[New-Poetry] I feel...

[Jeff Newberry]

This kind of stuff just doesn't bother me.

Usually.

I understand where you're coming from--and there are times when I feel
deeply uneducated about my own art.  But, I'm also a musician, and there are
hundreds and hundreds of musicians that I've never heard--and that's just in
the genres that I like, jazz and blues.

So, I'll continue to read the poetry that I love; I'll continue to seek out
new poetry that I love.  And I'll continue to write poetry, for I love doing
so.

And with any hope, I'll have written one day a poem that someone, somewhere
thinks is essential to his or her understanding of the world.

I have a few of these myself:  Whitman's "The Open Road" comes to mind, as
do several of Dickinson's poems.  Mark Jarman's book *Questions for
Ecclesiastes* is important to me.  So is Forrest Gander's *Eye Against
Eye*.  I love Wendell Berry's poetry.  I love Morri Creech's book *Paper
Cathedrals*.  I adore Inger Christiensen's *Butterfly Valley:  A Requeim.*
Ditto John Donne and scores of others. I could go on here, but the point
that I'm trying to make is this:  these poets may not be on everyone's radar
as "good poetry."  But, for me, I love them.  I can write long, polemic
essays defending them as good poetry.

And I do believe that "good" and "bad" poetry exist.  I'm just not sure
(most of the time) how I'd define either.

Thanks, Anny, for forcing me to think through this.

By the way, I think that the quote you post comes from a wonderful entry in
which Silliman talks about the lack of knowledge most MFAs have.  He
suggests some very concrete ways to remedy this situation--but for my money,
I love his idea of requiring a critical essay (or perhaps a "historical"
essay--can't remember the term he uses) from MFA applicants along with their
manuscript submission.  One of the many reasons that I opted for the
Ph.Drather than the MFA is the sheer breadth of reading that I'm
having to do.

All the best to everyone on New Poetry.  Happy Fourth!

Jeff Newberry


On 7/3/06, Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at tin.it> wrote:
>
>  sick,
>
> from Ron Silliman's blog:
>
>
> Think for a moment of just what the problem is. If you read two books of
> poetry per week, you will fall behind in your knowledge of what exists and
> is out there to the tune of 3,900 books a year *at minimum. *Another way
> of putting it is that, at two books per week, you could read the poetry
> books published in the U.S. just in 2006 by roughly 2045. If you read a
> book a day, however, you can get it done by the end of 2014 or thereabouts.
> And then you could begin on 2007.
>
>
>
> ******
> Anny Ballardini
> http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
> http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
> I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
> star!
> Friedrich Nietzsche
>
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>
>
>


-- 
"Life is doubt, and faith without doubt is nothing but death."
                                                   --Miguel de Unamuno

Blog:  http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com/
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