[New-Poetry] MacArthur Poets

[Skip Fox]

Or should anything be done about it? Is that too radical to suggest? I mean,
the one thing I can see that is done is small press (including web)
publishing. Sometimes people whose artistic tastes we like step into
semi-official venues for publishing (outside NY, but in good universities,
etc.) and that becomes not only a viable outlet but one respected by a wider
audience (largely academic, but so what?) as well. 

 

The fact that fame flies elsewhere isn't very new. I have about three
anthologies titled of Best Poems of ( X-year), all in the 1930s, and I love
to show their tables of contents to young poets and see how many names we
can recognize. They get about 1 a page. I get about 2, maybe a bit more.
(Out of 7 or 8! And it's amazing who they miss: Stevens, Williams, Zukofsky,
Pound. And the names we recognize: Sandburg, Millay, Teasdale.) Point is of
course the world is fickle, and that seems to include the artistic/cultural
world although we might expect otherwise of it, as we might expect academic
humanists to be human (less bullying, brash, rapacious, egotistical, etc.
I.e., is Harold Bloom a humanist in the full sense of the word?). 

 

Most other lists of prizes will yield the same.

 

What can be done, besides the above (become an editor at Middle-America
University Press or whatever)? Then why not relish what we have? We learn of
books and poets through friends, students, teachers, lists like this. We
have access to a wide range of work (perhaps the widest ever), and the joy
of discovery without the sense that we "should" like something because a top
critic or prestigious editor says we should. And the silence for ourselves?
Perhaps it's not deserved; perhaps it is. Regardless, we can practice what
we do without certain sets of expectations and presumed attentiveness
intruding upon us. (Maybe I should say this only about myself. I think if I
had had better success in the world's terms, I wouldn't be writing what I am
now. "Rabbit ears," they call it when a baseball pitcher is susceptible to
be thrown off by crowd noise. I think I would have been self-consciousness
in un-useful ways.)

 

As it is, we have ready access to the buying of books and publishing of
poetry. And there are hundreds of interesting poets. Many of us find a new
one weekly. It's a great time to be alive as a writer. I don't mind the
silence, but I would like to see Bernadette Mayer hired by a good
university. (Of course, there is a down side for very deserving writers who
have to endure financial worries for decades. Before them I am silent.)

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Sigauke, Emmanuel 
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 5:34 PM
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views
Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] MacArthur Poets

 

Great observation. I think it's the corporate concept of risk; publishers
and award providers seem to want to work with the established, regular names
always. What can be done about this? 

 

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From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of AlMaginnes at aol.com
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 3:31 PM
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] MacArthur Poets

The one thread I see running through here is that most of these folks have
or had New York publishers, which means that the Mac Arthur people are just
as lazy as most other selectors for the big prizes. Many of these people are
deserving, but there are many other poets just as gifted and just as
deserving--and in much greater need of the money than say Mark Strand,
Robert Hass or Jorie Graham.

 

I remember that I cheered when Lucia Perillo won because I like her early
work, up thorugh "The Oldest Map With the Name America" a great deal. Jay
Wright is consistently inventive and challenging and his work has been
consistently overlooked. But so many of these people seem to have  been
selected because it was the only prize they hadn't won.





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