[New-Poetry] Re: What I witnessed

[David Graham]

> Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.
>
> Hal


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

I'd be more inclined to call it a case of poetic humility.  Rare, I  
know, and almost never seen in the wild anymore. . . .

Robert Francis was a sly & refreshing old coot.  His autobiography,  
after all, is titled *The Trouble With Francis*--in response to a  
critic who had asserted that the trouble with Francis is not that he  
was a happy poet, but that his happiness "lacked weight."

As William Logan is happy to demonstrate regularly, critical  
obtuseness will always be with us.


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

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

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
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On Jul 2, 2008, at 9:51 AM, Halvard Johnson wrote:

> On Jul 2, 2008, at 8:00 AM, David Graham wrote:
>
>> Back in the late 1970s I witnessed a wonderful moment at a reading  
>> given by Robert Francis.  This would have been in Amherst,  
>> Massachusetts, at the Jones Library.  After reading a number of  
>> his charming, simple-seeming lyrics to the polite murmurs of the  
>> audience, Francis then recited a fairly strident anti-war poem--to  
>> enthusiastic applause.
>>
>> The poet stood there, looking quizzical for a long moment (I am  
>> aware how studied his performance may have been), waiting for the  
>> applause to subside into smug silence.  Then he very delicately  
>> inquired, "Now, was that applause for me, for the poem, or for the  
>> sentiments in the poem?  You know, applause can be so ambiguous."
>
>
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