[New-Poetry] Sounding my barbaric AWP

Wed Feb 6 16:07:00 EST 2008

I've sometimes wondered if some of my poems could be called ultra- 
talk poems. then again, i also sometimes wonder whether i should  
really be medicating my attention deficit disorder. Since i don't go  
to AWP, would you mind expanding a bit on what was discussed during  
that pane for my benefitl?
Thnks for the rundown,
Jason Quackenbush

On Feb 6, 2008, at 8:43 AM, David Graham wrote:

> 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
>
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