[New-Poetry] Frost on the edge - Creeley anecdote

Sun Feb 4 22:20:50 EST 2007

As an aside, and this is the first time for me
posting, have been a lurker, think it's called, much
appreciating the thoughtful posts, I'd like to share
an anecdote loosely related to Frost.

Guess it was 10 years ago. I called Robert Creeley on
the telephone, following our first exchange of
letters, told him almost gushingly how much I
appreciated his work and his time. Well, the first
thing he said, and did so forcefully, was that he
"wasn't Robert Frost or anything". Now, that doesn't
change his insecurities, or deep sense of not wanting
to be that felled tree heard by noone, or anything
else someone might say, but it was nice - and we'd
joke about it for a few months after.

AJ

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>    1. Frost on the edge (David Graham)
>    2. Re: Frost on the edge (Anny Ballardini)
> 
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>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2007 10:49:22 -0600
> From: David Graham <GRAHAMD at RIPON.EDU>
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Frost on the edge
> To: "NewPoetry &amp; Views"
> <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
> <A1D12F07-C049-4A88-AA23-5F0FD32938F9 at RIPON.EDU>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
> 
> Very interesting NYTimes review of the recent
> edition of Frost's  
> journals, by David Orr:
> 
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/books/review/Orr2.t.html?
> 
> _r=1&pagewanted=1&ref=review&oref=slogin
> 
> -------------
> The longest-running feud is probably the
> low-intensity border war  
> between so-called experimental poets and their
> “mainstream” brethren.  
> Since the distinctions can be hard to parse (to most
> people, saying  
> “mainstream poetry” is like saying “mainstream
> tapestry-weaving”),  
> it’s helpful to turn to the experts. In her book
> “21st-Century  
> Modernism,” Marjorie Perloff, a professor emerita at
> Stanford and  
> longtime champion of the avant-garde, claims the
> “dominant” mode in  
> poetry these days is “expressivist,” whereas
> experimental writing  
> involves “constructivism ... the specific
> understanding that  
> language, far from being a vehicle or conduit for
> thoughts or  
> feelings outside and prior to it, is itself the site
> of meaning- 
> making.” She fleshes out this concept with
> quotations from several  
> contemporary avant-garde poets, who argue among
> other things that  
> “there are no thoughts except through language” and
> “as soon as I  
> start listening to the words they reveal their own
> vectors and  
> affinities, pull the poem into their own field of
> force, often in  
> unforeseen directions.”
> 
> Indeed, experimental poetry “finds its own name as
> it goes” and “may  
> be worked over once it is in being, but may not be
> worried into  
> being,” because ultimately “the whole thing is
> performance and  
> prowess and feats of association.” After all, where
> a given poem is  
> concerned, “what do I want to communicate but what a
> hell of a good  
> time I had writing it?” Such poems necessarily
> disdain lyric  
> sincerity in favor of what one writer calls “the
> pleasure of  
> ulteriority” and are usually — no surprise —
> aggressively bookish  
> (“So many of them have literary criticism in them —
> in them”).  
> Admittedly, this approach may not appeal to more
> conservative tastes,  
> but as a general description of much of today’s most
> successful  
> experimental writing, it’s not too bad.
> 
> The problem, however, is that only the first two of
> those statements  
> were actually made by contemporary avant-garde
> poets. Everything  
> else, of course, was said by Robert Frost (who is,
> to put it mildly,  
> rarely described as a forefather of vanguard
> poetics). The point here  
> is not that our self-consciously avant-garde writers
> are kidding  
> themselves, or that your ninth-grade English class
> was sliding along  
> the razor’s edge of American culture by reading
> “Birches.” No, the  
> point is that whenever we begin forming up teams in
> American poetry,  
> we run into the problem of picking sides for such
> complex and hard-to- 
> place poets as Frost, T. S. Eliot and Wallace
> Stevens (not to mention  
> Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop and Lorine
> Niedecker). Rather than  
> take these writers as they are — rather than
> acknowledge, for  
> example, that Frost was as innovative as many poets
> more often  
> considered “experimental” — we prefer to reduce such
> figures to a  
> size better suited to the game we want to play. We
> cut the poet to  
> fit the jersey.
> 
> --David Orr
> 
> ------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
>
http://www.ripon.edu/academics/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> Poetry Library:
>
http://www.ripon.edu/academics/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> ==========================================
> 
> 
> 
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> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2007 18:12:08 +0100
> From: "Anny Ballardini" <anny.ballardini at tin.it>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Frost on the edge
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;
> Views"
> 	<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID: <001b01c7487f$9a8da8d0$298d3052 at ANNY>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
> 
> Frost once said he wanted to be seen as “the
> exception I like to think I am in everything.”
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: David Graham 
>   To: NewPoetry &amp; Views 
>   Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2007 5:49 PM
>   Subject: [New-Poetry] Frost on the edge
> 
> 
>   Very interesting NYTimes review of the recent
> edition of Frost's journals, by David Orr:
> 
> 
>  
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/books/review/Orr2.t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&ref=review&oref=slogin
> 
> 
>   -------------
>   The longest-running feud is probably the
> low-intensity border war between so-called
> experimental poets and their “mainstream” brethren.
> Since the distinctions can be hard to parse (to most
> people, saying “mainstream poetry” is like saying
> “mainstream tapestry-weaving”), it’s helpful to turn
> to the experts. In her book “21st-Century
> Modernism,” Marjorie Perloff, a professor emerita at
> Stanford and longtime champion of the avant-garde,
> claims the “dominant” mode in poetry these days is
> “expressivist,” whereas experimental writing
> involves “constructivism ... the specific
> understanding that language, far from being a
> vehicle or conduit for thoughts or feelings outside
> and prior to it, is itself the site of
> meaning-making.” She fleshes out this concept with
> quotations from several contemporary avant-garde
> poets, who argue among other things that “there are
> no thoughts except through language” and “as soon as
> I start listening to the words they reveal their own
> vectors and affi!
> nities, pull the poem into their own field of force,
> often in unforeseen directions.”
> 
>   Indeed, experimental poetry “finds its own name as
> it goes” and “may be worked over once it is in
> being, but may not be worried into being,” because
> ultimately “the whole thing is performance and
> prowess and feats of association.” After all, where
> a given poem is concerned, “what do I want to
> communicate but what a hell of a good time I had
> writing it?” Such poems necessarily disdain lyric
> sincerity in favor of what one writer calls “the
> pleasure of ulteriority” and are usually — no
> surprise — aggressively bookish (“So many of them
> have literary criticism in them — in them”).
> Admittedly, this approach may not appeal to more
> conservative tastes, but as a general description of
> much of today’s most successful experimental
> writing, it’s not too bad.
> 
>   The problem, however, is that only the first two
> of those statements were actually made by
> contemporary avant-garde poets. Everything else, of
> course, was said by Robert Frost (who is, to put it
> mildly, rarely described as a forefather of vanguard
> poetics). The point here is not that our
> self-consciously avant-garde writers are kidding
> themselves, or that your ninth-grade English class
> was sliding along the razor’s edge of American
> culture by reading “Birches.” No, the point is that
> whenever we begin forming up teams in American
> poetry, we run into the problem of picking sides for
> such complex and hard-to-place poets as Frost, T. S.
> Eliot and Wallace Stevens (not to mention Marianne
> Moore, Elizabeth Bishop and Lorine Niedecker).
> Rather than take these writers as they are — rather
> than acknowledge, for example, that Frost was as
> innovative as many poets more often considered
> “experimental” — we prefer to reduce such figures to
> a size better suited to the game we want to pla!
> y. We cut the poet to fit the jersey.
> 
>   --David Orr
> 
>   ------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>   ========================================
>   David Graham
>   grahamd at ripon.edu
>   Home Page:
>  
>
http://www.ripon.edu/academics/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
>   Poetry Library:
>  
>
http://www.ripon.edu/academics/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
>   ==========================================
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
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> 
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> End of New-Poetry Digest, Vol 32, Issue 4
> *****************************************
> 

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