[New-Poetry] Bishop's drafts cause uproar

[TheOldMole]

Mike - this makes a lot of sense, and I understand what you're saying.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Snider" <mandolin at mac.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 9:03 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Bishop's drafts cause uproar


> Tad and James--
>
> One problem is that the new book is much more attractively packaged and 
> marketed than Bishop's complete, which is rather dowdy (if not downwright 
> ugly), with an informative but certainly not inviting title. For those of 
> us already more or less familiar with her work (whether wee like it ot 
> not) these aren't issues, but think of new readers looking at the two side 
> by side (if the Complete is even in the store)--there's Edgar Allen Poe 
> and the Jukebox in its bright dustjacket, naming the one poet everybody 
> still learns in high school (or do they? I may be out of date). Which is 
> that newbie going to buy? And having read it, if he or she doesn't like 
> it, it won't be because of the qualities manifest in Bishop's previously 
> published work--the work she chose--and that reader may very well miss out 
> on wonderful poetry. On the other hand, if that reader does like the 
> Jukebox, the Complete is likely to be disappointing.
>
>
> On Wednesday, June 14, 2006, at 04:09AM, TheOldMole <tad at opus40.org> 
> wrote:
>
>>Well, not much can do Bishop any good at this point. Dead, and all.
>>
>>----- Original Message ----- 
>>From: "Michael Snider" <mandolin at mac.com>
>>To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp; Views"
>><new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>>Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 7:20 PM
>>Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Bishop's drafts cause uproar
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On Jun 13, 2006, at 6:21 PM, JforJames at aol.com wrote:
>>>
>>>> I haven't seen the whole Vendler argument against...has others
>>>> read it?  (There is just about a paragraph or two on the New 
>>>> Republic's
>>>> online site.) Vendler seems to be arguing that the book is engaging
>>>> in 'false advertising'...that the pieces published in the _Edgar  Allan
>>>> Poe_
>>>> collection were never meant to see the light of day. But it would seem
>>>> that the state of the manuscript copies, evidence from letters, the 
>>>> way
>>>> the material was organized, etc., should be able to tell a scholar or
>>>> careful editor something about how Bishop felt about an unpublished
>>>> piece.
>>>> And certainly there is precedence for books tracing the successive
>>>> drafts
>>>> of famous poems...so I don't know what the gripe would be about that.
>>>>
>>>> A poem, obviously a successive draft, organized with other
>>>> poems in similar state in a binder or folder of some kind, poems
>>>> sent in a letter to another poet (like M. Moore) for comment, etc.,
>>>> may very well be 'finished' (or abandoned per Auden via Valery)
>>>> but, for this or that reason remained unsuited for collection.
>>>> A few scribble lines from a notebook or on a lipsticked stained
>>>> cocktail napkin might be stretch to call 'unpublished'.
>>>> Finnegan
>>>>
>>>
>>> The entire review is online here: http://www.powells.com/review/
>>> 2006_04_06
>>>
>>> It seems entirely sensible to me; Iv'e looked though the boojk a  number
>>> of times at bookstores and not bought it once--and I love  Bishop's
>>> poetry. Of course particular scholars might need access to  this sort of
>>> material, but I think it does Bishop no good.
>>>
>>> Mike S
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> New-Poetry mailing list
>>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>>
>>
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>
>
> -----
> Sent from webmail, so I'm not at my computer.
> http://www.mikesnider.org/formalblog for the Sonnetarium
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