[New-Poetry] Popomo Blues

[David Graham]

Along these lines, I wonder if there's been any discussion hereabouts  
about Tony Hoagland's recent essay in *Poetry*, "Fear of Narrative  
and the Skittery Poem of Our Moment"?  Plenty of provocation and  
grist in it, whatever side of various fences you have your garden.

Here's one provocation.  He's been talking about various examples of  
dissociative poems, and refers here to two by G. G. Waldrep  and  
Rachel H. Simon.

"These may seem like disproportionately heavy judgments to apply to a  
few playful butterfly poems fluttering by in the aesthetic breeze,  
but isn't their self-conscious lack of consequence part of the  
problem? Perhaps, in their deliberate intention to escape the  
confinement of one system, they have also accidentally escaped  
another. Perhaps, in their effort to circumvent linearity, or logic,  
or obviousness, they have eluded representing anything but Attitude —  
one of the familiar problems of modern American culture.

Would it be so very inaccurate or unfair to say that a poem like  
"Improvisation" or "Watercooler Tarmac," in the charming "democracy"  
of their dissociation, have a passive-aggressive relation to meaning?  
To say that, despite a certain charm, the coy ellipticism of these  
poems signifies a skepticism about the possibilities for poetic  
depth, earnestness, even about feeling itself?"



On Sep 1, 2006, at 6:39 PM, steve moore wrote:

> It seems to me that after modernism and postmodernism (popomo?) the  
> problem with not adhering to basic grammatical rules is that when  
> you do deviate, it has no effect. Essentially, a poet who casts  
> standard grammatical structures aside is casting away a very  
> important tool, the ability to deviate when necessary. Loose  
> grammar was shocking in the same way free verse was shocking  
> (talking in loose generalities of course), now it's traditional.


==========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
==========================================



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20060902/d949d764/attachment.html