[New-Poetry] Simic Q&A

[Jason Quackenbush]

It's an interesting thought. Rather than being antagonistic to other  
aesthetics the way we so often are, shouldn't we all just recognize  
that poetry isn't the NBA, and that while some poets have more  
mainstream appeal, and that's good for poetry, other poets are  
pushing at the boundaries of what's possible, and that's good for  
poetry too. As specialists, what we all ought to be doing is doing  
what we can to support eachothers strengths, the mainstream  
powerhouses can share some of the limelight and encourage their  
readers to a broader spectrum, and in turn the rest of us can lay off  
talking about how boring we think the mainstream powerhouses are, and  
really anything else they might like help with. Letting many flowers  
bloom doesn't seem to be an approach that has any sort of drawback  
for anybody. Of course that said, I reserve the right to talk trash  
about Billy Collins.

On Feb 2, 2008, at 3:26 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:

>
>
> TheOldMole wrote:
>> He's not wrong -- 740 is a lot of people, and I don't have a  
>> problem with the fact that mainstream poetry reaches a stream of  
>> readers which is more main. People are goiug to like what they're  
>> going to like, and if Ron Silliman or Geof Huth or Aram Saroyan or  
>> Rae Armantrout were named Poet Laureate tomorrow, they still  
>> wouldn't draw crowds like Donald Hall or Mazine Kumin. And that's  
>> not a criticism of the quality of either the School of Quietude or  
>> the School of Noisitude.
>>
>> But it's still a copout. The post of Poet Laureate, since it  
>> doesn't involve writing poems for state occasions, has kinda come  
>> to mean doing something to increase the recognition of poetry. And  
>> the NBA draws more people than a poetry reading, but that doesn't  
>> mean David Stern isn't still working on ways to increase the  
>> popularity of basketball.
>>
>> Maybe the aim isn't to top 740, but it should be something. How  
>> about encouraging poets like Hall and Kumin, instead of reading  
>> together, to read with a School of Noisitude poet, and expose the  
>> existing poetry audiences to a wider range of possibilities?
> Hmm, what you been eatin', Mole?
>
> Way back when, when I was trying to make it as a playwright with  
> even less success than I have had as a poet, I used to think that  
> if I ever got famous, I would not let any theatre produce my work  
> that had not produced one work by a total unknown within the  
> previous year.
>
> --Bob G.
>
>
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