[New-Poetry] Nonsense

[Anny Ballardini]

This is excellent writing, thank you for bringing it up. It seemed it had been lost somewhere down there round the beginning of the XXth century.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: JforJames at aol.com 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Saturday, May 13, 2006 3:39 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Nonsense


  In a message dated 5/12/2006 11:32:48 PM Eastern Standard Time, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com writes:
      This is perhaps why so much of K Ryan's poetry strikes me as slight. She has so
      little ambition at the outset of the endeavor. Men may not die each day for
      the lack (pace Williams) but there should be some import attached to the 
      project of making poems in this world.
      Finnegan


    I don't think it's necessary to die for every poem.  Some poems may be written to please for just a moment, and I see no wrong in this.  Better to make someone think for one minute than to shut you out for a lifetime.

  I'm sure you're right...and, don't get me wrong, I like the bauble and gew-gew
  and minor poem as much as anyone else. But her claim seems to be that
  poetry sholdn't be more than this. I was in D.C. yesterday and came across
  the statue of Alexander Pushkin, across from the Geo Washingtonn U library.
   I can't imagine him saying, "There is no need which precedes either 
  nonsense or a poem. The creator is entertaining him or herself." 
  Gee, golly. No wonder contemporary poets are so uncomfortable 
  with the calling themselves 'poets'. There is so little at stake in 
  being one. It would be as if Stevens wrote only his art deco ditties
  and avoided his philosophical undertakings through poetry. Poetry
  presupposes it own purpuse, as I've said before. I wouldn't have
  spent my time on an art that refused to be a force for change, wasn't
  a way of broadening the imagination and challenging the intellect,
  or wasn't a window into the human psyche, etc. I think if one starts
  with largest aspirations for one's poetry, one will produce the kinds 
  of poems that I cherish because they exist. Poems that have made
  their own way in the world against successive tides of ignorance.  
  The small and casual poems are part of process and shouldn't be
  devalued. Some of them are treasures in and of themselves. But if 
  one isn't driven to do more in one's art than entertain oneself, then 
  the poetry will likely be nonsense.
  Finnegan 


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