[New-Poetry] Sounding my barbaric AWP

[millb at aol.com]

Don’t have a blog either.

 

In my opinion, the sheer size of AWP was a fault. In years past what charmed me most was the opportunity to greet friends and acquaintances, some folks like Frank Gaspar or Mark Cox I know only from annual nods at AWP!   

 

This time, whether it was a reflection on my being out of the loop, or whether it was the size of the conference, I did not have any accidental meetings.  In other cities, while having a martini at the bar, I would run into an editor I had been corresponding with, or I would bump into a fellow contributor of an anthology.  Happy accidents.  Smaller conferences provided for more down time, more interaction and more time to settle and develop friendships.

 

This year, not so much.  

 

Also, the book fair: it had all the characteristics of a trade show: grab a free pen, buy the one book you were looking for and scram from the booth. No time or space for discussion or even to pause and linger.

 

The choices David G mentioned.  Hard to decide what to see and what to miss.  With four or five readings and panels happening concurrently, it was hard to choose.

 

I was surprised by the lack of attendance at excellent events: Edward Fields and Martin Amis read to rooms 2/3rds empty.  Too many choices divided audiences.  It was a shame.

 

In years past, with one event or two, I might have been persuaded into discovering a new voice or someone I would not have selected.  I think, honestly, audiences flocked to events at the Hilton, avoiding the “walk” to the Sheraton (which was also a shame).  I recall walking a many blocks at Albany or, was it Kansas City in the rain.



Millicent 

 



-----Original Message-----
From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
To: NewPoetry &amp; Views <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 10:43 am
Subject: [New-Poetry] Sounding my barbaric AWP


I don't blog, so you all must suffer.



Notes on last weekend's Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference in midtown Manhattan.   Skip the following if you're allergic to gossip and academic gatherings.  




The omnipresent buzz was, of course, about the sheer size of this year's conference.  7,500 attendees, they say, and it seemed like an under-estimate, especially if you were standing in line for coffee or an elevator.  Two main hotels for all the events, so there was much shuttling back and forth.  The book fair, which in times past was a fairly reliable place to meet all your old pals just by hanging around for an hour, was too vast and scattered for this:  there were three huge ballrooms full of books, on three separate floors.  




What an amazing feast for the literary book lover, even so.  Every little press and university press or journal you've ever heard of, it seemed, and hundreds you never have.  It takes nerves of steel not to walk out with a heavy bag of new titles.  I do not have nerves of steel.  




Another aspect of the conference's size was that they ran double featured readings in the evening, for the first time in my experience.  (I missed the last two years.)  For example, you had to choose one evening between hearing Rae Armantraut & Mark Strand, or else Susan Cheever & Sue Miller.   They also were militant about checking people's registration badges:  no more sneaking in for a free taste.




I've never seen as much star power at any previous AWPs.  I mean, just on the poetry side of the aisle, the list of laureates alone was impressive:  Billy Collins, Mark Strand, Charles Simic, and Robert Pinsky were all on hand, along with quite a few other big splashes in the poetry pond:  John Ashbery, Sharon Olds, Yusef Komunyakaa, Robert Bly, James Tate, Russell Edson, Gerald Stern, Alicia Ostriker, Marvin Bell, Sonia Sanchez, Patricia Smith, Richard Howard, Stanley Plumly, Louis Simpson, Mark Doty, Martin Espada, Jorie Graham, Li-Young Lee, Edward Hirsch, C.D. Wright, Edward Fields, Thomas Lux, Stephen Dunn, Joyce Carol Oates (well, she writes some poetry), C. K. Williams, and Quincy Troupe, just to list a few.  




No-shows (both with broken bones, interestingly) included Louise Gluck and Albert Goldbarth.  My guess is that Goldbarth tried to lift a pile of his own books, and it snapped his old bones.  




I only saw a few of those listed above, as usual at such conferences.  I spent much of my time schmoozing with friends, trolling the book fair, and in this case checking out the Museum of Modern Art, only a block away from the droning of panelists.  Excellent show of Lucian Freud etchings, by the way.  




Interesting to be at a literary event where someone like Collins was *not* the featured attraction.  He just ambled around from session to session and around the book fair like a Regular Person.  I shook his hand and we had a tiny pleasant chat after the Ultra-Talk panel.  And his reading was not one of the big nightly features, either.  




Highlights:  seeing Russell Edson about three decades after the last reading of his I caught, and finding him much the same, happily.  A bit stooped and halting, but creatively the same.  The session was a tribute to Edson, with his reading preceded by tributes from Robert Bly, Charles Simic, and James Tate.  Strange to see that collection of geezers on stage and realize that Tate, at age 65, was the youngster.  Edson is 73, Simic turns 70 this year, and Bly's 82.  I'd not seen Tate in a number of years, and his health seems very precarious.  Walks with a cane now.  Very sad to see.  




Tate had his own big tribute, with a reading of new work (for which he sat down) followed by a Q & A, at which he essentially deflected all questions.  




Another highlight for me was a panel on religion & poetry, featuring talks by Marianne Boruch, Robert Thomas, Greg Rappleye, Laura Kasischke, and Roy Jacobstein, all excellent, on time, and well prepared--not always the case at AWP.  I had to leave during the Q & A, but I'm told some born-agains provided some heated questioning afterward to the panelists, some of whom had announced themselves as atheists.  




Heard Alice Friman read for the first time, and if you ever get a chance, go see her.  




My favorite session was no doubt the Ultra-Talk panel, with David Kirby, Barbara Hamby, Mark Halliday, and Rodney Jones.  One of the liveliest in terms of questions and discussion, too.  




My greatest disappointment was not hearing what Goldbarth might have had to say about Marianne Moore, in a tribute to MM that his fractured bones prevented him from attending.  Moore is another Ultra-Talk precursor, it seems to me, as Goldbarth is one of our best current talkers, ultra- or otherwise.  It was a very interesting session, even so, with particularly strong remarks, I thought, from Jeanne Marie Beaumont.  




Among my too-numerous book purchases was Jason Bredle's *Standing in Line for the Beast* (New Issues Press, 2007), which I read on the plane home.  If you like Ultra-Talkers, he's a very worthy new voice.  And New Issues impressed me greatly with its list, I must say.  




I also highly recommend Alice Friman's *Book of the Rotten Daughter*, from BkMk Press (2006) and Carol Potter's *Otherwise Obedient*, just out from Red Hen Press, another highly impressive small press.  




Red Hen's also just published an anthology that is in some ways unique.  It's called *Letters to the World*, and consists of poems by subscribers to the Wom-Po Listserv.  It's a long and fascinatingly complex story, told in the book itself, but in a nutshell--the anthology is a collaborative venture arising from the Wom-Po membership, which went from being a notion to a blog to an online anthology to a book entirely without a "leader", all with volunteer labor and an endless stream of on-list talk about methods, goals, standards, procedures, etc.  An all-email book, start to finish, with input from (if I remember rightly) five continents.  It's truly amazing that the book ever appeared, and it's a beauty.   In my possibly biased opinion--I wound up as the sole male contributor.  




For those who like to track such things, since there was no editorial selector of works (anyone who wished could contribute one poem), it's among the most eclectic anthologies out there, aesthetically.  




AWP is really the blind man's elephant these days, so I'd love to hear others' reports.  









========================================

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

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