[New-Poetry] Monk Trane

[David Graham]

On May 9, 2006, at 10:10 AM, Halvard Johnson wrote:

> I enjoy Simic too. But it's too bad he got stuck in that very
> recognizable style he found fairly early.
>
> Hal



And a more serious response to this comment, which is indicative of  
one of those eternal head-scratchers in aesthetics.  I very much  
enjoy Yeats, Rich, Lowell, and others who are restless,  
stylistically, always setting forth for pastures new, etc.  But I  
definitely want to make a place for the other kind of poet, who hones  
and practices a signature style over many years.  In fact, I often  
want to celebrate that, since it seems to me that critical response  
has always paid quite enough attention to novelty and the sturm-und- 
drangers who advertise their changes loudly.

After all, the signature poets would include, just f'rinstance, such  
figures as Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, and, in our day, Bishop,  
Wilbur, Levine, Ashbery, Stafford, and Clifton.  Not such bad  
company, I say.

There is, of course, no need to choose sides.  As every jazz writer  
seems to have said, Thelonious Monk in 1947 sounds pretty much the  
same as he does in 1962, while Coltrane changes rapidly from record  
to record.

==========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
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Poetry Library:
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