[New-Poetry] Harrison reviews Bukowski

[Anny Ballardini]

Don't mention him, James. I had a strange experience. Without doing proper research and sort of pushed by a potential collaborator who suggested "we should translate several poems because there aren't any good ones in English" I contacted his son who kindly replied and directed me to the beautiful edition I now have here Introduced and Translated by Jack Bevan; Anvil Press Poetry, London, 1983. 
As far as I know, Quasimodo is studied at school. Which makes it difficult to go back to once you are out "of school," but one never knows...
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: jforjames at aol.com 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2007 11:41 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Harrison reviews Bukowski


  When I scanned down the first paragraph and saw Quasimodo in the first paragraph I thought Harrison was
  bringing Salvatore Quasimodo into his review, an Italian poet I like quite a lot, but he was invoking the 
  Quasimodo of Victor Hugo.
  Anny, how is Quasimodo, the poet's, reputation holding up in Italy? 
  Finnegan


    From Harrison: 
     
    Our perceptions of Bukowski, like our perceptions of Kerouac, are muddied by the fact that many of his most ardent fans are nitwits who love him to the exclusion of any of his contemporaries. I would suggest you can appreciate Bukowski with the same brain that loves Wallace Stegner and Gary Snyder. 
     
    JforJames at aol.com wrote: 
    > http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/books/review/harrison.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin > <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/books/review/harrison.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin> 
    > > King of Pain 
    > > By JIM HARRISON 
    > Published: November 25, 2007 
    > Poetry shouldn’t tell us what we already know, though of course it can > revive what we think we know. A durable poet, the rarest of all birds, > has a unique point of view and the gift of language to express it. The > unique point of view can often come from a mental or physical > deformity. Deep within us, but also on the surface, is the wounded > ugly boy who has never caught an acceptable angle of himself in the > mirror. A poet can have a deep sense of himself as a Quasimodo in a > world without bells, or as the fine poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote: 
    > A feast of brief hopes, a rally of the proud, 
    > A tournament of hunchbacks, literature. 
    > > Charles Bukowski was a monstrously homely man... 



  -----Original Message-----
  From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
  Bcc: jforjames at aol.com
  Sent: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 4:09 pm
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Harrison reviews Bukowski


  From Harrison: 
   
  Our perceptions of Bukowski, like our perceptions of Kerouac, are muddied by the fact that many of his most ardent fans are nitwits who love him to the exclusion of any of his contemporaries. I would suggest you can appreciate Bukowski with the same brain that loves Wallace Stegner and Gary Snyder. 
   
  JforJames at aol.com wrote: 
  > http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/books/review/harrison.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin > <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/books/review/harrison.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin> 
  > > King of Pain 
  > > By JIM HARRISON 
  > Published: November 25, 2007 
  > Poetry shouldn’t tell us what we already know, though of course it can > revive what we think we know. A durable poet, the rarest of all birds, > has a unique point of view and the gift of language to express it. The > unique point of view can often come from a mental or physical > deformity. Deep within us, but also on the surface, is the wounded > ugly boy who has never caught an acceptable angle of himself in the > mirror. A poet can have a deep sense of himself as a Quasimodo in a > world without bells, or as the fine poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote: 
  > A feast of brief hopes, a rally of the proud, 
  > A tournament of hunchbacks, literature. 
  > > Charles Bukowski was a monstrously homely man... 
  > 
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