[New-Poetry] Bishop's drafts cause uproar

[steve moore]

"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."

It seems to me that if someone is interested enough to actually buy a  
book of poetry (sarcasm aside, most newbies don't buy works by  
authors, they buy anthologies), they won't run screaming from the art  
simply by reading a collection of unfinished work. At some point this  
fictional reader will come across Bishop again and realize that this  
was not the only text she produced. Any reader of poetry must  
eventually turn to the complete collection (however pink and ugly it  
may be) to have some handle on 20th century American poetry. If they  
prefer the unfinished to the finished, so much the better. Something  
for everybody. The way I see it, it's similar to all of the Beatles  
"recording sessions" albums where they are just messing around. This  
hasn't kept new fans from coming to the Beatles, only deepened an  
appreciation for existing fans.

On Jun 14, 2006, at 8:00 AM, new-poetry-request at wiz.cath.vt.edu wrote:

> 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.

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