[New-Poetry] Re: Aesthetic Diversity in Poetry Today

[David Graham]

I wonder too.  And these arguments about "the new" are getting fairly  
long in the tooth, aren't they?

I remember reading a book many years ago by Harold Rosenberg titled  
*The Tradition of the New*, which as I recall, surveyed trends in  
modernist art, literature, and society.  Can't remember what his  
thesis was, if any, but the title always suggested for me one of the  
problems of modernism, one which post-modernism inherited and which  
no one, to my satisfaction, has credibly solved.  (No doubt it goes  
back to the Romantics, at least, if not further.)  The problem lies  
in the paradox of a "tradition of the new," and arrives in various  
flavors.

For instance, if your guiding value is novelty, doesn't that mean  
that every new work is more or less instantly outmoded?

And if rejection of "traditional tradition" is the chief virtue,  
doesn't that mean it's challenging if not impossible to come up with  
any positive standards of value that are not simply mirror images of  
whatever is/was popular?  Which makes the the avant-garde seem, well,  
rather rear guard & merely reactive.

And doesn't it also mean that assessing literary value becomes more  
or less impossible--since novelty per se can apply equally well to  
"great" works as drivel?

In a nutshell:  I don't think that setting up, say, Wordsworth as the  
gold standard against which all poetry must be measured makes much  
sense.  But Not-Wordsworth makes no more sense to me.

For "Wordsworth," of course, supply your own epithets:  traditional,  
metrical, Iowa plaintext, language-centered, slam, formalist,  
mainstream, political, personal, "sincere," confessional, post- 
confessional, anti-confessional, etc.

========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu

Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/About%20Me.html

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
==========================================



On Sep 5, 2007, at 2:12 PM, Skip Fox wrote:

> Christian Bok famously says, “Newness is value” as though its also  
> a central condition. He says this has been true since the early  
> 20th century modernists.
>
>
> I wonder.
>
>
> I believe it has value, but not only is newness not sufficient,  
> it’s not necessary to value, at least not in the way Bok and the  
> the movements in contemporary culture seem to maintain. I’m not an  
> “old wine in new bottles” sort (“We write the same poem over and  
> over”), but there are essentials that we can deeply respond to  
> regardless of the guise or the fashion of the moment. (The fashion  
> of the moment, by they way, is called by other moments a “period  
> style.”)
>
>
> Skip
>
>
> “Grace / to be born and live as variously as possible.”
>
> --Frank O’Hara
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu [mailto:new-poetry- 
> bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of jforjames at aol.com
> Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 1:54 PM
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Aesthetic Diversity in Poetry Today
>
>
> But has the buzz died down to a dull hum now that New Formalism is  
> over 20 years old?
>
> And are there novitiates in great numbers?
>
>
> The other effect I observe is the doppler of "What's dat?"
>
> Things are over, have come & gone, before one is even half-aware of  
> them.
>
> One picks up the dying sound of their doppler as they are passing  
> into history.
>
> Finnegan
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Sent: Wed, Sep 5 12:57 PM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Aesthetic Diversity in Poetry Today
>
> In a message dated 9/5/2007 11:19:30 AM Central Daylight Time,  
> jforjames at aol.com writes:
>
>
> In this arena for aesthetic diversity, I notice that New Formalism  
> seems to be unrepresented in this forum. Is that movement 'So over'  
> already? Unless one counts rhymester Kay Ryan? But I don't really  
> think of her as strongly formal. Though I know
> she's been championed by Dana Gioia among others with formal leanings.
>
>
> We are still here, and we won't go away.
>
> Sam
>

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