[New-Poetry] MacArthur Poets

[Anny Ballardini]

I never doubted my preference for this list, and James' message shows why
  From: jforjames at aol.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 12:19 AM


  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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