[New-Poetry] MacArthur Poets

[jforjames at aol.com]

I probably read too much contemporary poetry, but only Jim Powell & AK Ramanujan's names bring nothing to mind. 

Ammons, Swenson, Clampitt, Brodsky, Penn Warren,?Gunn are dead...getting less contemporary by the day.

Daryl Hine, is he?alive? His name is associated with the decline of Poetry magazine, making?it?into haven for academic & safe?poetry.?(And things weren't much batter when Nims then Parisi were at the helm. Happily, under Wiman's tenure, it's now?a much better magazine.)

Edward Hirsch is a mover & shaker in poetry world?and he got the top job at the Guggeheim Foundation.

Asbery, Strand, Rich, Simic, Walcott, Hass, Kinnell: This crew is always winning some prize or another.

Leithauser & Kenney would be represent?New Formalists. New formalism had 'the buzz' for a time. Kenney was Yale Younger Poet award winner. Leithauser reviews poetry fairly often for The New York Times Book Review section. He's also published a few novels.

Richard Howard and John Hollander?are more in? the old formalist vein. Howard translated most Cioran's aphoristic philosophy?from the French. Hollander has written a lot of criticism. Both have long rap sheets of literary credentials.

Jorie Graham &?Alice Fulton are?both doing some interesting and ambitious things in their poetry, along with Anne Carson who was a very?hot property a few years ago?and on everyone's reading list (& she's the only Canadian, I think...and a Classicist to boot). Plus C.D. Wright, Eleanor Wilner and Susan Stewart and you get?a very good group of some of our leading women poets. 

Thylias Moss and Sandra Cisneros represent multi-cultural selection, and have 

Odder choices:
Ishmael Reed?seems?to?publish less poetry these days. Maybe he got it for what he did, more than what he's doing. He is/was a?publisher, too.

Jay Wright's work?is little known, both are at Yale (what makes me think Harold Bloom is one of the pickers?) Moss, Reed and Jay Wright are the three African American's on the list.

Allen Grossman is better known as thinker about poetry (Sumna Lyrica)?than as a poet.

Linda Bierds?had?early success with?a?big book prize (Whitman prize,?I?think)?but she's not someone you hear much about. 

Douglas Crase...I read an early book of his called The Revisionist, but I think of him now as obscure?New York?poet who has an Ashbery connection.?I don't know that he's published a second book. (I think he wrote good memoir piece on James Schuyler that I read too...but I might be thinking of someone else.)

Ann Lauterbach has the Ashbery imprimatur too.

Lucia Perillo has won a couple of poetry awards and is known for writing about her struggles with MS (see Body Mutinies).

Irving Feldman has been around a long time. Happy to see him on a list like this. He edited a great little anthology of short-short fiction, I believe.

Worst of the lot:
I find myself agreeing with Jason.

Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
Bcc: jforjames at aol.com
Sent: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 10:52 am
Subject: [New-Poetry] MacArthur Poets


Out of curiosity, I checked Wiki and compiled this list of poets who've won MacArthur grants . One thing that surprised me was how many of these poets I'd never heard of.?
?
A. R. Ammons?
Joseph Brodsky?
Derek Walcott?
Robert Penn Warren?
Brad Leithauser?
A.K. Ramanujan?
Robert Hass?
Charles Simic?
Galway Kinnell?
John Ashbery?
Daryl Hine?
Jay Wright?
Douglas Crase?
Richard Kenney?
Mark Strand?
May Swenson?
Allen Grossman?
Jorie Graham?
John Hollander?
Alice Fulton?
Eleanor Wilner?
Amy Clampitt?
Irving Feldman?
Thom Gunn?
Ann Lauterbach?
Jim Powell?
Adrienne Rich?
Sandra Cisneros?
Richard Howard?
Thylias Moss?
Susan Stewart?
Linda Bierds?
Edward Hirsch?
Ishmael Reed?
Campbell McGrath?
Anne Carson?
Lucia M. Perillo?
C. D. Wright?
?
Years in which no poet won a MacArthur Grant: 1982, 1988, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006 ... a distressing trend??
?
And if we were to take a vote on who the least deserving MacArthur recipient was, who would win??
?
-- Tad Richards?
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/?
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/?
?
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