[New-Poetry] Sounding my barbaric AWP

Wed Feb 6 15:50:58 EST 2008

That's Edward Field, btw, now that I've seen the name
wrong twice here.

"How beautiful it is to do nothing,
  and then rest afterward."
                      --Spanish proverb

Halvard Johnson
================
halvard at earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
http://www.hamiltonstone.org
http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html

On Feb 6, 2008, at 12:22 PM, millb at aol.com wrote:

> 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:
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>
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> =
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