[New-Poetry] Camlle Paglia explains how she saved poetry

Sat Nov 15 22:36:14 EST 2008

Of course I join you, James, in your appreciation of Paglia's successful
efforts to show us the things that poets've done that do not work.
What she has done is courageous, to say the least.  Few would've risked
their professional associations and clout, little as it might be or have
been, in order to set about looking at poetry rather than the politics of
poetry.

No kudos are in order for you and me, James, for recognising good poetry and
good critiquing [Paglia's].  We knew all the time that poetry had curdled
into confessional prose, unimaginative bellybutton-staring.  We watched it,
sometimes taught it, anthologised it, and passed along the nervous
excitement of competitive ladder-climbings of un-poets.  And now we say, oh
gosh, Paglia's right!  Imagine that!

Let me be brutal with us, then.  Not only did we know what poetry is and
deny it, we hoped to participate in the rewards of those who practice
un-poetry.  We still do.  Right now, every day, with our systems that
elevate un-poetry over poetry, we continue to sell poetry short, to act the
fool to our students, to pretend we 'see' something in a passage of words
that, even judged in prose terms, would fail to move us.

And, finally, we not only know what poetry is---brilliant, beautiful, fresh,
astonishing words and associations---we know how to write it.  But we don't
write it.  We're too lazy.  Why write poetry when what passes so
successfully for it is the thing rewarded?  We're afraid.  We're timid.  We
don't want to work hard.  We refuse to unpopular ourselves, to separate from
the bleaty sheep. We might be unable to write magnificent poetry----a
frightening thought.

Yet.....WE are running the show----not some stupidly-funded eggheads who
seem never to want to publish our [generic 'our'] poems----WE are running
the poetry show.  And we just want to make it easy for ourselves.  Maybe
that group of several unpoems I wrote last year will be published, we think.
 It's not any worse than what's already published and acclaimed, we say.
 Why can't I get a piece of the pie, we reason?

We [generic 'we'] might get pieces of the poetry pie, but they would've been
given and accepted by fools.

Thanks for the opportunity to stab at unclothed emperors who look and act a
lot like us, every one of us.

Judy

2008/11/15 <jforjames at aol.com>

> I think what Paglia reacted to in Pound, and there's some truth to it, is
> that Pound never wrote a poem that wasn't in some way
> about something else, be it a pastiche, provocation or persona. Stein
> famously called him the 'villager explainer'. But she might have said,
> as she did about her hometown, that in Pound's poetry "There's no there
> there."  And Ol' Ez might have pointed to his noggin and said, "No, it's all
> here here, and that's what matters."
>
> As for Stevens, she does put two of his poems in her anthology...but seems
> to dislike the late Stevens. I don't think this is uncommon. His work
> changed. You can still see the glimpses...but late Stevens wasn't as
> interested in the 'essential gaudiness' of poetry. He was more interested in
> how the mind would, if it could, replace faith/religion with experience.
>
> I think it's unfair to call her a Philistine. A Philistine wouldn't write a
> mini-essay to accompany 43 poems, as she did in Break, Break, Blow. She
> obviously is deeply attracted to poetry. She has made an investment in the
> art, and risked an opinion on a large number of poems. That doesn't mean
> she's right about things...but, my god, give me a reader like that any day,
> even if she's wrong. Mostly what passes for critical comment is second-hand
> and received readings passed along with a nod or a salute.
> Finnegan
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> Sent: Sat, 15 Nov 2008 7:08 pm
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Camlle Paglia explains how she saved poetry
>
> jforjames at aol.com wrote:
>
> I didn't have a chance to read the whole piece till yesterday, and it looks
> like I'm of the minority viewpoint, but I think that Paglia did a good job
> defending the poems she picked for her anthology. Opinion is all critics
> have in the end...there is no proof as I said today after reading the piece:
> http://ursprache.blogspot.com/
> She laid out her opinions on poetry quite nicely, I thought. (And she's
> obviously not intimidated or held hostage to careerist niceties so much that
> she's dissuaded from expressing displeasure at 'name poets'. Which I find
> refreshing.)
> The other thing I think this piece points to is how much the 'anthology
> pieces' we know come to us as received icons.
> The poems are not questioned. Not interrogated. They were taught to as
> 'canonical' or a certain poetry interest group
>  has 'vested' them and they go on, living-dead zombie poems pushed forward
> through time without question,
> Finnegan
>
> Including those of your friend (and mine) Wally.   I doubt I'll ever have
> time, but I wouldn't mind doing a reply to Paglia's text.  I think she's a
> Total Philistine.  Good grief, anyone who could blithely write off ALL the
> poems of Pound, for instance, has to be subliterate.  But, true, I only
> skimmed her text after the first ten or fifteen paragraphs.  And, of course,
> I'm not bright enough to have risen above the poetry I've been indoctrinated
> to take as canonical.
>
> --Bob G.
>
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