[New-Poetry] Talk poets

[David Graham]

Well, it's quiet around here.  Too Quiet.  Let me see if I can stir  
up some trouble.

In his faultlessly concise blog for August 14, our beloved leader Jim  
Finnegan posted the following:

	     "The natter mannerists: the ‘talk poets’."

That's the entire entry, so it's not exactly a statement, much less  
an argument.  But I'm guessing he's thinking negatively of Mark  
Halliday's "ultra-talk" coinage, used to describe poets like David  
Kirby and of course Mark Halliday.   Is that right, Jim?  Or perhaps  
he's thinking back to Frost, Williams, and beyond, to Wordsworth?  In  
any case, I'm always eager to see further ultra-talk talk.

So let me lift my eyebrow at Jim's little jab.  What does it mean to  
call such poets (whoever they be) mannerists?  Prolix, superfluous,  
overabundant, formless, even boring, perhaps, sure.  Nattering also  
might work (hard not to continue the phrase into "nabobs of  
negativism...").  You can make that argument if you wish, yup.

But how is "talk poetry" (however defined) *mannered*?  The whole  
idea is to sound like, well, talk!  Whereas mannered poetry sounds  
unlike talk--sort of by definition.  I would hasten to add that I  
don't myself attach values to such poles.  A poet like Whitman (great  
father of ultra-talk) has both mannered and unmannered moments, and I  
don't actually prefer one mode to the other.  Dylan Thomas is nothing  
if not mannered, and he's a substantial poet.  But talky old Dr.  
Williams in his late poems is also great, and will suffice.

Discuss.


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

Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz

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




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20080822/f2b16755/attachment.html