[New-Poetry] A note on Otoliths
Jorgensen, Alexander
jorgensen_a at yahoo.com
Sat Nov 1 06:28:59 EST 2008
Just a public thank you to Annie - for being there. Too, an apology for listing Otoliths before its official "live" date. I received a Google alert and assumed it meant Mark Young's wonderful journal went online earlier than his careful eye.
Alex
--
Tennessee Williams: "A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with."
--- On Fri, 10/31/08, new-poetry-request at wiz.cath.vt.edu <new-poetry-request at wiz.cath.vt.edu> wrote:
From: new-poetry-request at wiz.cath.vt.edu <new-poetry-request at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Subject: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 52, Issue 43
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Date: Friday, October 31, 2008, 10:53 PM
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Poetics (David Graham)
2. Re: Poetics (Halvard Johnson)
3. Re: Ondaatje and the soul of the poet (Anny Ballardini)
4. Re: Poetics (Bob Grumman)
5. Re: Poetics (Halvard Johnson)
6. Re: Poetics (Robin Hamilton)
7. Poetics & Bly (David Graham)
8. Re: Poetic Justice (Bob Grumman)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:18:01 -0500
From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Poetics
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <4515AE52-7DC3-478F-AE61-94D1788E5DA2 at ripon.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
The idea that poets tend to denigrate the work of other, often older
poets in order to clear a space for their own work is a very old
one. Bly would certainly be guilty of that crime, if crime it is,
but he's just one face in a teeming crowd going back centuries.
Among other things, when setting forth in his career he was reacting
to the Agrarians and the New Critics, who in the 1940s and 1950s had
a real stranglehold on American mainstream poetry. Lowell was, of
course, a very big and very tempting target.
Bly's efforts were bumptious, unfair, often brilliantly funny, and in
my view generally welcome. He was on a different track but generally
in sync with the New York School and The Beats in stirring up the mud
puddle. All power to him. In my opinion, he helped open up the
mainstream to any number of good ideas, not just foolish ones.
Soon enough others came along to throw cold water on what Bly was
doing, and his brand of poetry fell largely out of favor. Not much
news here. And the painted ponies go up and down. . . .
========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz
Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
==========================================
On Oct 31, 2008, at 6:10 AM, Linda Sue Grimes wrote:
> It seems that some poets who write about what poetry is supposed to
> do or what their own does or what they think it does are creating
> their poetics in order to create an audience. A part of that
> apologia is that those poets almost always denigrate other poets'
> works in order to hoist their own.
>
> An example is Robert Bly's "deep image" along with his
trashing of
> Robert Lowell; Bly claims that the image is “natural language of
> speech” but it “cannot be drawn from or inserted back into the
> natural world.” His claim motivates the question: is "artificial
> language of speech" that which "can be drawn from and inserted
back
> into the natural world"? Or would it be the "artificial"
world?
> Is a blubstinspludor upon a frile fling "a deep image"? Can it
be
> stuck back into the natural world? Why not, even though I just
> make it up? But then is it the natural language of speech?
>
> Are "the quick sharp scratch" or “Grisly, foul, and terrific /
is
> the speech of bones” examples of "natural language of speech"?
Not
> according to Bly, because they are "drawn from" and also can be
> "inserted back into the natural world."
>
> Bly uses Robert Lowell as his target for scorn; quoting Lowell's
> "For the Union Dead," Bly quotes several passages that he
> particularly despises, calling them “coarse and ugly,”
> “unimaginative,” and then explains that Lowell is counterfeiting,
> “pretending to be saying passionate things . . . , and the passage
> means nothing at all.”
>
> Bly also claims, “. . . for American readers are so far from
> standing at the center of themselves that they can’t tell when a
> man is counterfeiting and when he isn’t.” It seems this remark
> opens Bly up the charge that he may, in fact, be the
> counterfeiter. Because even if he is, his American readers are too
> dull to be able to discern it. Thus, he founds a career on a
> poetics he created solely for that purpose--certainly not in
> service to poetry and readers--while denigrating Robert Lowell in
> the process.
>
> Just some thoughts...
>
> respectfully,
> lsg
>
>
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:31:48 -0600
From: Halvard Johnson <halvard at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poetics
To: "NewPoetry: & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <8E124DA9-1E42-4C5F-9169-371B9B714786 at earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
Seems to me that Robert Bly is/was one of those true believers who never
found (for long) what he really wanted to believe in. Thus, he passed
from
one enthusiasm to another (and his "denigration" of Lowell and
others)
was
part and parcel of his moving on from one thing to another. Check out
Robert Bly's work before he was the Robert Bly we've come to know.
It's
back there in the Hall/Pack anthologies.
Arthur Koestler always seemed to me to be another such "true
believer,"
but in the spheres of politics and philosophy.
There are those who can move along without trashing all they leave
behind.
Hal
McCain / Palin -- Just say thanks but no thanks.
They're a bridge to nowhere.
Halvard Johnson
================
halvard at earthlink.net
halvard at gmail.com
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 Oct 31, 2008, at 5:10 AM, Linda Sue Grimes wrote:
> It seems that some poets who write about what poetry is supposed to
> do or what their own does or what they think it does are creating
> their poetics in order to create an audience. A part of that
> apologia is that those poets almost always denigrate other poets'
> works in order to hoist their own.
>
> An example is Robert Bly's "deep image" along with his
trashing of
> Robert Lowell; Bly claims that the image is “natural language of
> speech” but it “cannot be drawn from or inserted back into the
> natural world.” His claim motivates the question: is "artificial
> language of speech" that which "can be drawn from and inserted
back
> into the natural world"? Or would it be the "artificial"
world? Is
> a blubstinspludor upon a frile fling "a deep image"? Can it be
> stuck back into the natural world? Why not, even though I just make
> it up? But then is it the natural language of speech?
>
> Are "the quick sharp scratch" or “Grisly, foul, and terrific /
is
> the speech of bones” examples of "natural language of speech"?
Not
> according to Bly, because they are "drawn from" and also can be
> "inserted back into the natural world."
>
> Bly uses Robert Lowell as his target for scorn; quoting Lowell's
> "For the Union Dead," Bly quotes several passages that he
> particularly despises, calling them “coarse and ugly,”
> “unimaginative,” and then explains that Lowell is counterfeiting,
> “pretending to be saying passionate things . . . , and the passage
> means nothing at all.”
>
> Bly also claims, “. . . for American readers are so far from
> standing at the center of themselves that they can’t tell when a man
> is counterfeiting and when he isn’t.” It seems this remark opens
> Bly up the charge that he may, in fact, be the counterfeiter.
> Because even if he is, his American readers are too dull to be able
> to discern it. Thus, he founds a career on a poetics he created
> solely for that purpose--certainly not in service to poetry and
> readers--while denigrating Robert Lowell in the process.
>
> Just some thoughts...
>
> respectfully,
> lsg
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:38:11 +0100
From: "Anny Ballardini" <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Ondaatje and the soul of the poet
To: "Linda Sue Grimes"
<suelin6787 at charter.net>, "NewPoetry:
Contemporary Poetry News &, Views"
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID:
<4b65c2d70810310938j40d812ccyff33e77aef66c1c7 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
The way I see it, and as far as I know, I can talk of both Williams and
Eliot with reference to Pound, Williams is opposed to Pound - at least that
is the way he proudly shaped himself, and Eliot would have been no one
without Pound. We are facing again two sides of the same coin, still two
very distinct sides.
Also, in the case of Eliot, one should trace his own outline, still
different from Pound by whom he was created.
I might not be clear, I am full of analgesics - just back from the dentist.
On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Linda Sue Grimes
<suelin6787 at charter.net>wrote:
> I would like to hear Ondaatje's examples with explanations for this
> difference. My first reaction is yes Eliot certainly does that, but then
I
> don't quite get how Williams "goes into it and kind of discovers
it."
>
> I think of Eliot's patient etherized upon a table describing evening,
and
> think that is certainly a mindset, the mindset of Prufrock, at least. But
> then the red wheelbarrow that so much depends upon and green glass between
> the hospital walls and "Honeysuckle! And now / there comes the
buzzing of
> a bee!"--don't they also reflect a mindset? How is it that
Williams
> entered the landscape but Eliot did not?
>
> respectfully,
> lsg
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
> *To:* NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News
&,Views<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> *Sent:* Thursday, October 30, 2008 11:20 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] Ondaatje and the soul of the poet
>
> This statement by Ondaatje has much more in it than what it actually says.
>
> On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 12:29 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> http://www.buffalonews.com/185/story/478592.html
>>
>> Ondaatje has written five novels. The most recent was
"Divisadero,"
>> published in 2007. He has written 13 books of poetry.
>>
>> "I think the way that someone like [poet] William Carlos Williams
writes
>> about place and landscape is more believable to me than the way T.S.
Elliot
>> writes. Eliot imposes his mind-set on that landscape, and Williams
goes into
>> it and kind of discovers [it] . . . " Ondaatje said.
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> McCain or Obama? Stay up to date on the latest from the campaign trail
>> with AOL
News<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1212075880x1200752631/aol?redir=http://news.aol.com/elections?ncid=emlcntusnews00000001>.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Anny Ballardini
> http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
> http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
> I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
> star!
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
--
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
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Message: 4
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:53:59 -0500
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poetics
To: Linda Sue Grimes <suelin6787 at charter.net>, "NewPoetry:
ContemporaryPoetry News & Views"
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <490B4637.3090900 at nut-n-but.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Linda Sue Grimes wrote:
> It seems that some poets who write about what poetry is supposed to do
> or what their own does or what they think it does are creating their
> poetics in order to create an audience. A part of that apologia is
> that those poets almost always denigrate other poets' works in order
> to hoist their own.
>
> An example is Robert Bly's "deep image" along with his
trashing of
> Robert Lowell; Bly claims that the image is "natural language of
> speech" but it "cannot be drawn from or inserted back into the
natural
> world."
I like some of Bly's poems but don't think much of him as a thinker.
What examples of deep images does he give? Sounds to me like images
that qualify as deep are images he likes, those that don't qualify are
images he doesn't like.
Does he present a rigorous definition of "deep image?" I have an
idea
of it as simply an image with a strong archetypal resonance--i.e., it
connects to deep human concerns like life and death, the change of
seasons, reproduction.
> His claim motivates the question: is "artificial language of
speech"
> that which "can be drawn from and inserted back into the natural
> world"? Or would it be the "artificial" world? Is a
blubstinspludor
> upon a frile fling "a deep image"? Can it be stuck back into
the
> natural world? Why not, even though I just make it up? But then is
> it the natural language of speech?
Good questions. What can't be re-inserted into the natural world?
>
> Are "the quick sharp scratch" or "Grisly, foul, and
terrific / is the
> speech of bones" examples of "natural language of speech"?
Not
> according to Bly, because they are "drawn from" and also can be
> "inserted back into the natural world."
Even if this were true, so what? Why can't they be of value, anyway. I
like "the speech of bones" and would call it as good an image as any,
whether "deep" or "shallow."
>
> Bly uses Robert Lowell as his target for scorn; quoting Lowell's
"For
> the Union Dead," Bly quotes several passages that he particularly
> despises, calling them "coarse and ugly,"
"unimaginative," and then
> explains that Lowell is counterfeiting, "pretending to be saying
> passionate things . . . , and the passage means nothing at all."
>
> Bly also claims, ". . . for American readers are so far from standing
> at the center of themselves that/ they can't tell when a man is
> counterfeiting and when he isn't/." It seems this remark opens
Bly up
> the charge that he may, in fact, be the counterfeiter. Because even
> if he is, his American readers are too dull to be able to discern it.
> Thus, he founds a career on a poetics he created solely for that
> purpose--certainly not in service to poetry and readers--while
> denigrating Robert Lowell in the process.
>
I think Lowell over-rated in his lifetime and under-rated now. I'd put
him in the second rank of American poets. Maybe Bly is there, too, but
he may only be in the third rank. He certainly isn't up with Pound,
Cummings, Roethke, Stevens and the other known poets I consider in the
first rank of American Poets. I don't think either Lowell or Bly was
"counterfeiting," unless all poets do that.
Just some thoughts back at you, LS.
--Bob
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Message: 5
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:04:07 -0600
From: Halvard Johnson <halvard at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poetics
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <3367A153-F88F-4A6C-8B71-CF655FDBFB3D at earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
The term "deep image," I believe, was intended to resonate with
the Spanish "canto hondo."
More here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=XxXsPIvHKUUC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=%22deep+image%22+%22canto+hondo%22&source=bl&ots=GeWvjn7C0J&sig=sP-GIcumHsgIFjye0io7O4I_X7Q&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA15,M1
McCain / Palin -- Just say thanks but no thanks.
They're a bridge to nowhere.
Halvard Johnson
================
halvard at earthlink.net
halvard at gmail.com
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 Oct 31, 2008, at 11:53 AM, Bob Grumman wrote:
> Linda Sue Grimes wrote:
>>
>> It seems that some poets who write about what poetry is supposed to
>> do or what their own does or what they think it does are creating
>> their poetics in order to create an audience. A part of that
>> apologia is that those poets almost always denigrate other poets'
>> works in order to hoist their own.
>>
>> An example is Robert Bly's "deep image" along with his
trashing of
>> Robert Lowell; Bly claims that the image is “natural language of
>> speech” but it “cannot be drawn from or inserted back into the
>> natural world.”
> I like some of Bly's poems but don't think much of him as a
> thinker. What examples of deep images does he give? Sounds to me
> like images that qualify as deep are images he likes, those that
> don't qualify are images he doesn't like.
>
> Does he present a rigorous definition of "deep image?" I have
an
> idea of it as simply an image with a strong archetypal resonance--
> i.e., it connects to deep human concerns like life and death, the
> change of seasons, reproduction.
>
>> His claim motivates the question: is "artificial language of
>> speech" that which "can be drawn from and inserted back into
the
>> natural world"? Or would it be the "artificial" world?
Is a
>> blubstinspludor upon a frile fling "a deep image"? Can it
be stuck
>> back into the natural world? Why not, even though I just make it
>> up? But then is it the natural language of speech?
> Good questions. What can't be re-inserted into the natural world?
>
>>
>> Are "the quick sharp scratch" or “Grisly, foul, and
terrific / is
>> the speech of bones” examples of "natural language of
speech"? Not
>> according to Bly, because they are "drawn from" and also can
be
>> "inserted back into the natural world."
> Even if this were true, so what? Why can't they be of value,
> anyway. I like "the speech of bones" and would call it as good
an
> image as any, whether "deep" or "shallow."
>>
>> Bly uses Robert Lowell as his target for scorn; quoting Lowell's
>> "For the Union Dead," Bly quotes several passages that he
>> particularly despises, calling them “coarse and ugly,”
>> “unimaginative,” and then explains that Lowell is counterfeiting,
>> “pretending to be saying passionate things . . . , and the passage
>> means nothing at all.”
>>
>> Bly also claims, “. . . for American readers are so far from
>> standing at the center of themselves that they can’t tell when a
>> man is counterfeiting and when he isn’t.” It seems this remark
>> opens Bly up the charge that he may, in fact, be the
>> counterfeiter. Because even if he is, his American readers are too
>> dull to be able to discern it. Thus, he founds a career on a
>> poetics he created solely for that purpose--certainly not in
>> service to poetry and readers--while denigrating Robert Lowell in
>> the process.
>>
> I think Lowell over-rated in his lifetime and under-rated now. I'd
> put him in the second rank of American poets. Maybe Bly is there,
> too, but he may only be in the third rank. He certainly isn't up
> with Pound, Cummings, Roethke, Stevens and the other known poets I
> consider in the first rank of American Poets. I don't think either
> Lowell or Bly was "counterfeiting," unless all poets do that.
>
> Just some thoughts back at you, LS.
>
> --Bob
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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Message: 6
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:59:30 -0000
From: "Robin Hamilton" <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poetics
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <D8A1491358EC47ED923962388631435F at RobinPC>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
<<
I think Lowell over-rated in his lifetime and under-rated now.
>>
Where would you place John Berryman with respect to Lowell, Bob?
Since sometime in the sixties, admittedly looking at it from the wrong side of
the Pond, it has seemed to me that in almost every way, Berryman does everything
that Lowell does, but does it better.
But Lowell is easier to read and more accessible, therefore more popular.
Robin
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Message: 7
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:21:00 -0500
From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetics & Bly
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <2E946198-00F7-48C4-8D65-2E220F9B90AC at ripon.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
Here is a fairly detailed history of the term "deep image" with
regard to Bly:
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/gs/1.2/bushell.html
Robert Kelly coined the phrase originally. Bly's own poetics has
shown a good deal of consistency over the years, as I see it,
following his apprenticeship pieces noted by Hal Johnson. He's
essentially a religious mystic, Jungian variety, and all his
disparate concepts and mini-movements have circled around an anti-
rationalism that is deeply Romantic. Thus his attraction to the
surrealists, Neruda, Lorca, Rilke, and so forth. Whether his subject
is political or pastoral, he's a Romantic.
The best overall summary of Bly's thinking that I know of is probably
his anthology *News of the Universe*, which presents (in addition to
many fine poems) his own typically loopy, infuriating, partial, and
often brilliant literary history. The enemy, as always, is sober
rationalism; the poets and poems he praises are characteristically
"inward," intuitive, associational, mythic--in short, Romantic.
I've always thought Bly's best work was probably his editing. His
theories fully satisfy very few for long, including himself, but he's
got a stunningly good eye. His selected editions of Stafford and
Ignatow, for instance, are the best we have. And his translations,
often derided by people who actually speak the languages from which
he translates, have nonetheless introduced a lot of Americans to a
lot of good international poets.
========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz
Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
==========================================
On Oct 31, 2008, at 12:04 PM, Halvard Johnson wrote:
> The term "deep image," I believe, was intended to resonate with
> the Spanish "canto hondo."
>
> More here:
>
>
http://books.google.com/books?id=XxXsPIvHKUUC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=%
>
22deep+image%22+%22canto+hondo%22&source=bl&ots=GeWvjn7C0J&sig=sP-
>
GIcumHsgIFjye0io7O4I_X7Q&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#
> PPA15,M1
>
>
> McCain / Palin -- Just say thanks but no thanks.
> They're a bridge to nowhere.
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> halvard at earthlink.net
> halvard at gmail.com
> 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 Oct 31, 2008, at 11:53 AM, Bob Grumman wrote:
>
>> Linda Sue Grimes wrote:
>>>
>>> It seems that some poets who write about what poetry is supposed
>>> to do or what their own does or what they think it does are
>>> creating their poetics in order to create an audience. A part
>>> of that apologia is that those poets almost always denigrate
>>> other poets' works in order to hoist their own.
>>>
>>> An example is Robert Bly's "deep image" along with
his trashing
>>> of Robert Lowell; Bly claims that the image is “natural language
>>> of speech” but it “cannot be drawn from or inserted back into
the
>>> natural world.”
>> I like some of Bly's poems but don't think much of him as a
>> thinker. What examples of deep images does he give? Sounds to me
>> like images that qualify as deep are images he likes, those that
>> don't qualify are images he doesn't like.
>>
>> Does he present a rigorous definition of "deep image?" I
have an
>> idea of it as simply an image with a strong archetypal resonance--
>> i.e., it connects to deep human concerns like life and death, the
>> change of seasons, reproduction.
>>
>>> His claim motivates the question: is "artificial language of
>>> speech" that which "can be drawn from and inserted back
into the
>>> natural world"? Or would it be the "artificial"
world? Is a
>>> blubstinspludor upon a frile fling "a deep image"? Can
it be
>>> stuck back into the natural world? Why not, even though I just
>>> make it up? But then is it the natural language of speech?
>> Good questions. What can't be re-inserted into the natural world?
>>
>>>
>>> Are "the quick sharp scratch" or “Grisly, foul, and
terrific / is
>>> the speech of bones” examples of "natural language of
speech"?
>>> Not according to Bly, because they are "drawn from" and
also can
>>> be "inserted back into the natural world."
>> Even if this were true, so what? Why can't they be of value,
>> anyway. I like "the speech of bones" and would call it as
good an
>> image as any, whether "deep" or "shallow."
>>>
>>> Bly uses Robert Lowell as his target for scorn; quoting
Lowell's
>>> "For the Union Dead," Bly quotes several passages that
he
>>> particularly despises, calling them “coarse and ugly,”
>>> “unimaginative,” and then explains that Lowell is
counterfeiting,
>>> “pretending to be saying passionate things . . . , and the
>>> passage means nothing at all.”
>>>
>>> Bly also claims, “. . . for American readers are so far from
>>> standing at the center of themselves that they can’t tell when a
>>> man is counterfeiting and when he isn’t.” It seems this remark
>>> opens Bly up the charge that he may, in fact, be the
>>> counterfeiter. Because even if he is, his American readers are
>>> too dull to be able to discern it. Thus, he founds a career on a
>>> poetics he created solely for that purpose--certainly not in
>>> service to poetry and readers--while denigrating Robert Lowell in
>>> the process.
>>>
>> I think Lowell over-rated in his lifetime and under-rated now.
>> I'd put him in the second rank of American poets. Maybe Bly is
>> there, too, but he may only be in the third rank. He certainly
>> isn't up with Pound, Cummings, Roethke, Stevens and the other
>> known poets I consider in the first rank of American Poets. I
>> don't think either Lowell or Bly was "counterfeiting,"
unless all
>> poets do that.
>>
>> Just some thoughts back at you, LS.
>>
>> --Bob
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Message: 8
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:27:39 -0500
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poetic Justice
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <490B4E1B.2080900 at nut-n-but.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
John Jeffrey wrote:
> Bob,
>
> I didn't mean to give the impression that I was attacking your kind of
> art, and I apologize if you felt that. I only disagree with the
> definition of creativity. I wouldn't have the snowballs to attack
> your fort because, to be honest, I don't understand New Poetry.
I've
> tried. I've read it. I've read theory. But I get nothing.
>
You may simply not have the right genes. No big deal. Some can't make
anything of calculus. I can't make anything of string theory. (In
fact, like Philistines sneering at abstract-expressionism or visual
poetry or language poetry, I tend to think it's incoherent nonsense.) I
also fail to appreciate most of Gertrude Stein's work, though I think
she was important for path-breaking that others have followed through on
to better effect.
> And not just the otherstreams, either. Even the major rivers leave me
> nodding off on the banks. A few weeks ago, the Writer's Almanac had
> one of those yawners that makes me weep at the state of poetry. The
> title was "The Poet Goes to Indiana" (by Mary Oliver) and the
first
> stanza read:
>
> I'll tell you a half-dozen things
> that happened to me
> in Indiana
> when I went that far west to teach.
> You tell me if it was worth it.
>
> By the time I got to the third line I was thinking, What do I care?
> And look at that third line: "In Indiana." In Indiana?
That's worthy
> of its own line? a principal unit? a piece of the pie? a lego block? a
> thought that adds to the whole? Bah! No beauty in the writing. No
> form to flatter. No images. No surprises. Nothing but chit-chatty
> broken out by grammatical clauses. Bah, I say again.
>
It's what I call Iowa Plaintext Lyric Poetry (I think--I've given it
more than one name). Nothing wrong with it, it's just been standard for
too long for it to be possible to be creative in it--though I've done it
on occasion. To defend this instance of it, I have to say you're
being completely unfair. First off, you have to give the thing time.
I don't know the poem, but maybe Oliver is artfully setting her scene,
building a dullness to make what she'll lead us to all the more
joltingly appealing. The lineation tells us we're experiencing a poem,
so we should concentrate, be open-minded, activate all our senses. It
also forces us to slow down so we'll have a better chance of full
appreciation of whatever genuine poetry we're to eventually reach.
(Which, I'd admit, I didn't reach in Williams famous refrigerator
poem.)
The Indiana line is especially short, so especially non-prose--but it
does set up the next line somewhat cleverly, that line speaking of "far
west," and taking a long time to get to compared with how quickly we
get to Indiana in the preceding line. A little joke--Indiana is not
very far west.
> And I'd dismiss is except that it's not atypical.
Again, I don't see how you can properly give a poem just five lines to
appeal to you.
> I think we're in a poetic bear market. Those near-empty spaces that
> you see if you look at poetry timelines, like the post Milton dirth.
> We're in the dirth after a pretty good early 20th century. It's
been
> trending downward since. (Though I'll admit my tastes are demode.)
Now you are attacking me and my pals' late twentieth-century poetry,
John--though it's kind of you to imply you may be the one at fault. I
would agree that mainstream American poetry since the last group of
poets everyone agrees were major (Frost, Eliot, Pound, Stevens,
Williams) has dropped off a bit. Some in the next generation like
Roethke I consider equal to the ones I just named, but there were not as
many of them. The next generation has no one with them in the
mainstream, just poets doing the same kind of stuff Frost, Eliot, Pound,
Stevens and Williams did. But the last third of the twentieth century
has something perhaps unique in American poetry, now that I think of it:
otherstream poetry by more than a scattered eccentric or two like
Whitman. There's language poetry, which all poetry engagents must come
to terms with--and seemingly are, as it now has seats in the Academy of
American Poets, and gets work into the Best American Poetry series,
etc. There's visual poetry, which has been around longer than language
poetry and remains otherstream, but made it into the latest issue of
Poetry magazine. There're all kinds of cyber-poetry I can't say much
about, as I sink behind the times, myself. There's sound poetry.
There's even my specialty, mathematical, practiced by probably no more
than a dozen Americans but getting into schools via Betsy Franco's
*Mathematickles* for children.
Not to mention stuff like haiku that is popular but looked down on.
> That's one of the reasons I joined this group: to read contemporary
> poets talking about contemporary poetry. I thought that maybe some
> understanding would leap from the emails into my eyes. But it's slow
> coming.
You might try quoting some contemporary poem that gives you trouble in
full--maybe alongside a poem you approve of. I don't think too many who
post here like to analyze, though, so I don't know how well you'll make
out.
--Bob G.
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