientific means, Bob,  is the lack of conceptual clarity 
behind your endeavor. What's clear is that you're trying to use the 
language of science to lend legitimacy to your literary criticism. 
The lack of clarity inheres in your apparent belief that you're 
really doing science when all you're doing is using scientific-
sounding language and following a scientific-looking form by calling 
your description of some of the kinds of poetry in the world "a 
taxonomy". Your description is no more a taxonomy than the carved 
wooden boxes of the cargo-cult islanders are radios.  No matter how 
you imitate the traditional form of science (and ah, the irony of an 
avant gardist who dismisses  traditional form relying on merely a 
traditional form!) you seem to miss entirely the substance of 
science. You are not forming an hypothesis to be tested against 
reality, you are proposing an agenda-driven categorization of poetry 
with the intent to diminish the dominance of mainstream poetries and 
enhance the standing of your own, and others', avant gardist 
poetries. Your "system" is not descriptive it is prescriptive -- and 
that alone makes it clearly not scientific.

> > > You said you could say what was unclear about the verbal
> > > expression of my statement, but never tried to do so.<<

This dichotomy you seem to want to insist on, that it is possible to 
be clear in a merely verbal expression, and that that sort of merely 
verbally expressive clarity is enough to justify a claim to 
substantive clarity, is curious -- and wrong.  

The tone and manner you use in your presentation of your views 
resemble the tone and manner scientists use to present notions from 
math and physics to the math- and physics-less, and look to me to be 
an attempt to pre-empt a legitimacy from science that cannot be pre-
empted but must, instead, be earned by a sort of bending-over-
backwards attempt to show the reasons that your view is the most 
reasonable one in the light of all the evidence, not just according 
to the evidence you select that happens to support your thesis. 

Instead of trying to demonstrate your case by making an hypothesis 
and then sifting all the evidence to try to both verify and falsify 
your own conclusions, you have appropriated the form and format of 
one field and applied it to another, and tried to use the form and 
format to lend a supposed objective weight to your merely subjective 
opinions.

 > > > You could take it to be Spanish, if you want to, Marcus.  But
> > >  I wanted you to take it as English.  There is nothing about it
> > >  to indicate satire.<

Just so -- there is nothing about your views to indicate satire! But 
the question was what if I take it to be satire in the teeth of your 
attempts to make it seem like science? Is my "taking it to be so" as 
a reader sufficient warrant to make it so? Or is there a "meaning it 
to be so" by the writer that the tone, manner, context, and substance 
of the presentation that requires the reader to take some things as 
science and others as satire, or whatever?

Clearly, it seems to me, you do not want to hold that however the 
reader takes it makes it so -- because you say "There is nothing 
about it to indicate satire." That means, it seems to me, pretty 
explicitly, that you hold that it is some part of the writer's job to 
create an appropriate context for his substance so that it is taken, 
for example, as science instead of literary criticism, or as literary 
criticism instead of science, or as satire, or as something else.

And, it seems to me, human beings being what we are, that there will 
be times when it is unclear to the reader what context the writer is 
trying to create. In an email discussion list the opportunity to ask 
the writer "Do you intend this as science or as literary criticism?" 
is easy and clear -- and it seems to me that the writer has some 
obligation to answer such questions other than with "Take it however 
you please", particularly when the writer also protests that "There 
is nothing about it to indicate satire."! You can't have it both 
ways, Bob -- either you mean to present your views in a writerly way 
so that the reader takes your meaning in the context in which you 
mean it, or you cede entirely to the reader how to take what you 
write, and you have no ground on which to stand if they take your 
most serious attempts at science as anything they please, from 
competent to incompetent, from serious to satire, from important to 
insignificant.

But it seems to me that your protest, "There is nothing about it to 
indicate satire." means you agree with me that it is NOT how the 
reader takes it that is dispositive, you see. It is the writer's job 
to provide context and content, and to get his or her ideas across, 
not just to blurt them out there, leaving it to the reader to create 
the context and the content.

With that in mind, you cannot reasonably claim that it is the 
reader's job to create your context and content for you -- it is your 
job as the writer to do so. The context you're trying to create, to 
judge from your tone and manner, is clearly the presumption of a 
scientific one: you hope that readers will understand you to be 
offering them a scientific view, an objective view, of poetry.

> > > You're supposed to take my work as English.  You know that you
> > > can't show it to be unclear English, so you use other means to
> > > destroy it.<

Here again you seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that 
anything that can be clearly said must be conceptually clear, too. My 
point is that one can speak, or write, clear nonsense -- and that the 
clarity of the nonsense doesn't offer any legitimacy to the nonsense 
because clear nonsense is nonsense still. 

What I'm pointing out about the clarity of your attempt to categorize 
poetry is that the clarity of your conception is, in my view, in 
serious doubt, irrespective of how clearly, or how clottedly, you 
present your clauses.

You seem to believe that if you can state your view clearly that the 
very clarity of your view ought to count, somehow, in its favor as to 
whether your view is reasonable or not. Clarity of expression is one 
thing and clarity of conception another, though: you get no points 
for clarity of expression if what you're expressing is an unclear 
conception.

In my view your initial conception is unclear: you don't seem to know 
whether you are trying to do science or literary criticism.  But 
secondarily, you seem to make a claim for some sort of scientism, to 
judge by your use of the word "taxonomy" and your manner of 
presentation, and in light of the lack of clarity of your conception 
it seems to me that your expression, your manner of presentation, is 
unclear because you seem to be trying to present literary criticism 
as if it were science. 

> > > I'd love to see you try to tell us what poetry is, and defend
> > > your definition.  You'd never dare.  All you're capable of
> > > doing is attacking definitions you don't care for, by any means
> > > available.

First, my views are not at issue -- yours are. You've made your 
claims and I propose to examine them because you make them in a forum 
where discussion of points of view about literature and poetry is 
welcome, in general. 

Second, though, if you'd like to discuss my views with me in another 
thread, I'll be happy to do so.

So, Bob, why do you present your ideas about literary criticism, a 
non-scientific field of endeavor, in a format that on the face of it 
makes a claim for scientific rigor, if not to make some sort of claim 
for scientific rigor?

Marcus







From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Mon Nov 17 09:54:55 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (tadrichards at prodigy.net)
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 09:54:55 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] School of Disembodied Introductions
Message-ID: <410-2200311117145455650@M2W068.mail2web.com>

I'm this week's audio host at Cortland Review (www.cortlandreview.com)

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .





From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Mon Nov 17 10:49:47 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 09:49:47 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry Yearly
In-Reply-To: <BBDBD1B6.5477%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <BBDE4A3B.5A37%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 11/15/03 12:51 PM, David Graham at grahamd at ripon.edu wrote:

> At a bookstore last night I picked up my copy of the new Poetry Daily
> anthology--despite what Amazon says, it's already out well in advance of its
> December pub date.  It contains a year's worth of poems (366, a leap year)
> selected from their first 6 years of online featured poems.
> 
> The title is *Poetry Daily*, editors are Dianne Boller, Don Selby, and
> Chryss Yost, and the publisher is Sourcebooks.
> 
> They've limited their picks to one poem per poet, so it's quite a variety of
> voices. Without getting into any debate about aesthetic range, I think it's
> safe to say that regular visitors to the PD site will not be surprised by
> what's included, the famous (Kunitz, Gioia, Creeley, Koch, Olds, Rich, Dove,
> Ferlinghetti, Levine, Kizer, et al.) and the less so.  Including, in my
> case, the much less so.  Scanning the table of contents I spotted any number
> of familiar names, including Paul Lake, Daisy Fried, Sam Gwynn, Gabe
> Gudding, and Janet Holmes.
> 
> Among the things I find notable about the PD operation is that, as the
> book's intro makes clear, it is run not by poets or even academics, but by
> poetry *readers*.  Thet believe that, contrary to common wisdom, there
> exists a large and growing readership for poetry that is not entirely
> congruent with po-biz.  I haven't done a study of such things, but my
> impression, visiting the site on a daily basis, is that they do, indeed,
> seem to publish more non-academic poets than many journals do.  In any case,
> the democracy of the web has probably altered the audience for poetry
> irrevocably, I suspect.
> 
> 
> 
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at 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
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 
Thanks for the info, Dave. I had a poem in Poetry Daily a while back but
didn't even know it had been republished in the new anthology--which I will
now most certainly get hold of.

Paul Lake

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Nov 18 21:27:30 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 21:27:30 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <200311140142.hAE1gj1G003212@wiz.cath.vt.edu> <01cf01c3ab1a$923aeae0$64efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc> <3FB59801.153166@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <021701c3ae44$aedacd50$2befa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

I haven't seen a New Poetry post, even from Tia, for two or more days.  The
last post I saw seemed a repeat of something Marcus had previous posted many
days before.  Wha'z going on?

--Bob G.




From marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Nov 19 08:36:45 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 08:36:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <021701c3ae44$aedacd50$2befa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <3FBB2B9D.23724.4BBA1E@localhost>

On 18 Nov 2003 at 21:27, Bob Grumman wrote:
>  The last post I saw seemed a repeat of something Marcus had previous
> posted many days before.  Wha'z going on?

It wasn't a repeat -- it was a new post responding to your last non-
name-calling post. But if name-calling is what you want to do, Bob, 
just let me know.  But ask around, first, about whether it's a good 
idea to get into a name-calling contest with me, okay?






From JforJames at aol.com  Wed Nov 19 09:09:53 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 09:09:53 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
Message-ID: <68.37cb227f.2cecd3b1@aol.com>

Gluck (pronounced "Glick") has made it clear to the Library of Congress, 
which appointed her and pays her privately endowed $35,000 stipend, that she won't 
be following in the footsteps of predecessors, who transformed the position 
into a kind of traveling salesman to promote the art. 

full article...
http://www.madison.com/captimes/features/stories/61530.php


From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Wed Nov 19 09:22:10 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 09:22:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
References: <68.37cb227f.2cecd3b1@aol.com>
Message-ID: <001501c3aea8$853026d0$6501a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

That's really offensive. I'm not saying what Pinsky and Hass and others did
is the only way to use the posisiton, but there's no call to belittle them
like that.


----- Original Message -----
From: <JforJames at aol.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 9:09 AM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way


> Gluck (pronounced "Glick") has made it clear to the Library of Congress,
> which appointed her and pays her privately endowed $35,000 stipend, that
she won't
> be following in the footsteps of predecessors, who transformed the
position
> into a kind of traveling salesman to promote the art.
>
> full article...
> http://www.madison.com/captimes/features/stories/61530.php
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com  Wed Nov 19 10:19:15 2003
From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 07:19:15 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
In-Reply-To: <001501c3aea8$853026d0$6501a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <20031119151916.16795.qmail@web13007.mail.yahoo.com>

So true.
 
Gluck's comments smack of a kind of elitism that really bothers me.  Essentially, she seems to be saying, "I don't give a damn about anybody because I'm smarter than anybody."  I mean, come, on--*declining to sit for an interview?*  Sheesh.  How self-righteous.
 
Waiting for the arrows and grenades that will surely come,
 
Jeff Newberry
 
 


TheOldMole <tadrichards at prodigy.net> wrote:
That's really offensive. I'm not saying what Pinsky and Hass and others did
is the only way to use the posisiton, but there's no call to belittle them
like that.


----- Original Message -----
From: 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 9:09 AM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way


> Gluck (pronounced "Glick") has made it clear to the Library of Congress,
> which appointed her and pays her privately endowed $35,000 stipend, that
she won't
> be following in the footsteps of predecessors, who transformed the
position
> into a kind of traveling salesman to promote the art.
>
> full article...
> http://www.madison.com/captimes/features/stories/61530.php
> _______________________________________________
> 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

---------------------------------
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Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
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From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Wed Nov 19 10:46:51 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 16:46:51 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] School of Disembodied Introductions
References: <410-2200311117145455650@M2W068.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <004201c3aeb4$59ef30e0$d7737450@anny>

From: <tadrichards at prodigy.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> I'm this week's audio host at Cortland Review (www.cortlandreview.com)


Compliments, most interesting are audio-files,


Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

If you go with rivers, not roads, the trip
takes longer and you weave and see a lot more.
(from Houses)
Richard Hugo




From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Wed Nov 19 10:45:29 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 09:45:29 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
In-Reply-To: <20031119151916.16795.qmail@web13007.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <BBE0EC39.5A51%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

To top it off, I remember reading?after Gluck?s appointment?a generous
comment about her by Robert Pinsky and, too, I think, Billy Collins.

Paul Lake



on 11/19/03 9:19 AM, Jeff Newberry at jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com wrote:

> So true.
>  
> Gluck's comments smack of a kind of elitism that really bothers me.
> Essentially, she seems to be saying, "I don't give a damn about anybody
> because I'm smarter than anybody."  I mean, come, on--*declining to sit for an
> interview?*  Sheesh.  How self-righteous.
>  
> Waiting for the arrows and grenades that will surely come,
>  
> Jeff Newberry
>  
>  
> 
> 
> TheOldMole <tadrichards at prodigy.net> wrote:
>> That's really offensive. I'm not saying what Pinsky and Hass and others did
>> is the only way to use the posisiton, but there's no call to belittle them
>> like that.
>> 
>> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: 
>> To: 
>> Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 9:09 AM
>> Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
>> 
>> 
>>> > Gluck (pronounced "Glick") has made it clear to the Library of Congress,
>>> > which appointed her and pays her privately endowed $35,000 stipend, that
>> she won't
>>> > be following in the footsteps of predecessors, who transformed the
>> position
>>> > into a kind of traveling salesman to promote the art.
>>> >
>>> > full article...
>>> > http://www.madison.com/captimes/features/stories/61530.php
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > 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
> 
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
> <http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree>
> 

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From Cadaly at aol.com  Wed Nov 19 10:57:27 2003
From: Cadaly at aol.com (Cadaly at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 10:57:27 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] First online review of Catherine Daly's DADADA
Message-ID: <27.4b986c96.2cecece7@aol.com>


First online review: 
http://www.sidereality.com/volume2issue4/reviewsv2n4/reviewofdadada.htm

Online reviews forthcoming at Eclectica and Moria.

For electronic review copies, or press kits for readings, please e!

Rgds,
Catherine Daly
cadaly at pacbell.net
http://www.catherinedaly.info
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From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Wed Nov 19 10:59:58 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 16:59:58 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
References: <20031119151916.16795.qmail@web13007.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <006401c3aeb6$2ec74cc0$d7737450@anny>

I think this is also quite strange, 
"I have no concern with widening audience," said Gluck, who prefers her audience "small, intense, passionate." 

It's as if I was the President of the U.S.A. but I didn't want to meet anybody, because I liked my privacy....



From: Jeff Newberry 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 4:19 PM


  So true.

  Gluck's comments smack of a kind of elitism that really bothers me.  Essentially, she seems to be saying, "I don't give a damn about anybody because I'm smarter than anybody."  I mean, come, on--*declining to sit for an interview?*  Sheesh.  How self-righteous.

  Waiting for the arrows and grenades that will surely come,

  Jeff Newberry




  TheOldMole <tadrichards at prodigy.net> wrote:
    That's really offensive. I'm not saying what Pinsky and Hass and others did
    is the only way to use the posisiton, but there's no call to belittle them
    like that.


    ----- Original Message -----
    From: 
    To: 
    Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 9:09 AM
    Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way


    > Gluck (pronounced "Glick") has made it clear to the Library of Congress,
    > which appointed her and pays her privately endowed $35,000 stipend, that
    she won't
    > be following in the footsteps of predecessors, who transformed the
    position
    > into a kind of traveling salesman to promote the art.
    >
    > full article...
    > http://www.madison.com/captimes/features/stories/61530.php
    > 
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From cherrylaura at hotmail.com  Wed Nov 19 11:10:24 2003
From: cherrylaura at hotmail.com (Laura Cherry)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 11:10:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
Message-ID: <BAY10-F49x29xDbH8J0000219de@hotmail.com>

In the article, Gluck says nothing ungracious about former laureates. She 
does not, for example, call them traveling salesmen -- the reporter does. 
She does say that she's going to treat the laureateship differently, and 
both Collins and Pinsky defend her right to do so. And she does decline to 
sit for an interview, which seems needlessly coy to me, but is also her 
right, of course.

I think articles like this are an attempt to stir up controversy where none 
exists. Or maybe the reporter was miffed about the interview business.

Laura Cherry


>From: Paul Lake <paul.lake at mail.atu.edu>
>Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Her way
>Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 09:45:29 -0600
>
>To top it off, I remember reading?after Gluck?s appointment?a generous
>comment about her by Robert Pinsky and, too, I think, Billy Collins.
>
>Paul Lake
>
>
>
>on 11/19/03 9:19 AM, Jeff Newberry at jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > So true.
> >
> > Gluck's comments smack of a kind of elitism that really bothers me.
> > Essentially, she seems to be saying, "I don't give a damn about anybody
> > because I'm smarter than anybody."  I mean, come, on--*declining to sit 
>for an
> > interview?*  Sheesh.  How self-righteous.
> >
> > Waiting for the arrows and grenades that will surely come,
> >
> > Jeff Newberry
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > TheOldMole <tadrichards at prodigy.net> wrote:
> >> That's really offensive. I'm not saying what Pinsky and Hass and others 
>did
> >> is the only way to use the posisiton, but there's no call to belittle 
>them
> >> like that.
> >>
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From:
> >> To:
> >> Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 9:09 AM
> >> Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
> >>
> >>
> >>> > Gluck (pronounced "Glick") has made it clear to the Library of 
>Congress,
> >>> > which appointed her and pays her privately endowed $35,000 stipend, 
>that
> >> she won't
> >>> > be following in the footsteps of predecessors, who transformed the
> >> position
> >>> > into a kind of traveling salesman to promote the art.
> >>> >
> >>> > full article...
> >>> > http://www.madison.com/captimes/features/stories/61530.php
> >>> > _______________________________________________
> >>> > 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
> >
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
> > <http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree>
> >
>

_________________________________________________________________
online games and music with a high-speed Internet connection!  Prices start 
at less than $1 a day average.  https://broadband.msn.com (Prices may vary 
by service area.)



From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Wed Nov 19 11:23:05 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 11:23:05 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
References: <20031119151916.16795.qmail@web13007.mail.yahoo.com> <006401c3aeb6$2ec74cc0$d7737450@anny>
Message-ID: <003601c3aeb9$69725830$6501a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

OK, having read the whole article -- I couldn't access the Internet earlier -- it's not at all clear that the "traveling salesman" analogy is Gluck's.  But I still prefer the idea that a Laureate should have some sense that hers is a public position, and that she has accepted some kind of a role as spokeswoman for American poetry.

Tad
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Anny Ballardini 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 10:59 AM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Her way


  I think this is also quite strange, 
  "I have no concern with widening audience," said Gluck, who prefers her audience "small, intense, passionate." 

  It's as if I was the President of the U.S.A. but I didn't want to meet anybody, because I liked my privacy....



  From: Jeff Newberry 
    To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
    Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 4:19 PM


    So true.

    Gluck's comments smack of a kind of elitism that really bothers me.  Essentially, she seems to be saying, "I don't give a damn about anybody because I'm smarter than anybody."  I mean, come, on--*declining to sit for an interview?*  Sheesh.  How self-righteous.

    Waiting for the arrows and grenades that will surely come,

    Jeff Newberry




    TheOldMole <tadrichards at prodigy.net> wrote:
      That's really offensive. I'm not saying what Pinsky and Hass and others did
      is the only way to use the posisiton, but there's no call to belittle them
      like that.


      ----- Original Message -----
      From: 
      To: 
      Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 9:09 AM
      Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way


      > Gluck (pronounced "Glick") has made it clear to the Library of Congress,
      > which appointed her and pays her privately endowed $35,000 stipend, that
      she won't
      > be following in the footsteps of predecessors, who transformed the
      position
      > into a kind of traveling salesman to promote the art.
      >
      > full article...
      > http://www.madison.com/captimes/features/stories/61530.php
      > 
-------------- next part --------------
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From mandolin at mac.com  Wed Nov 19 11:24:34 2003
From: mandolin at mac.com (Michael Snider)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 11:24:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
Message-ID: <13362469.1069259074221.JavaMail.mandolin@mac.com>

It's not at all clear that Gluck is the one who said previous laureates had turned the position into that of "a kind of traveling salesman to promote the art." The words are not attributed to her, and seem to me to be Justin Pope's own description. From him, they're not quite disrespectful, just silly. From her, they'd be awful.

The smae article quotes quite elaborate praise for Gluck from Collins, Pinsky, Kunitz, among others.

Michael


From hruggier at localnet.com  Wed Nov 19 11:34:03 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 11:34:03 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] THANKS
Message-ID: <3FBB9B7B.42F7B663@localnet.com>

David Graham,  (not to be confused with Jorie)  thanks for sending all
the interesting articles, poems and various information, and for
returning the conversation to poetry when necessary.


haiku thought for the day:

    Jesse Ventura
    Arnold Swartzenagger* --
    nude mud wrestling

*not in the spell checker

H. Ruggieri



From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Wed Nov 19 11:52:20 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 10:52:20 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A136@ariel.ripon.edu>

Well, if I were Poetry King I wouldn't have named Gluck to this post for
several reasons, including the fact that I find her poems snooze-inducing,
but I don't think anyone can argue she doesn't have sufficient stature.
More power to her reclusive snooty self, I say.  

And let's remember that the "activist" role that Pinsky and Collins and Dove
and Hass pioneered is of rather recent vintage.  Who remembers what Stanley
Kunitz ever did in the post, or in fact most poets prior to the past decade
or so?  

============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================


> ----------
> From: 	TheOldMole
> Reply To: 	new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Sent: 	Wednesday, November 19, 2003 10:23 AM
> To: 	new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: 	Re: [New-Poetry] Her way
> 
> OK, having read the whole article -- I couldn't access the Internet
> earlier -- it's not at all clear that the "traveling salesman" analogy is
> Gluck's.  But I still prefer the idea that a Laureate should have some
> sense that hers is a public position, and that she has accepted some kind
> of a role as spokeswoman for American poetry.
>  
> Tad
> 
> 


From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Wed Nov 19 11:50:25 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 10:50:25 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] THANKS
In-Reply-To: <3FBB9B7B.42F7B663@localnet.com>
Message-ID: <BBE0FB71.5A5B%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

Didn't they already mud wrestle in the movie they made together--Predator?
Arnold was certainly covered in mud.

Paul


on 11/19/03 10:34 AM, Helen Ruggieri at hruggier at localnet.com wrote:

> David Graham,  (not to be confused with Jorie)  thanks for sending all
> the interesting articles, poems and various information, and for
> returning the conversation to poetry when necessary.
> 
> 
> haiku thought for the day:
> 
>   Jesse Ventura
>   Arnold Swartzenagger* --
>   nude mud wrestling
> 
> *not in the spell checker
> 
> H. Ruggieri
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Wed Nov 19 12:15:10 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 11:15:10 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: THANKS
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A137@ariel.ripon.edu>

Naw, Paul, I was always fully clothed whenever I have mud-wrestled. . . .
Oh. . . .  you meant Arnold & Jesse.  

Never mind!

============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================


> ----------
> From: 	Paul Lake
> Reply To: 	new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Sent: 	Wednesday, November 19, 2003 10:50 AM
> To: 	new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: 	Re: [New-Poetry] THANKS
> 
> 
> Didn't they already mud wrestle in the movie they made together--Predator?
> Arnold was certainly covered in mud.
> 
> Paul
> 
> 
> on 11/19/03 10:34 AM, Helen Ruggieri at hruggier at localnet.com wrote:
> 
> > David Graham,  (not to be confused with Jorie)  thanks for sending all
> > the interesting articles, poems and various information, 


From kpaul at mallasch.com  Wed Nov 19 12:17:07 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 12:17:07 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
In-Reply-To: <BAY10-F49x29xDbH8J0000219de@hotmail.com>
References: <BAY10-F49x29xDbH8J0000219de@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031119121619.G97780@kpaul.spinweb.net>

The media stir up
controversy?
Ha!

;)

Agreeing,
-kpaul
mallasch.com/mug/

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003, Laura Cherry wrote:

> In the article, Gluck says nothing ungracious about former laureates. She
> does not, for example, call them traveling salesmen -- the reporter does.
> She does say that she's going to treat the laureateship differently, and
> both Collins and Pinsky defend her right to do so. And she does decline to
> sit for an interview, which seems needlessly coy to me, but is also her
> right, of course.
>
> I think articles like this are an attempt to stir up controversy where none
> exists. Or maybe the reporter was miffed about the interview business.
>
> Laura Cherry
>
>
> >From: Paul Lake <paul.lake at mail.atu.edu>
> >Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> >To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Her way
> >Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 09:45:29 -0600
> >
> >To top it off, I remember reading?after Gluck?s appointment?a generous
> >comment about her by Robert Pinsky and, too, I think, Billy Collins.
> >
> >Paul Lake
> >
> >
> >
> >on 11/19/03 9:19 AM, Jeff Newberry at jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com wrote:
> >
> > > So true.
> > >
> > > Gluck's comments smack of a kind of elitism that really bothers me.
> > > Essentially, she seems to be saying, "I don't give a damn about anybody
> > > because I'm smarter than anybody."  I mean, come, on--*declining to sit
> >for an
> > > interview?*  Sheesh.  How self-righteous.
> > >
> > > Waiting for the arrows and grenades that will surely come,
> > >
> > > Jeff Newberry
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > TheOldMole <tadrichards at prodigy.net> wrote:
> > >> That's really offensive. I'm not saying what Pinsky and Hass and others
> >did
> > >> is the only way to use the posisiton, but there's no call to belittle
> >them
> > >> like that.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> ----- Original Message -----
> > >> From:
> > >> To:
> > >> Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 9:09 AM
> > >> Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>> > Gluck (pronounced "Glick") has made it clear to the Library of
> >Congress,
> > >>> > which appointed her and pays her privately endowed $35,000 stipend,
> >that
> > >> she won't
> > >>> > be following in the footsteps of predecessors, who transformed the
> > >> position
> > >>> > into a kind of traveling salesman to promote the art.
> > >>> >
> > >>> > full article...
> > >>> > http://www.madison.com/captimes/features/stories/61530.php
> > >>> > _______________________________________________
> > >>> > 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
> > >
> > > Do you Yahoo!?
> > > Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
> > > <http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree>
> > >
> >
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> online games and music with a high-speed Internet connection!  Prices start
> at less than $1 a day average.  https://broadband.msn.com (Prices may vary
> by service area.)
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



From kpaul at mallasch.com  Wed Nov 19 12:18:10 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 12:18:10 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
In-Reply-To: <006401c3aeb6$2ec74cc0$d7737450@anny>
References: <20031119151916.16795.qmail@web13007.mail.yahoo.com>
 <006401c3aeb6$2ec74cc0$d7737450@anny>
Message-ID: <20031119121733.B97780@kpaul.spinweb.net>

Sounds like Bush in Britain, closing his eyes to all the protests...

-kpaul
mallasch.com/mug/

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003, Anny Ballardini wrote:

> It's as if I was the President of the U.S.A. but I didn't want to meet anybody, because I liked my privacy....
>
>
>
> From: Jeff Newberry
>   To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>   Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 4:19 PM
>
>
>   So true.
>
>   Gluck's comments smack of a kind of elitism that really bothers me.  Essentially, she seems to be saying, "I don't give a damn about anybody because I'm smarter than anybody."  I mean, come, on--*declining to sit for an interview?*  Sheesh.  How self-righteous.
>
>   Waiting for the arrows and grenades that will surely come,
>
>   Jeff Newberry
>
>
>
>
>   TheOldMole <tadrichards at prodigy.net> wrote:
>     That's really offensive. I'm not saying what Pinsky and Hass and others did
>     is the only way to use the posisiton, but there's no call to belittle them
>     like that.
>
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     From:
>     To:
>     Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 9:09 AM
>     Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
>
>
>     > Gluck (pronounced "Glick") has made it clear to the Library of Congress,
>     > which appointed her and pays her privately endowed $35,000 stipend, that
>     she won't
>     > be following in the footsteps of predecessors, who transformed the
>     position
>     > into a kind of traveling salesman to promote the art.
>     >
>     > full article...
>     > http://www.madison.com/captimes/features/stories/61530.php
>     >


From hruggier at localnet.com  Wed Nov 19 14:11:22 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 14:11:22 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] THANKS
References: <BBE0FB71.5A5B%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>
Message-ID: <3FBBC05A.25BE32B6@localnet.com>

Was that Jesse Ventura in the predator suit?

Far Out as John Denver used ta say.

Paul Lake wrote:

> Didn't they already mud wrestle in the movie they made together--Predator?
> Arnold was certainly covered in mud.
>
> Paul
>
> on 11/19/03 10:34 AM, Helen Ruggieri at hruggier at localnet.com wrote:
>
> > David Graham,  (not to be confused with Jorie)  thanks for sending all
> > the interesting articles, poems and various information, and for
> > returning the conversation to poetry when necessary.
> >
> >
> > haiku thought for the day:
> >
> >   Jesse Ventura
> >   Arnold Swartzenagger* --
> >   nude mud wrestling
> >
> > *not in the spell checker
> >
> > H. Ruggieri
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > ---
> > [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> >
> >
>
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Wed Nov 19 14:53:45 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 13:53:45 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] THANKS
In-Reply-To: <3FBBC05A.25BE32B6@localnet.com>
Message-ID: <BBE12669.5A63%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 11/19/03 1:11 PM, Helen Ruggieri at hruggier at localnet.com wrote:

> Was that Jesse Ventura in the predator suit?
> 
> Far Out as John Denver used ta say.

No, but Jesse Ventura played one of the other soldiers in the jungle with
Ahh-nold.

Paul
> 
> Paul Lake wrote:
> 
>> Didn't they already mud wrestle in the movie they made together--Predator?
>> Arnold was certainly covered in mud.
>> 
>> Paul
>> 
>> on 11/19/03 10:34 AM, Helen Ruggieri at hruggier at localnet.com wrote:
>> 
>>> David Graham,  (not to be confused with Jorie)  thanks for sending all
>>> the interesting articles, poems and various information, and for
>>> returning the conversation to poetry when necessary.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> haiku thought for the day:
>>> 
>>>   Jesse Ventura
>>>   Arnold Swartzenagger* --
>>>   nude mud wrestling
>>> 
>>> *not in the spell checker
>>> 
>>> H. Ruggieri
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> New-Poetry mailing list
>>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>> ---
>>> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> ---
>> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Wed Nov 19 14:55:39 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 13:55:39 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] THANKS
In-Reply-To: <3FBBC05A.25BE32B6@localnet.com>
Message-ID: <BBE126DB.5A64%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 11/19/03 1:11 PM, Helen Ruggieri at hruggier at localnet.com wrote:

> Was that Jesse Ventura in the predator suit?

Pretty weird, huh? Two future governors in one action/sci-fi flick. Maybe
that alien was onto something: "Take me to your leader. Yeah, you two!"

Paul
> 
> Far Out as John Denver used ta say.
> 
> Paul Lake wrote:
> 
>> Didn't they already mud wrestle in the movie they made together--Predator?
>> Arnold was certainly covered in mud.
>> 
>> Paul
>> 
>> on 11/19/03 10:34 AM, Helen Ruggieri at hruggier at localnet.com wrote:
>> 
>>> David Graham,  (not to be confused with Jorie)  thanks for sending all
>>> the interesting articles, poems and various information, and for
>>> returning the conversation to poetry when necessary.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> haiku thought for the day:
>>> 
>>>   Jesse Ventura
>>>   Arnold Swartzenagger* --
>>>   nude mud wrestling
>>> 
>>> *not in the spell checker
>>> 
>>> H. Ruggieri
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> New-Poetry mailing list
>>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>> ---
>>> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> ---
>> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From halvard at earthlink.net  Wed Nov 19 15:15:49 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 15:15:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] THANKS
In-Reply-To: <BBE126DB.5A64%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEGDHMAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

  
{    > Was that Jesse Ventura in the predator suit?
{    
{    Pretty weird, huh? Two future governors in one action/sci-fi flick. Maybe
{    that alien was onto something: "Take me to your leader. Yeah, you two!"
{    
{    Paul

Who else was in that cast? Maybe what we have here
is a window on the Future.

Hal                El chofer no carga dinero

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Nov 19 15:29:39 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 15:29:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <3FBB2B9D.23724.4BBA1E@localhost>
Message-ID: <016e01c3aedb$db8df3d0$65efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> On 18 Nov 2003 at 21:27, Bob Grumman wrote:
> >  The last post I saw seemed a repeat of something Marcus had previous
> > posted many days before.  Wha'z going on?
>
> It wasn't a repeat -- it was a new post responding to your last non-
> name-calling post. But if name-calling is what you want to do, Bob,
> just let me know.  But ask around, first, about whether it's a good
> idea to get into a name-calling contest with me, okay?

I presented a preliminary diagnosis of you in which I described you as a
verosopath.  Since I didn't tell you whether I meant the term to be
scientific or literary criticism, I assumed you would ignore it as nonsense.
However, I hope to have time to refine and add to it in due course.

As for your post, which was to all intents and purposes a repeat of what you
said in a post of 13 November, which--in turn--merely repeated things you'd
already said several times not only in the MB / BG thread but in our
previous exchanges about what I call my taxonomy of literature, I see no
point in responding to it.  Instead, I will restart the MB / BG thread with
a new statement:

STATEMENT 1

"Verbal expression, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, can be of
four and only four kinds."

END OF STATEMENT 1

Can you handle that, Marcus.  Consider it as it is, by itself.  No title.
Can you say whether or not it is a clear statement, and--if not, why it is
not?

I'll bet anything that you cannot--because you are a verosopath.

--Bob G.








From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Nov 19 15:39:38 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 15:39:38 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
References: <BBE0EC39.5A51%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>
Message-ID: <01c001c3aedd$40e26490$65efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

Re: [New-Poetry] Her wayI don't care much one way or another what honored mediocrities say, but I wonder what is so horrible about suggesting that Collins and Hass acted as traveling salesmen for poetry?  Must we assume traveling salesmen are all subhumans?  Moreover, as I recall what Gluck said, in context, she clarified what she meant, and it wasn't derogatory to my ear, but merely a statement about how she expected to act compared with how her two predecessors did.

--Bob G.
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From marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Nov 19 16:10:17 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 16:10:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <016e01c3aedb$db8df3d0$65efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <3FBB95E9.1793.42F68A@localhost>

On 19 Nov 2003 at 15:29, Bob Grumman wrote:
> I presented a preliminary diagnosis of you in which I described you as
> a verosopath.<<

I infer from your apparent determination to repeat the slur.  Be 
careful, here, Bob -- do you really want to start a name-calling 
contest with me?

> STATEMENT 1
> "Verbal expression, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, can be
> of four and only four kinds."
> END OF STATEMENT 1

> Can you say whether or not it is a clear statement, and--if
> not, why it is not?

It's clear but wrong.






From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Wed Nov 19 17:51:40 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 17:51:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
References: <BBE0EC39.5A51%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu> <01c001c3aedd$40e26490$65efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <00ec01c3aeef$b23636a0$6501a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

Re: [New-Poetry] Her wayYeah -- after all, what do we care about the nuances of meaning in words?

Tad

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bob Grumman 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 3:39 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Her way


  I don't care much one way or another what honored mediocrities say, but I wonder what is so horrible about suggesting that Collins and Hass acted as traveling salesmen for poetry?  Must we assume traveling salesmen are all subhumans?  Moreover, as I recall what Gluck said, in context, she clarified what she meant, and it wasn't derogatory to my ear, but merely a statement about how she expected to act compared with how her two predecessors did.

  --Bob G.
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From Thom424 at aol.com  Wed Nov 19 20:09:20 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 20:09:20 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Fwd:=20Writing=20Like=20Crazy:=A0=20a=20Word=20on?=
 =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=20the=20Brain?=
Message-ID: <d3.253d5442.2ced6e40@aol.com>

Once again, I apologize for sending along this lengthy article from *The 
Chronicle of Higher Education.* Because it's a subscription journal, the URL would 
only get you to a user/subscriber log-in window. Lots of ideas here about 
poetry, creativity, creative writing, writer's block, the brain, etc. that I 
thought the group might find interesting.   Thank the muses for the delete button 
if things get a little long or tedious.   The article is available on hard 
copy for those of you who have access to the print version of the 11-21-03 issue 
of the *Chronicle."

Thom Tammaro
Moorhead, MN

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Subject: Fwd: Writing Like Crazy:  a Word on the Brain
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 14:58:30 -0600
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Nov 19 21:29:17 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 21:29:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <3FBB95E9.1793.42F68A@localhost>
Message-ID: <035f01c3af0e$19423c40$65efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> I infer from your apparent determination to repeat the slur.  Be
> careful, here, Bob -- do you really want to start a name-calling contest
with me?

It wouldn't be a contest, Marcus.  It would be me describing people like you
in detail, and you responding with who knows what that would bounce
harmlessly off me, because names don't bother me in the least.

> > STATEMENT 1
> > "Verbal expression, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, can be
> > of four and only four kinds."
> > END OF STATEMENT 1
>
> > Can you say whether or not it is a clear statement, and--if
> > not, why it is not?
>
> It's clear but wrong.

OKAY!  Now we're getting somewhere.  The only concern  at this point is
verbal clarity.

Oops, wait.  I forgot that I changed my statement.  Here it is again:

STATEMENT 1

"Works of verbal expression, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, can
be of four and only four kinds."

END OF STATEMENT 1

I'll go on to my next statement since I can't believe the addition of two
words would make my first statement unclear to you.


STATEMENT 2

The first of the four kinds of verbal expression consists of collections of
words concerned more than anything else with convincingly advocating a point
of view.

END of STATEMENT 2

Is this verbally clear or not?  If not, what is unclear about it?

--Bob G.





From JforJames at aol.com  Wed Nov 19 21:39:51 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 21:39:51 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
Message-ID: <b8.4b9e90b2.2ced8377@aol.com>

I understand that position itself doesn't require one 
to be an ambassador for poetry, but it does
seem to me, at least since the name was changed to 
Poet Laureate Consultant to the Library of Congress,
that one should revel a bit more in the public nature 
of the role. (Kunitz, by advanced age, was excused 
if didn't stump for poetry.)
Gluck seems to be taking on the mantle as if it were
a burden to her. She could have quietly declined the position.
I'm sure she didn't need the 35K, or another notch on her
already lengthy resume, so why take on this office 
if you have no inclination or vision for it?
Finnegan
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Nov 20 05:39:19 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 05:39:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
References: <BBE0EC39.5A51%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu> <01c001c3aedd$40e26490$65efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc> <00ec01c3aeef$b23636a0$6501a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <009601c3af52$a257ada0$79efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

Re: [New-Poetry] Her wayYeah -- after all, what do we care about the nuances of meaning in words?

I'm not denying nuances, just saying the one you pick up on may not have been there, or may not have been there to a significant degree.  As we have seen, it turns out Gluck may no even have referred to Collins, et al, as traveling salesmen.  Still, for me, the term isn't necessarily derogatory, though it is often nuanced in that direction.

--Bob G.

  Tad

    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Bob Grumman 


    To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
    Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 3:39 PM
    Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Her way


    I don't care much one way or another what honored mediocrities say, but I wonder what is so horrible about suggesting that Collins and Hass acted as traveling salesmen for poetry?  Must we assume traveling salesmen are all subhumans?  Moreover, as I recall what Gluck said, in context, she clarified what she meant, and it wasn't derogatory to my ear, but merely a statement about how she expected to act compared with how her two predecessors did.

    --Bob G.
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From marcus at designerglass.com  Thu Nov 20 07:50:44 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 07:50:44 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <035f01c3af0e$19423c40$65efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <3FBC7254.5549.18EDD5@localhost>

On 19 Nov 2003 at 21:29, Bob Grumman wrote:
> It wouldn't be a contest, Marcus.  It would be me describing people
> like you in detail, and you responding with who knows what that would
> bounce harmlessly off me, because names don't bother me in the least.

You see, Bob, here's another example of your opacity to language and 
your fundamental disregard for poetry. You really don't believe in 
words and language: you really think that they have no power to hurt 
you and that you personally know the truth the whole truth and 
nothing but the truth and can say it clearly. You think that you 
"describe" while others "name-call" -- while engaging in name-calling 
all the while. It's sleight-of-mind, Bob, and I'm starting to fear 
that you're self-deluded.

> > > STATEMENT 1
> > > "Verbal expression, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions,
> > > can be of four and only four kinds." 
> "Works of verbal expression, with certain meaninglessly rare
> exceptions, can be of four and only four kinds."

> > It's clear but wrong.
 
> OKAY!  Now we're getting somewhere.  The only concern  at this point
> is verbal clarity.<

How typical of your approach to poetry, Bob -- you're happy to be 
clearly wrong!
 
> I'll go on to my next statement since I can't believe the addition of
> two words would make my first statement unclear to you.

The illusion that by adding or changing two words you can't imagine 
making a statement unclear is also typical of your approach, Bob, 
which seems to be characterizable best by a sort of primitivist 
counting method: you first ask how new something is and then ask how 
many words there are, or something like that, in order to try to 
judge how good it is. You seem to have no notion of what makes poetry 
poetry at all! You're like an engineer who is trying to understand 
poetry by pretending that a natural language such as English is an 
artificial language such as mathematics. Are you an engineer by 
profession?

> STATEMENT 2
> The first of the four kinds of verbal expression consists of
> collections of words concerned more than anything else with
> convincingly advocating a point of view.
> END of STATEMENT 2

The first problem with this is that it is trying to expand upon the 
fundamental lack of conceptual clarity of the initial statement: that 
there are "four and only four kinds" of verbal expression. 

The second problem with this is that it is  fatally flawed by the 
chasm between its pretension to a tone of scientific precision ("four 
and only four kinds") and the ambiguities of phrases such as  
"collections of words" , and "more than anything else" and 
"convincingly advocating".

Each of these phrases, to say nothing of "verbal expressions", is 
vague while at the same time crucial. It's bad for clarity of 
expression and clarity of concept to rely on notions that are vague 
but crucial to your argument. 

So no, Bob, this is not "verbally clear" -- it is, like its 
predecessor, clearly nonsense.





From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Thu Nov 20 11:06:46 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 11:06:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
In-Reply-To: <b8.4b9e90b2.2ced8377@aol.com>
Message-ID: <8A52098D-1B73-11D8-9327-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

On Wednesday, November 19, 2003, at 09:39 PM, JforJames at aol.com wrote:
> I'm sure she didn't need the 35K

I wouldn't assume that automatically, Jim.

Wendy

Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu
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From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Thu Nov 20 11:21:29 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 10:21:29 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Singing
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A13D@ariel.ripon.edu>

Just learned that C. K. Williams won the National Book Award for *The
Singing*, beating out Louis Simpson, Charles Simic, Carol Muske-Dukes, and
Kevin Young.  

I'm frankly surprised that Williams edged out Simpson's career-long tome.
Wonder who the judges were.

I've recently been reading *The Singing* and certainly think it deserves a
prize.

Here's the title poem.  Not sure what the email program might do to his
lineation:

The Singing

I was walking home down a hill near our house on a balmy afternoon 
under the blossoms 
Of the pear trees that go flamboyantly mad here every spring with 
their burgeoning forth 

When a young man turned in from a corner singing no it was more of 
a cadenced shouting 
Most of which I couldn't catch I thought because the young man was 
black speaking black 

It didn't matter I could tell he was making his song up which pleased 
me he was nice-looking 
Husky dressed in some style of big pants obviously full of himself 
hence his lyrical flowing over 

We went along in the same direction then he noticed me there almost 
beside him and "Big" 
He shouted-sang "Big" and I thought how droll to have my height 
incorporated in his song 

So I smiled but the face of the young man showed nothing he looked
in fact pointedly away 
And his song changed "I'm not a nice person" he chanted "I'm not 
I'm not a nice person" 

No menace was meant I gathered no particular threat but he did want 
to be certain I knew 
That if my smile implied I conceived of anything like concord 
between us I should forget it 

That's all nothing else happened his song became indecipherable to 
me again he arrived 
Where he was going a house where a girl in braids waited for him on 
the porch that was all 

No one saw no one heard all the unasked and unanswered questions 
were left where they were 
It occurred to me to sing back "I'm not a nice person either" but I 
couldn't come up with a tune 

Besides I wouldn't have meant it nor he have believed it both of us 
knew just where we were 
In the duet we composed the equation we made the conventions to 
which we were condemned 

Sometimes it feels even when no one is there that someone something 
is watching and listening 
Someone to rectify redo remake this time again though no one saw nor 
heard no one was there 

--C. K. Williams.  *The Singing*.  Farrar Straus, 2003.

============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================



From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Thu Nov 20 11:36:31 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 10:36:31 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] THANKS
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEGDHMAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <BBE249AE.5A7C%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 11/19/03 2:15 PM, Halvard Johnson at halvard at earthlink.net wrote:

> 
> {    > Was that Jesse Ventura in the predator suit?
> {    
> {    Pretty weird, huh? Two future governors in one action/sci-fi flick. Maybe
> {    that alien was onto something: "Take me to your leader. Yeah, you two!"
> {    
> {    Paul
> 
> Who else was in that cast? Maybe what we have here
> is a window on the Future.
> 
> Hal                El chofer no carga dinero
> 
> 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 E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 
Carl Weathers, for one--Apollo Creed in the Rocky movies. Far as I know, he
isn't a governor yet.

Paul

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Thu Nov 20 12:37:43 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 11:37:43 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: The Singing
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A140@ariel.ripon.edu>

Judges for this year's National Book Award in poetry, from the Nat. Book
Foundation site:

Chaired by Bruce Weigl, the Poetry Panel includes David Baker, Kate Daniels,
Kwame Dawes, and Jane Hirshfield.

============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================


> ----------
> From: 	Graham, David
> Reply To: 	new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Sent: 	Thursday, November 20, 2003 10:21 AM
> To: 	'New-Poetry'
> Subject: 	[New-Poetry] The Singing
> 
> Just learned that C. K. Williams won the National Book Award for *The
> Singing*, beating out Louis Simpson, Charles Simic, Carol Muske-Dukes, and
> Kevin Young.  
> 


From JforJames at aol.com  Thu Nov 20 12:48:04 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 12:48:04 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Her way
Message-ID: <126.34f29d2b.2cee5854@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/20/03 11:07:37 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
wjbat at conncoll.edu writes:

> > I'm sure she didn't need the 35K
>  
>  I wouldn't assume that automatically, Jim.
>  
Wendy, you're right...I certainly don't know
her financial circumstances. From the outside
Gluck does appear lauded, prized, well situated
(teaches at WIlliams), etc. I assumed she was 
not in such straits that the stipend was anything 
more than gravy.

I'm sure her editor/publisher is pleased to hear her
say, "I have no concern for widening audience."
If anything the Poet Laureate post must give one 
many more opportunities to read or to speak, 
to pick and choose among highly visible venues 
and events. And a chance to move some books. 
She prefers (according to J Pope's account) a 
"small, intense, passionate" audience. And that's
fine. I like to quote Juan Ramon Jimenez's assertion
that the audience for poetry is not wide but deep.
But has everyone who could (or should) be reading
her poetry with passion and intensity already been 
reached? I doubt it. And, above more personal concerns,
taking this position would seem to call for a full
measure of generousity to the art of poetry as a 
whole.

I've heard her read at several big events, most
recently I heard her read & speak at a two-day 
Bollingen Prize event held at Yale. She didn't 
seem a shrinking violet or a recluse relunctantly 
dragged into the limelight. I guess I'm a little 
mystified (maybe miffed too) by her attittude 
toward the public aspect of being named Poet Laureate.
Finnegan 


From hruggier at localnet.com  Thu Nov 20 14:05:00 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (hruggier at localnet.com)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 14:05:00 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] THANKS
In-Reply-To: <BBE249AE.5A7C%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEGDHMAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
        <BBE249AE.5A7C%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>
Message-ID: <3838.130.49.178.103.1069355100.squirrel@webmail.localnet.com>

>
Scary, but does anybody know where Carl Weathers lives?  i.e. what state
will fall next?

on 11/19/03 2:15 PM, Halvard Johnson at halvard at earthlink.net wrote:
>
>>
>> {    > Was that Jesse Ventura in the predator suit?
>> {
>> {    Pretty weird, huh? Two future governors in one action/sci-fi
>> flick. Maybe {    that alien was onto something: "Take me to your
>> leader. Yeah, you two!" {
>> {    Paul
>>
>> Who else was in that cast? Maybe what we have here
>> is a window on the Future.
>>
>> Hal                El chofer no carga dinero
>>
>> 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 E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
>>
>>
> Carl Weathers, for one--Apollo Creed in the Rocky movies. Far as I
> know, he isn't a governor yet.
>
> Paul
>
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry





From hruggier at localnet.com  Thu Nov 20 14:49:40 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (hruggier at localnet.com)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 14:49:40 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] AUGUST KLEINZAHLER
In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A140@ariel.ripon.edu>
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A140@ariel.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <4054.130.49.178.103.1069357780.squirrel@webmail.localnet.com>

Thought I'd post some poems by August Kleinzahler who I find a very
interesting poet - and you hardly ever hear of him.  Why?Anyone want to comment on his work?

Helen Ruggieri



Four poems

By August Kleinzahler
Copyright 1999 by August Kleinzahler



Watching Young Couples with an Old Girlfriend On Sunday Morning

How mild these young men seem to me now
with their baggy shorts and clouds of musk, as if younger brothers of the
women they escort in tight black leather, bangs and tattoos, cute little
toughies, so Louise Brooks annealed

in MTV, headed off for huevos rancheros
and the Sunday Times at some chic, crowded dive. I don't recall it at all
thisway, do you ? How sweetly complected and confident they look, their faces
unclouded by the rages

and abandoned, tearful couplings of the night before, the drunkenness,
beast savor andremorse. Or do I recoil from their youthfulness and health ? Oh, not
recoil, just fail to seeourselves. And yet, this tenderness between us that remains

was mortared first with something dark, something feral, we still refuse,
we still refuse to name.


The Dead Canary

Behold the dead canary of Saturn,
rain matting its feathers and runnelling past its vivid beak.
- Someone's poisoning them.

the old lady says, then gives her black Scottie a yank before he inhales
the remains.- Sad, sad, sad,
the old lady says, head bowed

over the tiny yellow thing, so delicate
and gay, so exquisite in its proportions and shape, collapsed there on the
bleary pavement.
Then flashes me an eldritch look in passing. As if I spent my days with a
drooper,skulking about in search of their feeders,

alive only to cancel out their color and song. I would as soon hammer a
butterflyagainst a wood fence with a sixpenny nail

and go about with its powder on my sleeve to savor under black light later
that evening,alone in my rooms with my stoppers and vials.

No, no, I am a clement soul, not a beast, and fill with plenty at its
ruined wings, but marvelas well at what a picture it makes,

nicely off-center and ravaged enough
but not too, spread out there
on a square of sidewalk - framed:

if only for an hour or a day
until a cat comes along to tear it apart or it's sluiced to the gutter by
rain.


High School Confidential

Maria I love you Jesus
Your red lips you . . . Better
Than Angela but don't say
can I walk you home later
Or maybe we could meet at Tito's
So no one will see I like your
New shoes and blouse I notice
You every day talking with
Your friends before lunch
Did you see Felipe with those
guys last week I can't believe
You ever really liked him

My mother works till 8
And her ugly boyfriend's
Down in Fresno (I hope
Maybe he drops dead) so
Would you like to stop by
I could put on some music
Special favorites I think you
Would like them too you seem
So nice I mean when I look
At you you seem so nice so
Kind and pretty big brown eyes
Maria I love you Jesus



Longitude Lane

The oleander on Longitude Lane
flares among the languors and fevers of June below the south-facing piazzas
the sea breeze find
or don't quite find
along the corridors of ivy covered brick Carolina gray brick and wrought iron
that wind away inland from the Battery

History just sits out there, a kind of weather in the harbor and beyond
on the plantations and through the low country with its bogs and herons
its forgotten skirmishes

And the manners in town so antique, so elegant an underwater Kabuki in
summer dressesThe old families and Huguenot names

The long siege and storied cannonades

Turkey buzzards over the market
water rats under the pantry

The precious settee and the wild, wild daughters










From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Nov 20 15:32:30 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 15:32:30 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <3FBC7254.5549.18EDD5@localhost>
Message-ID: <023401c3afa5$6c4d0f40$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2003 7:50 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?


> On 19 Nov 2003 at 21:29, Bob Grumman wrote:
> > It wouldn't be a contest, Marcus.  It would be me describing people
> > like you in detail, and you responding with who knows what that would
> > bounce harmlessly off me, because names don't bother me in the least.
>
> You see, Bob, here's another example of your opacity to language and
> your fundamental disregard for poetry. You really don't believe in
> words and language: you really think that they have no power to hurt
> you and that you personally know the truth the whole truth and
> nothing but the truth and can say it clearly. You think that you
> "describe" while others "name-call" -- while engaging in name-calling
> all the while. It's sleight-of-mind, Bob, and I'm starting to fear
> that you're self-deluded.
>
> > > > STATEMENT 1
> > > > "Verbal expression, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions,
> > > > can be of four and only four kinds."
> > "Works of verbal expression, with certain meaninglessly rare
> > exceptions, can be of four and only four kinds."
>
> > > It's clear but wrong.
>
> > OKAY!  Now we're getting somewhere.  The only concern  at this point
> > is verbal clarity.<
>
> How typical of your approach to poetry, Bob -- you're happy to be
> clearly wrong!
>
> > I'll go on to my next statement since I can't believe the addition of
> > two words would make my first statement unclear to you.

I meant to say that I would include my second statement in this post because
I couldn't imagine you finding my new first statement unclear.  Did you?  If
so, how is it unclear?

> The illusion that by adding or changing two words you can't imagine
> making a statement unclear is also typical of your approach, Bob,
> which seems to be characterizable best by a sort of primitivist
> counting method: you first ask how new something is and then ask how
> many words there are, or something like that, in order to try to
> judge how good it is. You seem to have no notion of what makes poetry
> poetry at all! You're like an engineer who is trying to understand
> poetry by pretending that a natural language such as English is an
> artificial language such as mathematics. Are you an engineer by
> profession?
>
> > STATEMENT 2
> > The first of the four kinds of verbal expression consists of
> > collections of words concerned more than anything else with
> > convincingly advocating a point of view.
> > END of STATEMENT 2
>
> The first problem with this is that it is trying to expand upon the
> fundamental lack of conceptual clarity of the initial statement: that
> there are "four and only four kinds" of verbal expression.

> The second problem with this is that it is  fatally flawed by the
> chasm between its pretension to a tone of scientific precision ("four
> and only four kinds") and the ambiguities of phrases such as
> "collections of words" , and "more than anything else" and
> "convincingly advocating".
>
> Each of these phrases, to say nothing of "verbal expressions", is
> vague while at the same time crucial. It's bad for clarity of
> expression and clarity of concept to rely on notions that are vague
> but crucial to your argument.

Is it impossible for you to focus on the matter at hand, Marcus.  It is
whether the statement is verbally clear or not.

> So no, Bob, this is not "verbally clear" -- it is, like its
> predecessor, clearly nonsense.

Okay, let's see what is unclear about it.

"The first of the four kinds of verbal expression consists of
collections of words"

Okay, what, if anything, is unclear about that?

"collections of words?"  How about "groups of words?"  "Sets of words?"  I
suppose "one or more words" is really what I need.

"concerned more than anything else with"

Is that unclear in any respect?

You brought up "more than anything else"; what is unclear about that?
Should I change it to "words whose main concern is?"  Perhaps, you don't
understand what "concerns" means?

"convincingly advocating a point of view.

Tell me what is unclear about this.  Is it "point of view?"  "Advocating?"
Okay, I will admit that "convincingly" could use further definition--but not
that it's unclear.  If I say that all paintings that contain the color blue
are good, do I have to add that whether a painting contains the color blue
or not is determined by 3200 professors of visual arts who are certified not
to be color blind?  What can "convincingly" mean other than "able to
convince?"

--Bob G.




From marcus at designerglass.com  Thu Nov 20 15:48:24 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 15:48:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <023401c3afa5$6c4d0f40$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <3FBCE248.1006.FED462@localhost>

On 20 Nov 2003 at 15:32, Bob Grumman wrote:
> Is it impossible for you to focus on the matter at hand, Marcus.  It
> is whether the statement is verbally clear or not.<<

The point I'm making is that "vebally clear" is a wholly inadequate 
standard to hold anyone to when talking about any serious subject. It 
may be verbally clear to say "Bob Grumman is a child molester" but 
the fact that it's "verbally clear" is not a warrant to say it.

Are you really confused about the notion that clarity is not merely a 
matter of whether the words make sense in a sentence, or can be made 
to make a sort of sense, as Hal's quote of Chomsky's "Colorless green 
ideas sleep furiously" reminds us so often? It is "verbally clear" in 
the same way that "Nothing is the absence of everything" or "Infinity 
is endless" are "verbally clear" but such things are conceptually 
unclear -- vague, or incomplete, or merely grammatically correct, and 
the like. Such nonsense is not "clear" even if it is "verbally 
clear".





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Nov 20 18:43:37 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 18:43:37 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <3FBCE248.1006.FED462@localhost>
Message-ID: <02d801c3afc0$1eea2970$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> > Is it impossible for you to focus on the matter at hand, Marcus.  It
> > is whether the statement is verbally clear or not.<<
>
> The point I'm making is that "verbally clear" is a wholly inadequate
> standard to hold anyone to when talking about any serious subject.  It
> may be verbally clear to say "Bob Grumman is a child molester" but
> the fact that it's "verbally clear" is not a warrant to say it.

You said my taxonomy was not verbally clear, then agreed to demonstrate
that.  You're now trying to get out of that by arguing about something else.

> Are you really confused about the notion that clarity is not merely a
> matter of whether the words make sense in a sentence, or can be made
> to make a sort of sense, as Hal's quote of Chomsky's "Colorless green
> ideas sleep furiously" reminds us so often? It is "verbally clear" in
> the same way that "Nothing is the absence of everything" or "Infinity
> is endless" are "verbally clear" but such things are conceptually
> unclear -- vague, or incomplete, or merely grammatically correct, and
> the like. Such nonsense is not "clear" even if it is "verbally
> clear".

If you say so.  Now let's get back to the question of whether or not you can
show that my statements are unclear.

--Bob G.




From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Fri Nov 21 00:13:07 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 00:13:07 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] ESPN
Message-ID: <1e.1cef0ba0.2ceef8e3@cs.com>

An interesting show on ESPN tonight called "Different Drummers."  First 
fifteen minutes were on Martin's Ferry, OH, with reference to James Wright's poem 
(and Robert Hass commenting).
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From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Nov 21 08:41:55 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 08:41:55 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <02d801c3afc0$1eea2970$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <3FBDCFD3.4925.217CCB@localhost>

On 20 Nov 2003 at 18:43, Bob Grumman wrote:
> You said my taxonomy was not verbally clear, then agreed to
> demonstrate that.  You're now trying to get out of that by arguing
> about something else.<<

You're the one who's added "verbally" to the "clear", Bob. My point 
is that if you can't tell your readers, and the potential users of 
your "taxonomy" whether you're trying to do real science or literary 
criticism studded with the jargon of science then you're either 
confused or are deliberately trying to confuse others.

"Verbally clear" is a wholly inadequate standard to hold anyone to 
when talking about any serious subject. 
 
Bob Grumman:
> If you say so.  Now let's get back to the question of whether or not
> you can show that my statements are unclear.

If you make clear statements but convey nonsense, what's the point? 
Your notions are unclear and clear exposition or expression of 
nonsensical holdings is only useful in letting the audience know 
early on how nonsensical the notions are.

Frankly, my advice to you is to abandon the attempt to write clear 
exposition so long as your purpose is to try to convey nonsense such 
as claiming to have a scientific method to categorize poetry. Your 
best bet is to be as confusing and obscure as possible in your prose 
so that few people catch on to the underlying confusion.

And I think that calling it "underlying confusion" is a generous 
assessment, given the lengths to which it seems you'll go to elide 
and evade any examination of what you're actually trying to do.





From daisyf1 at juno.com  Fri Nov 21 09:52:51 2003
From: daisyf1 at juno.com (Daisy Fried)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 09:52:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] August Kleinzahler
Message-ID: <20031121.095253.-144271.7.daisyf1@juno.com>

Helen--

Hear hear! August Kleinzahler has one of the best ears in poetry since
Ezra Pound. His new book _The Strange Hours Travelers Keep_ from Farrar
Straus Giroux is very nifty! He's sort of known and not-known...he
publishes a lot in England, in the London Review of Books...but he's
pretty much outside academe is one reason he seems to be somewhat
under-talked about here, I think...But he shows up in the Threepenny
Review often enough. He's kind of outside all the camps--not experimental
in the academic sense, not mainstream either. Like Ashbery said of
O'Hara, he's too square for the hipsters and too hip for the squares...

Maybe. 

Daisy

Daisy Fried
811 S. Hutchinson St.
Philadelphia, PA 19147
215.923.3158
daisyf1 at juno.com



From grahamd at ripon.edu  Fri Nov 21 10:50:13 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 09:50:13 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: August Kleinzahler
In-Reply-To: <20031121.095253.-144271.7.daisyf1@juno.com>
Message-ID: <BBE39055.55FC%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Yes yes.  Kleinzahaler's definitely worth it.  I fell in love with *Storm
Over Hackensack* many years ago when a friend recommended it, but I rarely
seem to encounter others who know the book.

Still, with 4 books out now from Farrar Straus, not to mention lavish blurbs
from the likes of John Ashbery, Helen Vendler, Allen Ginsberg, Richard
Wilbur, Guy Davenport, and Thom Gunn, he suffers an obscurity we should all
be so lucky to endure!

The difficulty of slotting his work, though, does seem to contribute some to
his odd non-reputation--in terms of name recognition, anthology placement,
critical attention, and so on.  Just look at that list of blurbists above:
when was the last time you found Ashbery and Wilbur sharing blurb-space on a
book jacket?

I think Thom Gunn gets it exactly right in his blurb on *Red Sauce, Whiskey
and Snow*:  

"The distinction of August Kleinzahler is that he has combined two opposed
poetic modes.  The first is the joky improvised speech we associate with
O'Hara; the second the condensed, considered 'lapidary' style of let us say
Bunting.  When Kleinzahler reconciles them, he creates something all his
own, and does so with an energy I find unequalled by other living poets."

Gunn is evidently a friend of Kleinzahler's, and the dedicatee for *Green
Sees Things in Waves*.  Gunn's essay on Kleinzahler's work in *Shelf Life*,
his Michigan UP book of prose, is quite acute and persuasive on
Kleinzahler's virtues.

I haven't yet seen the new book.  Does anyone have any poems from it that
might be posted?  

The earlier books are all out of print and hard to find, I believe.  Well
worth hunting up in the used bookshops.  A few years back there was an FSG
selected edition with poems from *Storm Over Hackensack* and *Earthquake
Weather*.  The title is *Live from the Hong Kong Nile Club*--not sure if
it's still available; Amazon lists it as out of stock.

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================


> From: Daisy Fried <daisyf1 at juno.com>
> Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 09:52:51 -0500
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: [New-Poetry] August Kleinzahler
> 
> Helen--
> 
> Hear hear! August Kleinzahler has one of the best ears in poetry since
> Ezra Pound. His new book _The Strange Hours Travelers Keep_ from Farrar
> Straus Giroux is very nifty! He's sort of known and not-known...he
> publishes a lot in England, in the London Review of Books...but he's
> pretty much outside academe is one reason he seems to be somewhat
> under-talked about here, I think...But he shows up in the Threepenny
> Review often enough. He's kind of outside all the camps--not experimental
> in the academic sense, not mainstream either. Like Ashbery said of
> O'Hara, he's too square for the hipsters and too hip for the squares...
> 
> Maybe. 
> 
> Daisy
> 
> Daisy Fried
> 811 S. Hutchinson St.
> Philadelphia, PA 19147
> 215.923.3158
> daisyf1 at juno.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Fri Nov 21 11:02:24 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 11:02:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: August Kleinzahler
Message-ID: <6BF89A56.1C926488.001A46F6@aol.com>

David (and others),

You can pick up any number of Kleinzahler's titles at <bookfinder.com>.  About six months ago, I bought a cloth copy of *Live from the Hong Kong Nile Club: Poems, 1975-1990* for less than $5. I think with postage, etc., it came to less than $10.00. (I find bookfinder.com one of the best internet resources for picking up new, used, and out-of-print books, broadsides, chapbooks, and limited editions of contemporary poetry. It has an amazing database and is user friendly. Often, new releases are available through bookfinder.com (offerred by halfprice.com) for, well, you guessed it--half price (+ shipping/handling).

A few years back, I purchased a mint condition signed broadside by James Wright (1 of 500 copies) for $65.00. I see that same broadside now selling for $350.00 at some other sites.

Hold on to your wallet--or credit cards--if you go surfing!

Thom Tammaro
Moorhead, MN


From daisyf1 at juno.com  Fri Nov 21 11:16:39 2003
From: daisyf1 at juno.com (Daisy Fried)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 11:16:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #1824 - 11 msgs
Message-ID: <20031121.111640.-144271.10.daisyf1@juno.com>

> I haven't yet seen the new book.  Does anyone have any poems from it 
> that
> might be posted?  

Here's "Christmastime in Coronado"--a wonderful political poem. He makes
a point of dating it 1998 probably to underline he wrote this before 9/11
and Iraq...
I should say this poem simpler in diction than many in this book; he
ratchets up the diction-fooling in this book maybe even more than his
previous ones. What's in quotes below should be in italics but my e-mail
won't do that....
Daisy

August Kleinzahler:
CHRISTMASTIME IN CORONADO

The attack jets come in low
over the ocean
past the tennis courts and the Duchess' cottage,
in tandem
low over the Navy golf course
headed for the North Island airstrip
then wheel to the left
out over the water again,
the afternoon's last light
making a movie set of the offshore islands
around and back once more
past the grand old wooden hotel and its cupolas
with a series of watery, high-pitched "whups"
as they cut back their engines
and disappear over the ridge.

The town seems very still, almost empty, rich.
Christmas displays in store windows.
A goodly stream of cars.
The traffic lights make a sound too, bird-like.
I often get confused.
The roaring overhead. The traffic noise.
There is no place to go.

Out on the Silver Strand
the joggers and sweethearts take in the sunset
the air overhead as busy as war
Skyhawks, Vigilantes, Intruders
the cargo and surveillance planes
sub hunters, gunships
Phantom, Tomcat, Cobra...
It must have given the late President
great succor out there in his compound
those long troubled evenings in San Clemente
to see the lights
and track the arc of the distant thunder
as he sat, with a drink, looking
out that enormous window at the sea, the stars
a blur of light from the distant pier.

I have read, of the late President
from those who had been close to him, through it all
that he had in him a reflective
one might even say philosophical cast of mind.
I wouldn't know to say it wasn't true.
I wouldn't know to say.
But I myself have been thinking constantly of America.
Only of late, only here
with the might of the nation roaring overhead
around the clock
spewing vapor from their strakes
going fucking nowhere
and noisily coming back.

[1998]


 



From hruggier at localnet.com  Fri Nov 21 11:28:29 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 11:28:29 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: August Kleinzahler
References: <BBE39055.55FC%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3FBE3D2C.7FF5709D@localnet.com>

I just got a review copy - and the book is wonderful - there are a few poems in
there
that blow me away and I don't blow easily (strike that secondary
interpretation).
He does all the wrong things and it comes out right - high and low vocab,
changes speakers, audiences, whatever.

The ones on "The History of Western Music" are especially wonderful (but too
long to type).

AFTER LADY MURAKAMI

These sleeping used car dealerships
and blowing wrappers

how many lost evenings
the meagerness, the waste

when suddenly the squeals
of a transvestite

about to gobble her cell phone

                    *** (a little hand divides the stanzas in the book)

Just as I found myself
in the dentist chair

only yesterday
hands clenched against my thighs

so I find myself here
in this seat

heart in my throat

as you walk into the room



The cherry blossoms are late
this year

I had nearly forgotten about them

the pleasure they bring
always fresh, a delicacy to it

because the poets say so

or just because

        ***

I had on my favorite kimono
not the most precious

but the one that calls attention
to my eyes

yet when you turned
it was as if a thought, like a tick

had started to bite
and then changed its mind

    ***

Do they know who I am
these gibbering little foreigners

coarse, frenzied
like perfumed monkeys

her servant's averted eyes
dew on her sleeve and all the rest

none of it, never even heard
of Lady Murakami

as they crowd me aside
at the sale bin

David Graham wrote:

> Yes yes.  Kleinzahaler's definitely worth it.  I fell in love with *Storm
> Over Hackensack* many years ago when a friend recommended it, but I rarely
> seem to encounter others who know the book.
>
> Still, with 4 books out now from Farrar Straus, not to mention lavish blurbs
> from the likes of John Ashbery, Helen Vendler, Allen Ginsberg, Richard
> Wilbur, Guy Davenport, and Thom Gunn, he suffers an obscurity we should all
> be so lucky to endure!
>
> The difficulty of slotting his work, though, does seem to contribute some to
> his odd non-reputation--in terms of name recognition, anthology placement,
> critical attention, and so on.  Just look at that list of blurbists above:
> when was the last time you found Ashbery and Wilbur sharing blurb-space on a
> book jacket?
>
> I think Thom Gunn gets it exactly right in his blurb on *Red Sauce, Whiskey
> and Snow*:
>
> "The distinction of August Kleinzahler is that he has combined two opposed
> poetic modes.  The first is the joky improvised speech we associate with
> O'Hara; the second the condensed, considered 'lapidary' style of let us say
> Bunting.  When Kleinzahler reconciles them, he creates something all his
> own, and does so with an energy I find unequalled by other living poets."
>
> Gunn is evidently a friend of Kleinzahler's, and the dedicatee for *Green
> Sees Things in Waves*.  Gunn's essay on Kleinzahler's work in *Shelf Life*,
> his Michigan UP book of prose, is quite acute and persuasive on
> Kleinzahler's virtues.
>
> I haven't yet seen the new book.  Does anyone have any poems from it that
> might be posted?
>
> The earlier books are all out of print and hard to find, I believe.  Well
> worth hunting up in the used bookshops.  A few years back there was an FSG
> selected edition with poems from *Storm Over Hackensack* and *Earthquake
> Weather*.  The title is *Live from the Hong Kong Nile Club*--not sure if
> it's still available; Amazon lists it as out of stock.
>
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> ====================================================
>
> > From: Daisy Fried <daisyf1 at juno.com>
> > Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 09:52:51 -0500
> > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > Subject: [New-Poetry] August Kleinzahler
> >
> > Helen--
> >
> > Hear hear! August Kleinzahler has one of the best ears in poetry since
> > Ezra Pound. His new book _The Strange Hours Travelers Keep_ from Farrar
> > Straus Giroux is very nifty! He's sort of known and not-known...he
> > publishes a lot in England, in the London Review of Books...but he's
> > pretty much outside academe is one reason he seems to be somewhat
> > under-talked about here, I think...But he shows up in the Threepenny
> > Review often enough. He's kind of outside all the camps--not experimental
> > in the academic sense, not mainstream either. Like Ashbery said of
> > O'Hara, he's too square for the hipsters and too hip for the squares...
> >
> > Maybe.
> >
> > Daisy
> >
> > Daisy Fried
> > 811 S. Hutchinson St.
> > Philadelphia, PA 19147
> > 215.923.3158
> > daisyf1 at juno.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Fri Nov 21 11:52:53 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 10:52:53 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] More Kleinzahler
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A144@ariel.ripon.edu>

A few short ones from *Storm Over Hackensack*--

An Autumnal Sketch

What to make of them, the professors
in their little cars,
the sensitive men paunchy with drink
parked at the fence
where the field begins and the suburb ends?

If there is a mallard in the reeds
they will take it.
They will take it and make it their own,
something both more than a duck
and less.

they so badly want a poem,
these cagey and disheartened men
at the edge of the field.
And before they turn back for supper
they shall have one.
================================

Art & Youth

Pliny said these lights in the grass are stars;
a man walking home from his day's labor
needn't lift his head skyward to tell the signs
Before the heavens were busy with Sputniks
and idiot beeps that Say *hey!* to far off worlds
we ran at the lights with jars. We ran and ran
until nothing was left of our bodies to spend.

An ache so sweet was born those nights
in the heat, in the grass, at summer's waning 
that we try for it years later in the dance
of lust and lust's passing.

                                                 Poor Swinburne, 
dithery and gallant in great drafty rooms,
would have had this ache flogged back into him,
but the heart is soon corrupted 
and love's accoutrements grow fierce.
==================================

Poetics

I have loved the air outside Shop-Rite Liquor
on summer evenings 
better than the Marin hills at dusk 
lavender and gold 
stretching miles to the sea.

At the junction, up from the synagogue
a weeknight, necessarily 
and with my father--
a sale on German beer.

Air full of living dust:
bus exhaust, air-borne grains of pizza crust 
wounded crystals 
appearing, disappearing
among streetlights and unsuccessful neon.
===========================

The Prodigal on Home Court

Crickets give me the willies 
but mothballs are worse--
my sweatsocks will outlast me. 
Home from points north,
west; years now 
arriving by bus, plane, always 
with useless books 
and a sawbuck to my name. 
My folks sleep. Older now 
they shrug. A shrug means peace. 
The stomach knows--
when the clams are bad or worse. 
Fools place love in the heart, 
but love is an acid 
that laps the belly's walls. 
The dirty aureole 
across the Hudson is New York. 
Jets sink into it. Here, 
on the cliffs opposite,
trees whisk themselves. 
The air freshens for rain.
Even George Washington, on the lam 
from Howe, hid out here. 
He ate and ran 
south. Ask any Hackensack. Whisky's 
the lad for tonight's ague. 
Paddy's Nepenthe, for demigods 
and skalds. These sheets 
are Kerry blue, 
so clean and cool 
I could be afloat on a lake.

--August Kleinzahler.  Storm Over Hackensack.  Moyer Bell, 1985.
===================================



============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================



From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Nov 21 15:25:08 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 15:25:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jimmy Santiago Baca, "What We Don't Tell the Children"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIEJMHMAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

What We Don't Tell the Children

Feathers in the yard this morning.
My cat?
Or the two black strays,
ominously staring with orange eyes
from corrugated, rusted sheep-shed roof?
I hear them at night
yeowling--
shush of branches, squeals and shrieks,
then silence.

Tufts of rabbit fur
in backfield weeds, shred of meat
still warm on bones,
blood drops in warm earth.

Artist couple rented around the
corner last month. Were ecstatic
about this *primitive place*.
She came over one morning,
arm bandaged, boyfriend
stern-faced, sucking air through teeth,
she said, "My cat went belly up,
no animal is supposed to attack another
belly up. Those blacks are vicious.
Ought to be put to sleep."
Her Siamese crossed Blacks' territory,
she came upon them, kicked one Black,
and it scratched her arm in defense.

They moved out month after they moved in,
truck loaded with paintbrushes, canvasses,
cameras, to find another *primitive place*
near Santa Fe, quaint artistic place,
tranquil as a pond in autumn evening
where golden-tipped wheat leans,
place with no problems, no animal
attacks another, where gentle folk
are as groomed as heirloom porcelain,
where there is no pollution, no drugs,
no world gone belly-up
the rest of us are trying to heal.

After they left, Antonio and I 
sat on the patio, talking how he
and Blacks played hide-n-seek,
how he crouched in cool cracks
reaching his arm under boards
by the fence, they squirmed under,
pawing at him playfully, their claws
tucked in their furry mitten-paws
safely.
"Where's the other Black Papi?"

"I don't know, *mejito*," I said.

--Jimmy Santiago Baca

fr. *Black Mesa Poems*
[New York: New Directions, 1989]


Hal

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Nov 21 17:27:31 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 17:27:31 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <3FBDCFD3.4925.217CCB@localhost>
Message-ID: <008501c3b07e$a7aaeab0$86efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> You're the one who's added "verbally" to the "clear", Bob.

You're right.  I hadn't realized it.  I, of course, assumed from the
beginning, stupid me, that you would take "clear" to mean "verbally clear."
I didn't always assume that you would use the verosopath's favorite tactic
of seeking a term to attack rather than accepting it to mean what just about
anyone else would take it to mean.

So, let's go back to the very beginning.  You said my taxonomy was unclear.
I challenged you to show, step by step, where it was unclear.  You agreed
to.  So, here, in slightly modified form, is my Statement 1 again.  Tell me
what is unclear about it, IN AN WAY WHATEVER, if you can:

STATEMENT 1

"Verbally expressed works, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, are
of four and only four kinds."

END OF STATEMENT 1

Consider it by itself.  To save time, let me tell you (although I don't
believe I should be required to) that by "work" I mean "a group of words
presented as a discrete, finished production such as a poem, play, essay,
set of instructions, personal letter, or the like."

Oh, and "meaninglessly rare" means, for me, too rare to be important.

--Bob G.




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Nov 21 20:20:49 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 20:20:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <3FBDCFD3.4925.217CCB@localhost> <008501c3b07e$a7aaeab0$86efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <00d901c3b096$dd904b30$86efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

A few minor corrections, in caps, to the following:


 > You're the one who's added "verbally" to the "clear", Bob.

You're right.  I hadn't realized it.  I, of course, assumed from the
beginning, stupid me, that you would take "clear" to mean "verbally clear."
I didn't always assume that you would use the verosopath's favorite tactic
of seeking a term to attack rather than accepting it to mean what just about
anyone else would take it to mean.

So, let's go back to the very beginning.  You said my taxonomy was unclear.
I challenged you to show, step by step, where it was unclear.  You agreed
to.  So, here, in slightly modified form, is my Statement 1 again.  Tell me
what is unclear about it, IN AN WAY WHATEVER, if you can:

STATEMENT 1

"Verbally expressed works, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, are
of four and only four kinds."

 END OF STATEMENT 1

 Consider it by itself.  To save time, let me tell you (although I don't
believe I should be required to) that by "VERBALLY EXPRESSED work" I mean "a
group of words presented as a discrete, finished production such as a poem,
play, essay, set of instructions, personal letter, or the like."

Oh, and "meaninglessly rare" means, for me, too rare to be important.  You
can delete "meaningless" if you want.

--Bob G.





From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Fri Nov 21 20:38:01 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 17:38:01 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poem:  The Voices
Message-ID: <BAY7-F123WerOc0Ne0P00000226@hotmail.com>

The Voices


Get out of me before I scream
voices of children and dogs
of radios and telephones
of the exhaust of buses
of dead birds frozen in the gutters

Don?t touch me or I will explode
faded hands of the old with their old smell
blighted hands of beggars
crumbling trees
electrical wires slicing the lucid blue skin of the sky

Keep out of my mouth my heart my loins

Don?t murder me with your voices of the dead that speak forever


==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________

From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Fri Nov 21 20:40:10 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 17:40:10 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Notes on recent poems
Message-ID: <BAY7-F28qRapKT5IE4W00003300@hotmail.com>

C. K. WIlliams's "The Singing" seems to me almost a parody of the sort of 
poem mainstream academics think ought to be written today:  pretentiously 
unpretentious, drawn from everyday experience the reader (assumed like the 
poet to be a middle class intellectual  in a suburban or 
nice-neighborhood-urban milieu -- note that house near a hill with pear 
trees!) can relate to, socially conscious but not, you know, like laying 
guilt trips on everyone (or at least not on anyone likely to read the poem,) 
so intensely involved in savoring the arrangement and rearrangement of its 
own emotions that reading it becomes as faintly embarrassing, and ultimately 
as tedious, as listening to someone else singing in the shower.  I cannot 
distinguish its rhythms from prose; its idiosyncratic lack of punctuation 
and copulae seems mere affectation; the style remarkable only in its 
startling ability to combine banal cliche with frothy gush:  those pear 
trees again "that go flamboyantly mad here every spring with their 
burgeoning forth."  Literarily it seems, consciously or not, to be an 
attempt to reprise Frost's "The Tuft of Flowers."  Both poems end with a 
naively tacked on "MORAL:", but whereas in Frost the naivete is Mozartian 
and the seemingly simple moral turns out to be one that shifts meaning 
whenever you look at it hard enough to understand it, there's no evidence 
that Williams is being ironic in bringing his lesson to rest in mooney New 
Age balderdash.

I hadn't known about August Kleinzahler, but I'm glad I do now:  the more I 
read of him the more I liked it.  His "Art & Youth" is an intensely American 
poem (despite Algy's cameo appearance) which tells you something important 
you didn't know you knew.  "Christmastime in Coronado" though needs some 
footnoting about Coronado, and maybe about the 1972 "Christmas bombing," to 
understand it.

The import of Jimmy Santiago Baca's "What We Don't Tell the Children" seems 
to be that the admiration which yuppie bohemians claim to feel towards 
primitive authenticity often turns out to  be a shallow and hypocritical 
pose.  This is about as enlightening as proclaiming that the Bishop of Rome 
is a member of the Catholic Church.

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Is there a gadget-lover on your gift list?  MSN Shopping has lined up some 
good bets!  http://shopping.msn.com



From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Nov 21 22:21:54 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 22:21:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Notes on recent poems
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F28qRapKT5IE4W00003300@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEEEKIHMAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

{    The import of Jimmy Santiago Baca's "What We Don't Tell the Children" seems 
{    to be that the admiration which yuppie bohemians claim to feel towards 
{    primitive authenticity often turns out to  be a shallow and hypocritical 
{    pose.  This is about as enlightening as proclaiming that the Bishop of Rome 
{    is a member of the Catholic Church.

Hmm, reading poems for enlightenment. I hadn't thought of that.

Hal         "Life swarms with innocent monsters."
                          --Charles Baudelaire
Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Nov 22 05:49:42 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:49:42 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jimmy Santiago Baca, "What We Don't Tell the Children"
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIEJMHMAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <014e01c3b0e6$5625a460$58efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

I'm with Jon on this Rod McKuen poem.  It is presented as a lesson, so it
seems reasonable to criticize it on the basis of the clichedness of its
lesson.  I think it an okay small narrative, though.

--Bob G.

> What We Don't Tell the Children
>
> Feathers in the yard this morning.
> My cat?
> Or the two black strays,
> ominously staring with orange eyes
> from corrugated, rusted sheep-shed roof?
> I hear them at night
> yeowling--
> shush of branches, squeals and shrieks,
> then silence.
>
> Tufts of rabbit fur
> in backfield weeds, shred of meat
> still warm on bones,
> blood drops in warm earth.
>
> Artist couple rented around the
> corner last month. Were ecstatic
> about this *primitive place*.
> She came over one morning,
> arm bandaged, boyfriend
> stern-faced, sucking air through teeth,
> she said, "My cat went belly up,
> no animal is supposed to attack another
> belly up. Those blacks are vicious.
> Ought to be put to sleep."
> Her Siamese crossed Blacks' territory,
> she came upon them, kicked one Black,
> and it scratched her arm in defense.
>
> They moved out month after they moved in,
> truck loaded with paintbrushes, canvasses,
> cameras, to find another *primitive place*
> near Santa Fe, quaint artistic place,
> tranquil as a pond in autumn evening
> where golden-tipped wheat leans,
> place with no problems, no animal
> attacks another, where gentle folk
> are as groomed as heirloom porcelain,
> where there is no pollution, no drugs,
> no world gone belly-up
> the rest of us are trying to heal.
>
> After they left, Antonio and I
> sat on the patio, talking how he
> and Blacks played hide-n-seek,
> how he crouched in cool cracks
> reaching his arm under boards
> by the fence, they squirmed under,
> pawing at him playfully, their claws
> tucked in their furry mitten-paws
> safely.
> "Where's the other Black Papi?"
>
> "I don't know, *mejito*," I said.
>
> --Jimmy Santiago Baca
>
> fr. *Black Mesa Poems*
> [New York: New Directions, 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
>




From marcus at designerglass.com  Sat Nov 22 09:52:58 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 09:52:58 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <00d901c3b096$dd904b30$86efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <3FBF31FA.27855.1B2E2B@localhost>

On 21 Nov 2003 at 20:20, Bob Grumman wrote:
> ... I, of course, assumed from the
> beginning, stupid me, that you would take "clear" to mean "verbally
> clear." ...<

This distinction you are now at pains to make, that it is useful to 
be "verbally clear" without being "substantively" or "conceptually" 
clear, seems to me to be an example of taking pitiful refuge in an 
intellectually poverty-stricken burrow that leads nowhere. It is no 
virtue, Bob, to claim to be able to state nonsense clearly if you're 
not willing to examine why it is nonsense. The only virtue that 
"verbally clear" offers any serious investigator of the human 
condition is that it makes it easy to ignore people who claim to be 
MERELY "verbally clear" while spouting patent nonsense.

STATEMENT 1
Verbally expressed works ("a group of words presented as a discrete,  
finished production such as a poem, play, essay, set of instructions, 
personal letter, or the like."), with certain meaninglessly rare 
exceptions, are of four and only four kinds.
END OF STATEMENT 1

My central objection to this remains its "four and only four kinds" 
language. There are also ambiguities in "presented as" and "finished 
production", not to mention the obvious "and the like" in the face of 
such a wide range of "finished productions" from poem to personal 
letter.

First, the "four and only four" issue:  this is language that demands 
to be taken as dispositive in a scientific way. It is the "and only 
four" that makes this demand explicit. If you were to say "four major 
kinds" this objection would dissolve because "major kinds" implicitly 
allows "minor kinds" with the demand to be taken as scientifically 
dispositive explicit in "and only four". And then we're back in the 
literary-criticism field where it is all merely subjective opinion 
and the kinds of reasons offered to hold an opinion are more 
important than the language in which they're presented.

Second, the "presented as" issue: this is ambiguous on the face of 
it. Presented by whom, to whom, in what numbers, in what venues? Does 
it count as "presented as" for a 7th grader to round off his love 
poem by signing it "Guess who" and then losing his nerve before 
giving it to the object of his affection? Does "presented as" count, 
in short, for the presentation as a "finished production" to the 
artist him- or herself? Is that sufficient to count as "presented as" 
-- an audience of only the presenter? If not, what does count as 
"presented as"?  

Third, the "finished production" issue: what counts as a "finished 
production"? Who certifies that it's "finished"? Is it enough that 
the presenter claim that it is finished for it to be so? What counts 
as the standard or criteria for "finished"? Who decides?

And "production" -- especially in some fields, such as plays or 
movies -- what counts as a "production"? Is a play not a production 
until someone puts it on the stage? Does a read-through count? What 
do you call a play that has not yet been produced on the stage, if 
"production" means that it must have been produced on the stage? How 
do you distinguish between a text that claims to be a play but has 
not been produced on the stage and one that has been? Is one more 
finished or more a production than the other?

Fourth, the "and the like" issue:  And the like of what, in the face 
of such a broad range of types of presentation? This looks to me like 
begging the question: you seem to want to have your conclusion 
implicit in your premise: you seem to be saying that works of art are 
works of art without taking any care to define "art".

M



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Nov 22 11:33:34 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 11:33:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <3FBF31FA.27855.1B2E2B@localhost>
Message-ID: <020701c3b116$60324550$58efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> > ... I, of course, assumed from the
> > beginning, stupid me, that you would take "clear" to mean "verbally
> > clear." ...<
>
> This distinction you are now at pains to make, that it is useful to
> be "verbally clear" without being "substantively" or "conceptually"
> clear, seems to me to be an example of taking pitiful refuge in an
> intellectually poverty-stricken burrow that leads nowhere. It is no
> virtue, Bob, to claim to be able to state nonsense clearly if you're
> not willing to examine why it is nonsense. The only virtue that
> "verbally clear" offers any serious investigator of the human
> condition is that it makes it easy to ignore people who claim to be
> MERELY "verbally clear" while spouting patent nonsense.

The verosopath invariably starts a new argument as soon as he is able when
asked
to argument a single point, for he knows he can never win any argument
unless he can
confuse the issue.  Not that Marcus is a verosopath.

I, of course, never made the argument Marcus attributes to me.  I have
merely argued that my statements have been clear.  That is all I want to say
on this irrelevant point.  And I've just deleted other arguments Marcus got
me making.  They had to do with a secondary definition of mine which I
considered an aid to the reader of my statement, not a part of that
statement.  I now withdraw it, in the interests of focus.  Now, if we can
return to my statement, slightly modified:

STATEMENT 1

Discrete verbal works, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, are of
four and only four kinds.

END OF STATEMENT 1

The meaning of each of these words is whatever standard dictionary meaning
best suits the context of the statement.

--Bob G.





From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Nov 22 11:52:42 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 08:52:42 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] copyright issues
Message-ID: <BAY7-F71nUyR53YPkz30000178d@hotmail.com>

I enjoy reading the "Poems by Others" posted here, but I wonder if anyone 
has ever determined whether there could be any problem with posting 
copyrighted material in a forum like this.

I'm certainly not bringing this up to discourage such postings.  But I'd 
feel better about them if I knew someone had determined they count as fair 
use.  Are people just assuming this?

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Groove on the latest from the hot new rock groups!  Get downloads, videos, 
and more here.  http://special.msn.com/entertainment/wiredformusic.armx



From marcus at designerglass.com  Sat Nov 22 11:57:06 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 11:57:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] copyright issues
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F71nUyR53YPkz30000178d@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <3FBF4F12.18973.8CD160@localhost>

On 22 Nov 2003 at 8:52, Jon Corelis wrote:
> I enjoy reading the "Poems by Others" posted here, but I wonder if
> anyone has ever determined whether there could be any problem with
> posting copyrighted material in a forum like this.
> I'm certainly not bringing this up to discourage such postings.  But
> I'd feel better about them if I knew someone had determined they count
> as fair use.  Are people just assuming this?

By god, this is a serious issue at last! Isn't every poet entitled to 
make a living by his or her poems? Shouldn't email list owners have 
to pay a royalty for the use of poems? Shouldn't email list owners 
have to charge a fee for the use of their list by the members of the 
list? Thank god someone with Jon's intelligence has finally brought 
this issue to light!






From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Sat Nov 22 12:14:32 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 12:14:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] copyright issues
References: <BAY7-F71nUyR53YPkz30000178d@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <001101c3b11c$18f27790$6501a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

This isn't a commercial venture, just a bunch of friends emailing each
other.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Corelis" <joncpoetics at hotmail.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 11:52 AM
Subject: [New-Poetry] copyright issues


> I enjoy reading the "Poems by Others" posted here, but I wonder if anyone
> has ever determined whether there could be any problem with posting
> copyrighted material in a forum like this.
>
> I'm certainly not bringing this up to discourage such postings.  But I'd
> feel better about them if I knew someone had determined they count as fair
> use.  Are people just assuming this?
>
> ==================================================
>
> Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
> http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
>
> ==================================================
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Groove on the latest from the hot new rock groups!  Get downloads, videos,
> and more here.  http://special.msn.com/entertainment/wiredformusic.armx
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sat Nov 22 12:17:46 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 18:17:46 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] copyright issues + Marcus
References: <3FBF4F12.18973.8CD160@localhost>
Message-ID: <005901c3b11c$8ccaafc0$63607550@anny>

From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>

> By god, this is a serious issue at last! Isn't every poet entitled to
> make a living by his or her poems? Shouldn't email list owners have
> to pay a royalty for the use of poems? Shouldn't email list owners
> have to charge a fee for the use of their list by the members of the
> list? Thank god someone with Jon's intelligence has finally brought
> this issue to light!

I would suggest 55 dollars per senseless post, the said money will be
subdivided among the other members for the time needed to read them.
Marcus your Maserati (or whatever) will soon have to be sold.




From poemlady at cox.net  Sat Nov 22 12:19:33 2003
From: poemlady at cox.net (Audrey Friedman)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 12:19:33 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] copyright issues
References: <3FBF4F12.18973.8CD160@localhost>
Message-ID: <000a01c3b11c$cc2986a0$4a430e44@Zoom>

I've done some research on this.  If a short excerpt of a book is posted for
discussion on an educational forum it's not a violation of copyright. A
single poem on a poetry list is, according to my interpretation of the
copyright law, not a breach of copyright.
Audrey


----- Original Message -----
From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 11:57 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] copyright issues


> On 22 Nov 2003 at 8:52, Jon Corelis wrote:
> > I enjoy reading the "Poems by Others" posted here, but I wonder if
> > anyone has ever determined whether there could be any problem with
> > posting copyrighted material in a forum like this.
> > I'm certainly not bringing this up to discourage such postings.  But
> > I'd feel better about them if I knew someone had determined they count
> > as fair use.  Are people just assuming this?
>
> By god, this is a serious issue at last! Isn't every poet entitled to
> make a living by his or her poems? Shouldn't email list owners have
> to pay a royalty for the use of poems? Shouldn't email list owners
> have to charge a fee for the use of their list by the members of the
> list? Thank god someone with Jon's intelligence has finally brought
> this issue to light!
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Nov 22 12:20:17 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 11:20:17 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re:  copyright issues
In-Reply-To: <001101c3b11c$18f27790$6501a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <BBE4F6F1.565A%grahamd@ripon.edu>

> This isn't a commercial venture, just a bunch of friends emailing each
> other.
> 

Sometimes more like family emailing each other--to judge by the squabbles!

As for copyright, all the poems posted are published in heaven.


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================


> From: "TheOldMole" <tadrichards at prodigy.net>
> Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 12:14:32 -0500
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] copyright issues
> 




From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sat Nov 22 13:01:45 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 11:01:45 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] copyright issues
References: <BAY7-F71nUyR53YPkz30000178d@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <3FBFA489.5F409591@earthlink.net>

Tis fair use.  Besides, the subject line, "Poems by Others," clearly
implies that the poster is not claiming ownership.

- Jim

Jon Corelis wrote:
> 
> I enjoy reading the "Poems by Others" posted here, but I wonder if anyone
> has ever determined whether there could be any problem with posting
> copyrighted material in a forum like this.
> 
> I'm certainly not bringing this up to discourage such postings.  But I'd
> feel better about them if I knew someone had determined they count as fair
> use.  Are people just assuming this?
> 
> ==================================================
> 
> Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
> http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
> 
> ==================================================
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Groove on the latest from the hot new rock groups!  Get downloads, videos,
> and more here.  http://special.msn.com/entertainment/wiredformusic.armx
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Nov 22 13:13:18 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 10:13:18 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Copyright issues
Message-ID: <BAY7-F52otwBP8xidGV00004933@hotmail.com>

Well, this has gotten more, and more immediate, response than anything 
literary I've posted here.

I want to be sure my own position is clear.  Common sense tells us that 
posting a poem for discussion in a forum of writers and scholars is clearly 
fair use,  comparable to handing out a poem in an English class; that no 
one's financial interests are going to be hurt by such emails, and that at 
any rate poets today are going to be so delighted to be read under any 
circumstances that it's absurd to think they would complain about their work 
being used here.

But what does common sense have do do with the law?  I've been told by one 
major news site that any unauthorized mass emailing of their content will be 
considered a copyright violation period end of story.

I'm not trying to complain about or put a damper on this type of use here; 
I'm just trying to determine if there's any risk involved before I start to 
do it myself.

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
online games and music with a high-speed Internet connection!  Prices start 
at less than $1 a day average.  https://broadband.msn.com (Prices may vary 
by service area.)



From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Nov 22 13:25:37 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 12:25:37 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re:  copyright issues
In-Reply-To: <3FBFA489.5F409591@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <BBE50641.5665%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Having committed an anthology and dealt with the incredibly tedious &
complicated issue of permissions, one thing I definitely, positively learned
was that the whole question of fair use is very much filled with ambiguity.

There are as many answers as questioners, it often seems.  Many seem to deal
with the grayness of the area by simply assuming the strictest
interpretation possible, and demanding or asking permission for the tiniest
use of the smallest excerpt.  Some publishers seem to play hardball on this,
and want $ if you even use a two-line epigraph from one of their authors.
Doesn't mean that their claim would hold up in court, necessarily, but we
did encounter some hardball players in our anthology work.

Music publishers generally seem to be among the most strict, so quote song
lyrics with fear & trembling.  No doubt this is because there is real money
to be made in music.

More common is a less drastic approach, taking into account the various
triggers that can qualify a given quotation for "fair use".  These include
the nature of the enterprise (educational, for-profit, etc.), the proportion
of the original work quoted, the possible commercial impact of quotation on
the copyright owner, the nature of the quotation (e.g. spontaneous one-time
effusion vs. building a course around photocopied material), and so forth.

There are many books and web sites devoted to copyright issues.  As far as I
can tell, occasional posting to such a list as this one of a poem or two
from a book or journal falls well within fair use.  But I'm not a copyright
lawyer, nor am I sure the law has been tested much yet in terms of listserv
usage.  

I love what the slam poet Taylor Mali says on his website.  If you use one
of his poems in class, he writes, "you honor me."  That's sort of the way I
feel, as a poet; given due acknowledgment, anyone who wishes to quote me is
welcome to.  

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at 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 <jvcervantes at earthlink.net>
> Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 11:01:45 -0700
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] copyright issues
> 
> Tis fair use.  Besides, the subject line, "Poems by Others," clearly
> implies that the poster is not claiming ownership.
> 
> - Jim
> 
> Jon Corelis wrote:
>> 
>> I enjoy reading the "Poems by Others" posted here, but I wonder if anyone
>> has ever determined whether there could be any problem with posting
>> copyrighted material in a forum like this.
>> 
>> I'm certainly not bringing this up to discourage such postings.  But I'd
>> feel better about them if I knew someone had determined they count as fair
>> use.  Are people just assuming this?
>> 
>> ==================================================
>> 
>> Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
>> http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
>> 
>> ==================================================
>> 
>> _________________________________________________________________
>> Groove on the latest from the hot new rock groups!  Get downloads, videos,
>> and more here.  http://special.msn.com/entertainment/wiredformusic.armx
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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 JforJames at aol.com  Sat Nov 22 13:56:00 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 13:56:00 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] copyright issues
Message-ID: <74.35c59ce0.2cf10b40@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/22/03 11:57:57 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
marcus at designerglass.com writes:

> Shouldn't email list owners 
>  have to charge a fee for the use of their list by the members of the 
>  list? 
I was thinking more along the lines of a transaction fee per posting. 
Certain members could run up quite a tab during their protacted 
back&forths.
We take Massercard, Visagra, 'merican Excess and cash in brown envelopes.
Finnegan


From marcus at designerglass.com  Sat Nov 22 11:54:25 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 11:54:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <020701c3b116$60324550$58efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <3FBF4E71.6955.8A5E2F@localhost>

On 22 Nov 2003 at 11:33, Bob Grumman wrote:
> The verosopath invariably starts a new argument as soon as he is able
> when asked to argument a single point, for he knows he can never win
> any argument unless he can confuse the issue.  Not that Marcus is a
> verosopath.<<

The idiot invariably clings to the stupidest thing as soon as he can 
get a grip on them, for he knows that blind adherence to one wrong 
idea will tire out any opposition.  Not that Bob is an idiot.

> I, of course, never made the argument Marcus attributes to me.  I have
> merely argued that my statements have been clear.<<

This is a lie. You made the distinction between "verbally clear" and 
"clear" yourself. I'm merely pointing out that merely verbally clear 
is insufficient. Any nonsense may be "verbally clear" but it's is 
nonsense still for all that.

> STATEMENT 1
> Discrete verbal works, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, are
> of four and only four kinds.
> END OF STATEMENT 1

Same problem, Bob -- "four and only four" purports to be scientific 
and dispositive. You are either making an inappropriate scientific 
claim or you are borrowing the language of science inappropriately to 
try to lend weight to your subjective opinions.

> The meaning of each of these words is whatever standard dictionary
> meaning best suits the context of the statement.

Whence the authority of dictionary-makers to decide what's OK and 
what isn't? Nobody elected them, after all. And simply appealing to 
precedent or tradition won't work, because what's considered correct 
changes over time. In the 1600s, for instance, the second-singular 
pronoun took a singular conjugation--"You is." Earlier still, the 
standard 2-S pronoun wasn't you but thou. Huge numbers of now 
acceptable words like clever, fun, banter, and prestigious entered  
English as what usage authorities considered errors or egregious 
slang. And not just usage conventions but English itself changes over 
time; if it didn't, we'd all still be talking like Chaucer. Who's to  
say which changes are natural and which are corruptions? --David  
Foster Wallace, American novelist and essayist, "Tense Present,"  
_Harper's Magazine_, April 2001





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Nov 22 15:38:35 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 15:38:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <3FBF4E71.6955.8A5E2F@localhost>
Message-ID: <031801c3b138$9a11d250$58efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> > I, of course, never made the argument Marcus attributes to me.  I have
> > merely argued that my statements have been clear.<<
>
> This is a lie. You made the distinction between "verbally clear" and
> "clear" yourself.

Yes.  But where did I ever claim "that it is useful to
be 'verbally clear' without being 'substantively' or 'conceptually' clear?"
(To once again fall to Marcus's tactic of getting away from the central
argument, preferably into an inquiry into a person's moral nature.)

"I'm merely pointing out that merely verbally clear
> is insufficient. Any nonsense may be "verbally clear" but it's is
> nonsense still for all that.
>
> > STATEMENT 1
> > Discrete verbal works, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, are
> > of four and only four kinds.
> > END OF STATEMENT 1
>
> Same problem, Bob -- "four and only four" purports to be scientific
> and dispositive. You are either making an inappropriate scientific
> claim or you are borrowing the language of science inappropriately to
> try to lend weight to your subjective opinions.

What is unclear in any way about "four and only four?"

> > The meaning of each of these words is whatever standard dictionary
> > meaning best suits the context of the statement.

> Whence the authority of dictionary-makers to decide what's OK and
> what isn't?

I stated that the meanings of the words I was using were those in standard
dictionaries.  If you don't want to accept those meanings, fine.  You sitll
need to show that by some standard my words are unclear.  You have not, to
this point.

--Bob G.




From JforJames at aol.com  Sat Nov 22 17:17:09 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 17:17:09 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: August Kleinzahler
Message-ID: <19d.1d7a846d.2cf13a65@aol.com>

The male Denise Duhamel? 
Finnegan


From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sun Nov 23 13:34:11 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 12:34:11 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: August Kleinzahler
In-Reply-To: <19d.1d7a846d.2cf13a65@aol.com>
Message-ID: <BBE659C3.56A8%grahamd@ripon.edu>

> From: JforJames at aol.com

> The male Denise Duhamel?
> Finnegan


I see the analogy:  Kleinzahler does have his extravagant side, not to
mention healthy doses of whimsical humor and cultural omnivorousness.  But
unlike Duhamel, he's also got that chiseled imagist side that Thom Gunn
alluded to.  The new book adopts its title from an early W. C. Williams
poem, and right off the cuff, I'm thinking Williams is maybe a better
analogy.  

I still haven't read the new book, but soon will.



====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================





From marcus at designerglass.com  Sun Nov 23 13:40:04 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 18:40:04 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
Message-ID: <200311231834.hANIYW1G027162@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

Marcus:
> ... You made the distinction between "verbally clear" and
> "clear" yourself.

Bob: 
> Yes.  But where did I ever claim "that it is useful to
> be 'verbally clear' without being 'substantively' or 'conceptually' clear?"<

Every damned time, Bob -- you constantly claim that it doesn't matter whether 
what you're saying makes any substantive sense so long as it is "verbally 
clear". 

Bob:
> (To once again fall to Marcus's tactic of getting away from the central
> argument, preferably into an inquiry into a person's moral nature.)<<

I say nothing of your moral nature, Bob. I merely point out what nonsense you 
write when you write nonsense. I'm sure you're kind to your pets and family and 
pay your taxes on time and all that.

> "I'm merely pointing out that merely verbally clear
> is insufficient. Any nonsense may be "verbally clear" but it's is
> nonsense still for all that.

Bob:
> STATEMENT 1
> Discrete verbal works, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, are
> of four and only four kinds.
> END OF STATEMENT 1

Marcus:
> Same problem, Bob -- "four and only four" purports to be scientific
> and dispositive. You are either making an inappropriate scientific
> claim or you are borrowing the language of science inappropriately to
> try to lend weight to your subjective opinions.

Bob: 
> What is unclear in any way about "four and only four?"<

What is unclear about it is substantive: such language makes an explicit claim 
to being scientific. But in the context it is offered, that of literary 
criticism, it is plain that such purportedly objective locutions are either 
rank mistakes about what is possible in the subjective field of literary 
criticism, or are attempts to borrow the weight of scientific-sounding 
locutions to bolster the use of mere jargon.

Bob:
> I stated that the meanings of the words I was using were those in standard
> dictionaries.  If you don't want to accept those meanings, fine.  You sitll
> need to show that by some standard my words are unclear.  You have not, to
> this point.<<

This is a vain pretense, Bob!  Words have many meanings, connotatively and 
denotatively, and they mean in the ways they are used, in the contexts in which 
they are used. The dictionary is descriptive, not prescriptive: it is a 
descriptive record of how words have been used, not a prescriptive template of 
the only way words may be used.

My point is that when you say such a thing as "four and only four" you are 
either making a scientific claim or you are using scientific jargon or you are 
making a mistake in using scientific locutions in a non-scientific context.

Why don't you say "four major", thus allowing for "many minor", sorts 
of "verbal expression", Bob?  Or "four predominant", or "four commonly used", 
or something along those lines that doesn't make a claim to scientific rigor?









From FanwoodJEL at aol.com  Sun Nov 23 13:45:02 2003
From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 13:45:02 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
Message-ID: <154.283ab4cb.2cf25a2e@aol.com>

Marcus, Bob, radical suggestion: telephone.

Jeffrey, in a moment of stunning clarity

In a message dated 11/23/2003 1:41:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
marcus at designerglass.com writes:
Marcus:
> ... You made the distinction between "verbally clear" and
> "clear" yourself.

Bob: 
> Yes.  But where did I ever claim "that it is useful to
> be 'verbally clear' without being 'substantively' or 'conceptually' clear?"<

Every damned time, Bob -- you constantly claim that it doesn't matter whether 
what you're saying makes any substantive sense so long as it is "verbally 
clear". 

Bob:
> (To once again fall to Marcus's tactic of getting away from the central
> argument, preferably into an inquiry into a person's moral nature.)<<

I say nothing of your moral nature, Bob. I merely point out what nonsense you 
write when you write nonsense. I'm sure you're kind to your pets and family 
and 
pay your taxes on time and all that.

> "I'm merely pointing out that merely verbally clear
> is insufficient. Any nonsense may be "verbally clear" but it's is
> nonsense still for all that.

Bob:
> STATEMENT 1
> Discrete verbal works, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, are
> of four and only four kinds.
> END OF STATEMENT 1

Marcus:
> Same problem, Bob -- "four and only four" purports to be scientific
> and dispositive. You are either making an inappropriate scientific
> claim or you are borrowing the language of science inappropriately to
> try to lend weight to your subjective opinions.

Bob: 
> What is unclear in any way about "four and only four?"<

What is unclear about it is substantive: such language makes an explicit 
claim 
to being scientific. But in the context it is offered, that of literary 
criticism, it is plain that such purportedly objective locutions are either 
rank mistakes about what is possible in the subjective field of literary 
criticism, or are attempts to borrow the weight of scientific-sounding 
locutions to bolster the use of mere jargon.

Bob:
> I stated that the meanings of the words I was using were those in standard
> dictionaries.  If you don't want to accept those meanings, fine.  You sitll
> need to show that by some standard my words are unclear.  You have not, to
> this point.<<

This is a vain pretense, Bob!  Words have many meanings, connotatively and 
denotatively, and they mean in the ways they are used, in the contexts in 
which 
they are used. The dictionary is descriptive, not prescriptive: it is a 
descriptive record of how words have been used, not a prescriptive template 
of 
the only way words may be used.

My point is that when you say such a thing as "four and only four" you are 
either making a scientific claim or you are using scientific jargon or you 
are 
making a mistake in using scientific locutions in a non-scientific context.

Why don't you say "four major", thus allowing for "many minor", sorts 
of "verbal expression", Bob?  Or "four predominant", or "four commonly used", 
or something along those lines that doesn't make a claim to scientific rigor?
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From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sun Nov 23 13:50:39 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 11:50:39 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <154.283ab4cb.2cf25a2e@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3FC1017F.9C277B01@earthlink.net>

Yeah.  Everytime I pick up the phone to make a call, I hear voices. 
After I hang it up, I hear echoes of those voices.  I'm going to have to move.

- Jim


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Nov 23 15:30:42 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 15:30:42 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <200311231834.hANIYW1G027162@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <02c801c3b200$aaf67ad0$5eefa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>


> Marcus:
> > ... You made the distinction between "verbally clear" and
> > "clear" yourself.
>
> Bob:
> > Yes.  But where did I ever claim "that it is useful to
> > be 'verbally clear' without being 'substantively' or 'conceptually'
clear?"<
>
> Every damned time, Bob -- you constantly claim that it doesn't matter
whether
> what you're saying makes any substantive sense so long as it is "verbally
> clear".

Can you substantiate that with a quotation?

> Bob:
> > (To once again fall to Marcus's tactic of getting away from the central
> > argument, preferably into an inquiry into a person's moral nature.)<<
>
> I say nothing of your moral nature, Bob. I merely point out what nonsense
you
> write when you write nonsense. I'm sure you're kind to your pets and
family and
> pay your taxes on time and all that.
>
> > "I'm merely pointing out that merely verbally clear
> > is insufficient. Any nonsense may be "verbally clear" but it's is
> > nonsense still for all that.
>
> Bob:
> > STATEMENT 1
> > Discrete verbal works, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, are
> > of four and only four kinds.
> > END OF STATEMENT 1
>
> Marcus:
> > Same problem, Bob -- "four and only four" purports to be scientific
> > and dispositive. You are either making an inappropriate scientific
> > claim or you are borrowing the language of science inappropriately to
> > try to lend weight to your subjective opinions.
>
> Bob:
> > What is unclear in any way about "four and only four?"<
>
> What is unclear about it is substantive: such language makes an explicit
claim
> to being scientific. But in the context it is offered, that of literary
> criticism, it is plain that such purportedly objective locutions are
either
> rank mistakes about what is possible in the subjective field of literary
> criticism, or are attempts to borrow the weight of scientific-sounding
> locutions to bolster the use of mere jargon.

That is, I'm either stupid or a con-artist, neither of  which has anything
to do with me, personally.

Marcus, "four" comes after "three."  "Only" means "by itself."  This will be
true for most people whether the two words appear in a scientific text or a
piece of literary criticism or elsewhere.  If you can';t deal with this,
admit that you are not competent to judge clarity.  Otherwise, tell me what
is unclear about my statement.

(Aside, which I shouldn't include because it's irrelevant but am too weak
not to: if I say, "There are two kinds of poems in English: those by people
whose last names begin with S, and those by people whose last names begin
with some letter other than S," would you say what I said was unclear?

> Bob:
> > I stated that the meanings of the words I was using were those in
standard
> > dictionaries.  If you don't want to accept those meanings, fine.  You
STILL
> > need to show that by some standard my words are unclear.  You have not,
to
> > this point.<<
>
> This is a vain pretense, Bob!  Words have many meanings, connotatively and
> denotatively, and they mean in the ways they are used, in the contexts in
which
> they are used. The dictionary is descriptive, not prescriptive: it is a
> descriptive record of how words have been used, not a prescriptive
template of
> the only way words may be used.

So, tell me how my statement is unclear by any standard of how words are
used that you want to use.

> My point is that when you say such a thing as "four and only four" you are
> either making a scientific claim or you are using scientific jargon or you
are
> making a mistake in using scientific locutions in a non-scientific
context.
>
> Why don't you say "four major", thus allowing for "many minor", sorts
> of "verbal expression", Bob?  Or "four predominant", or "four commonly
used",
> or something along those lines that doesn't make a claim to scientific
rigor?

Because I believe there are only four?  With certain rare exceptions?  But
why are you asking me this if you are not a verosopath intent on multiplying
the points under discussion to sow confusion, annoy your opponent into
careless mistakes, and divert attention from your inability to contradict
his main premise (in this case, the fact that his statement is not unclear).
And why can't you wait until later statement to find out why I say "four and
only four?"

--Bob G., about to read what others said in reply to your post, and
suspecting it will be that we're both terrible bores and should argue this
privately.  But I want to keep the way you exemplify the behavior of a
verosopath public (not that I am calling you one, for I'm merely saying to
exhibit the behavior of one)--even if it means keeping my own lunacy public.

--Bob G.




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Nov 23 15:36:42 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 15:36:42 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <154.283ab4cb.2cf25a2e@aol.com>
Message-ID: <030b01c3b201$812f7bb0$5eefa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

Jeffrey, there are a few advantages to Internetting: it's free, and one can replay at one's convenience.  It also makes one's thought, which--in theory--can be interesting, or--at worst--instructively representative of Error and/or other Evils-available to more than one person.

In short, a radical suggestion in return: delete
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2003 1:45 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?


  Marcus, Bob, radical suggestion: telephone.

  Jeffrey, in a moment of stunning clarity

  In a message dated 11/23/2003 1:41:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, marcus at designerglass.com writes:
    Marcus:
    > ... You made the distinction between "verbally clear" and
    > "clear" yourself.

    Bob: 
    > Yes.  But where did I ever claim "that it is useful to
    > be 'verbally clear' without being 'substantively' or 'conceptually' clear?"<

    Every damned time, Bob -- you constantly claim that it doesn't matter whether 
    what you're saying makes any substantive sense so long as it is "verbally 
    clear". 

    Bob:
    > (To once again fall to Marcus's tactic of getting away from the central
    > argument, preferably into an inquiry into a person's moral nature.)<<

    I say nothing of your moral nature, Bob. I merely point out what nonsense you 
    write when you write nonsense. I'm sure you're kind to your pets and family and 
    pay your taxes on time and all that.

    > "I'm merely pointing out that merely verbally clear
    > is insufficient. Any nonsense may be "verbally clear" but it's is
    > nonsense still for all that.

    Bob:
    > STATEMENT 1
    > Discrete verbal works, with certain meaninglessly rare exceptions, are
    > of four and only four kinds.
    > END OF STATEMENT 1

    Marcus:
    > Same problem, Bob -- "four and only four" purports to be scientific
    > and dispositive. You are either making an inappropriate scientific
    > claim or you are borrowing the language of science inappropriately to
    > try to lend weight to your subjective opinions.

    Bob: 
    > What is unclear in any way about "four and only four?"<

    What is unclear about it is substantive: such language makes an explicit claim 
    to being scientific. But in the context it is offered, that of literary 
    criticism, it is plain that such purportedly objective locutions are either 
    rank mistakes about what is possible in the subjective field of literary 
    criticism, or are attempts to borrow the weight of scientific-sounding 
    locutions to bolster the use of mere jargon.

    Bob:
    > I stated that the meanings of the words I was using were those in standard
    > dictionaries.  If you don't want to accept those meanings, fine.  You sitll
    > need to show that by some standard my words are unclear.  You have not, to
    > this point.<<

    This is a vain pretense, Bob!  Words have many meanings, connotatively and 
    denotatively, and they mean in the ways they are used, in the contexts in which 
    they are used. The dictionary is descriptive, not prescriptive: it is a 
    descriptive record of how words have been used, not a prescriptive template of 
    the only way words may be used.

    My point is that when you say such a thing as "four and only four" you are 
    either making a scientific claim or you are using scientific jargon or you are 
    making a mistake in using scientific locutions in a non-scientific context.

    Why don't you say "four major", thus allowing for "many minor", sorts 
    of "verbal expression", Bob?  Or "four predominant", or "four commonly used", 
    or something along those lines that doesn't make a claim to scientific rigor?
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From elemenope at icubed.com  Sun Nov 23 08:19:41 2003
From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions)
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 21:19:41 +0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Royalty and Copyright Issues
In-Reply-To: <200311231701.hANH1D1G026538@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200311231701.hANH1D1G026538@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <a05100300bbe66383739d@[204.215.201.218]>

I don't know about you, but I take an agent's fee from the poets who 
are smart enough to have me discuss their poems.

RD
ELEMENOPE Productions





-- 


From marcus at designerglass.com  Sun Nov 23 21:42:38 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 02:42:38 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
Message-ID: <200311240236.hAO2al1G029898@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

Marcus:
> Bob -- you constantly claim that it doesn't matter whether what you're saying
> makes any substantive sense so long as it is "verbally clear".

Bob: 
> Can you substantiate that with a quotation?<<

First, as evidence, you don't deny it. Second, as evidence, I've quoted what 
you've said each time, so not only can I substantiate it, but I have 
consistently substantiated it. Combine the quotes with your lack of denial and 
what have we got? 

> Bob:
> What is unclear in any way about "four and only four?"&lt;

> Marcus:
> What is unclear about it is substantive: such language makes an explicit
> claim to being scientific. But in the context it is offered, that of literary
> criticism, it is plain that such purportedly objective locutions are either
> rank mistakes about what is possible in the subjective field of literary
> criticism, or are attempts to borrow the weight of scientific-sounding
> locutions to bolster the use of mere jargon.

Bob: 
> That is, I'm either stupid or a con-artist, neither of  which has anything
> to do with me, personally.<<

No, Bob -- the implication is not that you're either stupid or a con-artist. 
The implication is that how you have phrased your claim is either stupid or 
deceitful. But this says nothing about you as a person, only about how you've 
phrased your claim. You seem to be determined to take any objection to your 
claim as an attack on your person -- and that alone is enough to raise 
substantial and significant doubts about whether you are doing science!

Now, to be sure, everyone gets attached to their theories and opinions, but 
one's theories and opinions are not one's self.  It is in the nature of the 
thing that honest inquiry between serious interlocutors starts with the notion 
that an attack on the opinion is not an attack on the man: we must be not only 
able but willing to separate our selves from our opinions in order to have any 
pretense toward honest inquiry. If we cannot, or do not, or even if only one of 
us cannot or does not, then all that can arise from any discussion is heat and 
not light.

Bob:
> Marcus, "four" comes after "three."  "Only" means "by itself."  This will be
> true for most people whether the two words appear in a scientific text or a
> piece of literary criticism or elsewhere.<<

But "five" comes after "four", Bob, and if the only reason you picked "four" 
out of the possible integers was that it comes after "three", well, that's 
scarcely a claim to scientific rigor, Bob!  As for "only", you don't only 
say "only" -- you say "four and only four", which is a locution that because of 
its well-established connotations and denotations is a claim to scientific 
rigor. What's wrong with "four major" or "four predominant"?

Bob:
> (Aside, which I shouldn't include because it's irrelevant but am too weak
> not to: if I say, "There are two kinds of poems in English: those by people
> whose last names begin with S, and those by people whose last names begin
> with some letter other than S," would you say what I said was unclear?<<

It's clear and it's trivial -- and by being both clear and trivial it doesn't 
argue strongly for the seriousness of any subsequent reasoning, Bob. Clarity of 
expression or "verbal clarity" is not all that is required of those who are 
putting forward a theory of how things stand, precisely because it is so easily 
possible to make trivial, or false, claims. The virtue of clarity of expression 
is that it makes it easier for the audience to judge whether the claims are 
trivial or false, of course, and that's no small thing, and I admire you for 
your pursuit of clarity of expression.

But my objection to your expression of your ideas, so far (and it is only so 
far, Bob -- for all I know you're right; you just haven't made a very good case 
for your views) is that in your attempt to use the language of science in the 
service of clarity of expression, it looks to me as if you've used language 
that makes stronger claims than you're ready to defend in, for example, "four 
and only four".

> Bob:
> So, tell me how my statement is unclear by any standard of how words are
> used that you want to use.<<

You're making the presentation of your claims, Bob -- you have to decide on how 
you're going to present those claims. What you're doing in the use of such 
locutions as "four and only four" is making at least an implicit, but combined 
with your use of the word "taxonomy" I think it is an explicit, claim to be 
doing science, not literary criticism. I think that that sort of locution 
weakens your case enormously because it makes it easy to object to what you're 
trying to do on non-substantive grounds, as I am doing, without regard to 
exactly what your claims may be.  The very method of your presentation, in 
short, your use of scientisms in the pursuit of true opinions in a subjective 
field, casts doubt on the likelihood of your being right.

Why don't you say "four major", thus allowing for "many minor", sorts
of "verbal expression", Bob?  Or "four predominant", or "four commonly
used", or something along those lines that doesn't make a claim to scientific
rigor?

Bob: 
> Because I believe there are only four?  With certain rare exceptions?<<

If there are exceptions, however rare, there are not "four and only four", you 
see, Bob!  There are "four major" and as many exceptions as there are, each 
exception being a minor and perhaps further categorizable in a "taxonomy" as a 
minor.  

The taxonomist's job is not to prescribe with his taxonomy, but to describe -- 
and you seem intent on prescribing.  That's why I say it looks to me as if your 
attempt at categorization is agenda-driven, determined to try to diminish 
the "mainstream" and promote the "otherstream" poetries by prescribing "four 
and only four" categories so that all the categories are of equal weight and 
importance, and deserve equal attention.





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Nov 23 22:16:05 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 22:16:05 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <200311240236.hAO2al1G029898@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <046e01c3b239$4cc22de0$5eefa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>


> Marcus:
> > Bob -- you constantly claim that it doesn't matter whether what you're
saying
> > makes any substantive sense so long as it is "verbally clear".
>
> Bob:
> > Can you substantiate that with a quotation?<<
>
> First, as evidence, you don't deny it. Second, as evidence, I've quoted
what
> you've said each time,

You've never quoted me saying what you claim I did.

> so not only can I substantiate it, but I have
> consistently substantiated it. Combine the quotes with your lack of denial
and
> what have we got?

Where is the quotation?

I don't deny it because who knows what I may have miswritten after wading
through your verosopathology.  I absolutely deny that I ever held the
opinion you are pinning on me.

> > Bob:
> > What is unclear in any way about "four and only four?"&lt;
>
> > Marcus:
> > What is unclear about it is substantive: such language makes an explicit
> > claim to being scientific. But in the context it is offered, that of
literary
> > criticism, it is plain that such purportedly objective locutions are
either
> > rank mistakes about what is possible in the subjective field of literary
> > criticism, or are attempts to borrow the weight of scientific-sounding
> > locutions to bolster the use of mere jargon.
>
> Bob:
> > That is, I'm either stupid or a con-artist, neither of  which has
anything
> > to do with me, personally.<<
>
> No, Bob -- the implication is not that you're either stupid or a
con-artist.
> The implication is that how you have phrased your claim is either stupid
or
> deceitful. But this says nothing about you as a person, only about how
you've
> phrased your claim. You seem to be determined to take any objection to
your
> claim as an attack on your person -- and that alone is enough to raise
> substantial and significant doubts about whether you are doing science!

That is a moronic statement, like almost all that you've made at New Poetry,
Marcus.

> Now, to be sure, everyone gets attached to their theories and opinions,
but
> one's theories and opinions are not one's self.  It is in the nature of
the
> thing that honest inquiry between serious interlocutors starts with the
notion
> that an attack on the opinion is not an attack on the man: we must be not
only
> able but willing to separate our selves from our opinions in order to have
any
> pretense toward honest inquiry. If we cannot, or do not, or even if only
one of
> us cannot or does not, then all that can arise from any discussion is heat
and
> not light.
>
> Bob:
> > Marcus, "four" comes after "three."  "Only" means "by itself."  This
will be
> > true for most people whether the two words appear in a scientific text
or a
> > piece of literary criticism or elsewhere.<<
>
> But "five" comes after "four", Bob, and if the only reason you picked
"four"
> out of the possible integers was that it comes after "three", well, that's
> scarcely a claim to scientific rigor, Bob!  As for "only", you don't only
> say "only" -- you say "four and only four", which is a locution that
because of
> its well-established connotations and denotations is a claim to scientific
> rigor. What's wrong with "four major" or "four predominant"?
>
> Bob:
> > (Aside, which I shouldn't include because it's irrelevant but am too
weak
> > not to: if I say, "There are two kinds of poems in English: those by
people
> > whose last names begin with S, and those by people whose last names
begin
> > with some letter other than S," would you say what I said was unclear?<<
>
> It's clear and it's trivial -- and by being both clear and trivial it
doesn't
> argue strongly for the seriousness of any subsequent reasoning, Bob.

But it's clear!  How is my formal statement unclear?
Why, if a statement about poetry (which therefore must be literary
criticism) that uses "only two," which is SCIENCE, is clear to you, if
trivial, is my other statement not?  If the trivial statment is clear, the
statement "There are only two kinds of poetry," which is part of it, must be
clear.  How is that different, so far as clarity goes, from
"Discrete verbal works, with certain rare exceptions, are of four and only
four kinds?"

Clarity of
> expression or "verbal clarity" is not all that is required of those who
are
> putting forward a theory of how things stand, precisely because it is so
easily
> possible to make trivial, or false, claims. The virtue of clarity of
expression
> is that it makes it easier for the audience to judge whether the claims
are
> trivial or false, of course, and that's no small thing, and I admire you
for
> your pursuit of clarity of expression.



But you said you would show that my statements were unclear.  That's why I
claim that HERE the clarity of my statements are all that count.  Why can't
you tell me where my statement is unclear?

> But my objection to your expression of your ideas, so far (and it is only
so
> far, Bob -- for all I know you're right; you just haven't made a very good
case
> for your views) is that in your attempt to use the language of science in
the
> service of clarity of expression, it looks to me as if you've used
language
> that makes stronger claims than you're ready to defend in, for example,
"four
> and only four".

If I can't defend them, that will mean they are probably invalid.  But that
is not what we're discussing on this thread.  We're discussing whether they
are clear or not.

> > Bob:
> > So, tell me how my statement is unclear by any standard of how words are
> > used that you want to use.<<
>
> You're making the presentation of your claims, Bob -- you have to decide
on how
> you're going to present those claims. What you're doing in the use of such
> locutions as "four and only four" is making at least an implicit, but
combined
> with your use of the word "taxonomy" I think it is an explicit, claim to
be
> doing science, not literary criticism. I think that that sort of locution
> weakens your case enormously because it makes it easy to object to what
you're
> trying to do on non-substantive grounds, as I am doing, without regard to
> exactly what your claims may be.  The very method of your presentation, in
> short, your use of scientisms in the pursuit of true opinions in a
subjective
> field, casts doubt on the likelihood of your being right.

I present my claims with words.  You say those words are unclear but refuse
to show what contradictory meanings they could lead to.  Your crap about
"four and only four" suggesting science is wholly irrelevant (and also
untrue since philosophers can use the same kind of exactness).  Who in the
world besides you would claim he couldn't understand my statement because he
was confused about what field it was a text out of?

> Why don't you say "four major", thus allowing for "many minor", sorts
> of "verbal expression", Bob?  Or "four predominant", or "four commonly
> used", or something along those lines that doesn't make a claim to
scientific
> rigor?
>
> Bob:
> > Because I believe there are only four?  With certain rare exceptions?<<
>
> If there are exceptions, however rare, there are not "four and only four",
you
> see, Bob!

Oh.  But, gosh, Marcus, doesn't the word "except" indicate that?  Clearly?
It was in my statement.

> There are "four major" and as many exceptions as there are, each
> exception being a minor and perhaps further categorizable in a "taxonomy"
as a
> minor.

No taxonomy that you would recognize as properly scientific can classify
every item it is supposed to, or ever has.

Aside from that, whether my statement is correct of not is irrelevant in
this thread.  The question here is whether or not it is clear.

> The taxonomist's job is not to prescribe with his taxonomy, but to
describe --
> and you seem intent on prescribing.  That's why I say it looks to me as if
your
> attempt at categorization is agenda-driven, determined to try to diminish
> the "mainstream" and promote the "otherstream" poetries by prescribing
"four
> and only four" categories so that all the categories are of equal weight
and
> importance, and deserve equal attention.

What has all this to do with the clarity of "there are four and only four?"
And the rest of my statement?

--Bob G.







From JforJames at aol.com  Sun Nov 23 22:19:42 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 22:19:42 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
Message-ID: <f9.34506baa.2cf2d2ce@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/23/03 3:37:37 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes:

> Internetting: it's free, and one can replay at one's convenience. 
Bob,
The internet is free in backchannel as well. Or you two
could start a joint blog.
Finnegan


From JforJames at aol.com  Sun Nov 23 22:35:15 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 22:35:15 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: August Kleinzahler
Message-ID: <1a4.1cee23a4.2cf2d673@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/23/03 1:35:35 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
grahamd at ripon.edu writes:

> I see the analogy:  Kleinzahler does have his extravagant side, not to
>  mention healthy doses of whimsical humor and cultural omnivorousness.  But
>  unlike Duhamel, he's also got that chiseled imagist side that Thom Gunn
>  alluded to.  The new book adopts its title from an early W. C. Williams
>  poem, and right off the cuff, I'm thinking Williams is maybe a better
>  analogy.  
David, I was being a bit flip. I do see the merits in his work (and
Duhamel's for that matter). I must confess little awareness
of Kleinzahler's poetry before those few poems were posted here.
So I thank you & Helen for the introduction.
Finnegan


From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sun Nov 23 22:35:40 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 03:35:40 -0000
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <f9.34506baa.2cf2d2ce@aol.com>
Message-ID: <001b01c3b23c$08c4c140$db8a8051@MyPC>

> In a message dated 11/23/03 3:37:37 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes:
>
> > Internetting: it's free, and one can replay at one's convenience.
> Bob,
> The internet is free in backchannel as well. Or you two
> could start a joint blog.
> Finnegan

+CONCUR+

[Especially as everyone has been warned-off intervening in this argument
between fell and constrained opposites or whatever the hell the wording is
in _Hamlet_ Q1, Q2, or F (Bob would know).]

The science/taxonomy thing strikes me a particularly silly -- didn't Sokal
and Bricmont hash this out pretty exhaustively in _Intellectual Impostures_?

The confusion between "science" and taxonomy would go back at least as far
as Aristotle, and Marcus' belabouring Bob for being pseudo-scientific seems
(to me) to turn on this.

All a bit self-indulgent, surely ...

<sigh>

Robin




From marcus at designerglass.com  Sun Nov 23 22:44:38 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 03:44:38 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
Message-ID: <200311240338.hAO3cp1G030265@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

Bob:
> ... I absolutely deny that I ever held the
> opinion you are pinning on me.<

All right -- let's start from there: What opinion is that?

Bob:
> But it's clear!  How is my formal statement unclear?
> Why, if a statement about poetry (which therefore must be literary
> criticism) that uses "only two," which is SCIENCE, is clear to you, if
> trivial, is my other statement not?  If the trivial statment is clear, the
> statement "There are only two kinds of poetry," which is part of it, must be
> clear.  How is that different, so far as clarity goes, from
> "Discrete verbal works, with certain rare exceptions, are of four and only
> four kinds?"<

For the same reason that we distinguish between "nag" and "steed", Bob. When 
you say "There are only two ..." you are not making the same kind of statement 
as when you say "There are two and only two ...". It is the sense of the 
locution, the echoes of the scientific, of the strictly unimpeachable, of 
the "if and only if" of math and logic.

That's why if you'd say "There are four major ..." or "... four 
predominant ..." you'd cut this ground right out from under critics whose 
hackles are raised by the presumption of scientific rigor in language regarding 
a subjective field of endeavor.

Bob:
> But you said you would show that my statements were unclear.  That's why I
> claim that HERE the clarity of my statements are all that count.  Why can't
> you tell me where my statement is unclear?<<

I've repeatedly shown why your statements are not, in my view, "clear" -- 
because they're not clear substantively. That it is clear that your claims to 
scientific rigor by the very method of your presentation are nonsense is simply 
not a reason that your readers should grant your views any serious 
consideration, since if you're serious it's clear that you're talking through 
your hat; and if you're not serious, well, why bother with non-serious blather?

But you want to say that there is a difference between "verbally clear" 
and "substantively clear" that allows any verbal clairty, however revelatory of 
the nonsesne of the substance, to support a claim that the nonsense is not 
nonsense simply because it's clear.  That's not mere nonsense, Bob -- that's 
nonsense eating its own tail.

Bob:
> If I can't defend them, that will mean they are probably invalid.  But that
> is not what we're discussing on this thread.  We're discussing whether they
> are clear or not.

Well so far you can't even do a very good job of defending your LOCUTION, much 
less your actual views. You seem determined to claim that any clarity of 
expression must count in favor of the clarity of the substance: and it just 
ain't so, Bob.

Bob: 
> I present my claims with words.  You say those words are unclear but refuse
> to show what contradictory meanings they could lead to.  Your crap about
> "four and only four" suggesting science is wholly irrelevant (and also
> untrue since philosophers can use the same kind of exactness).<<

Oho! Do you then claim that you're doing philosophy, Bob?  Splendid!  Let's 
examine your claims as philosophy, then, shall we? But first, Bob: be clear 
about what exactly kind of claim you ARE making.  Are you making a literary 
criticism claim, a scientific claim, or a philosophical claim?

Bob:
> Oh.  But, gosh, Marcus, doesn't the word "except" indicate that?  Clearly?
> It was in my statement.<<

Well, Bob, if you say "There are four and only four kinds of peaches, except 
for ..." well, you see, you've said there's more than four kinds.  And the same 
with kinds of poetry or verbal expression or art or whatever else you're trying 
to say there are "four and only four" kinds of.

Bob:
> No taxonomy that you would recognize as properly scientific can classify
> every item it is supposed to, or ever has.<

The problem is, Bob, that a taxonomy is descriptive, not prescriptive, and 
you're trying to create a prescriptive categorization that is agenda-driven, 
designed to give the impression that "otherstream" poetries are just as 
important and significant and worth just as much of the world's attention, 
as "mainstream" poetries.  That makes it pretty clearly neither scientific nor 
a taxonomy right on the face of it.

That's all right, though, Bob -- no one expects you or anyone else to be able 
to do literary criticism with scientific rigor. All I'm pointing out is that 
using the language of presumed scientific rigor is doing your views a 
disservice by opening them up to a kind of objection that "Four major" or "Four 
distinctive" or "four demonstrable" or "four predominant" doesn't open your 
views up to.





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Nov 24 07:11:01 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 07:11:01 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <f9.34506baa.2cf2d2ce@aol.com>
Message-ID: <00a501c3b284$072888b0$6aefa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

Thanks, James.  Wouldn't want to interrupt the sizzling jokes that you
mediocrities use this forum to bounce back and forth.

Bob G.




From ron.silliman at verizon.net  Mon Nov 24 07:39:34 2003
From: ron.silliman at verizon.net (Ron)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 07:39:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog
Message-ID: <001901c3b288$09a1f050$d5f88044@Dell>

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

My sock puppet, my self:
Questions of conceptual poetics

Philadelphia Progressive Poetry Calendar

The day I brought a rifle to high school

Linebreaks as the carbon dating
of contemporary verse
(Brenda Iijima's In a Glass Box)

Jacqueline Waters'
The Garden of Eden a College:
Writing verse in the rhythms of prose
(a nod to Marcelin Pleynet)

Stein at her Word
(reading Ulla Dydo)

Curtis Faville:
"It may actually help if one has 
a peculiar perception of the world"

Jack Collom:
How to shut up in a poem

Writing after 60, after 70

In memoriam: Mario Merz 
(Arts of Fibonacci)

Poetry & jazz

What do you support
if you publish in a journal that 
appears to exclude women 
or if you like Ezra Pound?

A new talk from 
William Carlos Williams:
The Basis of Poetic Form

Keston Sutherland:
What is vagueness?

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/






From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Mon Nov 24 08:02:26 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 14:02:26 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <f9.34506baa.2cf2d2ce@aol.com> <00a501c3b284$072888b0$6aefa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <002f01c3b28b$3618d060$c51c2dd5@anny>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2003 1:11 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?


> Thanks, James.  Wouldn't want to interrupt the sizzling jokes that you
> mediocrities use this forum to bounce back and forth.
>
> Bob G.

The point is Bob G. that Marcus B. is such a good friend of yours that you
end up playing only with him, and he with you, thus the idea of a joint
blog. At least this is the way I understand it.
And thank you for that mediocrities, I sometimes seriously have my doubts of
having reached such a complete level.

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

If you go with rivers, not roads, the trip
takes longer and you weave and see a lot more.
(from Houses)
Richard Hugo




From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Nov 24 08:30:45 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 08:30:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <002f01c3b28b$3618d060$c51c2dd5@anny>
Message-ID: <3FC1C1B5.32756.3DEA90@localhost>

On 24 Nov 2003 at 14:02, Anny Ballardini wrote:
> The point is Bob G. that Marcus B. is such a good friend of yours that
> you end up playing only with him, and he with you ...<<

Bob's in a bind, Anny: few people have taken his taxonomic attempts 
seriously. When he finds someone willing to take his views seriously, 
even in disagreement, he is willing to engage at some length and with 
some energy, and I think you're mistaken to conclude that his 
investment of time and energy indicates friendship.

But lengthy discussions on email lists are almost invariably 
dismissed by those not interested in them as wastes of time. I don't 
agree with Bob about much, but I agree with him about how to handle 
email you don't like on lists: delete that which you don't like and 
respond to that which you do and, thus, engage in creating the 
character of the list.  Lengthy discussions among a very few people 
on a topic where the header remains consistent, and where those 
people do not use other threads as points of departure for hijacking 
those other threads, cannot reasonably be objectionable, it seems to 
me, because you can easily avoid whatever is disagreeable to you 
about such lengthy discussions by simply deleting them unread, or 
partially read. But to interrupt a lengthy discussion with objections 
to its length or its purported exclusivity (what prevents you from 
engaging in the discussion, any of you, at any time, after all?) or 
for any reason, for that matter, seems to be an exhibition of exactly 
the kind of behavior that the objectors object to.





From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Mon Nov 24 10:22:33 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 09:22:33 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Notes on recent poems
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F28qRapKT5IE4W00003300@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <BBE77E59.5AD5%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 11/21/03 7:40 PM, Jon Corelis at joncpoetics at hotmail.com wrote:

> C. K. WIlliams's "The Singing" seems to me almost a parody of the sort of
> poem mainstream academics think ought to be written today:  pretentiously
> unpretentious, drawn from everyday experience the reader (assumed like the
> poet to be a middle class intellectual  in a suburban or
> nice-neighborhood-urban milieu -- note that house near a hill with pear
> trees!) can relate to, socially conscious but not, you know, like laying
> guilt trips on everyone (or at least not on anyone likely to read the poem,)
> so intensely involved in savoring the arrangement and rearrangement of its
> own emotions that reading it becomes as faintly embarrassing, and ultimately
> as tedious, as listening to someone else singing in the shower.  I cannot
> distinguish its rhythms from prose; its idiosyncratic lack of punctuation
> and copulae seems mere affectation; the style remarkable only in its
> startling ability to combine banal cliche with frothy gush:  those pear
> trees again "that go flamboyantly mad here every spring with their
> burgeoning forth."  Literarily it seems, consciously or not, to be an
> attempt to reprise Frost's "The Tuft of Flowers."  Both poems end with a
> naively tacked on "MORAL:", but whereas in Frost the naivete is Mozartian
> and the seemingly simple moral turns out to be one that shifts meaning
> whenever you look at it hard enough to understand it, there's no evidence
> that Williams is being ironic in bringing his lesson to rest in mooney New
> Age balderdash.
> 
> I hadn't known about August Kleinzahler, but I'm glad I do now:  the more I
> read of him the more I liked it.  His "Art & Youth" is an intensely American
> poem (despite Algy's cameo appearance) which tells you something important
> you didn't know you knew.  "Christmastime in Coronado" though needs some
> footnoting about Coronado, and maybe about the 1972 "Christmas bombing," to
> understand it.
> 
> The import of Jimmy Santiago Baca's "What We Don't Tell the Children" seems
> to be that the admiration which yuppie bohemians claim to feel towards
> primitive authenticity often turns out to  be a shallow and hypocritical
> pose.  This is about as enlightening as proclaiming that the Bishop of Rome
> is a member of the Catholic Church.
> 
> ==================================================
> 
> Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
> http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
> 
> ==================================================
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Is there a gadget-lover on your gift list?  MSN Shopping has lined up some
> good bets!  http://shopping.msn.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 
Well put concerning all three poets.

Paul Lake

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Mon Nov 24 11:46:06 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 10:46:06 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] C. K. Williams
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A146@ariel.ripon.edu>

> on 11/21/03 7:40 PM, Jon Corelis at joncpoetics at hotmail.com wrote:
> 
> C. K. WIlliams's "The Singing" seems to me almost a parody of the sort of
> poem mainstream academics think ought to be written today:  pretentiously
> unpretentious, drawn from everyday experience the reader (assumed like the
> poet to be a middle class intellectual  in a suburban or
> nice-neighborhood-urban milieu -- note that house near a hill with pear
> trees!) can relate to, socially conscious but not, you know, like laying
> guilt trips on everyone (or at least not on anyone likely to read the
poem,)
> so intensely involved in savoring the arrangement and rearrangement of its
> own emotions that reading it becomes as faintly embarrassing, and
ultimately
> as tedious, as listening to someone else singing in the shower.
.  .  .  .

I don't have time for much more than a question or four in regard to the
above, unfortunately.  When I try to parse that sentence, what I come up
with is that CKW is being accused of a) being "pretentiously unpretentious";
b) being middle-class; c) assuming his readers are middle-class; d) being
socially conscious without "laying guilt trips on everyone"; e)  "involved
in savoring the arrangement and rearrangement of its own emotions"; f)
tedious; and g) faintly embarrassing.  

Seems to me that the question of pretentiousness might well be worth some
discussion.  We'll probably never even agree on what "tedious" is, much less
whether the poem qualifies, but that's a serious point, especially with
regard to Williams's radically prosy style.  

Most of the other points, however, strike me as incoherent or so much in
shorthand that they might as well be.  I'm puzzled by the apparent class
warfare, too--what seems to me a not very clear blurring of who Williams is
with how he writes.

I came fairly late to an appreciation of C. K. Williams--was put off mainly
by his prosy style--so I think I understand where such criticism might be
coming from.  But I'd be interested, if anyone else is, in hearing more on
the subject.

My questions:  

1. What's wrong, exactly, with being middle-class, and why does it lead off
a criticism of a poet's style?  This is a serious question.  

2.  How & where does CKW assume his readers are middle-class intellectuals
living in nice neighborhoods, urban or suburban?  By mentioning a pear tree?
For that matter, I've never been to Paris, so if a poet mentions that city,
is he or she assuming I am French?  Furthermore, aren't the vast majority of
poetry readers, including I would guess readers of this list, middle-class
(we own computers) and intellectual (we read poetry)?



============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================
> ----------
> 
> on 11/21/03 7:40 PM, Jon Corelis at joncpoetics at hotmail.com wrote:
> 
> > C. K. WIlliams's "The Singing" seems to me almost a parody of the sort
> of
> > poem mainstream academics think ought to be written today:
> pretentiously
> > unpretentious, drawn from everyday experience the reader (assumed like
> the
> > poet to be a middle class intellectual  in a suburban or
> > nice-neighborhood-urban milieu -- note that house near a hill with pear
> > trees!) can relate to, socially conscious but not, you know, like laying
> > guilt trips on everyone (or at least not on anyone likely to read the
> poem,)
> > so intensely involved in savoring the arrangement and rearrangement of
> its
> > own emotions that reading it becomes as faintly embarrassing, and
> ultimately
> > as tedious, as listening to someone else singing in the shower.  I
> cannot
> > distinguish its rhythms from prose; its idiosyncratic lack of
> punctuation
> > and copulae seems mere affectation; the style remarkable only in its
> > startling ability to combine banal cliche with frothy gush:  those pear
> > trees again "that go flamboyantly mad here every spring with their
> > burgeoning forth."  Literarily it seems, consciously or not, to be an
> > attempt to reprise Frost's "The Tuft of Flowers."  Both poems end with a
> > naively tacked on "MORAL:", but whereas in Frost the naivete is
> Mozartian
> > and the seemingly simple moral turns out to be one that shifts meaning
> > whenever you look at it hard enough to understand it, there's no
> evidence
> > that Williams is being ironic in bringing his lesson to rest in mooney
> New
> > Age balderdash.
> > 
> 


From elemenope at icubed.com  Sun Nov 23 22:45:05 2003
From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 11:45:05 +0800
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical
 Difficulties Again?
Message-ID: <a05100300bbe72a123897@[204.215.203.6]>

Robin:

Please tell us more about:

>
>>didn't Sokal
>>and Bricmont hash this out pretty exhaustively in _Intellectual Impostures_?


If you demand it, I will go out and answer this question, but, since 
you are able and can, and, probably, have the * _ I  I _ *  there in 
your many roomed library, why not simply shine a flashlight into this 
murk.

[I am taking up a collection for the Queen's garden.  Sorry about the 
copter pad branding of the Buckingham lawn.  I've heard that a dose 
of catnip will revivify the once buoyant dancing Phoenicopteridae.]

RD
ELEMENOPE Productions






At 07:33 AM -0500 11/24/03, new-poetry-request at wiz.cath.vt.edu wrote:
>Message: 6
>From: "Robin Hamilton" <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
>To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing 
>Technical Difficulties Again?
>Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 03:35:40 -0000
>Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>
>>  In a message dated 11/23/03 3:37:37 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>>  bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes:
>>
>>  > Internetting: it's free, and one can replay at one's convenience.
>>  Bob,
>>  The internet is free in backchannel as well. Or you two
>>  could start a joint blog.
>>  Finnegan
>
>+CONCUR+
>
>[Especially as everyone has been warned-off intervening in this argument
>between fell and constrained opposites or whatever the hell the wording is
>in _Hamlet_ Q1, Q2, or F (Bob would know).]
>
>The science/taxonomy thing strikes me a particularly silly -- :
>The confusion between "science" and taxonomy would go back at least as far
>as Aristotle, and Marcus' belabouring Bob for being pseudo-scientific seems
>(to me) to turn on this.
>
>All a bit self-indulgent, surely ...
>
><sigh>
>
>Robin

-- 


From DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com  Mon Nov 24 12:52:29 2003
From: DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com (DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 03 12:52:29 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] are we having technical difficulties
Message-ID: <200311241757.hAOHvRYw171362@northrelay01.pok.ibm.com>

***** Reply to your note of: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 12:01:06 -0500 *************
>>those other threads, cannot reasonably be objectionable, it seems to
>>me, because you can easily avoid whatever is disagreeable to you
>>about such lengthy discussions by simply deleting them unread, or
>>partially read. But to interrupt a lengthy discussion with objections
>>to its length or its purported exclusivity (what prevents you from
>>engaging in the discussion, any of you, at any time, after all?) or
>>for any reason, for that matter, seems to be an exhibition of exactly
>>the kind of behavior that the objectors object to.

Pretty much true; except that junk mail is junk mail, and not
a non-zero cost.

It really would be most courteous of you two - MB and BG - to
continue your -whatever-it-is- backchannel.

Richard


From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com  Mon Nov 24 14:38:50 2003
From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 11:38:50 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] RIP Wendy Bishop
In-Reply-To: <200311241757.hAOHvRYw171362@northrelay01.pok.ibm.com>
Message-ID: <20031124193850.77009.qmail@web13006.mail.yahoo.com>



Hello all,

Some of you may have seen this on other lists:

 

Wendy Sue Bishop Ph.D.
 Wendy Sue Bishop Ph.D. Wendy Sue Bishop Ph.D., 50, who was a Kellogg W. Hunt distinguished professor of English at Florida State University, died Friday, Nov. 21, 2003. A private service will be later. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, 1311 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains, NY 10605. Fairchild Burial & Cremation Services (386-8686) is handling arrangements. Professor Bishop was a highly respected teacher and internationally recognized researcher in the field of rhetoric and composition, as well as a widely published poet and literary author. She was the author and/or editor of 22 scholarly books and several poetry chapbooks, in addition to numerous articles and short stories. She was a much sought-after presenter and speaker at professional conferences. She was the immediate past chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication and a past co-vice president and member of the board of directors for the Associated
 Writing Programs (AWP). She chaired and served as a member on numerous local, regional and national university committees. She is survived by her husband, Dean Newman of Tallahassee; a daughter, Morgan Pollard Bishop of Tallahassee; a son, Tait Bishop Pollard of Tallahassee; four stepsons, Jos Pollard of San Francisco, Calif., Jesse Kristopher Newman (and wife Andrea) of Apalachicola, Jeremy Colin Newman (and wife Jennifer Lynn) of Lake Butler, John Dean Newman (and partner Andrea Wiggins) of Gainesville; a stepdaughter, Leah Eowyn Williamson (and partner Julian Johnson) of Gainesville; three sisters, Judy Zinn (and husband Harris) of Cedar Grove, N.J., Linda Racicot (and husband Mark) of Whidbey Island, Wash., and Nancy Bishop Allen of Palmdale, Calif; her stepmother, Audrey Fauble of Whidbey Island; three stepbrothers, Bruce Fauble of Gold Hill, Ore., Robert Fauble of Rockland, Calif., and Brad Fauble of Sacramento, Calif.; an uncle, Bill Bishop of Sarasota; two nieces, Darcy Zinn
 and Kelley Receshki; three nephews, Michael and Warren Zinn and Aaron Racicot; five stepgrandchildren, Amelia Rose, Katie Grace, Payton Wesley, Jacob Aaron Newman and Tyler Dean Williamson. She was preceded in death by her mother, Lillian H. Bishop, and her father, Robert L. Bishop. 
Published in the Tallahassee Democrat on 11/24/2003. 

 

Jeff Newberry

 


---------------------------------
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Nov 24 15:28:55 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 15:28:55 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <f9.34506baa.2cf2d2ce@aol.com> <00a501c3b284$072888b0$6aefa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <00dc01c3b2c9$952e0e60$62efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> Thanks, James.  Wouldn't want to interrupt the sizzling jokes that you
> mediocrities use this forum to bounce back and forth.
>
> Bob G.

I refuse to apologize for the above, but will retract the ill-considered use
of the word, "mediocrities."  I'll be truthful and admit that I SOMETIMES
think the term SOMETIMES applies to more than a few people here, but there
are certainly non-mediocrities among the posters here, too.  I was upset at
James's request (which I took as a command) to take the Marcus/Bob thread to
a private blog.  And reacting to it when having to leave for work too soon
to think things through.  I agree that probably no thread in the history of
the Internet has been more tedious than ours, but I also feel some
interesting ideas have been expressed in it, and that--at its most
tedious--it is of more value than a lot of the threads at new-poetry.  I
might add, that it would seem to me that ANY thread should be encouraged,
considering how few are saying anything, anymore, at new-poetry.  And we
rarely post more than once each per day to it.  Besides, just what is so
hard about using the delete button?  I do it to most of the joke threads all
the time.  I also use it on over 200 spam posts a day.

As for the fact that I asked others not to post to the original thread,
which this one isn't, that wasn't to make it private.  Others could still
read it and comment on it, if--haha--they wanted to.  But I wanted them to
do it in separate posts to allow that ONE thread to be between Marcus and me
only, so that neither of us would have our energies divided.

Actually, the blog suggestion may be a good idea, if blogs are easy to
maintain and free.  I could report on it from time to time, the way Ron
Silliman reports on his.  When I have time, I'll look into it.  I must say,
though, that I'd much rather have Ron commenting here at times, than have to
go to his site to see what's going on in his head.

I thank James for not (yet) summarily kicking me off new-poetry.  Meanwhile,
I'll see how Marcus wants to handle our "debate," and report back.

--Bob G.




From JforJames at aol.com  Mon Nov 24 16:28:23 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 16:28:23 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
Message-ID: <1ed.142b9012.2cf3d1f7@aol.com>

In a message dated 11/24/03 3:29:37 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes:

>  thank James for not (yet) summarily kicking me off new-poetry.  Meanwhile,
>  I'll see how Marcus wants to handle our "debate," and report back.
Bob,
There was never a question of anyone being kicked off. You
and Marcus are free to carry on frontchannel if you wish. I was 
merely expressing my personal exasperation, as member of
the list, with a thread that appeared to be perpetual in nature
and of little interest to anyone other than you and Marcus.
Finnegan


From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Mon Nov 24 16:57:31 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 21:57:31 -0000
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <a05100300bbe72a123897@[204.215.203.6]>
Message-ID: <005701c3b2d5$f5c80350$70198051@MyPC>

Richard:

> Please tell us more about:
>
> >>didn't Sokal
> >>and Bricmont hash this out pretty exhaustively in _Intellectual
Impostures_?

Well, there are +so+ many things about _Intellectual Impostures_ (what was
the trite title they gave the rebranding for the USAmerican market?) but two
that would interest you, one infuriate and the other fascinate are the Left
Activist/Chomsky/Wobbly link, and the drift of names connected with the
Institute of General Semantics in the footnotes ...

(I wish I'd made notes at the time -- really, a book I ought to reread.)

Whatever, I found that I was struggling with the discussion of pomo and
mostly read the alternative chapters on hard and soft scientific
epistemology, where Sokal (does anyone know what contribution Bricomont made
to the text?) rubbished the analogical use of pseudoscientific typology in
pomo.  The Dog That Didn't Bark In The Night was Foucault, and given that
Foucault was the only one Chomsky had any time for ...

Absolutely bloody fascinating, and I racked-up a stunning Conspiracy Theory
(please no one mention Van Vogt and Scientology.  <g>).

Anyway ...

Sokal really put the boot into the use by literary critics of undigested
scientific terminology.

The point where I developed a personal cringe was when the boot smacked into
Deleuze and Godel's Theorem ...

        But to the point of Bob and Marcus' discussion ...

The crucial (I think) definition of "science" turns on repeatable
experiments.

(Aristotelian) taxonomy, worthwhile or not, isn't (in this sense) science.

Make any sense?

> If you demand it, I will go out and answer this question, but, since
> you are able and can, and, probably, have the * _ I  I _ *  there in
> your many roomed library, why not simply shine a flashlight into this
> murk.

Hey, I'd rather have your take on this.

> [I am taking up a collection for the Queen's garden.  Sorry about the
> copter pad branding of the Buckingham lawn.  I've heard that a dose
> of catnip will revivify the once buoyant dancing Phoenicopteridae.]

He is lost and gone forever / He's back home where he belongs / Leaving us
with Tony's Smilies / -- Situationists and gongs.

Robin

[ASIDE:

Sorry for my silence backchannel, Richard -- my mind isn't entirely right
just now.

Till Robin is himself again ...

Colley Cibber.]






From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Nov 24 17:58:34 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 17:58:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <1ed.142b9012.2cf3d1f7@aol.com>
Message-ID: <028501c3b2de$7d7b1cd0$62efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> >  thank James for not (yet) summarily kicking me off new-poetry.
Meanwhile,
> >  I'll see how Marcus wants to handle our "debate," and report back.
> Bob,
> There was never a question of anyone being kicked off. You
> and Marcus are free to carry on frontchannel if you wish. I was
> merely expressing my personal exasperation, as member of
> the list, with a thread that appeared to be perpetual in nature
> and of little interest to anyone other than you and Marcus.
> Finnegan

Good.  That's the way it looked to me later, when I was clearer-eyed, too.
Still, maybe we can blog, or backchannel and post a summary or even full
record in a single weekly or bi-monthly post. . . .

--Bob G.

--Bob G.




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Nov 24 18:07:39 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 18:07:39 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <a05100300bbe72a123897@[204.215.203.6]> <005701c3b2d5$f5c80350$70198051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <02b401c3b2df$c23489a0$62efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

SNIP to:

>         But to the point of Bob and Marcus' discussion ...
>
> The crucial (I think) definition of "science" turns on repeatable
> experiments.
>
> (Aristotelian) taxonomy, worthwhile or not, isn't (in this sense) science.

Would that include contemporary biological taxonomy?
Or, what kind of taxonomy would be science, what not?  What could be
considered the difference between a scientific taxonomy and a philosophical
taxonomy?

SNIP

> [ASIDE:
>
> Sorry for my silence backchannel, Richard -- my mind isn't entirely right
> just now.

Aside of my own to Richard: how is one to know for sure beforehand how a
post or series of posts will be received?  Perhaps no one will want to read
it, but perhaps some will and some won't.  Why is it more courteous to avoid
taking a chance that one's post may pain someone than to ask that someone
take a discussion backchannel because it pains one?

--Bob G.




From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Mon Nov 24 18:22:33 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 00:22:33 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <3FC1C1B5.32756.3DEA90@localhost>
Message-ID: <009f01c3b2e1$d957c6e0$9b1c2dd5@anny>

From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> On 24 Nov 2003 at 14:02, Anny Ballardini wrote:
> > The point is Bob G. that Marcus B. is such a good friend of yours that
> > you end up playing only with him, and he with you ...<<
>
> Bob's in a bind, Anny: few people have taken his taxonomic attempts
> seriously. When he finds someone willing to take his views seriously,
> even in disagreement, he is willing to engage at some length and with
> some energy, and I think you're mistaken to conclude that his
> investment of time and energy indicates friendship.
>
> But lengthy discussions on email lists are almost invariably
> dismissed by those not interested in them as wastes of time. I don't
> agree with Bob about much, but I agree with him about how to handle
> email you don't like on lists: delete that which you don't like and
> respond to that which you do and, thus, engage in creating the
> character of the list.  Lengthy discussions among a very few people
> on a topic where the header remains consistent, and where those
> people do not use other threads as points of departure for hijacking
> those other threads, cannot reasonably be objectionable, it seems to
> me, because you can easily avoid whatever is disagreeable to you
> about such lengthy discussions by simply deleting them unread, or
> partially read. But to interrupt a lengthy discussion with objections
> to its length or its purported exclusivity (what prevents you from
> engaging in the discussion, any of you, at any time, after all?) or
> for any reason, for that matter, seems to be an exhibition of exactly
> the kind of behavior that the objectors object to.

I think it is different, Marcus. Theory is one thing and facts are
different. When I come home I usually look for my private messages, then
start checking the mailing lists. If I see something like ten messages round
midnight to read, I simply look at the name of the senders, and if I am
particularly interested in someone, I might open the mail. Otherwise I just
shut down and do something else. It is not a matter of quantity but of
quality.
I cannot read and read things which do not interest me. There are so many I
need and want to read that I cannot follow because of my lack of time and
pending duties. Besides that we all belong to the working class, if I am
right. And the fact of sending trivia to a list can help. A good laugh is
better than pages and pages on the taxonomic levels of enterprising
philosophical managements manipulated by yuppies. This said I've sent my
daily arrows to whom they were targeted, not to you, and I switch to my
private mode.
Anny




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Mon Nov 24 19:34:18 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 00:34:18 -0000
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <a05100300bbe72a123897@[204.215.203.6]> <005701c3b2d5$f5c80350$70198051@MyPC> <02b401c3b2df$c23489a0$62efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <00b901c3b2eb$dcb4f010$70198051@MyPC>

From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> > (Aristotelian) taxonomy, worthwhile or not, isn't (in this sense)
science.
>
> Would that include contemporary biological taxonomy?
> Or, what kind of taxonomy would be science, what not?  What could be
> considered the difference between a scientific taxonomy and a
philosophical
> taxonomy?

It turns, I supppose, on what you consider to be "science".

And no, "contemporary biological taxonomy" isn't (in a narrow reading of the
term) "science".  I love Stephen Jay Gould's work (at least I can understand
it) but taxonomy, even if it involves DNA coding, is simply the Higher
Dictionary.

I've nothing against taxonomy, but science (in the narrow sense) it ain't.

Robin




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Nov 24 20:50:15 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 20:50:15 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <a05100300bbe72a123897@[204.215.203.6]> <005701c3b2d5$f5c80350$70198051@MyPC> <02b401c3b2df$c23489a0$62efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc> <00b901c3b2eb$dcb4f010$70198051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <037e01c3b2f6$793e97b0$62efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> > > (Aristotelian) taxonomy, worthwhile or not, isn't (in this sense)
> science.
> >
> > Would that include contemporary biological taxonomy?
> > Or, what kind of taxonomy would be science, what not?  What could be
> > considered the difference between a scientific taxonomy and a
> philosophical
> > taxonomy?
>
> It turns, I supppose, on what you consider to be "science".
>
> And no, "contemporary biological taxonomy" isn't (in a narrow reading of
the
> term) "science".  I love Stephen Jay Gould's work (at least I can
understand
> it) but taxonomy, even if it involves DNA coding, is simply the Higher
> Dictionary.
>
> I've nothing against taxonomy, but science (in the narrow sense) it ain't.
>
> Robin

I think I agree.  I consider taxonomy a required preliminary to science,
myself. Or any kind of verosophy.  On the other hand, to me, science is not
necessarily repeatable experiments but materially-based objective
definitions.  That said, I'd never consider my taxonomy science.  But it's
not irrelevant subjectivity, either.

--Bob G.




From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Tue Nov 25 13:55:36 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 13:55:36 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] RIP, Alas: Hugh Kenner
Message-ID: <F4812A31-1F78-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>


Hugh Kenner, Commentator on Literary Modernism, Dies at 80
By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT

Published: November 25, 2003

Hugh Kenner, the critic, author and professor of literature regarded as 
America's foremost commentator on literary modernism, especially the 
work of Ezra Pound and James Joyce, died yesterday at his home in 
Athens, Ga. He was 80.

He had been suffering from heart problems, his wife, Mary Anne Kenner, 
said.

The variety of Mr. Kenner's interests was contained in 25 books of his 
own (he contributed to 200 more) and nearly 1,000 articles, as well as 
broadcasts and recordings. He wrote commandingly on everything from 
Irish poetry to geodesic math and Li'l Abner's pappy (Lucifer 
Ornamental Yokum), to the Heath/Zenith Z-100 computer (one of which he 
built for himself and then wrote the user's guide) and the animated 
cartoons of Chuck Jones.

But it was for his pioneering guide to English-language literary 
modernism and for his books "Dublin's Joyce" (1956), "The Pound Era" 
(1971) and "Joyce's Voices" (1978) that Mr. Kenner was best known. In 
these works and others he employed the techniques proposed by the 
writers themselves to define new standards by which to judge their work.

In "The Pound Era," perhaps his masterwork, he tried to show how the 
American expatriate poet absorbed the altered sense of time created by 
Einstein's revolution and helped to pass it on to artists like Joyce, 
Wyndham Lewis, Eliot, William Carlos Williams and the sculptor Henri 
Gaudier-Brzeska.

While some faulted Mr. Kenner for attributing to Pound too much 
prominence in the scheme of modern art, no one failed to be impressed 
by the vigor and importance of Mr. Kenner's analysis.

In a 1988 review of "A Sinking Island: The Modern English Writers," the 
critic Richard Eder wrote in The Los Angeles Times: "Kenner doesn't 
write about literature; he jumps in, armed and thrashing. He crashes 
it, like a party-goer who refuses to hover near the door but goes right 
up to the guest of honor, plumps himself down, sniffs at the guest's 
dinner, eats some and begins a one-to-one discussion. You could not say 
whether his talking or his listening is done with greater intensity."

William Hugh Kenner was born in Peterborough, Ontario, on Jan. 7, 1923, 
the son of Henry Rowe Hocking Kenner, the principal, instructor of 
Latin and Greek and baseball coach of Peterborough Collegiate and 
Vocational Institute (now School), and Mary Isabel (Williams) Kenner, a 
classics teacher. After graduating from the Peterborough institute, he 
attended the University of Toronto, where he studied under Marshall 
McLuhan, taking his bachelor's in 1945 and master's in 1946, with a 
gold medal in English. He had difficulty deciding whether to study 
English or mathematics and opted for English because he said he would 
have been "only a competent mathematician," his son Robert said in an 
interview yesterday.

In 1947 he married Mary Josephine Waite, a librarian, who died in 1964. 
They had five children, Catherine, Julia, Margaret, John and Michael. 
In 1965 he married Mary Anne Bittner, an instructor in nursing at the 
University of Virginia. This marriage produced two children, Robert and 
Elizabeth. All seven children survive him, along with 12 grandchildren. 
Also in 1947, his first book, "Paradox in Chesterton," was published in 
England, with an introduction by McLuhan, who insisted that the author 
take a doctorate.

In 1950 Mr. Kenner completed his Ph.D. at Yale. His thesis was 
published in 1951 as his first book in the United States, "The Poetry 
of Ezra Pound." In it, he deplored Pound for having delivered radio 
broadcasts in Italy during World War II in support of that country's 
fascist government; at the same time he argued on behalf of the poet's 
important literary achievement. The book received the Porter Prize in 
1950.

Having completed his degrees Mr. Kenner was appointed an instructor at 
Santa Barbara College (later the University of California at Santa 
Barbara), where he taught until 1973. From 1973 to 1990 he taught at 
Johns Hopkins University, where he was Andrew Mellon professor of 
humanities. From 1990 until his retirement in 1999, he taught at the 
University of Georgia.

All the while, the writing poured forth, his other major books being 
studies of Lewis, Eliot, Beckett, as well as "Ulysses" (1980; revised 
in 1987), "A Homemade World: The American Modernist Writers" (1975) and 
"A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers" (1983).

Over time his prose style grew increasingly graceful, witty and 
accessible, prompting C. K. Stead, writing in The Times Literary 
Supplement, to call him "the most readable of living critics." He 
thought of writing as an "abnormal act," as he told an interviewer at 
U.S. News & World Report in 1983, rendered an increasingly "quaint 
skill" by the rise of other forms of communication.

Yet he scarcely confined his communication to print. Told by Pound in 
the early 1950's "to visit the great men of your own time," Mr. Kenner 
befriended many of his subjects, as well as the poet Louis Zukofsky, 
Buckminster Fuller and William F. Buckley Jr., who was best man at his 
second wedding.

Nor, surprisingly, did he deplore the decline of print as our main 
medium. "We forget that most of what people read when everybody read 
all the time was junk ? competent junk," he told U.S. News & World 
Report. "Now they get it from television. The casual entertainment 
people get in The evening from the box was what they used to get from 
the short fiction in The Saturday Evening Post. That magazine and 
others like it were the situation comedies and cop shows of their era. 
It is not a cultural loss that this particular use of literacy has been 
transferred from one medium to another."



-----------------------------------------------------------
Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu

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From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Tue Nov 25 15:59:27 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 15:59:27 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <037e01c3b2f6$793e97b0$62efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <41F4BE2A-1F8A-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

On Monday, November 24, 2003, at 08:50 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:
> On the other hand, to me, science is not
> necessarily repeatable experiments but materially-based objective
> definitions.

???

I should know better, but I have to ask, Bob.  "Materially-based" and 
"objective" are iffy, and you're clearly using "definitions" in a sense 
I haven't encountered before.  Could you give me some context?

Wendy


Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu
--------------------------

enstasy



From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Tue Nov 25 16:12:22 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 16:12:22 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] RIP, Alas: Hugh Kenner
In-Reply-To: <41F4BE2A-1F8A-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <0FB66EE5-1F8C-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

Hugh Kenner, Commentator on Literary Modernism, Dies at 80
By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT

Published: November 25, 2003

Hugh Kenner, the critic, author and professor of literature regarded as 
America's foremost commentator on literary modernism, especially the 
work of Ezra Pound and James Joyce, died yesterday at his home in 
Athens, Ga. He was 80.

He had been suffering from heart problems, his wife, Mary Anne Kenner, 
said.

The variety of Mr. Kenner's interests was contained in 25 books of his 
own (he contributed to 200 more) and nearly 1,000 articles, as well as 
broadcasts and recordings. He wrote commandingly on everything from 
Irish poetry to geodesic math and Li'l Abner's pappy (Lucifer 
Ornamental Yokum), to the Heath/Zenith Z-100 computer (one of which he 
built for himself and then wrote the user's guide) and the animated 
cartoons of Chuck Jones.

But it was for his pioneering guide to English-language literary 
modernism and for his books "Dublin's Joyce" (1956), "The Pound Era" 
(1971) and "Joyce's Voices" (1978) that Mr. Kenner was best known. In 
these works and others he employed the techniques proposed by the 
writers themselves to define new standards by which to judge their work.

In "The Pound Era," perhaps his masterwork, he tried to show how the 
American expatriate poet absorbed the altered sense of time created by 
Einstein's revolution and helped to pass it on to artists like Joyce, 
Wyndham Lewis, Eliot, William Carlos Williams and the sculptor Henri 
Gaudier-Brzeska.

While some faulted Mr. Kenner for attributing to Pound too much 
prominence in the scheme of modern art, no one failed to be impressed 
by the vigor and importance of Mr. Kenner's analysis.

In a 1988 review of "A Sinking Island: The Modern English Writers," the 
critic Richard Eder wrote in The Los Angeles Times: "Kenner doesn't 
write about literature; he jumps in, armed and thrashing. He crashes 
it, like a party-goer who refuses to hover near the door but goes right 
up to the guest of honor, plumps himself down, sniffs at the guest's 
dinner, eats some and begins a one-to-one discussion. You could not say 
whether his talking or his listening is done with greater intensity."

William Hugh Kenner was born in Peterborough, Ontario, on Jan. 7, 1923, 
the son of Henry Rowe Hocking Kenner, the principal, instructor of 
Latin and Greek and baseball coach of Peterborough Collegiate and 
Vocational Institute (now School), and Mary Isabel (Williams) Kenner, a 
classics teacher. After graduating from the Peterborough institute, he 
attended the University of Toronto, where he studied under Marshall 
McLuhan, taking his bachelor's in 1945 and master's in 1946, with a 
gold medal in English. He had difficulty deciding whether to study 
English or mathematics and opted for English because he said he would 
have been "only a competent mathematician," his son Robert said in an 
interview yesterday.

In 1947 he married Mary Josephine Waite, a librarian, who died in 1964. 
They had five children, Catherine, Julia, Margaret, John and Michael. 
In 1965 he married Mary Anne Bittner, an instructor in nursing at the 
University of Virginia. This marriage produced two children, Robert and 
Elizabeth. All seven children survive him, along with 12 grandchildren. 
Also in 1947, his first book, "Paradox in Chesterton," was published in 
England, with an introduction by McLuhan, who insisted that the author 
take a doctorate.

In 1950 Mr. Kenner completed his Ph.D. at Yale. His thesis was 
published in 1951 as his first book in the United States, "The Poetry 
of Ezra Pound." In it, he deplored Pound for having delivered radio 
broadcasts in Italy during World War II in support of that country's 
fascist government; at the same time he argued on behalf of the poet's 
important literary achievement. The book received the Porter Prize in 
1950.

Having completed his degrees Mr. Kenner was appointed an instructor at 
Santa Barbara College (later the University of California at Santa 
Barbara), where he taught until 1973. From 1973 to 1990 he taught at 
Johns Hopkins University, where he was Andrew Mellon professor of 
humanities. From 1990 until his retirement in 1999, he taught at the 
University of Georgia.

All the while, the writing poured forth, his other major books being 
studies of Lewis, Eliot, Beckett, as well as "Ulysses" (1980; revised 
in 1987), "A Homemade World: The American Modernist Writers" (1975) and 
"A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers" (1983).

Over time his prose style grew increasingly graceful, witty and 
accessible, prompting C. K. Stead, writing in The Times Literary 
Supplement, to call him "the most readable of living critics." He 
thought of writing as an "abnormal act," as he told an interviewer at 
U.S. News & World Report in 1983, rendered an increasingly "quaint 
skill" by the rise of other forms of communication.

Yet he scarcely confined his communication to print. Told by Pound in 
the early 1950's "to visit the great men of your own time," Mr. Kenner 
befriended many of his subjects, as well as the poet Louis Zukofsky, 
Buckminster Fuller and William F. Buckley Jr., who was best man at his 
second wedding.

Nor, surprisingly, did he deplore the decline of print as our main 
medium. "We forget that most of what people read when everybody read 
all the time was junk ? competent junk," he told U.S. News & World 
Report. "Now they get it from television. The casual entertainment 
people get in The evening from the box was what they used to get from 
the short fiction in The Saturday Evening Post. That magazine and 
others like it were the situation comedies and cop shows of their era. 
It is not a cultural loss that this particular use of literacy has been 
transferred from one medium to another."



-----------------------------------------------------------
Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu

-------------- next part --------------
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Nov 25 16:18:03 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:18:03 -0000
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <41F4BE2A-1F8A-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <002101c3b399$9d0933a0$34ad8051@MyPC>

> On Monday, November 24, 2003, at 08:50 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:
> > On the other hand, to me, science is not
> > necessarily repeatable experiments but materially-based objective
> > definitions.
>
> ???
>
> I should know better, but I have to ask, Bob.  "Materially-based" and
> "objective" are iffy, and you're clearly using "definitions" in a sense
> I haven't encountered before.  Could you give me some context?
>
> Wendy

I must admit, that bothered me too, Wendy.

I have the feeling that my limiting of "science" to the
repeatable-experiment definition might be just a mite restrictive, but when
it comes down to it, *all* taxonomy is essentially descriptive, and open to
the accusation of subjectivity that you (implicitly?) raise.

I would agree with Bob that taxonomy and "science" are closely connected,
but ...

What Darwin on the Beagle was doing was taxonomy, not science, and this
still echoes in the bedevilment that allows Fundamentalist Christians to
deny the Terry of Revolution as non-science.

Taxonomy is a perfectly legitimate discipline, but it has to be defended in
terms other than those which apply to "science".

A muddle ...

Robin





From mandolin at mac.com  Tue Nov 25 18:15:11 2003
From: mandolin at mac.com (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 18:15:11 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <002101c3b399$9d0933a0$34ad8051@MyPC>
References: <41F4BE2A-1F8A-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> <002101c3b399$9d0933a0$34ad8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <3791EE14-1F9D-11D8-8DAF-000A95E985A4@mac.com>

On Nov 25, 2003, at 4:18 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:

>> On Monday, November 24, 2003, at 08:50 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:
>>> On the other hand, to me, science is not
>>> necessarily repeatable experiments but materially-based objective
>>> definitions.
>>
>> ???
>>
>> I should know better, but I have to ask, Bob.  "Materially-based" and
>> "objective" are iffy, and you're clearly using "definitions" in a 
>> sense
>> I haven't encountered before.  Could you give me some context?
>>
>> Wendy
>
> I must admit, that bothered me too, Wendy.
>
> I have the feeling that my limiting of "science" to the
> repeatable-experiment definition might be just a mite restrictive, but 
> when
> it comes down to it, *all* taxonomy is essentially descriptive, and 
> open to
> the accusation of subjectivity that you (implicitly?) raise.
>
> I would agree with Bob that taxonomy and "science" are closely 
> connected,
> but ...
>
> What Darwin on the Beagle was doing was taxonomy, not science, and this
> still echoes in the bedevilment that allows Fundamentalist Christians 
> to
> deny the Terry of Revolution as non-science.

More important than repeatable experiment is falsifiable hypothesis. 
Actually, it's the theory of evolution which allows biological taxonomy 
to be treated as science, complete with your testable and tested 
hypotheses, Robin.  Relation through descent means that one can test a 
descriptive taxonomy (Archeopteryx--has feathers: check--no 
teeth:whoops!) against objectively measurable degrees of relatedness 
using, for instance, genetic  analysis and  the fossil record.  
http://www.talkorigins.org/ is a good, lay-accessible site which shows 
just how serious the science of evolution is (including the repeatable 
experiment and falsifiable hypothesis part), and just how  and why the 
creationist and intelligent design folks are non-scientific.

I'm afraid there's not much like that for poetic taxonomies, though.



From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Tue Nov 25 20:43:00 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 20:43:00 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <002101c3b399$9d0933a0$34ad8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <DE358ABD-1FB1-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

On Tuesday, November 25, 2003, at 04:18 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> I have the feeling that my limiting of "science" to the
> repeatable-experiment definition might be just a mite restrictive, but 
> when
> it comes down to it, *all* taxonomy is essentially descriptive, and 
> open to
> the accusation of subjectivity that you (implicitly?) raise.

We need taxonomies, but to the extent that they interfere with 
observation, they're a nuisance.  We spend more time deciphering the 
smudge on the telescope's lens than we spend on looking at stars--or 
darkness.

Wendy



Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu

                I have seen the builder of the house.
                                                     --Gautama Buddha



From kellogg at duke.edu  Tue Nov 25 21:36:45 2003
From: kellogg at duke.edu (David Kellogg)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:36:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] RIP, Alas: Hugh Kenner
In-Reply-To: <0FB66EE5-1F8C-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
References: <0FB66EE5-1F8C-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <1069814205.3fc411bd1adc6@webmail.duke.edu>

I loved Hugh Kenner.  During the year I spent at Johns Hopkins, I took a class 
with him each semester (graduate seminars on Joyce and Yeats).  Every Monday 
after class we'd walk back to his office, which would quickly fill with 
cigarette smoke; he'd tell me stories about Pound, Zukofsky, Eliot, 
Bunting . . .   The stories were odd, and inspiring, and totally of a piece 
with his books.  And he had all the time in the world to talk ("and time for 
me").  It took me years for my critical writing style not to be haunted by 
his.  

Quoting Wendy Battin <wjbat at conncoll.edu>:

> Hugh Kenner, Commentator on Literary Modernism, Dies at 80
> By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT



From poemlady at cox.net  Tue Nov 25 22:29:44 2003
From: poemlady at cox.net (Audrey Friedman)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 22:29:44 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] calling all art experts
Message-ID: <000701c3b3cd$8911f970$4a430e44@Zoom>

I'm in the midst of composing a poem, and am searching the internet high and
low for the name of a Renaissance artist who paints skies with clouds,
ethereal-looking rays poking from behind, where one would expect Jesus to
step out.  It's not Boticelli, not Fraggonard or Tintoretto or Titian.
Anyone here know who would fit this description?
Audrey




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Nov 25 22:55:59 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 03:55:59 -0000
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <DE358ABD-1FB1-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <009001c3b3d1$33f61d50$34ad8051@MyPC>

Wendy:

> > when
> > it comes down to it, *all* taxonomy is essentially descriptive, and
> > open to
> > the accusation of subjectivity that you (implicitly?) raise.
>
> We need taxonomies, but to the extent that they interfere with
> observation, they're a nuisance.  We spend more time deciphering the
> smudge on the telescope's lens than we spend on looking at stars--or
> darkness.
>
> Wendy

Briefly, taxonomies *interact* with observation.

Their power and their downfall ...

There is no such thing as a "neutral" observation, which isn't to say, pomo,
that the Objective World doesn't exist.

I think we might be saying the same thing in different terms here, and at
this moment I wish I'd kept my mouth shut -- can I leave it to you and
Michael?

Nothing to do with this thread, but two things that drive me ballistic.
Well, three.

(1)  Men (humankind, menschen) are descended from monkeys.

No they ain't -- monkeys and menschen are descended from a common ancestor.

(K, that's glib and not entirely accurate, but ...)

(2) Einstein disproved Newton.

No he bloody didn't, otherwise planes would be falling from the sky.
There's a sort of "absolute truth" about Newtonian physics -- Einstein
simply redefined it as a sub-class of a larger set of phenomena.  It works
for the not-terribly-large and the not-terribly-small.

(3) Euclidean mathematics is false.

Again, non-Euclidean mathematics simply redefined Euclidean math as a
subset.

[Please, nobody mention Godel ...]

To pick-up Michael's point about falsifiability (sp?) -- there might be
three criteria to "define" "science" -- repeatable experiments,
falsifiability, and prediction.  I think, in terms of Michael's point about
the science in evolution, it's the predictability element rather than
falsifiability that comes into play.

But it's too early in the morning for me to make much sense.

Robin





From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Nov 25 22:58:08 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 03:58:08 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] calling all art experts
References: <000701c3b3cd$8911f970$4a430e44@Zoom>
Message-ID: <009a01c3b3d1$80b15d30$34ad8051@MyPC>

El Greco?

Robin


> I'm in the midst of composing a poem, and am searching the internet high
and
> low for the name of a Renaissance artist who paints skies with clouds,
> ethereal-looking rays poking from behind, where one would expect Jesus to
> step out.  It's not Boticelli, not Fraggonard or Tintoretto or Titian.
> Anyone here know who would fit this description?
> Audrey
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From grahamd at ripon.edu  Tue Nov 25 22:59:56 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:59:56 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Age of Lowell
Message-ID: <BBE9815C.575C%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Have others been reading the essays that Poetry Daily has been featuring
weekly?  A most welcome development, I say.  If you've missed any, they're
archived under "past features" at the bottom of the news page.

I just finished Stephen Yenser's piece on Robert Lowell's new collected
poems, which has apparently received the full classic treatment, and runs to
twelve hundred pages, with multiple appendices, notes, essays, variants,
etc.   

http://www.poems.com/essayens.htm

I've been musing about how the great claims once routinely made for Lowell's
work (repeated by Yenser with a certain feverish emphasis) increasingly
strike me as products of their time, unlikely to last.  Impossible to
predict what future eras will think, of course, but let me ask the assembled
experts whether Lowell is still a live influence on your work and thinking,
now over a quarter century (!) since his death.

Seems likely to me that Lowell will always be remembered as a poet who was
dominant for a certain period, and in terms of his importance to what we
seem doomed to refer to forevermore as confessionalism.

But are his *poems* still on our tongues?  Are fledgling poets going to
school to "Skunk Hour" the way I did, all those years ago?  Are grad
students still getting excited over *Life Studies* and *For The Union Dead*,
or, good heavens, *Lord Weary's Castle*?  Does anyone without a dissertation
to write ever wade through *History* much anymore?  Is *Day by Day*
considered essential by anyone beyond specialists?

I find that as the years pass I seldom pull my Lowell books off the shelf,
myself, and if I revisit the work it's mostly the usual suspects.

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Nov 25 23:10:54 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 04:10:54 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Age of Lowell
References: <BBE9815C.575C%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <00a201c3b3d3$4962a9e0$34ad8051@MyPC>

From: "David Graham" <grahamd at ripon.edu>

> I just finished Stephen Yenser's piece on Robert Lowell's new collected
> poems, which has apparently received the full classic treatment, and runs
to
> twelve hundred pages, with multiple appendices, notes, essays, variants,
> etc.

1170 pp., plus index of titles.

The recommended retail price in the UK is ?40 (about $60?).

Better value is the recent Library of America edition of Ezra Pound, which
is a jewel.

Add to ...

The Collected Robert Graves (three volumes hardback, but one volume in
Penguin without the variants).

Robin

(Picky, picky.  <g>)




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Nov 25 23:26:07 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 23:26:07 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <41F4BE2A-1F8A-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <02f301c3b3d5$69f7a870$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>


> On Monday, November 24, 2003, at 08:50 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:
> > On the other hand, to me, science is not
> > necessarily repeatable experiments but materially-based objective
> > definitions.
>
> ???
>
> I should know better, but I have to ask, Bob.  "Materially-based" and
> "objective" are iffy, and you're clearly using "definitions" in a sense
> I haven't encountered before.  Could you give me some context?

First you'll have to tell me if you're asking as a literary critic or a
scientist, Wendy.  Otherwise, how can you expect me to understand your
question?

Okay, just a joke on ol' Marcus.  What I meant, writing informally, as
usual, was simply that I think that science ultimately consists of
definitions of reality based on its material components and connections.
Or, no ghosts.  By objective, I mean what I think the word always means to
the reasonable: based on fact, not opinion--or, consisting of words whose
meaning (just about) everyone will agree on, and go from to the same place.
For example, "I live at 1708 Hayworth Road in Port Charlotte, Florida," is
an objective statement since just about everyone will understand its words,
and be able to go from it to the same place; ditto, "a squirrel lives in
that tree," will mean the same (except for trivial details) to just about
everyone, and lead him to the same expectation about the tree and squirrel.
"My house is the prettiest house in Port Charlotte, Florida" is not
objective because not everyone will agree on the meaning of "prettiest" or
be able to go from the statement to my house.  Apologies for perhaps stating
the very obvious, but there are people who seem not to know what "objective"
means.

--Bob G.




From mmagee at dept.english.upenn.edu  Tue Nov 25 23:26:40 2003
From: mmagee at dept.english.upenn.edu (mmagee at dept.english.upenn.edu)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 23:26:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Age of Lowell
In-Reply-To: <BBE9815C.575C%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <BBE9815C.575C%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <1069820800.3fc42b80d439c@webmail.sas.upenn.edu>

> Seems likely to me that Lowell will always be remembered as a poet who was
> dominant for a certain period, and in terms of his importance to what we
> seem doomed to refer to forevermore as confessionalism.
> 
> But are his *poems* still on our tongues?  Are fledgling poets going to
> school to "Skunk Hour" the way I did, all those years ago?  

David, you may find it interesting that a number of younger (under 45!)
experimental poets discussed Lowell on various blogs in July 2003 - especially
Brian Kim Stefans, Louis Cabri, K. Silem Mohammad -- if you do a google search
you'll find it all.  It was all in response top something Ron Silliman said on
his blog, can't remember what. I'm unpacking all my books from a recent move
and I happened upon a poem I wrote when I was 19 that is a pure and shameful
immitation of "Skunk Hour."  I still have an affection for Lowell.  He was
ambitious in the best sense of that word -- and unlike many of the poets who
championed him, he was quite curious about the so-called New American poetry:
about WC Williams most obviously and the Ginsberg of Kaddish, and I think the
late Lowell suggests he had an eye on O'Hara, whom he'd read with.  Any-hoo,
here's what I wrote to Mohammad back in July.  -m.

************
Kasey, thanks for the thoughts on Lowell. I am of course quite interested in all
this, and thought you?d like to see this excerpt from Duncan?s ?Ideas of the
Meaning of Form? on Lowell, if you haven?t come across it before:

"There is marshalled an imposing company of arbiters and camp followers, lady
commandos of quatrains right! and myrmidons of the metaphysical stanza 
 to
balance the accounts and bolster standards.? Schoolmarms and professors of
literature affronted by the bardic presumptions of Edith Sitwell...Convention,
anyway, in these circles of literary critics and schoolmasters is a proper
mode, and seldom rises to any height above general conventionality...But in the
vitality of poets, of Marianne Moore or Robert Lowell, some personal necessity
rather than social opportunity gives substance and meaning to their
conventional verse.? The rigorously counted syllables, the certainty of end
rhymes, the conformation of stanzas arise along lines, not of a self-imposed
necessity but of a psychic need 
 Robert Lowell 
 is not merely conventional as
a matter of what me approve but holds his line and establishes his rhyme at the
edge of disaster.? His precisions arise not from a love of the melos, the
particles that contribute to the melody, but from a mistrust throughout of free
movements. When in Life Studies his line grows irregular, it conforms to the
movement straining for balance that a drunk knows.? Betrayal is immanent: 

?????????????????????????????????In the ebb-
?????????light of morning, we stuck
?????????the duck
?????????-?s web-
?????????foot, like a candle, in a quart of gin we?d killed.

The notation of these lines is as accurate as in William Carlos Williams, and
the art as admirable.? But the concept of the vers is not free, but fearful.?
Where in the later poetry of Williams the end juncture makes possible a
hovering uncertainty in which more may be gathered into the fulfillment of the
form, in the Life Studies of Lowell the juncture appears as a void in measure
that is some counterpart to a void in content.? How / we feel / can this / foot
/ get across to / that / line.? There."

I especially love this last description.? The essay is from 1961.? Roughly
contemporaneous with this is a review by Amiri Baraka (of all people) in Yugen
on Life Studies, where he essentially says, Lowell is the best of that other
group. (I?m not doing it justice, don?t have it in front of me.)

Quick story: In 1996 (I think) I had the fluky opportunity to spend an hour of
?quality time? with Ginsberg :) . (Wait?by ?quality time? I don?t mean I slept
with Ginsberg?we just talked!) He told me that Lowell had gone to see him read
?Kaddish? at Harvard in 1958.? In the middle of the reading Lowell skipped
out.? For 20 years Ginsberg considered it a HUGE dis.? Then in 1977 he and
Lowell were scheduled to do a reading together. Ginsberg decided to invite him
to lunch at his place and at the lunch fessed up that he was hurt by the
walk-out.? Lowell told him that he had been sitting with some Harvard
stuffed-shirts and had been so overwhelmed by "Kaddish" that he burst into
tears and, embarrassed, left.? I have to say this sounds right to me
. Given
what ?Kaddish? deals with and knowing Lowell?s own Oedipal drama (?91 Revere
St.?) it makes perfect sense that he?d freak.

BTW, William Carlos Williams liked Life Studies.? In 1957, Lowell had written
WCW to say ?I feel more and more technically indebted to you? and Williams
later called Life Studies Lowell?s ?terrible wonderful poems??a hedged
statement made even more strange by the end of his letter to Lowell: ?I
couldn?t go on.? The book took too much out of me which I don?t have any more
to give.? It?s very impressive but I couldn?t read it again.?

Last thing: the best thing to compare Life Studies to, if you want a very clear
sense of Lowell?s missed opportunities or what his aesthetic forces him to hold
back (both in terms of form and content) is Edward Marshall?s ?Leave the Word
Alone??a VERY underrated poem which comes out of Lowell?s New England world but
is indebted to Williams and Olson.


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Nov 25 23:30:39 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 23:30:39 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <41F4BE2A-1F8A-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> <002101c3b399$9d0933a0$34ad8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <030201c3b3d6$0bec88d0$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>


> > On Monday, November 24, 2003, at 08:50 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:
> > > On the other hand, to me, science is not
> > > necessarily repeatable experiments but materially-based objective
> > > definitions.
> >
> > ???
> >
> > I should know better, but I have to ask, Bob.  "Materially-based" and
> > "objective" are iffy, and you're clearly using "definitions" in a sense
> > I haven't encountered before.  Could you give me some context?
> >
> > Wendy
>
> I must admit, that bothered me too, Wendy.
>
> I have the feeling that my limiting of "science" to the
> repeatable-experiment definition might be just a mite restrictive, but
when
> it comes down to it, *all* taxonomy is essentially descriptive, and open
to
> the accusation of subjectivity that you (implicitly?) raise.

All everything is ultimately subjective, but only in the most trivial sense.

> I would agree with Bob that taxonomy and "science" are closely connected,
> but ...

> What Darwin on the Beagle was doing was taxonomy, not science, and this
> still echoes in the bedevilment that allows Fundamentalist Christians to
> deny the Terry of Revolution as non-science.

How about pure math?  Not a science because non-experimental?  And what
about Newton's principia, which probably didn't depend on the famous apple,
if it existed, or any experiments.  Sure, afterwards, experiments confirmed
it, but how--only by showing his equations worked.  One confirms a taxonomy
the same way.

> Taxonomy is a perfectly legitimate discipline, but it has to be defended
in
> terms other than those which apply to "science".
>
> A muddle ...
>
> Robin

I would agree with that.

--Bob G.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Nov 25 23:36:48 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 23:36:48 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <41F4BE2A-1F8A-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> <002101c3b399$9d0933a0$34ad8051@MyPC> <3791EE14-1F9D-11D8-8DAF-000A95E985A4@mac.com>
Message-ID: <036001c3b3d6$e7c81a90$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> More important than repeatable experiment is falsifiable hypothesis.
> Actually, it's the theory of evolution which allows biological taxonomy
> to be treated as science, complete with your testable and tested
> hypotheses, Robin.  Relation through descent means that one can test a
> descriptive taxonomy (Archeopteryx--has feathers: check--no
> teeth:whoops!) against objectively measurable degrees of relatedness
> using, for instance, genetic  analysis and  the fossil record.
> http://www.talkorigins.org/ is a good, lay-accessible site which shows
> just how serious the science of evolution is (including the repeatable
> experiment and falsifiable hypothesis part), and just how  and why the
> creationist and intelligent design folks are non-scientific.
>
> I'm afraid there's not much like that for poetic taxonomies, though.

For the record, I disagree--even though my taxonomy of poetry seems to be
the only one in existence, and so has the handicaps that Linnaeus's
biological one had, pre-Darwin and Mendel and electron microscopes.  I have
enough on my hands with Marcus, though, so will leave it at that.

--Bob G.




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Nov 25 23:40:30 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 23:40:30 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <DE358ABD-1FB1-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <03b901c3b3d7$6c28ce60$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> We need taxonomies, but to the extent that they interfere with 
> observation, they're a nuisance.  We spend more time deciphering the 
> smudge on the telescope's lens than we spend on looking at stars--or 
> darkness.
> 
> Wendy

They're a nuisance only to the extent that people misuse them.

--Bob G. 




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Nov 26 00:11:13 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 05:11:13 -0000
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <41F4BE2A-1F8A-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> <002101c3b399$9d0933a0$34ad8051@MyPC> <030201c3b3d6$0bec88d0$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <00c901c3b3db$b67f1f60$34ad8051@MyPC>

From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

Again,  briefly ...

> How about pure math?  Not a science because non-experimental?

Math *isn't* science: it's more fundamental.  You can do math without
science (though you don't *need* math to indulge in taxonomy) but not vice
versa.

But nice as it would be to have some solid rock to ground on, there are two
objections ...

... and incidentally, the term "pure math" begs fifty-seven questions.

For two, Riemann geometry and Godel's theorem.

The closest to bedrock isn't math but arithmetic (see Russell and Whitehead)
but even that gets blown away by Godel.

Sad, but ...

> And what
> about Newton's principia, which probably didn't depend on the famous
apple,
> if it existed, or any experiments.  Sure, afterwards, experiments
confirmed
> it, but how--only by showing his equations worked.

Yo -- it's the predictability thing.

> One confirms a taxonomy
> the same way.

You can't *confirm* a taxonomy, the way you can (or can't) confirm whether
light is a ray or a particle.  A taxonomy is simply descriptive.

Apropos of nothing, I came on a rather neat annecdote about the Making of
the OED recently.  Apparently when the compilers were short of a current
usage for a term, they'd contact Marghanita Laski and she'd write a letter
to the Times using the word.

I *like* that -- premature Situationist.

The ghost of Guy Debord is laughing at the door ...

Robin




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Nov 26 00:29:02 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 00:29:02 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <41F4BE2A-1F8A-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> <002101c3b399$9d0933a0$34ad8051@MyPC> <030201c3b3d6$0bec88d0$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc> <00c901c3b3db$b67f1f60$34ad8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <044f01c3b3de$341b93c0$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

I should have been in bed two hours ago.  Since I'm not, I suppose I'll
finish off the day by begging off from further discussion of an interesting
set of questions--and congratulating myself for the coinage, "verosophy,"
which is truth-seeking and covers math, taxonomy, science, history and lots
else, regardless of their specific definitions.  Of course, as a true
taxonomaniac, I WILL get around to defining each variety of verosophy one of
these days.  Got too much else to do right now.

--Bob G.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 12:11 AM
Subject: Re: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical
Difficulties Again?


> From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
>
> Again,  briefly ...
>
> > How about pure math?  Not a science because non-experimental?
>
> Math *isn't* science: it's more fundamental.  You can do math without
> science (though you don't *need* math to indulge in taxonomy) but not vice
> versa.
>
> But nice as it would be to have some solid rock to ground on, there are
two
> objections ...
>
> ... and incidentally, the term "pure math" begs fifty-seven questions.
>
> For two, Riemann geometry and Godel's theorem.
>
> The closest to bedrock isn't math but arithmetic (see Russell and
Whitehead)
> but even that gets blown away by Godel.
>
> Sad, but ...
>
> > And what
> > about Newton's principia, which probably didn't depend on the famous
> apple,
> > if it existed, or any experiments.  Sure, afterwards, experiments
> confirmed
> > it, but how--only by showing his equations worked.
>
> Yo -- it's the predictability thing.
>
> > One confirms a taxonomy
> > the same way.
>
> You can't *confirm* a taxonomy, the way you can (or can't) confirm whether
> light is a ray or a particle.  A taxonomy is simply descriptive.
>
> Apropos of nothing, I came on a rather neat annecdote about the Making of
> the OED recently.  Apparently when the compilers were short of a current
> usage for a term, they'd contact Marghanita Laski and she'd write a letter
> to the Times using the word.
>
> I *like* that -- premature Situationist.
>
> The ghost of Guy Debord is laughing at the door ...
>
> Robin
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Wed Nov 26 00:31:09 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 00:31:09 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <009001c3b3d1$33f61d50$34ad8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <BD6E8FDD-1FD1-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

On Tuesday, November 25, 2003, at 10:55 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:

> Briefly, taxonomies *interact* with observation.
>
> Their power and their downfall ...
>
> There is no such thing as a "neutral" observation, which isn't to say, 
> pomo,
> that the Objective World doesn't exist.
>
> I think we might be saying the same thing in different terms here, and 
> at
> this moment I wish I'd kept my mouth shut -- can I leave it to you and
> Michael?

Agreed.  And no, I'm not going to carry the banner; I don't have the 
time right now.

Wendy



Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu
Contemporary American Poetry Archive  http://capa.conncoll.edu



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Nov 26 00:36:10 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 05:36:10 -0000
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <41F4BE2A-1F8A-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> <002101c3b399$9d0933a0$34ad8051@MyPC> <030201c3b3d6$0bec88d0$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <00f401c3b3df$33a005b0$34ad8051@MyPC>

Bob:

> All everything is ultimately subjective, but only in the most trivial
sense.

At least one place where a distinction is drawn between the subjective and
the personal is in Philip Hobsbaum's _A Theory of Communication_.

Probably badly paraphrasing, Philip would see the subjective as solipsistic,
the personal as involved with consensual semantic reality.  (My terms, not
his.)

But then, he threw a typewriter at C.L.Stevenson's daughter.

... and don't even mention the alsatian.

:-(

Robin







From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Wed Nov 26 00:45:39 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 00:45:39 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
In-Reply-To: <02f301c3b3d5$69f7a870$22efa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>
Message-ID: <C3C9AC2F-1FD3-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

Bob,
Thanks for the context.  That's not my understanding of science, and I 
don't believe your taxonomies are any more objective than mine would 
be, since we read for ourselves and are clearly equally blind and deaf 
to the great body of work we don't know how to love.  But I don't blame 
you for trying.

Wendy

ps: math is not science.

On Tuesday, November 25, 2003, at 11:26 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:

>
>
>> On Monday, November 24, 2003, at 08:50 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:
>>> On the other hand, to me, science is not
>>> necessarily repeatable experiments but materially-based objective
>>> definitions.
>>
>> ???
>>
>> I should know better, but I have to ask, Bob.  "Materially-based" and
>> "objective" are iffy, and you're clearly using "definitions" in a 
>> sense
>> I haven't encountered before.  Could you give me some context?
>
> First you'll have to tell me if you're asking as a literary critic or a
> scientist, Wendy.  Otherwise, how can you expect me to understand your
> question?
>
> Okay, just a joke on ol' Marcus.  What I meant, writing informally, as
> usual, was simply that I think that science ultimately consists of
> definitions of reality based on its material components and 
> connections.
> Or, no ghosts.  By objective, I mean what I think the word always 
> means to
> the reasonable: based on fact, not opinion--or, consisting of words 
> whose
> meaning (just about) everyone will agree on, and go from to the same 
> place.
> For example, "I live at 1708 Hayworth Road in Port Charlotte, 
> Florida," is
> an objective statement since just about everyone will understand its 
> words,
> and be able to go from it to the same place; ditto, "a squirrel lives 
> in
> that tree," will mean the same (except for trivial details) to just 
> about
> everyone, and lead him to the same expectation about the tree and 
> squirrel.
> "My house is the prettiest house in Port Charlotte, Florida" is not
> objective because not everyone will agree on the meaning of 
> "prettiest" or
> be able to go from the statement to my house.  Apologies for perhaps 
> stating
> the very obvious, but there are people who seem not to know what 
> "objective"
> means.
>
> --Bob G.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu
Contemporary American Poetry Archive  http://capa.conncoll.edu



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Nov 26 06:14:45 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 06:14:45 -0500
Subject: OFF-ARGUMENT -- Re: [New-Poetry] Are We Experiencing Technical Difficulties Again?
References: <C3C9AC2F-1FD3-11D8-A93A-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <00f101c3b40e$7f99e600$3cefa1cd@youro0kwkw9jwc>

> Bob,
> Thanks for the context.  That's not my understanding of science, and I
> don't believe your taxonomies are any more objective than mine would
> be, since we read for ourselves and are clearly equally blind and deaf
> to the great body of work we don't know how to love.  But I don't blame
> you for trying.

I don't know how objective your taxonomy would be, Wendy, but mine would be
pretty close to maximally objective.  For instance: its definition of poetry
depends on an objective count (per line) of what I call flow-breaks, which I
objectively define and which are as recognizable (it seems to me) as the
reproductive organs use to identify place species of animals taxonomically.
Of course, there are areas in my taxonomy that are only weakly objective,
just as there are in the biological taxonomy (for instance, at is very
beginning where there is much debate and uncertainty about just what "life"
is).

--Bob G.




From marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Nov 26 07:08:06 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 07:08:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] calling all art experts
In-Reply-To: <009a01c3b3d1$80b15d30$34ad8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <3FC45156.8790.116ACB@localhost>

> > I'm in the midst of composing a poem, and am searching the internet
> > high
> and
> > low for the name of a Renaissance artist who paints skies with
> > clouds, ethereal-looking rays poking from behind, where one would
> > expect Jesus to step out.  It's not Boticelli, not Fraggonard or
> > Tintoretto or Titian. Anyone here know who would fit this
> > description? Audrey

On 26 Nov 2003 at 3:58, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> El Greco?
> Robin

Higgledy piggledy
Theotokopoulos
Painted so well he was
Blessed with this curse:

When he was good at his
Spirituality
None did it better but
When not none worse.

Marcus





From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Wed Nov 26 07:52:14 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 13:52:14 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] calling all art experts
References: <000701c3b3cd$8911f970$4a430e44@Zoom>
Message-ID: <003501c3b41c$1e16cac0$65607550@anny>

Parbleu! The most majestic skies and circumvoluted clouds with rays of
light, that is the great Leonardo.

From: "Audrey Friedman" <poemlady at cox.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> I'm in the midst of composing a poem, and am searching the internet high
and
> low for the name of a Renaissance artist who paints skies with clouds,
> ethereal-looking rays poking from behind, where one would expect Jesus to
> step out.  It's not Boticelli, not Fraggonard or Tintoretto or Titian.
> Anyone here know who would fit this description?
> Audrey
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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  Wed Nov 26 10:57:50 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 10:57:50 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] W.B. Yeats International Summer School
Message-ID: <1eb.14368619.2cf6277e@aol.com>

Sender: MODERN_POETS-L at PO.MISSOURI.EDU (Modern Poetry Discussion Forum)
Please distribute this to interested parties! - thanks.

45th W.B. Yeats International Summer School
Sunday 1stFriday 13th August 2004, Sligo, Ireland

Visit website at www.yeats-sligo.com

SEAMUS HEANEY, JORIE GRAHAM, BRENDAN KENNELLY, RICHARD MURPHY, COLM TOIBIN, 
BERNARD ODONOGHUE, FRANCES THOMPSON, JOYELLE McSWEENEY and others

SEAMUS HEANEY READING: Thursday 5th August
BRENDAN KENNELLY READING: Monday 2nd August

Official opening: BRENDAN KENNELLY, Sunday 1st August
Poetry workshop: JORIE GRAHAM (Harvard University)
Drama workshop: SAM McCREADY (Maryland)

Lectures & seminars:

Jonathan Allison (University of Kentucky, Director)
Margaret Mills Harper (Georgia State University, Associate Director)
Massimo Bacigalupo (University of Genoa)
Margot Backus University of Houston, Texas)
George Bornstein (University of Michigan)
Rand Brandes (Lenoir-Rhyne College, North Carolina)
Fran Brearton (Queens University, Belfast)
Roy Foster (Hertford College, Oxford)
Seamus Heaney (Dublin & Harvard)
John Kelly (St. Johns College, Oxford)
Brendan Kennelly (Trinity College, Dublin)
Declan Kiely (New York University)
Elizabeth Bergman Loizeaux (University of Maryland)
Sam McCready (Baltimore, Maryland)
Ronan McDonald (University of Reading)
Maureen Murphy (Hofstra University, New York)
Richard Pine (Durrell  School of Corfu)
Peter Sacks (Harvard University)
Colm Toibin (Dublin)
Derval Tubridy (Goldsmiths College, London)
Helen Vendler (Harvard University)
George Watson (University of Aberdeen)

Low tuition fees /  Comfortable lodgings / Academic credit for students / 
Official Certificate of Attendance / Financial support available
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Yes, please send me a brochure and application form for YSS 2004!
NAME______________________________________________
ADDRESS___________________________________________
EMAIL or PHONE____________________________________

Send to: Yeats Summer School, Douglas Hyde Bridge, Sligo, Ireland. Tel +353 
(0)71 42693 / Fax +353 (0)71 42780 / Email info at yeats-sligo.com

------------------------------
Jonathan Allison
The Institute for Advanced Studies
in the Humanities,
The University of Edinburgh,
Hope Park Square,
Edinburgh EH8 9NW

Telephone 0131 650 4671
Fax 0131 668 2252



From poemlady at cox.net  Wed Nov 26 11:13:36 2003
From: poemlady at cox.net (poemlady at cox.net)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 11:13:36 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] calling all art experts
Message-ID: <20031126161335.HHGJ5790.lakemtao08.cox.net@smtp.central.cox.net>

thanks, Amy!
Audrey


> From: "Anny Ballardini" <anny.ballardini at tin.it>
> Date: 2003/11/26 Wed AM 07:52:14 EST
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] calling all art experts
> 
> Parbleu! The most majestic skies and circumvoluted clouds with 
rays of
> light, that is the great Leonardo.
> 
> From: "Audrey Friedman" <poemlady at cox.net>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> 
> 
> > I'm in the midst of composing a poem, and am searching the 
internet high
> and
> > low for the name of a Renaissance artist who paints skies with 
clouds,
> > ethereal-looking rays poking from behind, where one would 
expect Jesus to
> > step out.  It's not Boticelli, not Fraggonard or Tintoretto or Titian.
> > Anyone here know who would fit this description?
> > Audrey
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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 ripon.edu  Wed Nov 26 12:20:36 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 11:20:36 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Visiting Walt online
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A152@ariel.ripon.edu>

On the Minnesota Public Radio site I just stumbled across a nice feature on
Thom Tammaro & Sheila Coghill's new anthology of poems honoring Whitman,
*Visting Walt*:

http://news.mpr.org/features/2003/11/07_gundersond_walt/

There are audio clips of excerpts, an interview with the editors, photos,
etc.  

============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================



From ggatza at daemen.edu  Wed Nov 26 12:58:41 2003
From: ggatza at daemen.edu (Geoffrey Gatza)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 12:58:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thanksgiving Menu for Forrest Gander
Message-ID: <007501c3b446$ed1347c0$5c5c3318@white2pimprza3>

Hi 

This is an invitation to visit the second annual online thanksgiving menu poem. This year's feast is for Forrest Gander and is located on the web at

http://www.blazevox.org/goose/Index.htm

or is you prefer to download the PDF ebook go here 

http://www.blazevox.org/goose/Ganderdinner.pdf 

Have a happy and healthy holiday weekend :-) 

Best, Geoffrey
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From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Wed Nov 26 15:22:59 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 14:22:59 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Kleinzahler on Lowell
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A156@ariel.ripon.edu>

In a review of Lowell's collected poems, I was amused to find the following
quoted from August Kleinzahler:

"What is  disappointing, even embarrassing, about the poetry of Robert
Lowell, in retrospect, is not so much the tin ear or heavy-handedness, not
the posturing and self-dramatisation, not even the straining after the
important subject. What is, finally, so dreary about the oeuvre at this
remove, are Lowell's cultural assumptions, his notion of a cultural
hierarchy and his pre-eminent position in that hierarchy so tirelessly
cultivated throughout his career."

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/21/1069027320785.html
============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================



From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Wed Nov 26 15:47:55 2003
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 12:47:55 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re:paint on the ceiling
In-Reply-To: <200311261701.hAQH121G017187@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031126122813.00b513a8@incoming.verizon.net>

At 12:01 PM 11/26/2003 -0500, Audrey wrote:
>  artist who paints skies

El Greco's the choice of M. Bales...
'tis true, toward the heavens he sails,
      but though late  (rococo)
      Tiepolo
offers upper-work that never pales.

B.
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From dweinstock at adelphia.net  Wed Nov 26 23:03:08 2003
From: dweinstock at adelphia.net (David Weinstock)
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 23:03:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] calling all art experts
References: <3FC45156.8790.116ACB@localhost>
Message-ID: <001a01c3b49b$5e1b3dc0$f8ad3018@davidbfhh1hlvc>

> Higgledy piggledy
> Theotokopoulos...

Bravo Marcus!






From elemenope at icubed.com  Wed Nov 26 21:08:50 2003
From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions)
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 10:08:50 +0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] GEORGE WASHINGTON'S 1789 THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION
Message-ID: <a05100301bbeb08cd47a1@[204.215.203.88]>

----------------------------------------------------------

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S 1789 THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence
of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits,
and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both
Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to
recommend to the people of the United States a day of public
thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with
grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God,
especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a
form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of
November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the
service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author
of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then
all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His
kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to
their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the
favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and
conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility,
union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and
rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish
constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and
particularly the national one now lately instituted' for the civil
and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we
have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general,
for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to
confer on us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers
and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech
Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us
all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several
and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National
Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a
Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and
faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns
and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to
bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the
knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase
of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all
mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be
best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October,
A.D. 1789.

Signed G. Washington
-- 


From MillB at aol.com  Thu Nov 27 12:43:00 2003
From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 12:43:00 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] GEORGE WASHINGTON'S 1789 THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION
Message-ID: <90.3fa02fb6.2cf791a4@aol.com>

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone on our list!  

I know given the holiday spirit, this sounds sarcastic, but I will say it 
anyway, in reference to Washington's Proclamation--so much for the separation of 
church and state!
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Thu Nov 27 14:54:29 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 14:54:29 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] GEORGE WASHINGTON'S 1789 THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION
Message-ID: <f4.344a8922.2cf7b075@cs.com>

In a message dated 11/27/2003 11:47:22 AM Central Standard Time, 
MillB at aol.com writes: 
> I know given the holiday spirit, this sounds sarcastic, but I will say it 
> anyway, in reference to Washington's Proclamation--so much for the separation 
> of church and state!
> 

Washington's proclamation does not mention any church, and his proclamation 
makes no reference to Christianity.  He was an Episcopalian for the record but, 
like many of his contemporaries, was essentially a Deist.

http://www.deism.com/washington.htm
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From hruggier at localnet.com  Thu Nov 27 15:56:25 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 15:56:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Kleinzahler on Lowell
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A156@ariel.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3FC664F9.187E89D3@localnet.com>

I sure wish he would hold back - - -

"Graham, David" wrote:

> In a review of Lowell's collected poems, I was amused to find the following
> quoted from August Kleinzahler:
>
> "What is  disappointing, even embarrassing, about the poetry of Robert
> Lowell, in retrospect, is not so much the tin ear or heavy-handedness, not
> the posturing and self-dramatisation, not even the straining after the
> important subject. What is, finally, so dreary about the oeuvre at this
> remove, are Lowell's cultural assumptions, his notion of a cultural
> hierarchy and his pre-eminent position in that hierarchy so tirelessly
> cultivated throughout his career."
>
> http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/21/1069027320785.html
> ============================================
> David Graham
> Department of English, Ripon College
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>      Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
>      My Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
>
> Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
> ============================================
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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 Nov 28 08:41:59 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 08:41:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] GEORGE WASHINGTON'S 1789 THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION
In-Reply-To: <f4.344a8922.2cf7b075@cs.com>
Message-ID: <3FC70A57.22979.3AE8E7@localhost>

> MillB at aol.com writes: 
>     I know given the holiday spirit, this sounds sarcastic, but I will
>     say it anyway, in reference to Washington's Proclamation--so much
>     for the separation of church and state!
 
On 27 Nov 2003 at 14:54, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote:
> Washington's proclamation does not mention any church, and his 
> proclamation makes no reference to Christianity. He was an 
> Episcopalian for the record but, like many of his contemporaries, was
> essentially a Deist.
> http://www.deism.com/washington.htm 

Just so. There is also an interesting thought-experiment to perform: 
just what would have to have been different in the Constitution had 
the Founding Fathers been, for example, Muslim? I offer the notion 
that there is nothing at all that would have needed to have been 
changed -- and that's the genius of the Constitution.









From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Nov 28 09:39:15 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 09:39:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] GEORGE WASHINGTON'S 1789 THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION
In-Reply-To: <3FC70A57.22979.3AE8E7@localhost>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEAENGHMAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

{    Just so. There is also an interesting thought-experiment to perform: 
{    just what would have to have been different in the Constitution had 
{    the Founding Fathers been, for example, Muslim? I offer the notion 
{    that there is nothing at all that would have needed to have been 
{    changed -- and that's the genius of the Constitution.

Concerning the Constitution, you might be interested in the quote from
Ben Franklin in Richard Eder's review of Gore Vidal's new book.

	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/books/27EDER.html

Hal                Serving the tri-state area.

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Fri Nov 28 09:56:26 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 09:56:26 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] GEORGE WASHINGTON'S 1789 THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION
Message-ID: <c9.3ae79787.2cf8bc1a@cs.com>

In a message dated 11/28/2003 8:41:58 AM Central Standard Time, 
halvard at earthlink.net writes: 
> Concerning the Constitution, you might be interested in the quote from
> Ben Franklin in Richard Eder's review of Gore Vidal's new book.
> 
>     http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/books/27EDER.html
> 
Was that a quote from Franklin or one invented by M. Vidal?
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From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Nov 28 10:02:21 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 10:02:21 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] GEORGE WASHINGTON'S 1789 THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION
In-Reply-To: <c9.3ae79787.2cf8bc1a@cs.com>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKENGHMAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Probably.

Hal
    Concerning the Constitution, you might be interested in the quote from
    Ben Franklin in Richard Eder's review of Gore Vidal's new book.

        http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/books/27EDER.html


  Was that a quote from Franklin or one invented by M. Vidal? 
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Fri Nov 28 10:13:59 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 10:13:59 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] GEORGE WASHINGTON'S 1789 THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION
Message-ID: <a7.393e1505.2cf8c037@cs.com>

In a message dated 11/28/2003 9:05:01 AM Central Standard Time, 
halvard at earthlink.net writes: 
> 
> Probably.
>   
>  Hal
>  
> >> 
>> >>> Concerning the Constitution, you might be interested in the quote from
>>> Ben Franklin in Richard Eder's review of Gore Vidal's new book.
>>> 
>>>     http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/books/27EDER.html
>>> 
>> Was that a quote from Franklin or one invented by M. Vidal? 
> 
Enough with the post-modernist answers, Hal.
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From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Nov 28 21:13:47 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 21:13:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] William S. Burroughs, "A Thanksgiving Prayer"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEGEOHHMAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Almost forgot--the perfect prayer for the day after
Thanksgiving.

Hal      Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
		--Noam Chomsky

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard

=====

A Thanksgiving Prayer


For John Dillinger, in the hope that he is still alive.
(Thanksgiving Day, November 28th 1986)

Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, 
	destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts. 
Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison. 
Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger. 
Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcasses to rot. 
Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes. 
Thanks for the American Dream - to vulgarize and falsify until the bare 
	lies shine through. 
Thanks for the K.K.K. 
For nigger-killing lawmen feeling their notches. 
For decent, church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter evil faces. 
Thanks for Kill A Queer For Christ stickers. 
Thanks for laboratory AIDS. 
Thanks for prohibition, and the war against drugs. 
Thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business. 
Thanks for a nation of finks. 
Yes, thanks for all the memories - "Alright, let's see your arms." 
You always were a headache and you always were a bore. 
Thanks, for the last and greatest betrayal, of the last and greatest of 
	human dreams... 

--William S. Burroughs



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sat Nov 29 11:58:01 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 17:58:01 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] von Stuck
Message-ID: <001201c3b699$f342d200$29607550@anny>

Franz von Stuck (read stuck not stick),
http://franz_von_stuck.tripod.com/paintings.html
some paintings,

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

If you go with rivers, not roads, the trip
takes longer and you weave and see a lot more.
(from Houses)
Richard Hugo
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From DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com  Sat Nov 29 13:06:12 2003
From: DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com (DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com)
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 03 13:06:12 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Kleinzahler on Lowell
Message-ID: <200311291818.hATII2ap127354@northrelay03.pok.ibm.com>

***** Reply to your note of: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 12:01:08 -0500 *************
>>In a review of Lowell's collected poems, I was amused to find the following
>>quoted from August Kleinzahler:
>>
>>"What is  disappointing, even embarrassing, about the poetry of Robert
>>Lowell, in retrospect, is not so much the tin ear or heavy-handedness, not
>>the posturing and self-dramatisation, not even the straining after the
>>important subject. What is, finally, so dreary about the oeuvre at this
>>remove, are Lowell's cultural assumptions, his notion of a cultural
>>hierarchy and his pre-eminent position in that hierarchy so tirelessly
>>cultivated throughout his career."
>>
Well, a case can easily be made that Lowell was tin-eared, heavy-handed,
postured and dramatised himself, etc., but what's so dreary about
Kleinzahler's blurb is, not that there is also much in Lowell's work that
is exquisite, delicate and dramatic, but that K. believes he cements
his case by invoking the good-ole Amurrican prejudice agin' higher-archy.
How boring.

Robert Shaw's review in the Oct. Poetry is a much more balanced and
interesting discussion of Lowell's career.

Richard


From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Nov 29 13:47:02 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 10:47:02 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Lowell, etc.
Message-ID: <BAY7-F15fKfFkw2ZqqQ0001c383@hotmail.com>

I should explain that I can only find time to review messages from this list 
on the weekends, so I often don't respond right away.

To one of David Graham's strictures on my comments on C. K. Williams I must 
plead guilty with an excuse:  I felt when I wrote it that I was making it 
too compressed in my hurry to get it done; but I figured that in the email 
equivalent of a casual conversation I didn't have to polish it.  At any 
rate,  some other responses on the list as well as in private email 
demonstrated that at least some readers understood me quite well.  As for 
his other objections, I really think they can find responses in what I 
wrote, and that accordingly any further reply from me would risk becoming 
the sort of endless 'tis/'tisn't chain which I'm sure most people on the 
list don't want to see more of.  I'd welcome, though, and will follow any 
further approval or demurral from others.

In fact I had hoped my remarks would generate more controversy, since they 
break the rules of the tacit conspiracy of benign-ness (you say there's no 
such word?  well there is now!) which characterizes most criticism of 
contemporary poetry.  There seems to be a general feeling that, since poetry 
is in a parlous state and we all should be supportive of it, no one must be 
allowed to say of the work of a poet accepted as significant, "This sucks."  
Or maybe it's just that in  the ingrown academic poetry establishment you 
always have to remember that the other poet you're criticizing may someday 
show up  on your tenure, grant, or visiting writer committee.  O for the 
great days of criticism, when a Dryden could thunder:

                        The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
                         But Sh------ never deviates into sense.
                         Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
                         Strike through, and make a lucid interval;
                         But Sh------'s genuine night admits no ray,
                         His rising fogs prevail upon the day.

You're not going to see anything like that in those back pages of Poetry 
magazine.  I seriously think some poetry journal should revive the practice 
of anonymous or pseudonymous reviewing, so people could say what they really 
think.

David Graham also asks "whether Lowell is still a live influence on your 
work and thinking, now over a quarter century (!) since his death ... are 
his *poems* still on our tongues?"  The response from this quarter is 
emphatically yes and yes:  Lowell for me at his best has that combination of 
open songfulness, intense emotion, and creative and well informed commitment 
to tradition which is exactly the constellation of qualities I value in 
poetry, and the lack of which almost defines the style of most poetry 
currently being written in America.  But my admiration perhaps is atypical 
in that the works of Lowell which I value most highly are his translations 
and imitations, above all his magnificent Propertian "The Ghost" and his 
astonishing Virgilian pastiche "Falling Asleep Over the Aeneid," both of 
which all my life have been among the poems I keep repeating to myself.  
Kleinzahler's criticisms might have been motivated by a salutary impulse to 
bring down an idol a notch or two, but he could have chosen a better target. 
  "Tin ear" seems a strange characterization of a poet who could produce 
both this description of a slain warrior:

                                                           Face of snow,
                   You are the flower that country girls have caught,
                   A wild bee-pillaged honey-suckle, brought
                   To the returning bridegroom -- the design
                   Has not yet left it, and the petals shine;
                   The earth, its mother, has, at last, no help:
                    It is itself.

and this venomous reproach of Cynthia to Propertius:

                               You let a slut, whose body sold
                     To Thracians, liquefy my golden bust
                      In the coarse flame that crinkled me to dust.

The discussions on copyright have persuaded me that sending other people's 
poems here is fair use.  One must still be careful though.  For instance, 
Faber have always been notoriously chary with Eliot permissions;  if you 
posted Sweeny Agonistes here and they found out about it, you'd probably 
hear from them.

An interesting piety site I hadn't known about before now is 
www.poemhunter.com.

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

=

_________________________________________________________________
Say ?goodbye? to busy signals and slow downloads with a high-speed Internet 
connection! Prices start at less than $1 a day average.  
https://broadband.msn.com (Prices may vary by service area.)



From William_Knott at emerson.edu  Sat Nov 29 17:52:31 2003
From: William_Knott at emerson.edu (William Knott)
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 17:52:31 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] lowell
Message-ID: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFFB@mail.emerson.edu>

In 1200 pages of poetry there's bound to be some clunkers, but I for one would be 
happy and satisfied if I could have written (or could write) one tenth of the great lines wrought by Lowell. . . .

?Bill Knott







From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Nov 29 20:44:36 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 19:44:36 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Lowell, etc.
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F15fKfFkw2ZqqQ0001c383@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <BBEEA7A4.5849%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Some stray thoughts straying fairly far from Jon Corelis's welcome and
nicely meaty post--

I don't see that "controversy" is necessarily valuable in itself (plenty of
controversy on talk radio, alas), though I'd certainly agree that bland
criticism is, well, bland.  I also would love to see more sustained comments
in this space on C. K. Williams, Robert Lowell, August Kleinzahler, etc.--I
don't see why online discussions need to devolve into either quick defensive
quips or tedious mud-slinging matches, though they routinely do. . . .

Perhaps most of the sustained comment and argument has moved out of the
journals and now off listservs into the Land of Blog?  I'm not a blog reader
or writer, myself, but it seems there's quite a fierce little subculture out
there, particularly on the postmodern end of the spectrum.

As for the general state of criticism, I dunno.  I'm temperamentally leery
of generalizations on such a score, in part because the po-world has become
so balkanized in recent decades.  Any brief visit to the environs of the
Buffalo poetics list, for instance, will turn up plenty of strong opinions
that I might disagree with.

In any case, if one believes that most mainstream poetry sucks, then
naturally one isn't going to be very happy with *most* mainstream criticism.
Again, it's the generalizations that give me pause, usually.  Timidity and
careerism may well be reasons that C. K. Williams's work hasn't attracted
more negative critical attention, I don't doubt.  Another reason might be
that a lot of poets and critics actually like it--including me.  The same is
probably true of a poet like Louise Gluck, whose work I don't much like.

In my travels I do seem to encounter more than a few critics who seem
unafraid to speak their minds.  It's not just William Logan or Ron Silliman,
to cite two widely divergent minds.  Recently on my bookshelf, for example,
have been prose books by Tom Disch, Anthony Hecht, and Mark Jarman--none of
whom could be accused very accurately of timidity, I don't think.

On Lowell:  when starting out I was so deeply influenced by the Lowell of
*Life Studies* and *For the Union Dead* that I'll probably never escape
their orbit completely. And I'm not inclined to dismiss Lowell as
Kleinzahler apparently did:  far from it.  (I was quoting Kleinzahler out of
context, by the way:  haven't seen his original remarks.)  Anyway, Lowell's
anthology pieces still retain their shine, even in my eyes.

Still, once one gets beyond the usual suspects, I wonder.  I find more than
an occasional clunker in those 1200 pages, personally, and I find myself
returning rather rarely to a lot of Lowell's books.  I found *History*
tedious way back then, and I find it frequently unreadable today, for
instance.  

But I'm still curious about others' reactions.  Interesting to hear that
there have been recent discussions about him in Blogland (which I've sampled
a bit, thanks to Mike Magee).   I just wonder how lively his influence
remains today, and I'd love to hear more testimonials, pro or con,
especially from poets closer than I am to their setting forth.

It may be a given that poets of my generation and older (I'm 50) were
steeped in Lowell, at least early on.  And naturally I've been re-visiting
his work in the past week or so, reminding myself of its virtues as well as
its flaws--one reason I stay subscribed to a list like this one, actually,
for the nudges it provides.

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================


> From: "Jon Corelis" <joncpoetics at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 10:47:02 -0800
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Lowell, etc.
> 
> I should explain that I can only find time to review messages from this list
> on the weekends, so I often don't respond right away.
> 
> To one of David Graham's strictures on my comments on C. K. Williams I must
> plead guilty with an excuse:  I felt when I wrote it that I was making it
> too compressed in my hurry to get it done; but I figured that in the email
> equivalent of a casual conversation I didn't have to polish it.  At any
> rate,  some other responses on the list as well as in private email
> demonstrated that at least some readers understood me quite well.  As for
> his other objections, I really think they can find responses in what I
> wrote, and that accordingly any further reply from me would risk becoming
> the sort of endless 'tis/'tisn't chain which I'm sure most people on the
> list don't want to see more of.  I'd welcome, though, and will follow any
> further approval or demurral from others.
> 
> In fact I had hoped my remarks would generate more controversy, since they
> break the rules of the tacit conspiracy of benign-ness (you say there's no
> such word?  well there is now!) which characterizes most criticism of
> contemporary poetry.  There seems to be a general feeling that, since poetry
> is in a parlous state and we all should be supportive of it, no one must be
> allowed to say of the work of a poet accepted as significant, "This sucks."
> Or maybe it's just that in  the ingrown academic poetry establishment you
> always have to remember that the other poet you're criticizing may someday
> show up  on your tenure, grant, or visiting writer committee.  O for the
> great days of criticism, when a Dryden could thunder:
> 
> The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
> But Sh------ never deviates into sense.
> Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
> Strike through, and make a lucid interval;
> But Sh------'s genuine night admits no ray,
> His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
> 
> You're not going to see anything like that in those back pages of Poetry
> magazine.  I seriously think some poetry journal should revive the practice
> of anonymous or pseudonymous reviewing, so people could say what they really
> think.
> 
> David Graham also asks "whether Lowell is still a live influence on your
> work and thinking, now over a quarter century (!) since his death ... are
> his *poems* still on our tongues?"  The response from this quarter is
> emphatically yes and yes:  Lowell for me at his best has that combination of
> open songfulness, intense emotion, and creative and well informed commitment
> to tradition which is exactly the constellation of qualities I value in
> poetry, and the lack of which almost defines the style of most poetry
> currently being written in America.  But my admiration perhaps is atypical
> in that the works of Lowell which I value most highly are his translations
> and imitations, above all his magnificent Propertian "The Ghost" and his
> astonishing Virgilian pastiche "Falling Asleep Over the Aeneid," both of
> which all my life have been among the poems I keep repeating to myself.
> Kleinzahler's criticisms might have been motivated by a salutary impulse to
> bring down an idol a notch or two, but he could have chosen a better target.
> "Tin ear" seems a strange characterization of a poet who could produce
> both this description of a slain warrior:
> 
> Face of snow,
> You are the flower that country girls have caught,
> A wild bee-pillaged honey-suckle, brought
> To the returning bridegroom -- the design
> Has not yet left it, and the petals shine;
> The earth, its mother, has, at last, no help:
> It is itself.
> 
> and this venomous reproach of Cynthia to Propertius:
> 
> You let a slut, whose body sold
> To Thracians, liquefy my golden bust
> In the coarse flame that crinkled me to dust.
> 
> The discussions on copyright have persuaded me that sending other people's
> poems here is fair use.  One must still be careful though.  For instance,
> Faber have always been notoriously chary with Eliot permissions;  if you
> posted Sweeny Agonistes here and they found out about it, you'd probably
> hear from them.
> 
> An interesting piety site I hadn't known about before now is
> www.poemhunter.com.
> 
> ==================================================
>



From reneea at verizon.net  Sat Nov 29 20:47:40 2003
From: reneea at verizon.net (Renee Ashley)
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 20:47:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Lowell, etc.
References: <BBEEA7A4.5849%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <00ea01c3b6e3$f0e4e530$da66fea9@Barnette>

"Perhaps most of the sustained comment and argument has moved out of the
journals and now off listservs into the Land of Blog?"

Oh, I so hope this isn't true!
Renee


From Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu  Sat Nov 29 21:19:39 2003
From: Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu (Edward Byrne)
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 20:19:39 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Lowell, etc.
In-Reply-To: <BBEEA7A4.5849%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <SIMEON.10311292039.A@muahost.valpo.edu>

David,

You've caught me just as I am in the middle of a chapter on Lowell for a book 
I'm writing.  I believe Lowell's influence will always be with us, though for 
many new poets it will be indirect as a result of his shift from more formal to 
"confessional" poetry that has become so much the norm we don't recognize his 
importance as openly as we once might have.  I also think there are a number of 
poems beyond the most anthologized that will be re-discovered with the 
publication of the new collected edition and the consequent renewal of 
attention on Lowell.  

Nevertheless, as you point out, there are a number of poems that seem clunky, 
particularly when one considers Lowell was the author.  Those poems have been 
identified in the past by others, and they were even a concern for Lowell 
himself.  Indeed, Lowell usually seemed the poet of authority and assurance, 
but we all know that he constantly rewrote, revised, re-organized his poems 
because of an inability to be totally satisfied with their appearance.  His 
endless revision was well-known among his contemporaries, and may be a clear 
indication of his own insecurity with the quality in a number of the works he 
produced; although, it has been suggested by some that later revisions of a few 
of the better poems sometimes tended to weaken their original energy or clarity.

In any case, as is commonly the situation when I'm writing a lengthy piece 
about a poet, I won't know fully what I think until I see what I've placed on 
the pages of that chapter.  When my writing of the chapter on Lowell is 
complete, probably after the holidays, I will share it.

--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 halvard at earthlink.net  Sun Nov 30 10:25:52 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 10:25:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: S. J. Marks, "November Woods"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECEAJHNAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

[Note: longish lines here; the passages not aligned 
with the left margin belong at the ends of the
preceding lines.]



November Woods

	for Masao Abe

Gray sky, mist, the trees black and wet,
branches dripping rain,
soggy ground and oak leaves squish under my feet.

A day of unknowing, of knowing I do not know,
a day of uncertainty,
the day of my life.

Somehow,
I breathe easier here--
in the cool damp air.

I move through the woods,
moving slowly through the drizzle,
stepping carefully on the spongy wet leaf mold on the 
	forest floor,
rain spattering the trees and fallen leaves
deadens the sound of my footsteps.

We change what yesterday did to us.
After watching my mother being operated on for
	adrenal cancer,
and, sitting with and talking to my just-born daughter
who I know will die in four hours,
I can hear what is. All of what is. Whatever it is.

I walk to where you're staying,
to your class,
to hear you say these kind thoughtful words,
"You do now know what water is. You might visit
	the Zen master
and ask him. He may pour the jar of water into a 
	glass and say
by word or gesture, 'Please drink it,'" and, later in
	another context,
"He may say, 'When you have none, I will take it 
	away from you.'"

Two things more--
after class, you tell me how you fell on the snow
	and ice
in New Haven and bruised your shoulder and side;
	I take leave of you,
and, a few hours later, my shoulder and chest ache
	so much,
I have to take to bed and sleep. Then, in Washington
on the weekend at the Freer Gallery,
Zou Fulei's plum branch--
spring's like breath,
it goes but must return,
the smoky mist dies out,
the empty room's cold,
this ink branch keeps its shadow on my mind--

--S. J. Marks

fr. *Something Grazes Our Hair* [Univ. of Illinois
Press, 1991]

and in *Beneath a Single Moon: Buddhism in
Contemporary American Poetry* [Boston: Shambala,
1991]


Hal           

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard




From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sun Nov 30 13:02:59 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 10:02:59 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Charles Causley
Message-ID: <BAY7-F60FfAUJZjjaOe0001dde7@hotmail.com>

I don't believe it's been noted here that Charles Causley died November 4th 
at an advanced age.  He mined a rich vein, and one of the richest, of 
English language poetry -- children's rhymes, traditional song, and other 
genuinely popular poetic forms -- to produce a body of work which showed 
that rhyme, meter, and ready accessibility were no barriers to a poem's 
being able to speak in an authentically modern voice.   There's a good brief 
notice in the november 22nd Economist.

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Groove on the latest from the hot new rock groups!  Get downloads, videos, 
and more here.  http://special.msn.com/entertainment/wiredformusic.armx



From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sun Nov 30 13:22:07 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 10:22:07 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others:  Sic mea fata canendo solor
Message-ID: <BAY7-F29d1Go7tUPsyg0000d66b@hotmail.com>

Sic mea fata canendo solor

So by my singing am I comforted
     Even as the swan that singing makes death sweet,
For from my face is gone the wholesome red,
And soft grief in my heart is sunken deep.
          For sorrow still increasing,
          And travail unreleasing,
          And strength from me fast flying,
          And I for sorrow dying,
Dying, dying, dying,
Since she I love cares nothing for my sighing.

If she whom I desire would stoop to love me,
     I should look down on Jove;
If for one night my lady would lie by me,
     And I kiss the mouth I love,
         Then come Death unrelenting,
          With quiet breath consenting,
          I go forth unrepenting,
Content, content, content,
That such delight were ever to me lent.


              -- anon. Ms. of Benedictbeuern  ("Carnina burana"), ca. 1200,
                  tr. from the Latin by Helen Waddell.


==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Gift-shop online from the comfort of home at MSN Shopping!  No crowds, free 
parking.  http://shopping.msn.com



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Nov 30 14:17:05 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 14:17:05 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Charles Causley
Message-ID: <195.2336dd64.2cfb9c31@cs.com>

In a message dated 11/30/2003 12:04:23 PM Central Standard Time, 
joncpoetics at hotmail.com writes: 
> 
> I don't believe it's been noted here that Charles Causley died November 4th 
> at an advanced age.  He mined a rich vein, and one of the richest, of 
> English language poetry -- children's rhymes, traditional song, and other 
> genuinely popular poetic forms -- to produce a body of work which showed 
> that rhyme, meter, and ready accessibility were no barriers to a poem's 
> being able to speak in an authentically modern voice.   There's a good brief 
> 
> notice in the november 22nd Economist.
> 
I reviewed a book of his, Secret Destinations, almost fifteen years ago, and 
he was elderly at the time.  I didn't know his work, with the exception of one 
poem in a Penguin anthology, and was very impressed with it.  He was 
especially adroit at the ballad.

Secret Destinations: Selected Poems 1977-1988
By Charles Causley
David R. Godine
115 pp.
$9.95 paper
ISBN: 0-87923-739-2

    When Charles Causley's Collected Poems was published in 1975, reviewers 
in American magazines generally praised his work but somehow managed to 
relegate him to the limbo of minor poets.  By focusing on his mastery of the ballad, 
they may have given the impression of a Johnny One-Note who, in his 
idiosyncratic disregard for the main currents of modernism, was engaged in an attempt to 
write as if Pound and Eliot had not existed.  Here, in the opening stanzas of 
a poem in a characteristic mode, Causley chronicles the fortunes of errant 
youth:

        My friend Maloney, eighteen,
          Swears like a sentry,
        Got into trouble two years back
          With the local gentry.

        Parson and squire's sons
          Informed a copper.
        The magistrate took one look at Maloney.
          Fixed him proper.

    This is squarely in the honorable line of descent that begins with the 
anonymous folk ballads of the late Middle Ages and counts among its later scions 
Davidson and Hardy.  But what is one to make of verse like this, with its 
comic rhymes and erratic meters, when it issues from a poet of the present day?  
The tradition of English modernism, while catholic enough to include both the 
intellectualism and discursiveness of Eliot and Auden and the musical and 
rhetorical flourishes of Thomas and Barker, establishes few precedents for this 
sort of faux-naif plainsong.  The equivalent American approach would be to frame 
the observations in the abrupt cadences and unadorned idiom of William Carlos 
Williams, as if to say that authenticity in dealing with the Common Man is 
arrived at only by avoiding the poetic forms he has chosen for himself.  Our own 
American balladeers, caught between the rock of the literary magazines, which 
are not likely to give any space to anything as reactionary-sounding as a 
ballad, and the hard place of no alternatives for publication in the popular 
press, have forsaken the slopes of Parnassus for the lounges of Nashville.  
Perhaps Causley is fortunate to receive a hearing at all.
    Secret Destinations: Selected Poems 1977-1988 provides a generous sample 
of recent work from a poet, now in his seventies and writing beautifully, who 
clearly deserves our respect.  At this late stage in his career, Causley is 
not likely to become American poetry's current pet Brit (the job has been vacant 
since the death of Larkin), but readers here should respond well to his best 
poems and forgive his infrequent lapses.  He is a craftsman who employs a 
variety of formal strategies, from rhymed pentameters to free verse, in an attempt 
to match form with content; few American poets demonstrate such versatility.  
Generally, his poems contain strong narrative elements and avoid the 
subjective personalism that is the bane of too much contemporary poetry.  It is 
possible that his idiom will slow the American reader ("Today / I see the 
naked-footed children trawl / The dam for yabbies...."), but for the most part the 
surfaces of his poems are simple and unobstructed.  
    Causley has been called "England's Robert Frost," though the comparison 
is ultimately without basis; trying to imagine an English Frost is about as 
impossible as summoning up, say, an American Larkin.  What he lacks, the element 
that ultimately raises Larkin to greatness, is a unifying vision: the terrors 
of existential aloneness that make Larkin's poems on bachelorhood (a subject 
largely unexplored in American poetry) so memorable.  A poet who takes his 
religion seriously, Causley often explores Christian subjects and themes but, to 
cite another well-known countryman, his work in this vein lacks the tension of 
poet-clergyman R.S. Thomas's poetry.  Outside of his ballads, which are not 
much in evidence in the current collection, he lacks a single distinctive 
quality -- of tone, of idiom, or of sound -- that might set his poems apart from 
those of any number of skilled poets.  The quality of the work is high, to be 
sure, but there is no "Mr. Bleaney" or "Church-Going" here crying out to be read 
again and again.
    Causley was born in 1917, and his many poems about his youth and extended 
family rank among his finest.  The England of his childhood was filled with 
the human wreckage of the Great War.  "Dick Lander," a veteran who, according 
to one of the poet's playmates, is "shell-shopped," daily stands on a corner 
"playing a game of trains with match-boxes."  The poem concludes with a childish 
prank:
    
        At firework time we throw a few at Dick.

        Shout, 'Here comes Kaiser Bill!'  Dick stares us                  
through
        As if we're glass.  We yell, 'What did you do
        In the Great War?'  And skid into the dark.
        'Choo, choo,' says Dick.  'Choo, choo, choo, choo,
          choo, choo.'

One relative recalled is "Uncle Stan," who died in a military training camp 
in British Columbia.  "He might have been a farmer; swallowed mud / At Vimy, 
Cambrai," muses the poet, "But a Canadian winter got him first."  Most painful 
are memories of the poet's father, an invalid who died when he was seven: "Once 
again my dead / Father stood there: army boots bright as glass, / Offering me 
a hand as colourless / As phosgene."  In poems like these one hears 
second-generation echoes of Sassoon and Graves.
    Since his retirement from teaching, Causley has traveled extensively.  
Several poems draw on Australian locales, "A detritus / Of boomerangs and bells 
and whips and saddles."  The focus of his descriptions, however, is more often 
than not on people instead of landscape.  "Grandmother" describes a 
Czech-German survivor of wartime dislocations who "guillotines salami with a hand / 
Veined like Silesia."  "Bamboo Dance" describes a frenetic Filipino combination 
of music, movement, physical danger, and love:
        
        The dance is love, love is the dance
             Though bamboo shocks their dancing day.
        Ceases.  Smiling, the dancers go,
             Hand locked in gentle hand, their way.

At "Gelibolu" (the Turkish name for Gallipoli) he goes beneath the surface, 
sensing the presence of history: "But this is savaged air.  Is poisoned ground. 
/ Unstilled, the dead, the living voices sound, / And now the night breaks 
open like a wound."
    Aside from Hardy and Landor, it is hard to think of other poets in their 
seventies who have written this well.  In the book's final poem, "Eden Rock," 
Causley imagines a reunion with his parents, "mother, twenty-three, in a 
sprigged dress," and "father, twenty-five, in the same suit / Of Genuine Irish 
Tweed."  The call for the poet to be gathered to the bosom of his elders is 
phrased in restrained measures:

        The sky whitens as if lit by three suns.
        My mother shades her eyes and looks my way
        Over the drifted stream.  My father spins
        A stone along the water.  Leisurely,

        They beckon to me from the other bank.
        I hear them call, 'See where the stream-path is!
        Crossing is not as hard as you might think.'

        I had not thought that it would be like this.

There is a valedictory tone that runs through these haunting lines.  In 
Charles Causley's case one can only hope that it is premature.

                            -- R.S. Gwynn
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From trbell at comcast.net  Sun Nov 30 19:20:54 2003
From: trbell at comcast.net (tom bell)
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 18:20:54 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fw: Loney on High Craft
Message-ID: <00ba01c3b7a0$fdac8c60$07e63644@rthfrd01.tn.comcast.net>

----- Original Message -----
From: "tom bell" <trbell at COMCAST.NET>
To: <POETICS at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 4:07 PM
Subject: Loney on High Craft


>                  High Crimes and Misdemeanors
>
> If I publish a poem and sell a book through geezer.com for $3000 a copy
does
> it become an example of high craft?  Seriously though, Loney's essay on
this
> http://www.craftculture.org/archive/loney1.htm merits reading as it
relates
> to the explosion of bloogery or is it mere baloney?
>
> tom bell
> Visiting poet at The VA TENESSEE VALLEY HEALTH CARE SYSTEM YORK CAMPUS
>
> Some poetry available through geezer.com
>
> Section editor for PsyBC www.psychbc.com
>
> Write for the Health of It course at
> http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17413/seminar
> http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17413/overview/37900
> not yet a crazy old man
> hard but not yet hardening of the
> art



From FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com  Sun Nov 30 22:16:15 2003
From: FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com (FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 22:16:15 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Philly Sound Feature, issue #1:  CAROL MIRAKOVE
Message-ID: <7e.423e7f39.2cfc0c7f@aol.com>

Philly Sound Feature, issue #1

November 30th, 2003

Welcome to the first issue of Philly Sound Feature, an occasional blog zine 
which features the work of a single poet on the Philly Sound Blog.  Each of the 
members of our Blog will alternate editing issues and choosing poets to 
feature.  Our first issue is dedicated to the very fine work of poet Carol 
Mirakove.  Enjoy.
CAConrad
editor of issue #1

-------------

Carol Mirakove is the author of Occupied (Kelsey Street Press, 2004), and two 
chapbooks, temporary tattoos (BabySelf Press, 2002) and WALL (ixnay, 1999). 
She is a founding member of the subpress collective. Carol has lived and 
participated in poetry communities in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and New York. She 
currently lives in Brooklyn.

-------------

to read issue #1, go to:  <A HREF="http://phillysound.blogspot.com">
http://phillysound.blogspot.com</A>