From chris.lott at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 01:16:26 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:16:26 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] For Bob's WEPD experiment: 'Success' by Rebecca 
	McKee
In-Reply-To: <498269C0.3030409@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291747x2e1bcec7m9d01dd35cf4c464a@mail.gmail.com>
	<498264C2.9000901@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291838h5d13c0at76e6f81377d2fbcc@mail.gmail.com>
	<498269C0.3030409@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0901312216l5b50da03oc09d282f1ad3af1f@mail.gmail.com>

This is all very interesting, but my prediction was about which poems
you would agree as being excellent, not which poems you would agree
were not. There is quite a difference between the former and the
latter. And I posit as evidence pretty much every conversation on this
list since I first started reading it. If you start agreeing regularly
it will be an amazing change from the past won't it? What
characterizes this list more thoroughly than Bob's naysaying of poems
submitted by others and championing of poems that almost no one seem
to like?

You'll need to do a few poems to start meaning anything significant...
interesting that so far none of the dullard post avant poems have come
up, nor visual poetry, nor anything the list bit controversial.
Choosing Shakespeare, Housman and some craptacular poem that could
have come from any 8th grade workshiop seems a bit like stacking the
deck.

But carry on. It is nice to see talk about poems here. I'll check back
in a few weeks and see what happened.

c


From chris.lott at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 01:20:08 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:20:08 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence
In-Reply-To: <4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<49825503.6040104@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com>
	<4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
> Well, all I can say, Michael, is that I think one can use a check-list to
> come close to deciding whether most poems are excellent

Marcus Bales is probably falling in love with you at this very moment.
At one point, at least, his mission was to rip all subjectivity from
aesthetic appreciation.

> I can't see how any poem can give
> anyone lasting pleasure;

Proof that you and I, at least, are different species. But then we knew that...

c


From chris.lott at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 01:28:49 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:28:49 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<49825503.6040104@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com>
	<4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0901312228t51dd9ed4w7061515f12b92602@mail.gmail.com>

Just to be clear (since Marcus is probably scanning the mail
constantly for his name)-- I know that the checklist doesn't negate
subjectivity (being simply a manifestation of it)... but considering
the paucity of suitors, I think it'll do.

c

On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Chris Lott <chris.lott at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>> Well, all I can say, Michael, is that I think one can use a check-list to
>> come close to deciding whether most poems are excellent
>
> Marcus Bales is probably falling in love with you at this very moment.
> At one point, at least, his mission was to rip all subjectivity from
> aesthetic appreciation.
>
>> I can't see how any poem can give
>> anyone lasting pleasure;
>
> Proof that you and I, at least, are different species. But then we knew that...
>
> c
>



-- 
Chris Lott


From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb  1 05:54:58 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 05:54:58 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For Bob's WEPD experiment: 'Success' by Rebecca 
	McKee
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0901312216l5b50da03oc09d282f1ad3af1f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291747x2e1bcec7m9d01dd35cf4c464a@mail.gmail.com>
	<498264C2.9000901@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291838h5d13c0at76e6f81377d2fbcc@mail.gmail.com>
	<498269C0.3030409@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0901312216l5b50da03oc09d282f1ad3af1f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902010254h54e064bcu769bac916d13c9e4@mail.gmail.com>

Your several assumptions, reasonably, may find themselves untrue, Chris.
Trying to find out what many of us think makes Excellent poems will usually
reveal what many of us think has made a not-Excellent poem.  Flip-sides of a
coin.

Further, many people [even poet-people] change their views as they learn
more, widen their perspectives; and, of course, new or 'lurking' listmembers
appear whose responses may differ from what you're remembering in past
list-chats.

And, finally, even Bob---yes, even Bob---changes his opinions, as he so
often un-ego'ly and generously admits to us.

I suggest that you join us in evaluating poems; offer a poem or changes in
the checklist.  Why not?  What's there to lose?  I'm finding it as
frustrating and surprise-fascinating as worthwhile projects usually prove to
be.

Best,

Judy

2009/2/1 Chris Lott <chris.lott at gmail.com>

> This is all very interesting, but my prediction was about which poems
> you would agree as being excellent, not which poems you would agree
> were not. There is quite a difference between the former and the
> latter. And I posit as evidence pretty much every conversation on this
> list since I first started reading it. If you start agreeing regularly
> it will be an amazing change from the past won't it? What
> characterizes this list more thoroughly than Bob's naysaying of poems
> submitted by others and championing of poems that almost no one seem
> to like?
>
> You'll need to do a few poems to start meaning anything significant...
> interesting that so far none of the dullard post avant poems have come
> up, nor visual poetry, nor anything the list bit controversial.
> Choosing Shakespeare, Housman and some craptacular poem that could
> have come from any 8th grade workshiop seems a bit like stacking the
> deck.
>
> But carry on. It is nice to see talk about poems here. I'll check back
> in a few weeks and see what happened.
>
> c
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 06:40:57 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:40:57 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu><4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com><4982550
	3.6040104@nut-n-but.net><6768ac830901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com><4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>

Chris Lott wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>   
>> Well, all I can say, Michael, is that I think one can use a check-list to
>> come close to deciding whether most poems are excellent
>>     
>
> Marcus Bales is probably falling in love with you at this very moment.
> At one point, at least, his mission was to rip all subjectivity from
> aesthetic appreciation.
I believe you have Marcus wrong, Chris.  He believes poetry is 
undefinable.  He definitely believe that you can't classify poetries.

--Bob
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 06:55:16 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:55:16 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For Bob's WEPD experiment: 'Success' by Rebecca McKee
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0901312216l5b50da03oc09d282f1ad3af1f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b
	0901291747x2e1bcec7m9d01dd35cf4c464a@mail.gmail.com><498264C2.9000901@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0901291838h5d13c0at76e6f81377d2fbc
	c@mail.gmail.com><498269C0.3030409@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0901312216l5b50da03oc09d282f1ad3af1f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49858DA4.4080403@nut-n-but.net>

Chris Lott wrote:
> This is all very interesting, but my prediction was about which poems
> you would agree as being excellent, not which poems you would agree
> were not.
Okay.  Still, I'm sure you're right that just about no group of people 
would agree on every case.  We, however, as a group, have so far agreed 
on every case. 


>  There is quite a difference between the former and the
> latter. And I posit as evidence pretty much every conversation on this
> list since I first started reading it. If you start agreeing regularly
> it will be an amazing change from the past won't it? What
> characterizes this list more thoroughly than Bob's naysaying of poems
> submitted by others and championing of poems that almost no one seem
> to like?
>   
How so?   Unless you require 100% agreement, which I certainly would not. 

> You'll need to do a few poems to start meaning anything significant...
> interesting that so far none of the dullard post avant poems have come
> up, nor visual poetry, nor anything the list bit controversial.
> Choosing Shakespeare, Housman and some craptacular poem that could
> have come from any 8th grade workshop seems a bit like stacking the
> deck.
>
>   
Feel free to give us a poem, Chris.  I don't care what poems we analyze, 
but it would prefer not to get into visual poetry because we know that 
only I, and maybe sometimes Judy with the proviso it isn't poetry, would 
consider it excellent, and I would probably not be able to resist the 
temptation to argue for a thousand posts.  It seems reasonable to me to 
start with poems we all know--and, it is to be hoped--agree are 
excellent, to clarify just what qualifies as that by check list.

I hope to post a revised check list later today.  Look for it.  It will 
be minimally objective the way most laws in countries like ours are: all 
kinds of borblurs, as I call them--like between manslaughter and 
murder.  That doesn't make laws subjective.

--Bob



From halvard at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 11:11:02 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:11:02 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence
In-Reply-To: <49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<6768ac830901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com>
	<4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>

Here's a question for those of you pondering "excellence": Can you name some
(maybe two or three) poems you consider excellent but which you also dislike
or, even better, actively hate?

Hal
-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sun Feb  1 11:58:20 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:58:20 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re:  Excellence
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<6768ac830901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com>
	<4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2257855C-ABFC-4C70-A372-F4C7EBA77F6C@ripon.edu>

That's a softball.  "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," for one.   
Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" for another.  Then there's "The Red  
Wheelbarrow" . . . .  Quite a lot of the Norton Anthology, in fact.

I save actual hatred for people, usually (often former Presidents),  
but I can say that I don't much love the above poems, and never have.




========================================
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 Feb 1, 2009, at 10:11 AM, Halvard Johnson wrote:

> Here's a question for those of you pondering "excellence": Can you  
> name some (maybe two or three) poems you consider excellent but  
> which you also dislike or, even better, actively hate?
>
> Hal
> -- 

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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sun Feb  1 12:15:51 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 11:15:51 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Langston Hughes
Message-ID: <31EE2A7B-E2A6-4248-9216-346804B663F0@ripon.edu>

Born this day in 1902.


Democracy

Democracy will not come
Today, this year
     Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
     To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I?m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow?s bread.

     Freedom
     Is a strong seed
     Planted In a great need.
     I live here, too.
     I want freedom
     Just as you.

--Langston Hughes.  fr. "Montage of a Dream Deferred."



========================================
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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 12:45:36 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:45:36 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu><4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com><6768ac8
	30901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com><4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net><9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e1816
	8@mail.gmail.com><49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>

A poem is excellent if judged at any time ten years after its 
publication to be so by a
hundred or more poetry experts using the following check-list--if no 
more than ninety-nine
such experts can be found to disagree with that judgement within ten 
years of that
judgement, a poetry expert being defined as someone who has seriously 
engaged the
works of ten or more poets (which means having read at least fifty poems 
by each)
including the works of at least one solitextual poet (poet whose works 
are solely textual)
and one pluraesthetic poet (poet whose works make significant use of 
more than one
expressive modality such as a visual poet) and has either composed fifty 
pages of poetry or
one hundred twenty pages of poetry criticism or who has been accepted as 
a poetry expert
by twenty or more poetry experts.

An Excellent Poem:

(1) expresses something importantly true or represents of something 
centrally beautiful--
assuming it doesn't do both;

(2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or 
something that makes
its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but 
eventually achieves Clarity;

(3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which 
pulls its elements
reasonably close together; 

(4) contains few or no superfluous words;

(5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have 
such as
uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
art), and imagery;

(6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or 
thought; too overt
Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;

Comments: I added the panel of Poetry Experts after thinking over 
Michael's assertion
that "we know that Emily's little poem is excellent because a 
significant number of people
are still willing to give their time to reading it and thinking and 
writing about it."  I agreed
at first with this, but then decided that popularity is no real evidence 
of quality.  Look at
the religious sects still incredibly popular, for instance.  And there 
are poems that have
stood :the test of time" that most genuine lovers of poetry don't think 
much of, like some
of Poe's.  I think Poe is badly under-rated, myself, but I can't believe 
that all the poems still
in anthologies and greatly enjoyed by many people are excellent. 

Note that I have proclaimed that any poem that is approved as excellent 
by my hundred or
more experts keeps its rating forever, however later generations look on 
it.  My reasoning
is that it possible, even probable, that contemporaries will find a poem 
to be excellent for
something about it later generations are no longer sensitive to, just as 
the reverse so
frequently happens.  But I do require ten years to pass for a poem to 
become eligible for
evaluation to prevent fashion or prestige from being too quickly 
influential.

Note, too, that I have ordained that a mere hundred experts can 
pronounce a poem
excellent.  That means that even if ten thousand pronounce it crap, the 
hundred win.

My six desiderata seem objective enough to me--the way laws in a 
democratic society are.
In each case something objective is examined and judged by professionals 
or the
equivalent for excellence the same way deeds are examined and judged by 
professionals or
the equivalent for lawfulness.  Some subjectivity is unavoidable, but it 
is minimized by
having specifics to judge, and expertise to counter-balance empty 
enthusiasm or unfair
antagonism. 

I added "central beauty" to number one to take care of poems that have 
no easy "truth" to
latch onto, haiku being a good example of that, and so many poems since 
1900 that I feel
the evolution of poetry has been toward greater and greater implicitness 
of meaning since
its origin and especially recently.  Side-comment: I believe poetry as a 
whole has been
improving, possibly on pace with science--because of its broadening, not 
necessarily
because of any qualitative improvement in individual poems; we have more 
words to work
with and more techniques--any more expressive modalities, so we have an 
ever-increasing
range of possible poems, which is a Good Thing.

I think I could find something importantly true in every poem I thought 
excellent, but in
many cases--"lighght," for instance--it doesn't seem worth the effort 
and representation of
central beauty is usually much easier to demonstrate (I think few could 
disagree that light
is not a central beauty of existence however little they like the poem 
celebrating it).

Number two is an addition because the constituent, suggested by Barry 
Spacks, makes
sense to me.  Number three is also an addition, because important in my 
own poetics, and
often--especially by otherstream poets--given short shrift.  Number four 
is "Compactness"
which I improved, I think, to "Conciseness," and someone else to "Economy of
Expression" or the like before I finally settled on the words here as 
doing the best job of
pinning it down.  Number 5 is the same as it was originally, I think.  
Number six is new
because I realized in the discussion so far that we were ignoring flaws 
that should keep a
poem from being excellent.

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 12:55:30 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:55:30 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu><4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com><6768ac8
	30901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com><4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net><9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e1816
	8@mail.gmail.com><49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4985E212.3090100@nut-n-but.net>

Halvard Johnson wrote:
> Here's a question for those of you pondering "excellence": Can you 
> name some (maybe two or three) poems you consider excellent but which 
> you also dislike or, even better, actively hate?
>
> Hal
Well, I just accepted Emily's bustle poem as excellent because my check 
list required me to.  I'm sure there are a lot of poems like that.  
Another by Emily that I hate is the one about London being a place she 
knows exists although she's never visited it, so Heaven, which she has 
never visited, also exists.  I hate "The Inferno" for its intolerance 
but have to agree that it is excellent for the same reason.   I'm 
neutral about the rest of the Divine Comedy.  I can't think of any 
others offhand, but am sure there must be some.  Generally, though, I 
very much like the poems up to 1900 that have been canonized.

--Bob



From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 13:14:53 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 11:14:53 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net> <49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <648208b60902011014o14f8f7edl7eb42f1e0c656eb1@mail.gmail.com>

How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui generis.
- Jim

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 10:45 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> A poem is excellent if judged at any time ten years after its publication
> to be so by a
> hundred or more poetry experts using the following check-list--if no more
> than ninety-nine
> such experts can be found to disagree with that judgement within ten years
> of that
> judgement, a poetry expert being defined as someone who has seriously
> engaged the
> works of ten or more poets (which means having read at least fifty poems by
> each)
> including the works of at least one solitextual poet (poet whose works are
> solely textual)
> and one pluraesthetic poet (poet whose works make significant use of more
> than one
> expressive modality such as a visual poet) and has either composed fifty
> pages of poetry or
> one hundred twenty pages of poetry criticism or who has been accepted as a
> poetry expert
> by twenty or more poetry experts.
>
> An Excellent Poem:
>
> (1) expresses something importantly true or represents of something
> centrally beautiful--
> assuming it doesn't do both;
>
> (2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or something
> that makes
> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
> eventually achieves Clarity;
>
> (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which
> pulls its elements
> reasonably close together;
> (4) contains few or no superfluous words;
>
> (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have
> such as
> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
> art), and imagery;
>
> (6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or
> thought; too overt
> Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
> Comments: I added the panel of Poetry Experts after thinking over Michael's
> assertion
> that "we know that Emily's little poem is excellent because a significant
> number of people
> are still willing to give their time to reading it and thinking and writing
> about it."  I agreed
> at first with this, but then decided that popularity is no real evidence of
> quality.  Look at
> the religious sects still incredibly popular, for instance.  And there are
> poems that have
> stood :the test of time" that most genuine lovers of poetry don't think
> much of, like some
> of Poe's.  I think Poe is badly under-rated, myself, but I can't believe
> that all the poems still
> in anthologies and greatly enjoyed by many people are excellent.
> Note that I have proclaimed that any poem that is approved as excellent by
> my hundred or
> more experts keeps its rating forever, however later generations look on
> it.  My reasoning
> is that it possible, even probable, that contemporaries will find a poem to
> be excellent for
> something about it later generations are no longer sensitive to, just as
> the reverse so
> frequently happens.  But I do require ten years to pass for a poem to
> become eligible for
> evaluation to prevent fashion or prestige from being too quickly
> influential.
>
> Note, too, that I have ordained that a mere hundred experts can pronounce a
> poem
> excellent.  That means that even if ten thousand pronounce it crap, the
> hundred win.
>
> My six desiderata seem objective enough to me--the way laws in a democratic
> society are.
> In each case something objective is examined and judged by professionals or
> the
> equivalent for excellence the same way deeds are examined and judged by
> professionals or
> the equivalent for lawfulness.  Some subjectivity is unavoidable, but it is
> minimized by
> having specifics to judge, and expertise to counter-balance empty
> enthusiasm or unfair
> antagonism.
> I added "central beauty" to number one to take care of poems that have no
> easy "truth" to
> latch onto, haiku being a good example of that, and so many poems since
> 1900 that I feel
> the evolution of poetry has been toward greater and greater implicitness of
> meaning since
> its origin and especially recently.  Side-comment: I believe poetry as a
> whole has been
> improving, possibly on pace with science--because of its broadening, not
> necessarily
> because of any qualitative improvement in individual poems; we have more
> words to work
> with and more techniques--any more expressive modalities, so we have an
> ever-increasing
> range of possible poems, which is a Good Thing.
>
> I think I could find something importantly true in every poem I thought
> excellent, but in
> many cases--"lighght," for instance--it doesn't seem worth the effort and
> representation of
> central beauty is usually much easier to demonstrate (I think few could
> disagree that light
> is not a central beauty of existence however little they like the poem
> celebrating it).
>
> Number two is an addition because the constituent, suggested by Barry
> Spacks, makes
> sense to me.  Number three is also an addition, because important in my own
> poetics, and
> often--especially by otherstream poets--given short shrift.  Number four is
> "Compactness"
> which I improved, I think, to "Conciseness," and someone else to "Economy
> of
> Expression" or the like before I finally settled on the words here as doing
> the best job of
> pinning it down.  Number 5 is the same as it was originally, I think.
>  Number six is new
> because I realized in the discussion so far that we were ignoring flaws
> that should keep a
> poem from being excellent.
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 
"Polish doesn't change quartz into a diamond."
                               -Wilma Askinas

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org
http://www.hamiltonstone.org/catalog.html#temporarymeaning
http://www.fieralingue.it/documenti/mr_bondo.pdf
http://www.poetserv.org/jvc/home/index.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescervantes/
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 14:19:13 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:19:13 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <648208b60902011014o14f8f7edl7eb42f1e0c656eb1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu><4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com><4982613
	A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net><f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com><4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
	<648208b60902011014o14f8f7edl7eb42f1e0c656eb1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4985F5B1.6050802@nut-n-but.net>

James Cervantes wrote:
> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui generis.
>
> - Jim
You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't mean 
in some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means 
differing from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check 
list doesn't have that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be 
special in some way.  Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a 
diction all its own, and like but not the same as the diction in her 
other poems, and unlike the diction in just about any other poet's 
poems, but not enough to make her poem sui generis, I don't think.  
Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui generis.

--Bob





From halvard at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 14:21:04 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 13:21:04 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <4985F5B1.6050802@nut-n-but.net>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
	<648208b60902011014o14f8f7edl7eb42f1e0c656eb1@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985F5B1.6050802@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902011121s48bbea88r9dc722939bb3ea5@mail.gmail.com>

I love chopped sui generis.

Hal

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> James Cervantes wrote:
>
>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui generis.
>>
>> - Jim
>>
> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't mean in
> some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means differing
> from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check list doesn't have
> that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be special in some way.
>  Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a diction all its own, and like
> but not the same as the diction in her other poems, and unlike the diction
> in just about any other poet's poems, but not enough to make her poem sui
> generis, I don't think.  Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui generis.
>
>
> --Bob
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb  1 14:25:13 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:25:13 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net> <49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902011125i3fb1f674pecf0ead217b5a6a0@mail.gmail.com>

Bob, forgive your poor volunteer, Judy.  I don't want to read this new
version of WEPD.  Having skimmed it at warp speed, I've determined that it's
like the second draft of most of my poems; i.e., worse than the original
because it's TOO thorough, TOO explainy, TOO boring----and most important,
it's TOO lengthy.  Did I mention boring?
If I actually need to read, understand, and apply m'sel' to USING the new
WEPD, then I resign my position as volunteer of our wonderful little WEPD
experiment.

Unless, of course, you send me a check [or cheque] for $50 a week throughout
our experiment.

carpe diem Judy

2009/2/1 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> A poem is excellent if judged at any time ten years after its publication
> to be so by a
> hundred or more poetry experts using the following check-list--if no more
> than ninety-nine
> such experts can be found to disagree with that judgement within ten years
> of that
> judgement, a poetry expert being defined as someone who has seriously
> engaged the
> works of ten or more poets (which means having read at least fifty poems by
> each)
> including the works of at least one solitextual poet (poet whose works are
> solely textual)
> and one pluraesthetic poet (poet whose works make significant use of more
> than one
> expressive modality such as a visual poet) and has either composed fifty
> pages of poetry or
> one hundred twenty pages of poetry criticism or who has been accepted as a
> poetry expert
> by twenty or more poetry experts.
>
> An Excellent Poem:
>
> (1) expresses something importantly true or represents of something
> centrally beautiful--
> assuming it doesn't do both;
>
> (2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or something
> that makes
> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
> eventually achieves Clarity;
>
> (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which
> pulls its elements
> reasonably close together;
> (4) contains few or no superfluous words;
>
> (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have
> such as
> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
> art), and imagery;
>
> (6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or
> thought; too overt
> Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
> Comments: I added the panel of Poetry Experts after thinking over Michael's
> assertion
> that "we know that Emily's little poem is excellent because a significant
> number of people
> are still willing to give their time to reading it and thinking and writing
> about it."  I agreed
> at first with this, but then decided that popularity is no real evidence of
> quality.  Look at
> the religious sects still incredibly popular, for instance.  And there are
> poems that have
> stood :the test of time" that most genuine lovers of poetry don't think
> much of, like some
> of Poe's.  I think Poe is badly under-rated, myself, but I can't believe
> that all the poems still
> in anthologies and greatly enjoyed by many people are excellent.
> Note that I have proclaimed that any poem that is approved as excellent by
> my hundred or
> more experts keeps its rating forever, however later generations look on
> it.  My reasoning
> is that it possible, even probable, that contemporaries will find a poem to
> be excellent for
> something about it later generations are no longer sensitive to, just as
> the reverse so
> frequently happens.  But I do require ten years to pass for a poem to
> become eligible for
> evaluation to prevent fashion or prestige from being too quickly
> influential.
>
> Note, too, that I have ordained that a mere hundred experts can pronounce a
> poem
> excellent.  That means that even if ten thousand pronounce it crap, the
> hundred win.
>
> My six desiderata seem objective enough to me--the way laws in a democratic
> society are.
> In each case something objective is examined and judged by professionals or
> the
> equivalent for excellence the same way deeds are examined and judged by
> professionals or
> the equivalent for lawfulness.  Some subjectivity is unavoidable, but it is
> minimized by
> having specifics to judge, and expertise to counter-balance empty
> enthusiasm or unfair
> antagonism.
> I added "central beauty" to number one to take care of poems that have no
> easy "truth" to
> latch onto, haiku being a good example of that, and so many poems since
> 1900 that I feel
> the evolution of poetry has been toward greater and greater implicitness of
> meaning since
> its origin and especially recently.  Side-comment: I believe poetry as a
> whole has been
> improving, possibly on pace with science--because of its broadening, not
> necessarily
> because of any qualitative improvement in individual poems; we have more
> words to work
> with and more techniques--any more expressive modalities, so we have an
> ever-increasing
> range of possible poems, which is a Good Thing.
>
> I think I could find something importantly true in every poem I thought
> excellent, but in
> many cases--"lighght," for instance--it doesn't seem worth the effort and
> representation of
> central beauty is usually much easier to demonstrate (I think few could
> disagree that light
> is not a central beauty of existence however little they like the poem
> celebrating it).
>
> Number two is an addition because the constituent, suggested by Barry
> Spacks, makes
> sense to me.  Number three is also an addition, because important in my own
> poetics, and
> often--especially by otherstream poets--given short shrift.  Number four is
> "Compactness"
> which I improved, I think, to "Conciseness," and someone else to "Economy
> of
> Expression" or the like before I finally settled on the words here as doing
> the best job of
> pinning it down.  Number 5 is the same as it was originally, I think.
>  Number six is new
> because I realized in the discussion so far that we were ignoring flaws
> that should keep a
> poem from being excellent.
>
> --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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb  1 14:26:46 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:26:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902011121s48bbea88r9dc722939bb3ea5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
	<648208b60902011014o14f8f7edl7eb42f1e0c656eb1@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985F5B1.6050802@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902011121s48bbea88r9dc722939bb3ea5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902011126y2d5de55bia6a3b508ef83cc6c@mail.gmail.com>

and I had thought it a hog call.
Judy

2009/2/1 Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>

> I love chopped sui generis.
>
> Hal
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:
>
>> James Cervantes wrote:
>>
>>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui generis.
>>>
>>> - Jim
>>>
>> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't mean
>> in some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means differing
>> from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check list doesn't have
>> that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be special in some way.
>>  Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a diction all its own, and like
>> but not the same as the diction in her other poems, and unlike the diction
>> in just about any other poet's poems, but not enough to make her poem sui
>> generis, I don't think.  Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui generis.
>>
>>
>> --Bob
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> 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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 14:55:14 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:55:14 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902011125i3fb1f674pecf0ead217b5a6a0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu><4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com><4982613
	A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net><f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com><4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902011125i3fb1f674pecf0ead217b5a6a0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4985FE22.6070302@nut-n-but.net>

You do too much at warp speed, Judy.  The new check list is only 120 
words in length.  270 if you count the part about the panel of experts, 
but you can skip that since the experiment will only use the 
Check-List.  No one is really bothering much with it, anyway.  The rest 
is discussion, and you seem not to like discussion too much.  
Strokes/folks.  Anyway, I hope you stay on.  I'll do the Houseman, at 
least, and stay on if others want to continue the project (which you 
were the one to suggest, by the way).

--Bob



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb  1 15:35:24 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 15:35:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <4985FE22.6070302@nut-n-but.net>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902011125i3fb1f674pecf0ead217b5a6a0@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985FE22.6070302@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902011235o59a5bb6eiab1944369a0b2ffd@mail.gmail.com>

Do the Housman, and let's see how things go.
warp speed mind Judy

2009/2/1 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> You do too much at warp speed, Judy.  The new check list is only 120 words
> in length.  270 if you count the part about the panel of experts, but you
> can skip that since the experiment will only use the Check-List.  No one is
> really bothering much with it, anyway.  The rest is discussion, and you seem
> not to like discussion too much.  Strokes/folks.  Anyway, I hope you stay
> on.  I'll do the Houseman, at least, and stay on if others want to continue
> the project (which you were the one to suggest, by the way).
>
>
> --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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From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Sun Feb  1 15:35:46 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:35:46 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: WEPD Banana
In-Reply-To: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <A5E7A2E1-7372-4B3C-B52E-F744CAA37CC7@verizon.net>


I maintain that poems may pass the Excellencey
test even if only some of the test's criteria help to build its case.

Regarding "Bananas," a sort of Zenish jeu d'esprit, working it
through the whole WEPD word-grinder becomes
a joke about a joke. The poem must, I feel, go elsewhere
for justification.

I'll put before the court an excerpt from my mini-essay on the poem,
composed for a wide-ranging anthology in progress.

Speaking of "the unsayable," here's an experimental piece that some
may take as simply silly, an arbitrary blurt. Yet blurt is the wrong
word, for the tone here is unassumingly quiet and calculatedly  
subversive. A "Language" poem, the piece takes to a far level Wallace  
Stevens dictum that poetry "should resist meaning almost  
successfully." Heavy emphasis, in cases like this,  falls on the word  
"almost."

The fact that Andrews' four word tease appeared in the prestigious   
Paris Review in 1972 has helped to gain it attention. The poem's  
energy lies in its oddity, running against received notions of "making  
sense" to free the imagination toward limitless suggestion.

As Robert Pinsky writes in his short survey THE SITUATION OF POETRY,  
"Comic and reductive, Andrews's poem calls attention to the somewhat  
arbitrary nature of any connection between specific examples and  
general ideas...[it] might be made to exemplify nearly anything."

Unique, hence unrepeatable in strategy, the poem may best earn  
relevance from the reader in connection with its tongue-in-cheek daring.
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From halvard at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 15:44:34 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:44:34 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: WEPD Banana
In-Reply-To: <A5E7A2E1-7372-4B3C-B52E-F744CAA37CC7@verizon.net>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<A5E7A2E1-7372-4B3C-B52E-F744CAA37CC7@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902011244j7b0023dfjfa6a3125a1eb3b58@mail.gmail.com>

Never thought of relevance as something to be "earned," Barry.

Hal, still learning something relevant every day

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 2:35 PM, Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>wrote:

>
> I maintain that poems may pass the Excellencey
> test even if only some of the test's criteria help to build its case.
>
> Regarding "Bananas," a sort of Zenish jeu d'esprit, working it
> through the whole WEPD word-grinder becomes
> a joke about a joke. The poem must, I feel, go elsewhere
> for justification.
>
> I'll put before the court an excerpt from my mini-essay on the poem,
> composed for a wide-ranging anthology in progress.
>
> Speaking of "the unsayable," here's an experimental piece that some
> may take as simply silly, an arbitrary blurt. Yet blurt is the wrong
> word, for the tone here is unassumingly quiet and calculatedly subversive.
> A "Language" poem, the piece takes to a far level Wallace Stevens dictum
> that poetry "should resist meaning almost successfully." Heavy emphasis, in
> cases like this,  falls on the word "almost."
>
> The fact that Andrews' four word tease appeared in the prestigious  Paris
> Review in 1972 has helped to gain it attention. The poem's energy lies in
> its oddity, running against received notions of "making sense" to free the
> imagination toward limitless suggestion.
>
> As Robert Pinsky writes in his short survey THE SITUATION OF POETRY, "Comic
> and reductive, Andrews's poem calls attention to the somewhat arbitrary
> nature of any connection between specific examples and general ideas...[it]
> might be made to exemplify nearly anything."
>
> Unique, hence unrepeatable in strategy, the poem may best earn relevance
> from the reader in connection with its tongue-in-cheek daring.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 15:54:17 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:54:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: WEPD Banana
In-Reply-To: <A5E7A2E1-7372-4B3C-B52E-F744CAA37CC7@verizon.net>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<A5E7A2E1-7372-4B3C-B52E-F744CAA37CC7@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <49860BF9.5020504@nut-n-but.net>

Barry Spacks wrote:
>
> I maintain that poems may pass the Excellencey 
> test even if only some of the test's criteria help to build its case.
>
> Regarding "Bananas," a sort of Zenish jeu d'esprit, working it 
> through the whole WEPD word-grinder becomes
> a joke about a joke. The poem must, I feel, go elsewhere
> for justification.
I'll try the check-list on it, Barry, but not for a while.  First, the 
Housman.  Interesting essay on the Andrews, by the way.  It's a jump-cut 
poem, though, not a language poem--unless "The Wasteland" is.

--Bob



From matthew.shindell at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 16:09:39 2009
From: matthew.shindell at gmail.com (Matthew Shindell)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 13:09:39 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 2
In-Reply-To: <200902011700.n11H050O013918@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902011700.n11H050O013918@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <0EEA972A-7EB3-4506-8914-30F2260CC273@gmail.com>

Nick,

Thanks for the comment. You're right about earlier periods of  
conscription. Kelly made the same comment. I'll have to look again &  
remind myself what was "first" about this draft.

This talk is in Philadelphia. I'm assuming they will all know where  
Frankford PA is. But maybe I should add a sentence to clarify.

Thanks again for coming. Sorry you didn't get to stay for the pizza.

M

(sent from my iPhone)

Matthew Shindell
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of History
Science Studies Program
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California

On Feb 1, 2009, at 9:00 AM, new-poetry-request at wiz.cath.vt.edu wrote:

> Send New-Poetry mailing list submissions to
>    new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>    http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>    new-poetry-request at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>
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>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of New-Poetry digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Bob Grumman)
>   2. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Halvard Johnson)
>   3. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Judy Prince)
>   4. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Judy Prince)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:19:13 -0500
> From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;    Views"
>    <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID: <4985F5B1.6050802 at nut-n-but.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> James Cervantes wrote:
>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui  
>> generis.
>>
>> - Jim
> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't  
> mean
> in some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means
> differing from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check
> list doesn't have that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem  
> be
> special in some way.  Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a
> diction all its own, and like but not the same as the diction in her
> other poems, and unlike the diction in just about any other poet's
> poems, but not enough to make her poem sui generis, I don't think.
> Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui generis.
>
> --Bob
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 13:21:04 -0600
> From: Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,    Views"
>    <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <f160a1210902011121s48bbea88r9dc722939bb3ea5 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I love chopped sui generis.
>
> Hal
>
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n- 
> but.net>wrote:
>
>> James Cervantes wrote:
>>
>>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui  
>>> generis.
>>>
>>> - Jim
>>>
>> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't  
>> mean in
>> some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means  
>> differing
>> from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check list  
>> doesn't have
>> that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be special in  
>> some way.
>> Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a diction all its own,  
>> and like
>> but not the same as the diction in her other poems, and unlike the  
>> diction
>> in just about any other poet's poems, but not enough to make her  
>> poem sui
>> generis, I don't think.  Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui  
>> generis.
>>
>>
>> --Bob
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> 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
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:25:13 -0500
> From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,    Views"
>    <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <7db1d01b0902011125i3fb1f674pecf0ead217b5a6a0 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Bob, forgive your poor volunteer, Judy.  I don't want to read this new
> version of WEPD.  Having skimmed it at warp speed, I've determined  
> that it's
> like the second draft of most of my poems; i.e., worse than the  
> original
> because it's TOO thorough, TOO explainy, TOO boring----and most  
> important,
> it's TOO lengthy.  Did I mention boring?
> If I actually need to read, understand, and apply m'sel' to USING  
> the new
> WEPD, then I resign my position as volunteer of our wonderful little  
> WEPD
> experiment.
>
> Unless, of course, you send me a check [or cheque] for $50 a week  
> throughout
> our experiment.
>
> carpe diem Judy
>
> 2009/2/1 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
>
>> A poem is excellent if judged at any time ten years after its  
>> publication
>> to be so by a
>> hundred or more poetry experts using the following check-list--if  
>> no more
>> than ninety-nine
>> such experts can be found to disagree with that judgement within  
>> ten years
>> of that
>> judgement, a poetry expert being defined as someone who has seriously
>> engaged the
>> works of ten or more poets (which means having read at least fifty  
>> poems by
>> each)
>> including the works of at least one solitextual poet (poet whose  
>> works are
>> solely textual)
>> and one pluraesthetic poet (poet whose works make significant use  
>> of more
>> than one
>> expressive modality such as a visual poet) and has either composed  
>> fifty
>> pages of poetry or
>> one hundred twenty pages of poetry criticism or who has been  
>> accepted as a
>> poetry expert
>> by twenty or more poetry experts.
>>
>> An Excellent Poem:
>>
>> (1) expresses something importantly true or represents of something
>> centrally beautiful--
>> assuming it doesn't do both;
>>
>> (2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or  
>> something
>> that makes
>> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
>> eventually achieves Clarity;
>>
>> (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like  
>> which
>> pulls its elements
>> reasonably close together;
>> (4) contains few or no superfluous words;
>>
>> (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems  
>> have
>> such as
>> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics,  
>> visual
>> art), and imagery;
>>
>> (6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction,  
>> imagery or
>> thought; too overt
>> Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>>
>> Comments: I added the panel of Poetry Experts after thinking over  
>> Michael's
>> assertion
>> that "we know that Emily's little poem is excellent because a  
>> significant
>> number of people
>> are still willing to give their time to reading it and thinking and  
>> writing
>> about it."  I agreed
>> at first with this, but then decided that popularity is no real  
>> evidence of
>> quality.  Look at
>> the religious sects still incredibly popular, for instance.  And  
>> there are
>> poems that have
>> stood :the test of time" that most genuine lovers of poetry don't  
>> think
>> much of, like some
>> of Poe's.  I think Poe is badly under-rated, myself, but I can't  
>> believe
>> that all the poems still
>> in anthologies and greatly enjoyed by many people are excellent.
>> Note that I have proclaimed that any poem that is approved as  
>> excellent by
>> my hundred or
>> more experts keeps its rating forever, however later generations  
>> look on
>> it.  My reasoning
>> is that it possible, even probable, that contemporaries will find a  
>> poem to
>> be excellent for
>> something about it later generations are no longer sensitive to,  
>> just as
>> the reverse so
>> frequently happens.  But I do require ten years to pass for a poem to
>> become eligible for
>> evaluation to prevent fashion or prestige from being too quickly
>> influential.
>>
>> Note, too, that I have ordained that a mere hundred experts can  
>> pronounce a
>> poem
>> excellent.  That means that even if ten thousand pronounce it crap,  
>> the
>> hundred win.
>>
>> My six desiderata seem objective enough to me--the way laws in a  
>> democratic
>> society are.
>> In each case something objective is examined and judged by  
>> professionals or
>> the
>> equivalent for excellence the same way deeds are examined and  
>> judged by
>> professionals or
>> the equivalent for lawfulness.  Some subjectivity is unavoidable,  
>> but it is
>> minimized by
>> having specifics to judge, and expertise to counter-balance empty
>> enthusiasm or unfair
>> antagonism.
>> I added "central beauty" to number one to take care of poems that  
>> have no
>> easy "truth" to
>> latch onto, haiku being a good example of that, and so many poems  
>> since
>> 1900 that I feel
>> the evolution of poetry has been toward greater and greater  
>> implicitness of
>> meaning since
>> its origin and especially recently.  Side-comment: I believe poetry  
>> as a
>> whole has been
>> improving, possibly on pace with science--because of its  
>> broadening, not
>> necessarily
>> because of any qualitative improvement in individual poems; we have  
>> more
>> words to work
>> with and more techniques--any more expressive modalities, so we  
>> have an
>> ever-increasing
>> range of possible poems, which is a Good Thing.
>>
>> I think I could find something importantly true in every poem I  
>> thought
>> excellent, but in
>> many cases--"lighght," for instance--it doesn't seem worth the  
>> effort and
>> representation of
>> central beauty is usually much easier to demonstrate (I think few  
>> could
>> disagree that light
>> is not a central beauty of existence however little they like the  
>> poem
>> celebrating it).
>>
>> Number two is an addition because the constituent, suggested by Barry
>> Spacks, makes
>> sense to me.  Number three is also an addition, because important  
>> in my own
>> poetics, and
>> often--especially by otherstream poets--given short shrift.  Number  
>> four is
>> "Compactness"
>> which I improved, I think, to "Conciseness," and someone else to  
>> "Economy
>> of
>> Expression" or the like before I finally settled on the words here  
>> as doing
>> the best job of
>> pinning it down.  Number 5 is the same as it was originally, I think.
>> Number six is new
>> because I realized in the discussion so far that we were ignoring  
>> flaws
>> that should keep a
>> poem from being excellent.
>>
>> --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: 4
> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:26:46 -0500
> From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: halvard at gmail.com, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,
>    Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <7db1d01b0902011126y2d5de55bia6a3b508ef83cc6c at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> and I had thought it a hog call.
> Judy
>
> 2009/2/1 Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>
>
>> I love chopped sui generis.
>>
>> Hal
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n- 
>> but.net>wrote:
>>
>>> James Cervantes wrote:
>>>
>>>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui  
>>>> generis.
>>>>
>>>> - Jim
>>>>
>>> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It  
>>> doesn't mean
>>> in some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means  
>>> differing
>>> from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check list  
>>> doesn't have
>>> that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be special in  
>>> some way.
>>> Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a diction all its own,  
>>> and like
>>> but not the same as the diction in her other poems, and unlike the  
>>> diction
>>> in just about any other poet's poems, but not enough to make her  
>>> poem sui
>>> generis, I don't think.  Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui  
>>> generis.
>>>
>>>
>>> --Bob
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> New-Poetry mailing list
>>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Halvard Johnson
>> ================
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
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> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> End of New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 2
> *****************************************


From matthew.shindell at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 16:13:19 2009
From: matthew.shindell at gmail.com (Matthew Shindell)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 13:13:19 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 2
In-Reply-To: <200902011700.n11H050O013918@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902011700.n11H050O013918@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <F5064BEE-EB7E-44A6-9888-AD57F942F5BE@gmail.com>

Apologies for my previous message. I was trying to respond to one of  
my history colleagues and somehow responded to the list instead.

Thanks for understanding!

M

(sent from my iPhone)

Matthew Shindell
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of History
Science Studies Program
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California

On Feb 1, 2009, at 9:00 AM, new-poetry-request at wiz.cath.vt.edu wrote:

> Send New-Poetry mailing list submissions to
>    new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>    http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>    new-poetry-request at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
>    new-poetry-owner at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of New-Poetry digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Bob Grumman)
>   2. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Halvard Johnson)
>   3. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Judy Prince)
>   4. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Judy Prince)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:19:13 -0500
> From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;    Views"
>    <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID: <4985F5B1.6050802 at nut-n-but.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> James Cervantes wrote:
>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui  
>> generis.
>>
>> - Jim
> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't  
> mean
> in some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means
> differing from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check
> list doesn't have that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem  
> be
> special in some way.  Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a
> diction all its own, and like but not the same as the diction in her
> other poems, and unlike the diction in just about any other poet's
> poems, but not enough to make her poem sui generis, I don't think.
> Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui generis.
>
> --Bob
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 13:21:04 -0600
> From: Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,    Views"
>    <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <f160a1210902011121s48bbea88r9dc722939bb3ea5 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I love chopped sui generis.
>
> Hal
>
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n- 
> but.net>wrote:
>
>> James Cervantes wrote:
>>
>>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui  
>>> generis.
>>>
>>> - Jim
>>>
>> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't  
>> mean in
>> some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means  
>> differing
>> from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check list  
>> doesn't have
>> that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be special in  
>> some way.
>> Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a diction all its own,  
>> and like
>> but not the same as the diction in her other poems, and unlike the  
>> diction
>> in just about any other poet's poems, but not enough to make her  
>> poem sui
>> generis, I don't think.  Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui  
>> generis.
>>
>>
>> --Bob
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> 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
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:25:13 -0500
> From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,    Views"
>    <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <7db1d01b0902011125i3fb1f674pecf0ead217b5a6a0 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Bob, forgive your poor volunteer, Judy.  I don't want to read this new
> version of WEPD.  Having skimmed it at warp speed, I've determined  
> that it's
> like the second draft of most of my poems; i.e., worse than the  
> original
> because it's TOO thorough, TOO explainy, TOO boring----and most  
> important,
> it's TOO lengthy.  Did I mention boring?
> If I actually need to read, understand, and apply m'sel' to USING  
> the new
> WEPD, then I resign my position as volunteer of our wonderful little  
> WEPD
> experiment.
>
> Unless, of course, you send me a check [or cheque] for $50 a week  
> throughout
> our experiment.
>
> carpe diem Judy
>
> 2009/2/1 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
>
>> A poem is excellent if judged at any time ten years after its  
>> publication
>> to be so by a
>> hundred or more poetry experts using the following check-list--if  
>> no more
>> than ninety-nine
>> such experts can be found to disagree with that judgement within  
>> ten years
>> of that
>> judgement, a poetry expert being defined as someone who has seriously
>> engaged the
>> works of ten or more poets (which means having read at least fifty  
>> poems by
>> each)
>> including the works of at least one solitextual poet (poet whose  
>> works are
>> solely textual)
>> and one pluraesthetic poet (poet whose works make significant use  
>> of more
>> than one
>> expressive modality such as a visual poet) and has either composed  
>> fifty
>> pages of poetry or
>> one hundred twenty pages of poetry criticism or who has been  
>> accepted as a
>> poetry expert
>> by twenty or more poetry experts.
>>
>> An Excellent Poem:
>>
>> (1) expresses something importantly true or represents of something
>> centrally beautiful--
>> assuming it doesn't do both;
>>
>> (2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or  
>> something
>> that makes
>> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
>> eventually achieves Clarity;
>>
>> (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like  
>> which
>> pulls its elements
>> reasonably close together;
>> (4) contains few or no superfluous words;
>>
>> (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems  
>> have
>> such as
>> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics,  
>> visual
>> art), and imagery;
>>
>> (6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction,  
>> imagery or
>> thought; too overt
>> Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>>
>> Comments: I added the panel of Poetry Experts after thinking over  
>> Michael's
>> assertion
>> that "we know that Emily's little poem is excellent because a  
>> significant
>> number of people
>> are still willing to give their time to reading it and thinking and  
>> writing
>> about it."  I agreed
>> at first with this, but then decided that popularity is no real  
>> evidence of
>> quality.  Look at
>> the religious sects still incredibly popular, for instance.  And  
>> there are
>> poems that have
>> stood :the test of time" that most genuine lovers of poetry don't  
>> think
>> much of, like some
>> of Poe's.  I think Poe is badly under-rated, myself, but I can't  
>> believe
>> that all the poems still
>> in anthologies and greatly enjoyed by many people are excellent.
>> Note that I have proclaimed that any poem that is approved as  
>> excellent by
>> my hundred or
>> more experts keeps its rating forever, however later generations  
>> look on
>> it.  My reasoning
>> is that it possible, even probable, that contemporaries will find a  
>> poem to
>> be excellent for
>> something about it later generations are no longer sensitive to,  
>> just as
>> the reverse so
>> frequently happens.  But I do require ten years to pass for a poem to
>> become eligible for
>> evaluation to prevent fashion or prestige from being too quickly
>> influential.
>>
>> Note, too, that I have ordained that a mere hundred experts can  
>> pronounce a
>> poem
>> excellent.  That means that even if ten thousand pronounce it crap,  
>> the
>> hundred win.
>>
>> My six desiderata seem objective enough to me--the way laws in a  
>> democratic
>> society are.
>> In each case something objective is examined and judged by  
>> professionals or
>> the
>> equivalent for excellence the same way deeds are examined and  
>> judged by
>> professionals or
>> the equivalent for lawfulness.  Some subjectivity is unavoidable,  
>> but it is
>> minimized by
>> having specifics to judge, and expertise to counter-balance empty
>> enthusiasm or unfair
>> antagonism.
>> I added "central beauty" to number one to take care of poems that  
>> have no
>> easy "truth" to
>> latch onto, haiku being a good example of that, and so many poems  
>> since
>> 1900 that I feel
>> the evolution of poetry has been toward greater and greater  
>> implicitness of
>> meaning since
>> its origin and especially recently.  Side-comment: I believe poetry  
>> as a
>> whole has been
>> improving, possibly on pace with science--because of its  
>> broadening, not
>> necessarily
>> because of any qualitative improvement in individual poems; we have  
>> more
>> words to work
>> with and more techniques--any more expressive modalities, so we  
>> have an
>> ever-increasing
>> range of possible poems, which is a Good Thing.
>>
>> I think I could find something importantly true in every poem I  
>> thought
>> excellent, but in
>> many cases--"lighght," for instance--it doesn't seem worth the  
>> effort and
>> representation of
>> central beauty is usually much easier to demonstrate (I think few  
>> could
>> disagree that light
>> is not a central beauty of existence however little they like the  
>> poem
>> celebrating it).
>>
>> Number two is an addition because the constituent, suggested by Barry
>> Spacks, makes
>> sense to me.  Number three is also an addition, because important  
>> in my own
>> poetics, and
>> often--especially by otherstream poets--given short shrift.  Number  
>> four is
>> "Compactness"
>> which I improved, I think, to "Conciseness," and someone else to  
>> "Economy
>> of
>> Expression" or the like before I finally settled on the words here  
>> as doing
>> the best job of
>> pinning it down.  Number 5 is the same as it was originally, I think.
>> Number six is new
>> because I realized in the discussion so far that we were ignoring  
>> flaws
>> that should keep a
>> poem from being excellent.
>>
>> --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: 4
> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:26:46 -0500
> From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: halvard at gmail.com, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,
>    Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <7db1d01b0902011126y2d5de55bia6a3b508ef83cc6c at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> and I had thought it a hog call.
> Judy
>
> 2009/2/1 Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>
>
>> I love chopped sui generis.
>>
>> Hal
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n- 
>> but.net>wrote:
>>
>>> James Cervantes wrote:
>>>
>>>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui  
>>>> generis.
>>>>
>>>> - Jim
>>>>
>>> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It  
>>> doesn't mean
>>> in some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means  
>>> differing
>>> from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check list  
>>> doesn't have
>>> that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be special in  
>>> some way.
>>> Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a diction all its own,  
>>> and like
>>> but not the same as the diction in her other poems, and unlike the  
>>> diction
>>> in just about any other poet's poems, but not enough to make her  
>>> poem sui
>>> generis, I don't think.  Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui  
>>> generis.
>>>
>>>
>>> --Bob
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> New-Poetry mailing list
>>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Halvard Johnson
>> ================
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
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> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> End of New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 2
> *****************************************


From JforJames at aol.com  Sun Feb  1 17:24:29 2009
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 17:24:29 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <d28.3fe776aa.36b77b1d@aol.com>

I've posted this poem before on Super Bowl Sunday. The Boss is playing at  
halftime, and he's a poet. 
Kurt Warner won a Super Bowl for the St. Louis Rams. Know QBing for  the 
Arizona Cardinals. The St. Louis Cardinals were my team growing up. Some  kind of 
sentimental triangulation going on. James Wright remains a foundational  poet 
for me since I first really understood what contemporary poetry was or  could 
be when I read his _The Branch Will Not Break_...
 
Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
 
In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long  beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at  Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of  heroes.
 
All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like  starved pullets,
Dying for love.
 
Therefore, 
Their sons grows suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of  October,
And gallop terribly against each other?s bodies.  
 
--James Wright

**************From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay 
up-to-date with the latest news. (http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023)
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 17:32:20 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 23:32:20 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <d28.3fe776aa.36b77b1d@aol.com>
References: <d28.3fe776aa.36b77b1d@aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902011432n1f99a20fpb3b7adc0d6870f2c@mail.gmail.com>

It's an exceptional poem.

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 11:24 PM, <JforJames at aol.com> wrote:

>  I've posted this poem before on Super Bowl Sunday. The Boss is playing at
> halftime, and he's a poet.
> Kurt Warner won a Super Bowl for the St. Louis Rams. Know QBing for the
> Arizona Cardinals. The St. Louis Cardinals were my team growing up. Some
> kind of sentimental triangulation going on. James Wright remains a
> foundational poet for me since I first really understood what contemporary
> poetry was or could be when I read his _The Branch Will Not Break_...
>
> Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
>
> In the Shreve High football stadium,
> I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
> And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
> And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
> Dreaming of heroes.
>
> All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
> Their women cluck like starved pullets,
> Dying for love.
>
> Therefore,
> Their sons grows suicidally beautiful
> At the beginning of October,
> And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.
>
> --James Wright
>
> ------------------------------
> From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay up-to-date
> with the latest news <http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023>.
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Sun Feb  1 17:34:44 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 17:34:44 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <d0d.48fe33e8.36b77d84@aol.com>

James Dickey had a poem called "In the Pocket" (which may have been  
commissioned by the NFL) and another called "The Bee," which recalled his  football 
days at Clemson. And Randall Jarrell, I think, had a poem about the  death of 
Big Daddy Lipscomb.
**************From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay 
up-to-date with the latest news. (http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023)
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Sun Feb  1 17:46:18 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 17:46:18 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902011432n1f99a20fpb3b7adc0d6870f2c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <d28.3fe776aa.36b77b1d@aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902011432n1f99a20fpb3b7adc0d6870f2c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902011446x59516303k1dcc33ae9bcfc972@mail.gmail.com>

One of my favorite poets is Howard Nemerov ? here are the last two sections
of his "Watching Footbal on TV":

VI

Passing and catching overcome the world,
The hard condition of the world, they do
Human intention honor in the world.
A football wants to wobble, that's its shape
And nature, and to make it spiral true
's a triumph in itself, to make it hit
The patterning receiver on the hands
The instant he looks back, well, that's to be
For the time being in a state of grace,
And move the viewers in their living rooms
To lost nostalgic visions of themselves
As in an earlier, other world where grim
Fate in the form of gravity may be
Not merely overcome, but overcome
Casually and with style, and that is grace.


VII

Each year brings rookies and makes veterans,
The have their dead by now, their wounded as well,
They have Immortals in a Hall of Fame,
They have the stories of the tribe, the plays
And instant replays many times replayed.
But even fame will tire of its fame,
And immortality itself will fall asleep.
It's taken many years, but yet in time,
To old men crouched before the ikon's changes,
Changes become reminders, all the games
Are blended in one vast remembered game
Of similar images simultaneous
And superposed; nothing surprises us
Nor can delight, though we see the tight end
Stagger into the end zone again again.



I posted last year at my blog (
http://www.mikesnider.org/radio/formalblog/2008/02/03.html#a769) about this
poem and about TV and the Super Bowl, so I didn't have to type in what's
above. I just don't have it in me to type the rest, right after a three hour
band parctice, but I do love the poem.  And James Wright's, too.

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Anny Ballardini
<anny.ballardini at gmail.com>wrote:

> It's an exceptional poem.
>
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 11:24 PM, <JforJames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>  I've posted this poem before on Super Bowl Sunday. The Boss is playing
>> at halftime, and he's a poet.
>> Kurt Warner won a Super Bowl for the St. Louis Rams. Know QBing for the
>> Arizona Cardinals. The St. Louis Cardinals were my team growing up. Some
>> kind of sentimental triangulation going on. James Wright remains a
>> foundational poet for me since I first really understood what contemporary
>> poetry was or could be when I read his _The Branch Will Not Break_...
>>
>> Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
>>
>> In the Shreve High football stadium,
>> I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
>> And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
>> And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
>> Dreaming of heroes.
>>
>> All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
>> Their women cluck like starved pullets,
>> Dying for love.
>>
>> Therefore,
>> Their sons grows suicidally beautiful
>> At the beginning of October,
>> And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.
>>
>> --James Wright
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> >From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay
>> up-to-date with the latest news<http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023>
>> .
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>
>
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Sun Feb  1 17:48:20 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 17:48:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902011446x59516303k1dcc33ae9bcfc972@mail.gmail.com>
References: <d28.3fe776aa.36b77b1d@aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902011432n1f99a20fpb3b7adc0d6870f2c@mail.gmail.com>
	<6768ac830902011446x59516303k1dcc33ae9bcfc972@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902011448p1cec3311r1a46ef18b3c0a905@mail.gmail.com>

>
> That last was from my old blog -- the new addy is just
>> http://www.mikesnider.org/formalblog
>
>
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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 18:05:35 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 18:05:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <d0d.48fe33e8.36b77d84@aol.com>
References: <d0d.48fe33e8.36b77d84@aol.com>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902011505n7b3608d9w66b24d078e0e9f34@mail.gmail.com>

Gary Gildner has a poem called "First Practice."


FIRST PRACTICE

After the doctor checked to see
we weren't ruptured,
the man with the short cigar took us
under the grade school,
where we went in case of attack
or storm, and said
he was Clifford Hill, he was
a man who believed dogs
ate dogs, he had once killed
for his country, and if
there were any girls present
for them to leave now.

No one
left. OK, he said, he said I take
that to mean you are hungry
men who hate to lose as much
as I do. OK. Then
he made two lines of us
facing each other,
and across the way, he said,
is the man you hate most
in the world,
and if we are to win
that title I want to see how.
But I don't want to see
any marks when you're dressed,
he said. He said, Now.



Jeff Newberry

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 5:34 PM, <AlMaginnes at aol.com> wrote:

>  James Dickey had a poem called "In the Pocket" (which may have been
> commissioned by the NFL) and another called "The Bee," which recalled his
> football days at Clemson. And Randall Jarrell, I think, had a poem about the
> death of Big Daddy Lipscomb.
>
> ------------------------------
> From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay up-to-date
> with the latest news <http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023>.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
Blog:  http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com
Obama Myths:  http://www.matthew25.org/paf/index.htm
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sun Feb  1 21:34:19 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 21:34:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902011505n7b3608d9w66b24d078e0e9f34@mail.gmail.com>
References: <d0d.48fe33e8.36b77d84@aol.com>
	<731bb17a0902011505n7b3608d9w66b24d078e0e9f34@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49865BAB.1030200@opus40.org>

For me Wright wins the poetry Super Bowl.

Jeff Newberry wrote:
> Gary Gildner has a poem called "First Practice."
>
>
>     FIRST PRACTICE
>
>     After the doctor checked to see
>     we weren't ruptured,
>     the man with the short cigar took us
>     under the grade school,
>     where we went in case of attack
>     or storm, and said
>     he was Clifford Hill, he was
>     a man who believed dogs
>     ate dogs, he had once killed
>     for his country, and if
>     there were any girls present
>     for them to leave now.
>
>     No one
>     left. OK, he said, he said I take
>     that to mean you are hungry
>     men who hate to lose as much
>     as I do. OK. Then
>     he made two lines of us
>     facing each other,
>     and across the way, he said,
>     is the man you hate most
>     in the world,
>     and if we are to win
>     that title I want to see how.
>     But I don't want to see
>     any marks when you're dressed,
>     he said. He said, Now.
>
>
>
> Jeff Newberry
>
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 5:34 PM, <AlMaginnes at aol.com 
> <mailto:AlMaginnes at aol.com>> wrote:
>
>     James Dickey had a poem called "In the Pocket" (which may have
>     been commissioned by the NFL) and another called "The Bee," which
>     recalled his football days at Clemson. And Randall Jarrell, I
>     think, had a poem about the death of Big Daddy Lipscomb.
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     >From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay
>     up-to-date with the latest news
>     <http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023>.
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     New-Poetry mailing list
>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Blog:  http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com
> Obama Myths:  http://www.matthew25.org/paf/index.htm
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  1 22:26:53 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 22:26:53 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <d31.48bf0d06.36b7c1fd@cs.com>

Fred Chappell has good one--about watching the Redskins with Allen Tate--but 
I can't find it online.  Ed Hirsch has a good one too, called "Last Practice."

http://www.jstor.org/pss/4336194

I played the game all of my formative years but have yet to get a poem out of 
it.  But I remain hopeful
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  1 22:28:47 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 22:28:47 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <bbc.3ae176de.36b7c26f@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/1/2009 5:05:51 PM Central Standard Time, 
jeff.newberry at gmail.com writes: 
> 
> Gary Gildner has a poem called "First Practice."
> 
> 
I have had students argue that this may be about, say, wrestling  To which I 
say, "Bah."
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  1 22:30:46 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 22:30:46 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <d16.40877584.36b7c2e6@cs.com>

I think Gildner may have actually played football.  I doubt that Wright did.  


\No denigration of Wright, of course.
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  1 22:33:13 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 22:33:13 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <c9c.3e9f8649.36b7c379@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/1/2009 9:31:14 PM Central Standard Time, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com 
writes: 
> 
> \No denigration of Wright, of course.
> 
"No," I meant.  After the Super Bowl one's fingers move badly.  Nice game, 
though.
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From almaginnes at aol.com  Sun Feb  1 22:34:16 2009
From: almaginnes at aol.com (almaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:34:16 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <d16.40877584.36b7c2e6@cs.com>
References: <d16.40877584.36b7c2e6@cs.com>
Message-ID: <8CB52FE42964F9C-C60-1AA6@mblk-d23.sysops.aol.com>

I think I read somewhere that Wright did play a little as a teenager. I've written a couple of bad poems about my time playing football, but hopefully no one will ever see them.


-----Original Message-----
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:30 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know


I think Gildner may have actually played football.? I doubt that Wright did.? 

\No denigration of Wright, of course. 

_______________________________________________
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

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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  1 22:45:41 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 22:45:41 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <bc6.3aa668c0.36b7c665@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/1/2009 9:34:37 PM Central Standard Time, 
almaginnes at aol.com writes: 
> 
> I think I read somewhere that Wright did play a little as a teenager. I've 
> written a couple of bad poems about my time playing football, but hopefully no 
> one will ever see them.
> 
Never have, myself, though playing up through sophomore in college. Just 
never could think about what to say about this mindless activity.  Eventually, 
though.  What Whitehead said:

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1505.html
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From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Sun Feb  1 23:01:17 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:01:17 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 3
In-Reply-To: <200902020038.n120c00N020606@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902020038.n120c00N020606@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <3B325963-E722-4103-8229-A9FE9284BE17@verizon.net>


On Feb 1, 2009, at 4:38 PM, Hal wrote:
>
> Never thought of relevance as something to be "earned," Barry.

Yep, Hal, that's how we do things these now.

B
>
>



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  1 23:07:56 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 23:07:56 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence?
Message-ID: <cf7.4be6dab0.36b7cb9c@cs.com>

I recently received this as an entry in a contest I'm judging. I thought it 
the best of the lot (given the generally low quality). It kind of reminded me 
of Craig Raine, with some genuinely um-Martian turns or phrase.  Any thoughts?

Obviously, I Said

For example, the wheelbarrow behind 
the avocado pit indicates that the flatulent 
cloud formation gives secret financial 

aid to an industrial complex. If a dreamlike
maelstrom usually gives a pink slip 
to the overpriced bowling ball, then 
 
some pig pen beyond a power drill it
resembles.  Some mating ritual 
hibernates, or a shabby 

tornado recognizes a cocker spaniel. 
Most people believe that a dolphin 
around a microscope gives secret 

financial aid to the barely bohemian 
maelstrom, but they need to remember 
how lazily the mastadon meditates.

For example, a fire hydrant 
defined by a tornado indicates that the tabloid 
of the turkey almost avoids contact with a polygon.


 
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Mon Feb  2 01:08:06 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 01:08:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence?
In-Reply-To: <cf7.4be6dab0.36b7cb9c@cs.com>
References: <cf7.4be6dab0.36b7cb9c@cs.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902012208n7ba2668am1ba335637a76f2e3@mail.gmail.com>

If you will indulge me, Sam.  I'm often flip and jokey; my style, my joy.
 But p'raps this moment, the discussion about Excellent poetry, and recent
news have met for seriousness.
Tonight a SHAKSPER listmember, Felix de Villiers, reacting to a discussion
thread on "Heroes", regarding 'Hamlet', wrote:  "There is hardly a great
play or novel in which the main characters don't struggle against their
established social world."

He quotes Hamlet and then comments:

"If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story."

"Telling the story is a form of resistance against destiny. Hamlet makes
this plea to Horatio, but it is Shakespeare who tells the story."

A truly fine poem, play or novel does not have to climb such a pinnacle, can
be a beautiful wit-force or just Beauty itself.  But it needs to be
comprehended, or those things cannot be seen.  We all are trying for in our
own work, and looking for in others' work, fresh, startling, jolts of power.
 These jolts need something that few folks mention:  They need to evoke
instant awe-filled RECOGNITION.  We feel the jolt because we 'see' two
strange things suddenly tied together and somehow we 'recognise' something
new.  Magic. These fresh jolting figures inject us with utterly new news
from an odd old mate suddenly given to a nother odd old mate.  We have
undergone Instant Analogy---logic so fleet that it's pre-logic.  A stun of
truth so strong it moves us, many times literally, to action.  We jump.

But the poem needs to be comprehended or the thing which most powers
poetry---the blast of pre-logic analogy---cannot be known.

A case in point is the work of Jen Hadfield.  She is a genius poet.  Yet,
many of her most recent published works display sense-laden disconnects.
 She's brilliant with metaphor, an utter joy to read---if the individual
figures can be comprehended, and if the several cohere.  Her poems in
CHAPMAN a couple years ago [sorry, not to hand, so I can't give the date]
did all the magic I've described, but now she seems, unfortunately I think,
to've danced off the edge of connection and coherence.  And I profoundly
wish she'd come back.

Same thing I wish for your contest entrant.

Be well,

Judy



2009/2/1 <Rsgwynn1 at cs.com>

> I recently received this as an entry in a contest I'm judging. I thought it
> the best of the lot (given the generally low quality). It kind of reminded
> me of Craig Raine, with some genuinely um-Martian turns or phrase.  Any
> thoughts?
>
> *Obviously, I Said
>
> *For example, the wheelbarrow behind
> the avocado pit indicates that the flatulent
> cloud formation gives secret financial
>
> aid to an industrial complex. If a dreamlike
> maelstrom usually gives a pink slip
> to the overpriced bowling ball, then
>
> some pig pen beyond a power drill it
> resembles.  Some mating ritual
> hibernates, or a shabby
>
> tornado recognizes a cocker spaniel.
> Most people believe that a dolphin
> around a microscope gives secret
>
> financial aid to the barely bohemian
> maelstrom, but they need to remember
> how lazily the mastadon meditates.
>
> For example, a fire hydrant
> defined by a tornado indicates that the tabloid
> of the turkey almost avoids contact with a polygon.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 04:58:35 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 01:58:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fogged Clarity
Message-ID: <711646.17846.qm@web83303.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

>From Ben Evans:

I am writing to you to announce the launch of our new arts
review, Fogged Clarity.? Our
February (debut) issue is free and available at http://foggedclarity.com/.? In it you will find new work from poets
Bruce Smith, Amy King, and Barry Schwabsky, experimental photography by Kyle
Jones and Ryan Daly, short fiction by Dmitri Gheorgheni, and much more.?? Fogged Clarity aims to transcend the
conventions of the typical literary review by incorporating music, the visual
arts, interviews, and political exposition.?
Our ambition is to form a community of artists whose interaction is not
constrained by medium, but broadened by a collective love of expression.? Our network is extensive, and our passion
for ventilation intense.? We sincerely
hope you will join us as we embark on this journey.

?

I wish you the best, 

?

Benjamin Evans

Editor, Fogged Clarity

_______





Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 05:06:08 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 02:06:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Pirene's Fountain
Message-ID: <82660.64332.qm@web83306.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>





Pirene?s Fountain 

January 2009, Volume 2 : Issue 4


? ????????? ?

Kim Addonizio ????????? 

Michelle Bitting ???????? ?

Lisel Mueller ? ?

Lisa Alvarado ??????????? ??????????? ?

David Nelson Bradsher ???????? 

Anselm Brocki ?????????? 

Michael Brownstein ?? ??????????? ?

Roberta Burnett ???????? 

Michael Ceraolo ???????? 

Rusty Childers ?????????? 

Alison Croggon ????????? 

Maggie Flanagan-Wilkie ??????? ?

Maria Mazziotti Gillan ?????????? ?

Ami Kaye ?????? 

Amy King ????? 

Oliver Lodge ? 

Joanne Lowery ?????????? ?

Aine MacAodha ??????? 

Amy MacLennan ?????? ?

Steve Meador  

Charles Morrison ??????? 

Scott Owens ? 

Doug Ramspeck ???????? 

Maria Terrone  

Lark Vernon
?? 

Julene Tripp Weaver ? ?

Sam Wilding ? ?

Jane Yolen ???? 

?

http://www.pirenesfountain.com/current_issue.html

?

?



_______





Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 05:09:04 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 02:09:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Denver Syntax
Message-ID: <937846.76991.qm@web83306.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>





Denver Syntax -- Winter 2009

{l i t a n y?? f o
r?? r e g i f t i n g}

{l i t a n y?? f o
r?? t h e?? b e n e f i t s}

{l i t a n y?? f o
r?? i n s o m n i a}

? reb livingston

?

{m i s s?? d i f a l c
o}

{t i m e}

{u n l a c e d?? a n
d?? u n t i e d}

? puma perl

?

{b o o z i n g}

? jim chandler

?

{3 2?? f l a v o r
s?? o f??
l o v e?? a n d?? d e a t h}

{w h e n?? y o u?? a r e??
c l o s e?? e n o u g h}

? john dorsey

?

{s i m u l a t i o n s,??
o r?? f o r t u n e?? t a l l y i n g}

? lisa gordon

?

{t h e?? b e s t}

? barton smock

?

{c o l o r?? p h o t o
g r a p h y}

{g o o d?? t i d i n g
s}

{q u i c k l y?? p a s
s i n g}

? luc simonic

?

{a d d i c t e d?? t
o?? l i v i n g}

? paul adrian mabelis

?

{e x c e r p t}

{d o w n}

{w i n t e r?? d a w
n?? s t a l l}

? matthew rounsville

?

{j u s t?? t o?? m i n d??
f u c k}

{t h e?? r e p r o d u
c t i o n?? o f?? p r o f i l e s}

{t h e?? m a r b l
e?? f a u n}

{t h e?? a n i m a
l?? l a n g u a g e s}

? amy king

?

{a?? s e r i e s?? o f??
p o e m s?? f o r?? r o b e r t??
b l y}

? ron androla


http://www.denversyntax.com/issue16/poems/poems.html



_______







Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From browning at splitthisrock.org  Mon Feb  2 05:12:54 2009
From: browning at splitthisrock.org (browning)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 11:12:54 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Call for submissions: Poetry for the Green Pages
Message-ID: <962554CDC8514444825379F9CA8E4022@SBLAPTOP>

Passing this on.

Sarah

**

Please circulate this message: 

The editorial board of the Green Pages--which until now has been a quarterly
newspaper but is switching, at least temporarily, to a strictly web-based
format--wants to begin publishing one or two poems in each issue. To see the
latest issue of this publication on-line visit:

http://gp.org/greenpages-blog/ 

Submissions should be on themes related to the ten key values of the Green
Party (see below). There is no limit on length, but shorter poems will
generally get preference over longer ones, all other factors being equal. 

You may submit one or more poems via email to: gppoetry at optimum.net. Include
your name and phone number in the body of the message. Include your poem(s)
as an attachment in either MSWord or text format to ensure that formatting
is preserved. We will attempt to acknowledge all submissions, and of course
inform those whose poetry is accepted for publication. 

Steve Bloom
Poetry Consultant
Green Pages

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------

TEN KEY VALUES OF THE GREEN PARTY

1. GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY
Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect their lives
and not be subject to the will of another. Therefore, we will work to
increase public participation at every level of government and to ensure
that our public representatives are fully accountable to the people who
elect them. We will also work to create new types of political organizations
which expand the process of participatory democracy by directly including
citizens in the decision-making process.

2. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from
the resources afforded us by society and the environment. We must
consciously confront in ourselves, our organizations, and society at large,
barriers such as racism and class oppression, sexism and homophobia, ageism
and disability, which act to deny fair treatment and equal justice under the
law.

3. ECOLOGICAL WISDOM
Human societies must operate with the understanding that we are part of
nature, not separate from nature.  We must maintain an ecological balance
and live within the ecological and resource limits of our communities and
our planet. We support a sustainable society which utilizes resources in
such a way that future generations will benefit and not suffer from the
practices of our generation. To this end we must practice agriculture which
replenishes the soil; move to an energy efficient economy; and live in ways
that respect the integrity of natural systems.

4. NON-VIOLENCE
It is essential that we develop effective alternatives to society's current
patterns of violence. We will work to demilitarize, and eliminate weapons of
mass destruction, without being naive about the intentions of other
governments.  We recognize the need for self-defense and the defense of
others who are in helpless situations. We promote non-violent methods to
oppose practices and policies with which we disagree, and will guide our
actions toward lasting personal, community and global peace.

5. DECENTRALIZATION
Centralization of wealth and power contributes to social and economic
injustice, environmental destruction, and militarization. Therefore, we
support a restructuring of social, political and economic institutions away
from a system which is controlled by and mostly benefits the powerful few,
to a democratic, less bureaucratic system. Decision-making should, as much
as possible, remain at the individual and local level, while assuring that
civil rights are protected for all citizens.

6. COMMUNITY-BASED ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
We recognize it is essential to create a vibrant and sustainable economic
system, one that can create jobs and provide a decent standard of living for
all people while maintaining a healthy ecological balance. A successful
economic system will offer meaningful work with dignity, while paying a
"living wage" which reflects the real value of a person's work.

Local communities must look to economic development that assures protection
of the environment and workers' rights; broad citizen participation in
planning; and enhancement of our "quality of life." We support independently
owned and operated companies which are socially responsible, as well as
co-operatives and public enterprises that distribute resources and control
to more people through democratic participation.

7. FEMINISM AND GENDER EQUITY
We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and
economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination
and control with more cooperative ways of interacting that respect
differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the
sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with
moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our
decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we want.

8. RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY
We believe it is important to value cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual,
religious and spiritual diversity, and to promote the development of
respectful relationships across these lines.

We believe that the many diverse elements of society should be reflected in
our organizations and decision-making bodies, and we support the leadership
of people who have been traditionally closed out of leadership roles. We
acknowledge and encourage respect for other life forms than our own and the
preservation of biodiversity.

9. PERSONAL AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY
We encourage individuals to act to improve their personal well-being and, at
the same time, to enhance ecological balance and social harmony. We seek to
join with people and organizations around the world to foster peace,
economic justice, and the health of the planet.

10. FUTURE FOCUS AND SUSTAINABILITY
Our actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals. We seek to
protect valuable natural resources, safely disposing of or "unmaking" all
waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not
depend on continual expansion for survival. We must counterbalance the drive
for short-term profits by assuring that economic development, new
technologies, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations who
will inherit the results of our actions.

 <http://www.greens.org/values/> Ten Key Values from other state and local
Greens.
There is no authoritative version of the Ten Key Values of the Greens.  The
Ten Key Values are guiding principles that are adapted and defined to fit
each state and local chapter.

 

 

**

Sarah Browning

Co-Director

Split This Rock Poetry Festival

c/o Institute for Policy Studies

1112 16th Street, NW, Suite 600

Washington, DC 20036

 <mailto:browning at splitthisrock.org> browning at splitthisrock.org

 <http://www.splitthisrock.org/> www.splitthisrock.org

202-787-5210

 

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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Mon Feb  2 06:57:43 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 06:57:43 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <d06.4b14cc4e.36b839b7@aol.com>

Speaking of Whitehead, he wrote a nice sonnet called "Linemen Lived In A  
Closed World."
**************Stay up to date on the latest news - from sports scores to 
stocks and so much more. (http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000022)
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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb  2 10:28:47 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:28:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <d06.4b14cc4e.36b839b7@aol.com>
References: <d06.4b14cc4e.36b839b7@aol.com>
Message-ID: <8CB5362128E006E-48C-604@WEBMAIL-DY37.sysops.aol.com>


Sam posted a link to it...
I wish there was some more specific imagery in it, but I do like the idea of the linemen being locked in a world of endless conflict, and giving them a nobility as they
ply their trade within a kind of nether space.
Finnegan
....

Good Linemen Live in a Closed World 


Good linemen live in a closed world -- they move
Inside themselves to move themselves against
The others and their violence -- they give
To interior visions whole seasons no good sense
Would approve -- their insides creak and groan, crying
A thing that's trapped along the line is shrill
And curious and wants out. Bodies playing
Laugh and dream to gain the massive will
Their trade requires. These men maintain, they attack,
They suffer repetition for years and years.
Part war and similar to art, their work
Is sometimes elegant. Inside their fears
At the closed center of one fear, they move
Quickly against themselves with a massive love.



?-- James Whitehead


-----Original Message-----
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 6:57 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know




Speaking of Whitehead, he wrote a nice sonnet called "Linemen Lived In A Closed World."

Stay up to date on the latest news - from sports scores to stocks and so much more.




_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Mon Feb  2 11:11:12 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 11:11:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>

I've been reading Keith Tuma's *By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and Postmodern
British Poetry and American Readers* and his *Anthology of Twentieth-Century
British & Irish Poetry* for my comprehensive examinations.

I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been reading,
poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading for my exams.  So,
forgive me if some of my questions of observations seem elementary or
self-evident.

By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is Basil Bunting,
a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate and graduate years as an
English major.  I like *Briggflats* quite a lot, though I'm still grappling
with the poem.  Bunting's lines with their heavy stresses and Anglo-saxon
vocabulary remind me of Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."  The poem
itself is a Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound
immediately.

But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with Eliot's more
"universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe "far-reaching?")
concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with this place (his place?):
Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into the landscape, carving itself into
the land, not unlike the mason carving stone in the poem's opening lines.
Despite his concern with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in
a dose of mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves
through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved notions--such
as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.

So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on earth is
he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me--I've not checked)
in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.  Perhaps he's not ignored;
perhaps I've just missed him.  Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a
conversation about a poet who really has my ear right now.

Best,
Jeff Newberry

--
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From skip at louisiana.edu  Mon Feb  2 11:42:53 2009
From: skip at louisiana.edu (Skip Fox)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 10:42:53 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <FA1EBF02B76F4CE6BACA955FBDCF9AA7@win.louisiana.edu>

Barbara Lesch's 1979 diss. (made into a book?) is very good on Bunting.
Providing a base for a solid reading.  I've not kept up with the
scholarship, but it's my understanding that in the last 20 years he's
received a lot more attention.

 

For me, he's one of the central British/Irish poets along with Yeats, Auden,
Thomas, Prince, & Hughes. Small corpus, but then they say he was a "master
of fireplace and poker" (used to burn a lot of mss.).

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Jeff Newberry
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 10:11 AM
To: NewPoetry
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting

 

I've been reading Keith Tuma's By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and Postmodern
British Poetry and American Readers and his Anthology of Twentieth-Century
British & Irish Poetry for my comprehensive examinations.

I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been reading,
poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading for my exams.  So,
forgive me if some of my questions of observations seem elementary or
self-evident.

By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is Basil Bunting,
a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate and graduate years as an
English major.  I like Briggflats quite a lot, though I'm still grappling
with the poem.  Bunting's lines with their heavy stresses and Anglo-saxon
vocabulary remind me of Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."  The poem
itself is a Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound
immediately.  

But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with Eliot's more
"universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe "far-reaching?")
concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with this place (his place?):
Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into the landscape, carving itself into
the land, not unlike the mason carving stone in the poem's opening lines.
Despite his concern with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in
a dose of mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves
through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved notions--such
as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.

So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on earth is
he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me--I've not checked)
in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.  Perhaps he's not ignored;
perhaps I've just missed him.  Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a
conversation about a poet who really has my ear right now.

Best,
Jeff Newberry

-- 

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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Mon Feb  2 12:13:04 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 17:13:04 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <FA1EBF02B76F4CE6BACA955FBDCF9AA7@win.louisiana.edu>
References: <FA1EBF02B76F4CE6BACA955FBDCF9AA7@win.louisiana.edu>
Message-ID: <1FF6BE56BB7E4EB09EB7216DD7159623@RobinPC>

From: Skip Fox

<<
For me, he's one of the central British/Irish poets along with Yeats, Auden, 
Thomas, Prince, & Hughes. Small corpus, but then they say he was a "master 
of fireplace and poker" (used to burn a lot of mss.).
>>

... or along with David Jones and Geoffrey Hill?

Very much the child of Pound.  He would seem to be bigger in the UK than the 
US.

Robin 




From gejs1 at rochester.rr.com  Mon Feb  2 13:21:59 2009
From: gejs1 at rochester.rr.com (Gerald Schwartz)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 13:21:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <DDA741356DFF44F78E009EEB66D29C05@yourae066c3a9b>

I've always read Briggflatts like a nineteeth-century adventure story, both victorian and modern.

Few poets social activism and peregrinations reavl so much as Bunting's, who understood the rhythms and conflicts of the century and was able to translate his wisdom into verbal music so prodigious and unigue as to transfor both British and American (see Duncan, Johnson, Wiliams...) poetic landscape.

Years ago, Pierre Joris, who filled me in on B. B.'s mideast espionage career, told me the rosetta stone to his work was a tiny excerpt from his "Villion,":

Presision clarifying vagueness; 
boundary to a wilderness
of detail; chisel voice
smoothing the flanks of noise;
catalytic making whisper and whisper
run together like two drops of quicksilver

Be Seeing you,
Gerald S. 


  I've been reading Keith Tuma's By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and Postmodern British Poetry and American Readers and his Anthology of Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry for my comprehensive examinations.

  I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been reading, poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading for my exams.  So, forgive me if some of my questions of observations seem elementary or self-evident.

  By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is Basil Bunting, a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate and graduate years as an English major.  I like Briggflats quite a lot, though I'm still grappling with the poem.  Bunting's lines with their heavy stresses and Anglo-saxon vocabulary remind me of Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."  The poem itself is a Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound immediately.  

  But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with Eliot's more "universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe "far-reaching?") concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with this place (his place?):  Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into the landscape, carving itself into the land, not unlike the mason carving stone in the poem's opening lines.  Despite his concern with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in a dose of mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved notions--such as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.

  So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on earth is he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me--I've not checked) in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.  Perhaps he's not ignored; perhaps I've just missed him.  Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a conversation about a poet who really has my ear right now.

  Best,
  Jeff Newberry

  -- 




------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  New-Poetry mailing list
  New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
  http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Mon Feb  2 13:45:21 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 19:45:21 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Groundhog Day
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902021045j1bd1cf23we1eb333b1e89c456@mail.gmail.com>

Happy Birthday to Bob Grumman,

and from the Writer's Almanac that reminds us all things:

German immigrants in Pennsylvania found that there weren't a lot of badgers
in America, but there were a lot of groundhogs, so the holiday evolved into
*Groundhog Day*. The first reference to Groundhog Day is from 1841, in the
diary of a storekeeper in Morgantown, Pennsylvania. He wrote: "Last Tuesday,
the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the
Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops
back for another six weeks' nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as
the weather is to be moderate."

-- 
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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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Mon Feb  2 13:50:33 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:50:33 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <DDA741356DFF44F78E009EEB66D29C05@yourae066c3a9b>
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
	<DDA741356DFF44F78E009EEB66D29C05@yourae066c3a9b>
Message-ID: <89ADA28069474FF9856B6327AFF5FBBD@RobinPC>

Yikes!!  I've just read Bunting's "Villon", published in Poetry in 1930 ...

        http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=8198

Unnerving.  I didn't think it would have been possible to overlay the early Cantos onto snibbits from "The Testament", but there you are.

I have to say, this confirms my reluctance to take Bunting at all seriously.

        <g>
  Years ago, Pierre Joris, who filled me in on B. B.'s mideast espionage career ... 

  Hm ...  I hadn't known he was an actual spook.

  I carefully didn't mention the Agenda connection.

  Robin
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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 14:47:37 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 11:47:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Millay Colony for the Arts Party at Bowery Poetry Club
Message-ID: <853879.59537.qm@web83306.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

On behalf of Cara Benson:

?
The Millay Colony for the Arts is hosting a party for residents of the Colony at?Bowery Poetry Club 
February 4 at 6:00 PM. 
?
Readings and performance from Damian Van Denburgh, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Katy Lederer, Peter Gil-Sheridan & Samita Sinha. 
Open mic follows. Drink specials and food.

Cost: Free for former residents and current applicants. All others $5.

Call 518-392-4144 for more information.
?
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery at Bleecker St., NYC
?

_______



Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 14:58:17 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 11:58:17 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Not in NYC?  Bill Berkson, Cindy Cruz, Aaron Fagan,
	Jennifer Fortin, Jean-Paul Pecqueur and Bill Rasmovicz
Message-ID: <496146.78808.qm@web83308.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Video of Friday's reading



You missed it? You're not in NY (and why should you be?) No problem!
Bill Berkson, Cindy Cruz, Aaron Fagan, Jennifer Fortin, Jean-Paul
Pecqueur and Bill Rasmovicz talking and shining in little boxes:


http://stainofpoetry.wordpress.com/video/? 


xo!



Ana and Amy

_______





Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From skip at louisiana.edu  Mon Feb  2 15:45:33 2009
From: skip at louisiana.edu (Skip Fox)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 14:45:33 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <89ADA28069474FF9856B6327AFF5FBBD@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <CE469999B315461DB4C3219BAA6D3089@win.louisiana.edu>

I can understand a complaint against the very early "Villon," but not much
of a one against ""The Orotava Road" about "an incident" in the Canary
Islands:

 

 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177185

 

 

An essence of the serious in such attentiveness and art, it seems to me.

 

 

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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Mon Feb  2 15:50:43 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 15:50:43 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <89ADA28069474FF9856B6327AFF5FBBD@RobinPC>
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
	<DDA741356DFF44F78E009EEB66D29C05@yourae066c3a9b>
	<89ADA28069474FF9856B6327AFF5FBBD@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902021250o1d820db0re734ee41a1639f85@mail.gmail.com>

Robin,

Help me out here.  You're saying that "Villon" is either a) plagiarism (but,
egad, what Modernist work--outside of perhaps Stein--isn't?) or b) a pale
imitation of Pound, no?

Can you say a bit more here?  Not trying to be testy--just genuinely
interested.

Best,
Jeff Newberry

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Robin Hamilton <
robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:

>  Yikes!!  I've just read Bunting's "Villon", published in *Poetry* in 1930
> ...
> **
>         http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=8198
>
> Unnerving.  I didn't think it would have been possible to overlay the early
> Cantos onto snibbits from "The Testament", but there you are.
>
> I have to say, this confirms my reluctance to take Bunting at all
> seriously.
>
>         <g>
>
> Years ago, Pierre Joris, who filled me in on B. B.'s mideast espionage
> career ...
>
> Hm ...  I hadn't known he was an actual spook.
>
> I carefully didn't mention the *Agenda* connection.
>
> Robin
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>






























*There's nothing that interesting this far down the page.  *
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  2 17:28:51 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:28:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Groundhog Day
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902021045j1bd1cf23we1eb333b1e89c456@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4b65c2d70902021045j1bd1cf23we1eb333b1e89c456@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498773A3.5050003@nut-n-but.net>

Anny Ballardini wrote:
> Happy Birthday to Bob Grumman,
>
> and from the Writer's Almanac that reminds us all things:
>
> German immigrants in Pennsylvania found that there weren't a lot of 
> badgers in America, but there were a lot of groundhogs, so the holiday 
> evolved into *Groundhog Day*. The first reference to Groundhog Day is 
> from 1841, in the diary of a storekeeper in Morgantown, Pennsylvania. 
> He wrote: "Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, 
> according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter 
> quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks' 
> nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be 
> moderate."
Hey, Anny, what's really neat about that is that I was born exactly 100 
years later!  You see, you see!!!!

--Bob Grumhog
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  2 18:15:16 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:15:16 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Effective-Poem Check-List, Housman
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902021250o1d820db0re734ee41a1639f85@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com><DDA741356DFF44F78E009EEB66D29C05@yourae066c3a9b><89ADA2
	8069474FF9856B6327AFF5FBBD@RobinPC>
	<731bb17a0902021250o1d820db0re734ee41a1639f85@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49877E84.5030801@nut-n-but.net>

I've had a tough day: got rained on going to a substitute teaching 
assignment, and have been fighting off some kind of head cold for the 
past few days.  I did a rough draft of my Analysis of the Houseman poem 
yesterday but it needs a lot more work, and I'm too beat to do it 
today.  So, I'll start by posting my paraphrase, followed by a few 
comments sure to bore Judy:

    Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
   
The boughs of the cherry trees, which are the most beautiful trees

    Is hung with bloom along the bough,

are laden with blossoms at this time

    And stands about the woodland ride

and line the trail through the woods

    Wearing white for Eastertide.

decked out in a white hue appropriate for Easter
(which is the happiest time of the year)

    Now, of my threescore years and ten,
    Twenty will not come again,

At this time, twenty of the seventy years the Bible suggests I'll have
are gone permanently.

    And take from seventy springs a score,

If you subtract twenty springtimes from seventy

    It only leaves me fifty more.

it will leave me just fifty more years of life


    And since to look at things in bloom
    Fifty springs are little room,

Because fifty years of springtimes don't give one much time
to enjoying looking at Nature's blossomings

    About the woodlands I will go

I'll proceed through the woods (right away)

    To see the cherry hung with snow.

To take in (as much as I can of) the beauty of the snow-like blossoms of 
the cherry tree.

The paraphrase is lengthy, perhaps too lengthy, but I believe a 
paraphrase should cover every word in the text paraphrased, and I did my 
best to do that.  A paraphrase that says too much is better than one 
that fails to say all it should.  I also expect to improve my paraphrase 
in due course.

I believe my paraphrase twice goes beyond paraphrase into what is 
implied by the text: the connection to the Bible four score and ten 
makes, and the fact that Eastertide is a happy time.  This brings up a 
question for me: I think a proper understanding of a poem requires, to 
begin with, a paraphrase that states in the simplest and most complete 
terms exactly what the poem explicitly says--AND something else that 
states in the simplest and most complete terms what the poem SAYS to any 
serious, knowledgeable engagent--which means things like the connection 
to the Bible, and the connotations.  Question: is there a name for such 
an enhanced paraphrase?  Or is a paraphrase expected to include what's 
implied?  I'm inclined to call the first kind of paraphrase a 
"denotational paraphrase," and the second a "full paraphrase." 

Later I expect to try to make a full paraphrase of this poem.

Okay, I've decided I should be able to give a very quick rough Judyan 
evaluation of the Housman, using my new check-list.  So, does the poem, 
for me:

(1) express something importantly true or represents of something 
centrally beautiful--
assuming it doesn't do both?

It does both.  Moreover, I think it expresses more than one important 
truth.  Note: I've been thinking that an excellent poem needn't express 
the same important truth to two people, it's sufficient that it express 
/some/ important truth to both.  I feel I know what the main meaning of 
the poem is but am not yet able to express it properly.  It is some 
combination of "Beauty is at least as important as anything else in 
existence,"  and "Seize not the moment but the lifetime--in this case, 
don't even think about a fling with Persephone, marry her."  Plus, 
"Hurrah for springtime and cherry trees."

But the poem has more meanings that are of value if not perhaps 
Important that I want to discuss but can't yet do coherently.

(2) have sufficient Thematic Misdirection, or something that makes its 
ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but 
eventually achieves Clarity?

The poem is weakest in this area but does, for me, have thematic 
indirection.  I'll just mention one instance of it: simply its taking a 
long time getting to its (surface) point, and doing so metrically, with 
all kinds of poetic devices, getting in the way of a quick prose 
understanding of its theme.  I also think its true theme is much more 
complex than a paraphrase of it indicates--so much so that I'm having 
trouble working it out.  This strongly suggests some kind of 
misdirection is going on.

(3) have a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like 
which pulls its elements
reasonably close together?

Yes.  I have a lot to say on this, but won't say it here.

(4) contain few or no superfluous words?

Not for me.  At a few place ("along the bough") it has text unneeded 
from its prose meaning but needed for its music, which is as important.

(5) boast some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have 
such as
uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
art), and imagery?

Several.  One is its tonal wit, you might call it, when it uses 
arithmetical calculation against lyrical swoonery.

(6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or 
thought; too overt
Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;

I don't think so.  I find nothing wrong with its rhymes.  None is in the 
love/above category, though none is brilliant.  Ditto the choice of 
words.  The use of the other sound devices is superior.  The meter is 
pentameter and tetrameter, with weak-beats lopped at the beginning of 
three or four lines to energizing effect, I think.  (It's not tetrameter 
and trimeter, Robin, so not a jingly-seeming as Dickinson's meter can 
seem, especially in a Serious Context like funerals, which the Housman 
is merrily not.)

So, it's an excellent poem for me.

Possible biases: I love spring, and I much prefer happy poems, 
healthy-seeming poems.

--Bob


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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb  2 18:18:32 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:18:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] on the down low
Message-ID: <8CB53A3B314CBFF-1184-324@webmail-dx01.sysops.aol.com>


Shssss...Don't let Bob know about this blog...
http://otherclutter.com/

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the sign post up ahead, your next stop...The VizPo Zone!...




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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb  2 19:32:39 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:32:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-193F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>










Loveliest of trees, the cherry now


Is hung with bloom along the bough,


And stands about the woodland ride


Wearing white for Eastertide.





?? ? ? Then we run into Biblical phrasing for the rather touchingly ironic feature that the speaker is so young,

?? ? ? yet concerned with last things. A bit of an air of comedy added by "only fifty more" where by tradition

?? ? ?this subject would demand a setting close to the end of partaking, that "grab what you still can while still around" motif.

?? ? ? I'd?add (forgive me) that even the obvious rhymes throughout support the "simplicity" that charms me in the poem.










Now, of my threescore years and ten,


Twenty will not come again,


And take from seventy springs a score,


It only leaves me fifty more.






?? ? ?I love the unpressured, quiet way the logic of the concluding statement works: given that the lovely tree is blooming

?? ? ?in the season of pain that turns to hope, and that I, the speaker, am mortal with limited days, it follows that...

?? ? I will go and partake. Anything more grand in the way of device or experiement -- their lack here lowering for

?? ? some the poem's "score" ?-- would take away from the spell of innocent affirmation (with subterrainian death-dread)

?? ? that the work enforces. ??





And since to look at things in bloom


Fifty springs are little room,


About the woodlands I will go


To see the cherry hung with snow.







-----Original Message-----
From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 3:51 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman


Applying the Check List to such a canonical piece is difficult.
Here's one I've always read and loved as a key carpe diem poem that clearly

falls flat (as Judy notes) in terms of innovation-areas of the Famous List

TO ITS BETTERMENT, I will claim below.




I take it that to give a work a Prix d'Or one remains free to assume that Excellence

in this game doesn't mean that all list-categories must yield enthusiastic response.

Keep them all in mind, sure, but ignore those irrelevant (how much more so,

I'd guess, with "Bananas..." (?) )




That said, my case for excellence:?




Telling start with an alternate foot, refreshing mastery, authority in gentle assertiveness

of tone;?2nd line's alliteration pleasing, and also forwards in its simplicity the asserted loveliness of

the blooming; connection to Easter in l.4 a powerful ideological note with its

death & resurrection associations; I'd add, softie that I am, the sense of whiteness

in the blooms (and later in "snow" as evoked) offers an additive to the emotion of

perceived innocence, purity, in the affection for natural beauty.








?????????????II





Loveliest of trees, the cherry now


Is hung with bloom along the bough,


And stands about the woodland ride


Wearing white for Eastertide.





?? ? ? Then we run into Biblical phrasing for the rather touchingly ironic feature that the speaker is so young,

?? ? ? yet concerned with last things. A bit of an air of comedy added by "only fifty more" where by tradition

?? ? ?this subject would demand a setting close to the end of partaking, that "grab what you still can while still around" motif.

?? ? ? I'd?add (forgive me) that even the obvious rhymes throughout support the "simplicity" that charms me in the poem.










Now, of my threescore years and ten,


Twenty will not come again,


And take from seventy springs a score,


It only leaves me fifty more.






?? ? ?I love the unpressured, quiet way the logic of the concluding statement works: given that the lovely tree is blooming

?? ? ?in the season of pain that turns to hope, and that I, the speaker, am mortal with limited days, it follows that...

?? ? I will go and partake. Anything more grand in the way of device or experiement -- their lack here lowering for

?? ? some the poem's "score" ?-- would take away from the spell of innocent affirmation (with subterrainian death-dread)

?? ? that the work enforces. ??





And since to look at things in bloom


Fifty springs are little room,


About the woodlands I will go


To see the cherry hung with snow.





So my defense of the piece as EXCELLENT INDEED brings up questions about the utility of the Check List in

allowing one to reach such a verdict with such a poem.




?? ? How dem professors do go on Miz Sally!




?? ? Barry















= 


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb  2 19:44:45 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:44:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-193F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net>
	<8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-193F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>


Pardon again, my errant reply...Here's what I meant to chime in with:

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.


(Nice clean pastoral start. A sauntering diction like a horse-drawn carriage ride. And the hint of the death/ressurection dyad?as the stanza?the end.)



Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.


(The second stanza may be a classic example of filling things out?for sake of rime scheme. The information is all given in first two lines,?but then is?restated by reversing the mental math. It begins to sound a bit like one of those math word?problems you were tested with in grade school: "If one train traveling west left Cleveland at 10 o'clock, traveling 100 miles per hour, and twenty minutes later another train left Chicago traveling east...)


And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.


(In the end, the?great failure?of the poem is that something conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry trees in 
bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the poet. The great poets tend to?see as beautiful the things that other's might overlook. A haiku poet would have done this poem in three lines, and saved us 9 more, pace the logic of?the second stanza.)


Finnegan
-----Original Message-----
From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 3:51 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman


Applying the Check List to such a canonical piece is difficult.
Here's one I've always read and loved as a key carpe diem poem that clearly
falls flat (as Judy notes) in terms of innovation-areas of the Famous List
TO ITS BETTERMENT, I will claim below.


I take it that to give a work a Prix d'Or one remains free to assume that Excellence
in this game doesn't mean that all list-categories must yield enthusiastic response.
Keep them all in mind, sure, but ignore those irrelevant (how much more so,
I'd guess, with "Bananas..." (?) )


That said, my case for excellence: 


Telling start with an alternate foot, refreshing mastery, authority in gentle assertiveness
of tone; 2nd line's alliteration pleasing, and also forwards in its simplicity the asserted loveliness of
the blooming; connection to Easter in l.4 a powerful ideological note with its
death & resurrection associations; I'd add, softie that I am, the sense of whiteness
in the blooms (and later in "snow" as evoked) offers an additive to the emotion of
perceived innocence, purity, in the affection for natural beauty.




???????????? II



Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.


?????? Then we run into Biblical phrasing for the rather touchingly ironic feature that the speaker is so young,
?????? yet concerned with last things. A bit of an air of comedy added by "only fifty more" where by tradition
????? this subject would demand a setting close to the end of partaking, that "grab what you still can while still around" motif.
?????? I'd add (forgive me) that even the obvious rhymes throughout support the "simplicity" that charms me in the poem.




Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.



????? I love the unpressured, quiet way the logic of the concluding statement works: given that the lovely tree is blooming
????? in the season of pain that turns to hope, and that I, the speaker, am mortal with limited days, it follows that...
???? I will go and partake. Anything more grand in the way of device or experiement -- their lack here lowering for
???? some the poem's "score"? -- would take away from the spell of innocent affirmation (with subterrainian death-dread)
???? that the work enforces.?? 


And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.



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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  2 19:58:32 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:58:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu><6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net><8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-1
	93F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
	<8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498796B8.9020801@nut-n-but.net>


> (The second stanza may be a classic example of filling things out for 
> sake of rime scheme. The information is all given in first two 
> lines, but then is restated by reversing the mental math. It begins to 
> sound a bit like one of those math word problems you were tested with 
> in grade school: "If one train traveling west left Cleveland at 10 
> o'clock, traveling 100 miles per hour, and twenty minutes later 
> another train left Chicago traveling east...)
Haw, James, I consider the second stanza to be what makes this poem 
great.  Pretty much for the reasons you find it poor, although I don't 
think it fills things out for the sake of the rhyme scheme.  The first 
two lines tell us the speaker is 20.  It doesn't tell us that leaves him 
50 more.  We can do the arithmetic, yes, but the poet is directing us 
from the age of the poet to how many years he has left.  He's making 
that the subject.

--Bob



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Mon Feb  2 20:20:20 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 20:20:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com>
	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net> <49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>
	<26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC>
	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>

We now have evaluations from Barry, me, Bob, and Finnegan on Housman's
'Loveliest of trees', and I wanted to let you all know more about Linda Sue
Grimes' interpretation of the poem's 'message'.  I had read the following
paragraph of Linda Sue's, thought it intriguing and came up with my
interpretation sent in two days ago, as given further below.  Here's Linda
Sue's paragraph, from April 1, 2007:
"A.E. Housman's 'Loveliest of trees,' often misread as a carpe diem poem,
actually offers a way to increase the enjoyment of beauty, not just grasp it
for a while."

Today I read her article which the paragraph above introduces.  Here's a
paragraph from the article that gets to the core of her interpretation:

"In the third stanza, the speaker claims that because fifty more
opportunities to enjoy these lovely trees with their luscious blossoms is
not enough, he will go to observe the same trees also in winter, when they
are 'hung with snow'.  That way the speaker doubles his opportunities to
enjoy the cherry trees 'wearing white'."

The entire brief article is a clear, logical argument for her interpretation
which is well worth our serious consideration.  She and I find it the most
logical of interpretations.  The poem itself is further below, and   here's
the url for Linda Sue's article:

http://poetry.suite101.com/article.cfm/housmans_loveliest_of_trees

Best,

Judy



2009/1/31 Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>

> OK, here goes my paraphrase and then my evaluation of AEHousman's Loveliest
> of Trees:
> PARAPHRASE:
>
> The cherry, most beautiful of all trees,
> is covered with white blossoms now as if celebrating Easter.
>
> Twenty of my [Biblically-promised] seventy years are spent,
> so I'll only see fifty more springs---
> not enough time to enjoy blooming things;
>
> hence I'll walk these woods in the winters, as well,
> to see the cherry boughs hung with snow.
>
> EVALUATION according to Bob's WEPD checklist:
>
> 1)  Importance:  Agreeing with Linda Sue Grimes, I feel it's not exactly a
> carpe diem poem.  I think it tells us to expect and to look for beauty
> even in the starkest times.  Not an insignificant observation.
>
> 2)  Clear, uncliched devices/forms:  I'd give it a ZERO for rockinghorse
> cliches, rhythms, rhymes.
>
> 3)  Word economy:  Pore H, he flails around, esp in the 2nd stanza, trying
> to squish and wiggle his slender meanings into a rhyming.  Was this the
> first poem he ever wrote?
>
> 4)  Impressive, uncommon diction or imagery:  ZERO.
>
> Not an Excellent poem.  Not a Good poem.  Maybe a sweet practice poem that
> has a significant message put in impoverishedly poetic form [like this
> sentence].
>
> Judy considering Barry's forthput banana poem next
>
> 2009/1/31 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
>
>  Oops -- my bad.  There's no indentation of any lines in the original, as
>> my previous transcription seemed to imply.
>>
>> R.
>>
>>               II
>>
>> Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>> Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>> And stands about the woodland ride
>> Wearing white for Eastertide.
>>
>> Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>> Twenty will not come again,
>> And take from seventy springs a score,
>> It only leaves me fifty more.
>>
>> And since to look at things in bloom
>> Fifty springs are little room,
>> About the woodlands I will go
>> To see the cherry hung with snow.
>>
>> A. E. Housman
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Mon Feb  2 20:41:38 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 20:41:38 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Alicia Stallings on rhyme
Message-ID: <6768ac830902021741m41abbdb9s3c2afed0092b9c8@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/feature.html?id=182841

She's my hero.  An excerpt:

-----------
All rhymed poetry must be rhyme-driven. This is no longer to be considered
pejorative.

Rhyme is at the wheel. No, rhyme is the engine.

Rhyme is an engine of syntax: like meter, it understands the importance of
prepositions.

English is not rhyme poor. It is only uninflected. On the contrary, English
has a richness in rhymes across different parts of speech; whereas in many
other languages, rhyme is often merely a coincident jingle of accidence.

There are no tired rhymes. There are no forbidden rhymes. Rhymes are not
predictable unless lines are. Death and breath, womb and tomb, love and of,
moon, June, spoon, all still have great poems ahead of them.
--------

Huzzah!
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  2 20:51:41 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:51:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b
	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net>
	<49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0
	901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4987A32D.2020001@nut-n-but.net>


> "In the third stanza, the speaker claims that because fifty more 
> opportunities to enjoy these lovely trees with their luscious blossoms 
> is not enough, he will go to observe the same trees also in winter, 
> when they are 'hung with snow'.  That way the speaker doubles his 
> opportunities to enjoy the cherry trees 'wearing white'."
Her interpretation isn't illogical, it's just wrong.  That's because The 
poet spends a stanza describing the cherry trees right now.  He's not 
then going to say, "So off I'll go to enjoy them this coming winter."  
He also says he wants to enjoy the blooms; snow isn't a bloom.  Plus, he 
doesn't say 50 springs aren't enough, only that they are "little room."  
The lean seems therefore toward, I'd better make the most of what little 
room there is.  Last observation, if the poet wants to say he wants to 
double his pleasure of the trees' beauty by seeing them in winter, he 
could have said, "About the woods I'll also go/ To see the cherry hung 
with snow."  Oops, one more thought--that this idea is abrupt.  It also 
seems to me to distract from the idea of enjoying them while the poet 
can--because it's like a solution to his problem--for all we know, 
enjoying them in winter as well as spring would be enough.  In any case, 
it lessens the urgency of getting out there and enjoying them now, right 
away.

Can't stop: cherry trees aren't going to be any more beautiful in winter 
than any other non-evergreen.

--Bob




From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Mon Feb  2 20:50:53 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 20:50:53 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net>
	<8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-193F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
	<8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 7:44 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> (In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something conventially
> seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry trees in
> bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the
> poet. The great poets tend to see as beautiful the things that other's might
> overlook. A haiku poet would have done this poem in three lines, and saved
> us 9 more, pace the logic of the second stanza.)
>

Finnegan, sometmes the great poets point to things the rest of us may
overlook ? and sometimes thy remind us of the great common themes of human
life, in langauge that ,makes it new again.
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  2 21:01:10 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:01:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Alicia Stallings on rhyme
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902021741m41abbdb9s3c2afed0092b9c8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6768ac830902021741m41abbdb9s3c2afed0092b9c8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4987A566.3030608@nut-n-but.net>

Michael Snider wrote:
> http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/feature.html?id=182841
>
> She's my hero.  An excerpt:
>
> -----------
> All rhymed poetry must be rhyme-driven. This is no longer to be 
> considered pejorative. 
>
> Rhyme is at the wheel. No, rhyme is the engine. 
>
> Rhyme is an engine of syntax: like meter, it understands the 
> importance of prepositions.
>
> English is not rhyme poor. It is only uninflected. On the contrary, 
> English has a richness in rhymes across different parts of speech; 
> whereas in many other languages, rhyme is often merely a coincident 
> jingle of accidence. 
>
> There are no tired rhymes. There are no forbidden rhymes. Rhymes are 
> not predictable unless lines are. Death and breath, womb and tomb, 
> love and of, moon, June, spoon, all still have great poems ahead of them. 
> --------
>
> Huzzah!
I like what she says.  I think bad rhymes aren't the fault of the . . . 
rhymenants, I call them, but of their placement.  "love/above" is often 
a bad rhyme not because of the two words but because "love" is misplaced 
in order to get it where it can end-rhyme as in "Give your love/ to God 
above."  Or rhymes can be too expected and therefore very irritating due 
to the triteness of the poem they're in.  If a poet has a "you" at the 
end of one line, then immediately brings in the sky, you know "blue" is 
gonna come up.

Also, she exaggerates.  I think great rhyming poems are in part driven, 
have to be driven, by rhyme, but the can be driven in part by other 
things--and should be.

What I like most is that she makes it clear she's talking about "rhymed 
poetry," not "poetry."

--Bob
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Mon Feb  2 21:24:39 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 21:24:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <4987A32D.2020001@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net> <49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>
	<26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC>
	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
	<4987A32D.2020001@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902021824s5550787aw1bb33bd1434d17c7@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

>
> Can't stop: cherry trees aren't going to be any more beautiful in winter
> than any other non-evergreen.


But their shapes maybe lovely ? trees of different species are not
necessarily more alike without thir leaves ? and the beholding of them can
be infused withthe beholders memory: "bare ruined choirs where late the
sweet birds sang."
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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 21:42:42 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:42:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com>
	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net> <49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>
	<26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC>
	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Funny you should send this interpretation because that's the way I've always read the poem:  That the speaker, noting that there's not enough room to look at things in bloom in spring only, must also go about the woodlands in winter to look at the trees while they're hung with snow.  And, to respond to Bob, yes, the cherry may look no different from any other deciduous tree in winter, but it is.  Since it's a cherry tree hung with white it implies spring and the blooms.  Squint and it's spring!  Okay, bundle up and wear boots, and then squint and it's spring.  You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't think it's blatantly wrong.  The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.  It doesn't even mention boots.

John J







________________________________
From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
To: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>; "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &, Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 2, 2009 8:20:20 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem

We now have evaluations from Barry, me, Bob, and Finnegan on Housman's 'Loveliest of trees', and I wanted to let you all know more about Linda Sue Grimes' interpretation of the poem's 'message'.  I had read the following paragraph of Linda Sue's, thought it intriguing and came up with my interpretation sent in two days ago, as given further below.  Here's Linda Sue's paragraph, from April 1, 2007: 

"A.E. Housman's 'Loveliest of trees,' often misread as a carpe diem poem, actually offers a way to increase the enjoyment of beauty, not just grasp it for a while."

Today I read her article which the paragraph above introduces.  Here's a paragraph from the article that gets to the core of her interpretation: 

"In the third stanza, the speaker claims that because fifty more opportunities to enjoy these lovely trees with their luscious blossoms is not enough, he will go to observe the same trees also in winter, when they are 'hung with snow'.  That way the speaker doubles his opportunities to enjoy the cherry trees 'wearing white'." 

The entire brief article is a clear, logical argument for her interpretation which is well worth our serious consideration.  She and I find it the most logical of interpretations.  The poem itself is further below, and   here's the url for Linda Sue's article:  

http://poetry.suite101.com/article.cfm/housmans_loveliest_of_trees

Best,

Judy





2009/1/31 Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>

OK, here goes my paraphrase and then my evaluation of AEHousman's Loveliest of Trees:

PARAPHRASE:

The cherry, most beautiful of all trees,
is covered with white blossoms now as if celebrating Easter.

Twenty of my [Biblically-promised] seventy years are spent,
so I'll only see fifty more springs---
not enough time to enjoy blooming things;

hence I'll walk these woods in the winters, as well,
to see the cherry boughs hung with snow.

EVALUATION according to Bob's WEPD checklist:

1)  Importance:  Agreeing with Linda Sue Grimes, I feel it's not exactly a carpe diem poem.  I think it tells us to expect and to look for beauty even in the starkest times.  Not an insignificant observation.

2)  Clear, uncliched devices/forms:  I'd give it a ZERO for rockinghorse cliches, rhythms, rhymes.  

3)  Word economy:  Pore H, he flails around, esp in the 2nd stanza, trying to squish and wiggle his slender meanings into a rhyming.  Was this the first poem he ever wrote?

4)  Impressive, uncommon diction or imagery:  ZERO.

Not an Excellent poem.  Not a Good poem.  Maybe a sweet practice poem that has a significant message put in impoverishedly poetic form [like this sentence].

Judy considering Barry's forthput banana poem next


2009/1/31 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>


Oops -- my bad.  There's no indentation of any lines in the original, as my previous transcription seemed to imply.

R.

              II


Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

A. E. Housman 


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


      
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  2 22:18:15 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:18:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b
	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net>
	<49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0
	901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
	<269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4987B777.9010505@nut-n-but.net>


> You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't think it's 
> blatantly wrong.
Agreed.

> The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look at 
things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung 
with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in 
bloom.  To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them. 

--Bob
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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 22:41:53 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 19:41:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b
	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net>
	<49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0
	901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
	<269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<4987B777.9010505@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them when they are hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two score years and ten.

JohnJ





________________________________
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 2, 2009 10:18:15 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem



You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't think
it's blatantly wrong. 

Agreed.


The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it. 

But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look at
things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung
with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in
bloom.  To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them.  

--Bob



      
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Mon Feb  2 23:02:49 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:02:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902021824s5550787aw1bb33bd1434d17c7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net>
	<49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>	<26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC>	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>	<4987A32D.2020001@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902021824s5550787aw1bb33bd1434d17c7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4987C1E9.4070801@opus40.org>

They might be, but it's still not what Housman is saying. I'm with Bob 
here all the way.

Michael Snider wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>> wrote:
>
>
>     Can't stop: cherry trees aren't going to be any more beautiful in
>     winter than any other non-evergreen.
>
>
> But their shapes maybe lovely ? trees of different species are not 
> necessarily more alike without thir leaves ? and the beholding of them 
> can be infused withthe beholders memory: "bare ruined choirs where 
> late the sweet birds sang."
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Mon Feb  2 23:06:49 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:06:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net>	<49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0	901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>	<269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>	<4987B777.9010505@nut-n-but.net>
	<630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4987C2D9.8040403@opus40.org>

That knocks the underpinnings out of the whole sense of urgency, Don't 
worry, it's not just the 50 springs, you have winters too. And summers 
and falls too...what the heck. The whole point is that for most very 
young men, fifty years is an eternity -- and yet, only a very young man 
is capable of that special kind of wonder to say that 50 springs is 
little room.

John Jeffrey wrote:
> Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he 
> must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them 
> when they are hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two 
> score years and ten.
>
> JohnJ
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> *To:* "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" 
> <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2009 10:18:15 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
>
>
>> You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't think it's 
>> blatantly wrong.
> Agreed.
>
>> The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
> But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look at 
> things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry 
> hung with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in 
> bloom.  To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them. 
>
> --Bob
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From halvard at gmail.com  Mon Feb  2 23:20:30 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 22:20:30 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <4987B777.9010505@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net> <49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>
	<26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC>
	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
	<269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<4987B777.9010505@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902022020o23c55f58hcf32020dd9267b93@mail.gmail.com>

If you haven't seen blossoming cherry trees hung with literal snow, Bob,
you've
never lived in Washington, DC.

Hal

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 9:18 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

>
>  You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't think it's
> blatantly wrong.
>
> Agreed.
>
>  The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
>
> But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look at
> things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung with
> snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in bloom.  To be
> reminded of blooms is not looking at them.
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb  3 07:18:30 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 07:18:30 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com>
	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net> <49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>
	<26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC>
	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
	<269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902030418t34bec59di27cd19244c68b3f9@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks, John; I had begun to despair at folks' reading of a simple, direct
text.  And I thank Linda Sue Grimes for her patient, clear, logical
explanation.  Frankly, the interpretation that the three of us hold redeems
Housman, in my eyes.  As a 'seize the day' poem, oh how crashingly obvious
'twould be!
Judy

2009/2/2 John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com>

> Funny you should send this interpretation because that's the way I've
> always read the poem:  That the speaker, noting that there's not enough room
> to look at things in bloom in spring only, must also go about the woodlands
> in winter to look at the trees while they're hung with snow.  And, to
> respond to Bob, yes, the cherry may look no different from any other
> deciduous tree in winter, but it is.  Since it's a cherry tree hung with
> white it implies spring and the blooms.  Squint and it's spring!  Okay,
> bundle up and wear boots, and then squint and it's spring.  You could argue
> that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't think it's blatantly wrong.  The
> poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.  It doesn't even mention
> boots.
>
> John J
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> *To:* Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>; "NewPoetry:
> Contemporary Poetry News &, Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2009 8:20:20 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
>
> We now have evaluations from Barry, me, Bob, and Finnegan on Housman's
> 'Loveliest of trees', and I wanted to let you all know more about Linda Sue
> Grimes' interpretation of the poem's 'message'.  I had read the following
> paragraph of Linda Sue's, thought it intriguing and came up with my
> interpretation sent in two days ago, as given further below.  Here's Linda
> Sue's paragraph, from April 1, 2007:
> "A.E. Housman's 'Loveliest of trees,' often misread as a carpe diem poem,
> actually offers a way to increase the enjoyment of beauty, not just grasp it
> for a while."
>
> Today I read her article which the paragraph above introduces.  Here's a
> paragraph from the article that gets to the core of her interpretation:
>
> "In the third stanza, the speaker claims that because fifty more
> opportunities to enjoy these lovely trees with their luscious blossoms is
> not enough, he will go to observe the same trees also in winter, when they
> are 'hung with snow'.  That way the speaker doubles his opportunities to
> enjoy the cherry trees 'wearing white'."
>
> The entire brief article is a clear, logical argument for her
> interpretation which is well worth our serious consideration.  She and I
> find it the most logical of interpretations.  The poem itself is further
> below, and   here's the url for Linda Sue's article:
>
> http://poetry.suite101.com/article.cfm/housmans_loveliest_of_trees
>
> Best,
>
> Judy
>
>
>
> 2009/1/31 Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
>
>> OK, here goes my paraphrase and then my evaluation of AEHousman's
>> Loveliest of Trees:
>> PARAPHRASE:
>>
>> The cherry, most beautiful of all trees,
>> is covered with white blossoms now as if celebrating Easter.
>>
>> Twenty of my [Biblically-promised] seventy years are spent,
>> so I'll only see fifty more springs---
>> not enough time to enjoy blooming things;
>>
>> hence I'll walk these woods in the winters, as well,
>> to see the cherry boughs hung with snow.
>>
>> EVALUATION according to Bob's WEPD checklist:
>>
>> 1)  Importance:  Agreeing with Linda Sue Grimes, I feel it's not exactly
>> a carpe diem poem.  I think it tells us to expect and to look for beauty
>> even in the starkest times.  Not an insignificant observation.
>>
>> 2)  Clear, uncliched devices/forms:  I'd give it a ZERO for rockinghorse
>> cliches, rhythms, rhymes.
>>
>> 3)  Word economy:  Pore H, he flails around, esp in the 2nd stanza,
>> trying to squish and wiggle his slender meanings into a rhyming.  Was this
>> the first poem he ever wrote?
>>
>> 4)  Impressive, uncommon diction or imagery:  ZERO.
>>
>> Not an Excellent poem.  Not a Good poem.  Maybe a sweet practice poem that
>> has a significant message put in impoverishedly poetic form [like this
>> sentence].
>>
>> Judy considering Barry's forthput banana poem next
>>
>> 2009/1/31 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
>>
>>  Oops -- my bad.  There's no indentation of any lines in the original, as
>>> my previous transcription seemed to imply.
>>>
>>> R.
>>>
>>>               II
>>>
>>> Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>>> Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>>> And stands about the woodland ride
>>> Wearing white for Eastertide.
>>>
>>> Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>>> Twenty will not come again,
>>> And take from seventy springs a score,
>>> It only leaves me fifty more.
>>>
>>> And since to look at things in bloom
>>> Fifty springs are little room,
>>> About the woodlands I will go
>>> To see the cherry hung with snow.
>>>
>>> A. E. Housman
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
>
>
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From lsgrimes at stonegulch.com  Tue Feb  3 08:11:18 2009
From: lsgrimes at stonegulch.com (Linda Sue Grimes)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 07:11:18 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu><6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net><8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-193F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
	<8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <78BDA7461DFD49AD883C61771BE58EC5@LindaSue>

"In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry trees in bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the poet."

By taking literally the final line, "To see the cherry hung with snow," you eliminate this problem.  

lsg

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: jforjames at aol.com 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 6:44 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman


  Pardon again, my errant reply...Here's what I meant to chime in with:

  Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
  Is hung with bloom along the bough,
  And stands about the woodland ride
  Wearing white for Eastertide.

  (Nice clean pastoral start. A sauntering diction like a horse-drawn carriage ride. And the hint of the death/ressurection dyad as the stanza the end.)

  Now, of my threescore years and ten,
  Twenty will not come again,
  And take from seventy springs a score,
  It only leaves me fifty more.

  (The second stanza may be a classic example of filling things out for sake of rime scheme. The information is all given in first two lines, but then is restated by reversing the mental math. It begins to sound a bit like one of those math word problems you were tested with in grade school: "If one train traveling west left Cleveland at 10 o'clock, traveling 100 miles per hour, and twenty minutes later another train left Chicago traveling east...)

  And since to look at things in bloom
  Fifty springs are little room,
  About the woodlands I will go
  To see the cherry hung with snow.

  (In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry trees in 
  bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the poet. The great poets tend to see as beautiful the things that other's might overlook. A haiku poet would have done this poem in three lines, and saved us 9 more, pace the logic of the second stanza.)

  Finnegan
  -----Original Message-----
  From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
  Sent: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 3:51 pm
  Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman

  Applying the Check List to such a canonical piece is difficult.
  Here's one I've always read and loved as a key carpe diem poem that clearly
  falls flat (as Judy notes) in terms of innovation-areas of the Famous List
  TO ITS BETTERMENT, I will claim below.

  I take it that to give a work a Prix d'Or one remains free to assume that Excellence
  in this game doesn't mean that all list-categories must yield enthusiastic response.
  Keep them all in mind, sure, but ignore those irrelevant (how much more so,
  I'd guess, with "Bananas..." (?) )

  That said, my case for excellence: 

  Telling start with an alternate foot, refreshing mastery, authority in gentle assertiveness
  of tone; 2nd line's alliteration pleasing, and also forwards in its simplicity the asserted loveliness of
  the blooming; connection to Easter in l.4 a powerful ideological note with its
  death & resurrection associations; I'd add, softie that I am, the sense of whiteness
  in the blooms (and later in "snow" as evoked) offers an additive to the emotion of
  perceived innocence, purity, in the affection for natural beauty.


               II

  Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
  Is hung with bloom along the bough,
  And stands about the woodland ride
  Wearing white for Eastertide.

         Then we run into Biblical phrasing for the rather touchingly ironic feature that the speaker is so young,
         yet concerned with last things. A bit of an air of comedy added by "only fifty more" where by tradition
        this subject would demand a setting close to the end of partaking, that "grab what you still can while still around" motif.
         I'd add (forgive me) that even the obvious rhymes throughout support the "simplicity" that charms me in the poem.


  Now, of my threescore years and ten,
  Twenty will not come again,
  And take from seventy springs a score,
  It only leaves me fifty more.

        I love the unpressured, quiet way the logic of the concluding statement works: given that the lovely tree is blooming
        in the season of pain that turns to hope, and that I, the speaker, am mortal with limited days, it follows that...
       I will go and partake. Anything more grand in the way of device or experiement -- their lack here lowering for
       some the poem's "score"  -- would take away from the spell of innocent affirmation (with subterrainian death-dread)
       that the work enforces.   

  And since to look at things in bloom
  Fifty springs are little room,
  About the woodlands I will go
  To see the cherry hung with snow.





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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 08:19:43 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 05:19:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Call for Work
Message-ID: <881193.31765.qm@web83308.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

FoggedClarity.com seeks exceptional fiction and poetry

?

Arts Review Fogged Clarity is now accepting
submissions for our March and April editions.?
Submissions should be sent to submissions at foggedclarity.com.? Our February (debut) issue is free and
available at www.foggedclarity.com.? In it you will find new work from poets
Bruce Smith, Amy King, and Peter Ciccariello, experimental photography by Kyle
Jones and Ryan Daly, short fiction by Dmitri Gheorgheni, and much more.?? Fogged Clarity aims to transcend the
conventions of the typical literary review by incorporating music, the visual
arts, interviews, and political exposition.?
Our ambition is to form a community of artists whose interaction is not
constrained by medium, but broadened by a collective love of expression.? Our network is extensive, and our passion
for ventilation intense.? We sincerely
hope you will join us, and share the fruits of your own fogged clarity. 

?

I wish you the best, 

?

Benjamin Evans

Executive Editor, Fogged Clarity

?

????? 



-- 
Editor, "Fogged Clarity"
www.foggedclarity.com

Ben Evans
_______






Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 09:52:54 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:52:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b
	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net><49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489D
	FB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmai
	l.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com><269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com><4987B777.90105
	05@nut-n-but.net> <630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net>

John Jeffrey wrote:
> Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he 
> must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them 
> when they are hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two 
> score years and ten.
>
> JohnJ
>
Sorry, John, but you seem to me to be arguing that Housman is saying:

    And since to look at things in bloom
    Fifty springs are little room,
    About the woodlands I will go

    To do something other than look at cherry trees in bloom.

If he'd been talking about the beauty of cherry trees, that would make 
more sense, but he hasn't been: he's been talking about the beauty of 
cherry trees/ in bloom/ (and, implicitly, about the beauty of spring).

Do you not agree that my reading is at least as reasonable as yours?  
I've seen it that way for probably close to 50 years, but that's 
irrelevant; I have definitely been mistaken about some poems for longer 
than that.

Note to Judy: The Mole is on my side, and he's worth twenty Johns and 
19.5 Michaels, so phooey on you.  I would add that if you only can't 
appreciate a poem whose most overt message is "boring," you won't be 
able to appreciate many of the best poems in the language.  It's not a 
poem's message that counts, but how the poem expresses it.

--Hohenprofessor Bob
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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 10:04:21 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 07:04:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <4987C2D9.8040403@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <379440.51280.qm@web54103.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Funny, I see it as the opposite: that it heightens the urgency. ?Since 50 springs is little room, you need every season, not just spring. ?You need to go in both spring and winter.And that a young man is saying it, is understanding that 50 years may have little room, seems rather extraordinary, but that's where reading the rest of A Shropshire Lad gives s hint. ?The "young men" in Housman's world are a dark bunch. ?That middle stanza is proof that this is now simple youth.To me, reading this as a straight Oh-I'd-betta-go-look-at-da-pretty-twees-wite-now seems rather light, which is one of the major mistakes reading Housman's sing-song sounding poems. ?They always roll of the tongue so pretty, always rhyme so nicely, but they're generally not "pretty" or "nice." And looking at a bare tree hung with snow--since that's all you've got in winter--because you know that you may not make it to next spring is right up Housman's alley, or should I say right
 up his woodland ride.Just more thoughts when I should be working.JohnJ

--- On Mon, 2/2/09, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:
From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Date: Monday, February 2, 2009, 11:06 PM

That knocks the underpinnings out of the whole sense of urgency, Don't
worry, it's not just the 50 springs, you have winters too. And summers and
falls too...what the heck. The whole point is that for most very young men,
fifty years is an eternity -- and yet, only a very young man is capable of that
special kind of wonder to say that 50 springs is little room.

John Jeffrey wrote:
> Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he must go
out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them when they are
hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two score years and ten.
> 
> JohnJ
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> *To:* "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2009 10:18:15 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
> 
> 
>> You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't
think it's blatantly wrong.
> Agreed.
> 
>> The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
> But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look
at things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung
with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in bloom.
 To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them. 
> --Bob
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



      
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 10:07:28 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:07:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <78BDA7461DFD49AD883C61771BE58EC5@LindaSue>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu><6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net><8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-1
	93F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com><8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
	<78BDA7461DFD49AD883C61771BE58EC5@LindaSue>
Message-ID: <49885DB0.8000501@nut-n-but.net>

Linda Sue Grimes wrote:
> "In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something 
> conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the 
> population--cherry trees in bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth 
> experiencing over and over by the poet."
>  
> By taking literally the final line, *"*To see the cherry hung with 
> snow*,"* you eliminate this problem. 
>  
> lsg
Actually, you don't: the poet is still saying the cherry trees in bloom 
are worth seeing as much as one can.  Your interpretation only adds that 
even that isn't enough: one should experience their beauty when they 
have snow on them as well.  A great Failure, like the Great Failure of 
the Dickinson poem in telling us something 99.9% of the population takes 
as sad, the death of a loved one, will be emotionally upsetting.

One reason I'm so crotchety about this is that I've been arguing with a 
wack who believes Oxford wrote the works of Shakespeare about "Sonnet 
18."   That, he is certain, can't be about its addressee's being more 
beautiful in appearance and disposition than a summer's day because 
that's "boring"; for him, it has to be comparing Queen Elizabeth to 
Queen Mary of Scots--it has to have important people in it.  It also has 
to have bawdy puns in it, and if you don't agree with him that some are 
there, you are a Victorian prude.

--Bob
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Tue Feb  3 10:08:26 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:08:26 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net><49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489D	FB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmai	l.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com><269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com><4987B777.90105	05@nut-n-but.net>
	<630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <49885DEA.7000306@opus40.org>

Bob -- I think we should get together and have a beer over this, because 
malt does more than Housman can, to justify Nature's ways to man,

Bob Grumman wrote:
> John Jeffrey wrote:
>> Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he 
>> must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them 
>> when they are hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two 
>> score years and ten.
>>
>> JohnJ
>>
> Sorry, John, but you seem to me to be arguing that Housman is saying:
>
>     And since to look at things in bloom
>     Fifty springs are little room,
>     About the woodlands I will go
>
>     To do something other than look at cherry trees in bloom.
>
> If he'd been talking about the beauty of cherry trees, that would make 
> more sense, but he hasn't been: he's been talking about the beauty of 
> cherry trees/ in bloom/ (and, implicitly, about the beauty of spring).
>
> Do you not agree that my reading is at least as reasonable as yours?  
> I've seen it that way for probably close to 50 years, but that's 
> irrelevant; I have definitely been mistaken about some poems for 
> longer than that.
>
> Note to Judy: The Mole is on my side, and he's worth twenty Johns and 
> 19.5 Michaels, so phooey on you.  I would add that if you only can't 
> appreciate a poem whose most overt message is "boring," you won't be 
> able to appreciate many of the best poems in the language.  It's not a 
> poem's message that counts, but how the poem expresses it.
>
> --Hohenprofessor Bob
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb  3 10:10:52 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 10:10:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <379440.51280.qm@web54103.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <4987C2D9.8040403@opus40.org>
	<379440.51280.qm@web54103.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902030710w2350a62en52067b1de523eac0@mail.gmail.com>

I know one who'd heartily second your 'take' on AEH's Dark Side, John.
And I concur about H's 'pretty' and 'simple' wrapping around Deeper Stuff.
 He might be a right clivver dude; I'm not sure.  Might just be a nutcase.
Judy enjoying your humour as well as your logic, naturally.

2009/2/3 John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com>

> Funny, I see it as the opposite: that it heightens the urgency.  Since 50
> springs is little room, you need *every* season, not just spring.  You
> need to go in both spring *and* winter.
>
> And that a young man is saying it, is understanding that 50 years may have
> little room, seems rather extraordinary, but that's where reading the rest
> of A Shropshire Lad gives s hint.  The "young men" in Housman's world are a
> dark bunch.  That middle stanza is proof that this is now simple youth.
>
> To me, reading this as a straight
> Oh-I'd-betta-go-look-at-da-pretty-twees-wite-now seems rather light, which
> is one of the major mistakes reading Housman's sing-song sounding poems.
>  They always roll of the tongue so pretty, always rhyme so nicely, but
> they're generally not "pretty" or "nice." And looking at a bare tree hung
> with snow--since that's all you've got in winter--because you know that you
> may not make it to next spring is right up Housman's alley, or should I say
> right up his woodland ride.
>
> Just more thoughts when I should be working.
>
> JohnJ
>
> --- On *Mon, 2/2/09, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>* wrote:
>
> From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <
> new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Date: Monday, February 2, 2009, 11:06 PM
>
>
> That knocks the underpinnings out of the whole sense of urgency, Don't
> worry, it's not just the 50 springs, you have winters too. And summers and
> falls too...what the heck. The whole point is that for most very young men,
> fifty years is an eternity -- and yet, only a very young man is capable of that
> special kind of wonder to say that 50 springs is little room.
>
> John Jeffrey wrote:
> > Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he must go
> out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them when they are
> hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two score years and ten.
> >
> > JohnJ
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > *From:* Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> > *To:* "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
> <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> > *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2009 10:18:15 PM
> > *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
> >
> >
> >> You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't
> think it's blatantly wrong.
> > Agreed.
> >
> >> The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
> > But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look
> at things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung
> with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in bloom.
>  To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them.
> > --Bob
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
>
> -- Tad Richardshttp://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://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
>
>
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Tue Feb  3 10:13:02 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:13:02 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <49885DB0.8000501@nut-n-but.net>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu><6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net><8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-1	93F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com><8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>	<78BDA7461DFD49AD883C61771BE58EC5@LindaSue>
	<49885DB0.8000501@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <49885EFE.1020005@opus40.org>

It also has to have bawdy puns in it, and if you don't agree with him 
that some are there, you are a Victorian prude.

Doesn't everyone believe that?

Bob Grumman wrote:
> Linda Sue Grimes wrote:
>> "In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something 
>> conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the 
>> population--cherry trees in bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth 
>> experiencing over and over by the poet."
>>  
>> By taking literally the final line, *"*To see the cherry hung with 
>> snow*,"* you eliminate this problem. 
>>  
>> lsg
> Actually, you don't: the poet is still saying the cherry trees in 
> bloom are worth seeing as much as one can.  Your interpretation only 
> adds that even that isn't enough: one should experience their beauty 
> when they have snow on them as well.  A great Failure, like the Great 
> Failure of the Dickinson poem in telling us something 99.9% of the 
> population takes as sad, the death of a loved one, will be emotionally 
> upsetting.
>
> One reason I'm so crotchety about this is that I've been arguing with 
> a wack who believes Oxford wrote the works of Shakespeare about 
> "Sonnet 18."   That, he is certain, can't be about its addressee's 
> being more beautiful in appearance and disposition than a summer's day 
> because that's "boring"; for him, it has to be comparing Queen 
> Elizabeth to Queen Mary of Scots--it has to have important people in 
> it.  It also has to have bawdy puns in it, and if you don't agree with 
> him that some are there, you are a Victorian prude.
>
> --Bob
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Tue Feb  3 10:14:35 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:14:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902030710w2350a62en52067b1de523eac0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4987C2D9.8040403@opus40.org>	<379440.51280.qm@web54103.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<7db1d01b0902030710w2350a62en52067b1de523eac0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49885F5B.1050407@opus40.org>

And that a young man is saying it, is understanding that 50 years may 
have little room, seems rather extraordinary, but that's where reading 
the rest of A Shropshire Lad gives s hint.  The "young men" in Housman's 
world are a dark bunch.  That middle stanza is proof that this is now 
simple youth.

I don't think he does really understand it, and that's part of the power 
of the poem.

Judy Prince wrote:
> I know one who'd heartily second your 'take' on AEH's Dark Side, John. 
>
> And I concur about H's 'pretty' and 'simple' wrapping around Deeper 
> Stuff.  He might be a right clivver dude; I'm not sure.  Might just be 
> a nutcase.
>
> Judy enjoying your humour as well as your logic, naturally.  
>
> 2009/2/3 John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com 
> <mailto:jjeffreymail at yahoo.com>>
>
>     Funny, I see it as the opposite: that it heightens the urgency.
>      Since 50 springs is little room, you need /every/ season, not
>     just spring.  You need to go in both spring /and/ winter.
>
>     And that a young man is saying it, is understanding that 50 years
>     may have little room, seems rather extraordinary, but that's where
>     reading the rest of A Shropshire Lad gives s hint.  The "young
>     men" in Housman's world are a dark bunch.  That middle stanza is
>     proof that this is now simple youth.
>
>     To me, reading this as a straight
>     Oh-I'd-betta-go-look-at-da-pretty-twees-wite-now seems rather
>     light, which is one of the major mistakes reading Housman's
>     sing-song sounding poems.  They always roll of the tongue so
>     pretty, always rhyme so nicely, but they're generally not "pretty"
>     or "nice." And looking at a bare tree hung with snow--since that's
>     all you've got in winter--because you know that you may not make
>     it to next spring is right up Housman's alley, or should I say
>     right up his woodland ride.
>
>     Just more thoughts when I should be working.
>
>     JohnJ
>
>
>     --- On *Mon, 2/2/09, TheOldMole /<Opus40-01 at opus40.org
>     <mailto:Opus40-01 at opus40.org>>/* wrote:
>
>         From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org
>         <mailto:Opus40-01 at opus40.org>>
>
>         Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
>         To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
>         <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>>
>         Date: Monday, February 2, 2009, 11:06 PM
>
>
>         That knocks the underpinnings out of the whole sense of urgency, Don't
>         worry, it's not just the 50 springs, you have winters too. And summers and
>         falls too...what the heck. The whole point is that for most very young men,
>         fifty years is an eternity -- and yet, only a very young man is capable of that
>         special kind of wonder to say that 50 springs is little room.
>
>         John Jeffrey wrote:
>         > Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he must go
>         out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them when they are
>         hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two score years and ten.
>         > 
>         > JohnJ
>         > 
>         > 
>         > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>         > *From:* Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>>
>         > *To:* "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
>         <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>>
>         > *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2009 10:18:15 PM
>         > *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
>         > 
>         > 
>         >> You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't
>         think it's blatantly wrong.
>         > Agreed.
>         > 
>         >> The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
>         > But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look
>         at things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung
>         with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in bloom.
>          To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them. 
>         > --Bob
>         > 
>         > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>         > 
>         > _______________________________________________
>         > New-Poetry mailing list
>         > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>         > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>         >   
>
>         -- Tad Richards
>         http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
>         http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
>         Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
>         http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239
>
>         _______________________________________________
>         New-Poetry mailing list
>         New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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 <mailto: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
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 10:19:19 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 07:19:19 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <930466.90778.qm@web54112.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Bob,I do agree that your reading is as reasonable as mine.? And yes, the poem talks about cherry trees in bloom--but if you're going to be that literal (not cherry trees, but cherry trees in bloom) then I would think that you'd stumble with "About the woodlands I will go / To see the cherry hung with snow." ?He doesn't say, "looking as if they are hung with snow." ?He specifically says "hung with snow." ?So if you're following a literal reading, then you've got a bit of a snow problem. ?But if you're going to say that the snow is metaphoric, or symbolic, or even just an image for blooms, then that would open the door for a less-literal reading of the rest of the poem.And if the Mole is worth 20 of me, then he's... ?let me think... ?20 times... carry the 4... ?hmmm. ? ?Ah, who cares. ?Math is stupit.JohnJ



--- On Tue, 2/3/09, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 9:52 AM




  

 
John Jeffrey wrote:

  
  
  Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore
he must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of
them when they are hung with snow.? Just the way I've read it for my
two score years and ten.

  

JohnJ

  

  
  

Sorry, John, but you seem to me to be arguing that Housman is saying:



??? And since to look at things in bloom

??? Fifty springs are little room,

??? About the woodlands I will go



??? To do something other than look at cherry trees in bloom.



If he'd been talking about the beauty of cherry trees, that would make
more sense, but he hasn't been: he's been talking about the beauty of
cherry trees in bloom (and, implicitly, about the beauty of
spring).



Do you not agree that my reading is at least as reasonable as yours??
I've seen it that way for probably close to 50 years, but that's
irrelevant; I have definitely been mistaken about some poems for longer
than that.



Note to Judy: The Mole is on my side, and he's worth twenty Johns and
19.5 Michaels, so phooey on you.? I would add that if you only can't
appreciate a poem whose most overt message is "boring," you won't be
able to appreciate many of the best poems in the language.? It's not a
poem's message that counts, but how the poem expresses it.



--Hohenprofessor 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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From editor at pavementsaw.org  Tue Feb  3 10:19:50 2009
From: editor at pavementsaw.org (David Baratier)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 07:19:50 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 5
In-Reply-To: <200902021700.n12H040N010119@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <215273.47209.qm@web45608.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

>So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting? 
> And why on earth is
> he so ignored?  

Bunting is too difficult for poets and their negligent attention spans. He is his own thing. If he was so similar to Pound many would read him because pomo Universities train "how to read."

Bunting has little truck with Pound, in fact the word "Pound" has become the unread poets version of laziness. "It's like Pound," synonymous with too much effort. "How come I cannot find these Chinese Analytics on my new Blackberry?" If we want to offer a populist American comparison, Charles Wright has much more in common. Early Wright Americanizes "P's" influence through a faux "oriental screen," his shorter lines with stunted vocabulary and elimination of otherness in language and pictograph are typical of frontierism. 

Go back to mapping of poems.
The key to Bunting is sound spoken aloud.


Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1




      



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 10:26:23 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:26:23 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <49885DEA.7000306@opus40.org>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b
	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net><49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489D
	FB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmai
	l.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com><269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com><4987B777.90105
	05@nut-n-but.net><630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com><49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net>
	<49885DEA.7000306@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <4988621F.9090900@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> Bob -- I think we should get together and have a beer over this, 
> because malt does more than Housman can, to justify Nature's ways to man,
You're right, Mole.  We should invite the opposition, too.  Enough beers 
and we should be able to straighten everything out.

--Bob



From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 10:29:59 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 08:29:59 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] on the down low
In-Reply-To: <8CB53A3B314CBFF-1184-324@webmail-dx01.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB53A3B314CBFF-1184-324@webmail-dx01.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <648208b60902030729y172e49b9x81dc1d1081d5a413@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 4:18 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Shssss...Don't let Bob know about this blog...
> http://otherclutter.com/
>
> You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight
> and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are
> that of imagination. That's the sign post up ahead, your next stop...The
> VizPo Zone!...
>

I like the Jeff Crouch graphics, especially "pie farm."  Overall, however,
don't folks think these are more graphic art, and not "visual poetry,"
though there might be poetry in those graphics, much as we say there's
"poetry in motion" in the movements of some dancers?
- Jim

"Polish doesn't change quartz into a diamond."
                               -Wilma Askinas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org
http://www.hamiltonstone.org/catalog.html#temporarymeaning
http://www.fieralingue.it/documenti/mr_bondo.pdf
http://www.poetserv.org/jvc/home/index.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescervantes/
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb  3 10:33:08 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 10:33:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <4988621F.9090900@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net> <49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>
	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
	<269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net> <49885DEA.7000306@opus40.org>
	<4988621F.9090900@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902030733m50d40750j3fe2d39baabd323c@mail.gmail.com>

Wine, maybe.
Judy

2009/2/3 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> TheOldMole wrote:
>
>> Bob -- I think we should get together and have a beer over this, because
>> malt does more than Housman can, to justify Nature's ways to man,
>>
> You're right, Mole.  We should invite the opposition, too.  Enough beers
> and we should be able to straighten everything out.
>
> --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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From rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu  Tue Feb  3 10:41:38 2009
From: rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu (Richard Wilsnack)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:41:38 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <4988621F.9090900@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net><49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489D	FB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmai	l.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com><269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com><4987B777.90105	05@nut-n-but.net><630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com><49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net>	<49885DEA.7000306@opus40.org>
	<4988621F.9090900@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498865B2.5050100@medicine.nodak.edu>

Bob Grumman wrote:
> TheOldMole wrote:
>> Bob -- I think we should get together and have a beer over this, 
>> because malt does more than Housman can, to justify Nature's ways to 
>> man,
> You're right, Mole.  We should invite the opposition, too.  Enough 
> beers and we should be able to straighten everything out.
After all,

"Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think..."

and

"The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale."

How should Housman's sobriety (or lack thereof?) when writing
"Loveliest of trees..." affect our interpretation (if at all)?

Richard W. Wilsnack
rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 10:44:38 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:44:38 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <930466.90778.qm@web54112.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <930466.90778.qm@web54112.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <49886666.3070107@nut-n-but.net>

John Jeffrey wrote:
>
> Bob,
>
> I do agree that your reading is as reasonable as mine.  And yes, the 
> poem talks about cherry trees/ in bloom/--but if you're going to be 
> that literal (not cherry trees, but cherry trees in bloom) then I 
> would think that you'd stumble with "About the woodlands I will go / 
> To see the cherry hung with snow."  He doesn't say, "/looking/ as if 
> they are hung with snow."  He specifically says "hung with snow."  So 
> if you're following a literal reading, then you've got a bit of a snow 
> problem.  But if you're going to say that the snow is metaphoric, or 
> symbolic, or even just an image for blooms, then that would open the 
> door for a less-literal reading of the rest of the poem.
>

Then what's "look at things in bloom" a metaphor for?  Actually, I take 
it as a synecdoche for spring.  It doesn't work, in my view, as any kind 
of trope for "the beauty of cherry trees," though the "blooms along the 
bough" could.

I did see your argument before you presented it, but the opposite is 
true, too: if you take "snow" as literal, you have to take "look at 
things in bloom" literally by your reasoning, too, and you can't.  
Sorry, I can't get past "look at things in bloom."  Trees with snow on 
them aren't in bloom.  And I have given other reasons against the 
interpretation that I'll repeat when (or if) I get to my evaluation, 
which I've only just sketched, so far.
>
> And if the Mole is worth 20 of me, then he's...  let me think...  20 
> times... carry the 4...  hmmm.    Ah, who cares.  Math is stupit.
>
> JohnJ
>
'Cause you know I'm right!

--Bob
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From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb  3 10:55:49 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:55:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>


Mike,
But do you think Houseman did in this case...that is,?allow us to?revisit a great common theme in a new way?
I don't think he did. But I'd agree that my assertion was too narrow. It should have put it this way:
Great poets see a new thing, an overlooked thing. Or they see an old thing in a?new way,?from a different/overloked angle/perspective.
Finnegan

Amid blossoming cherry
I feel my years may be shortened.
Let petals fall on me now.
--A. E. Housman

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Snider <mandolin at mikesnider.org>
Sent: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 8:50 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman


On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 7:44 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:



(In the end, the?great failure?of the poem is that something conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry trees in?
bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the poet. The great poets tend to?see as beautiful the things that other's might overlook. A haiku poet would have done this poem in three lines, and saved us 9 more, pace the logic of?the second stanza.)








Finnegan, sometmes the great poets point to things the rest of us may overlook ? and sometimes thy remind us of the great common themes of human life, in langauge that ,makes it new again.




_______________________________________________

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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 11:05:53 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 08:05:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <49886666.3070107@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <661423.3545.qm@web54111.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

I don't necessarily think there's a "right" on this one. ?You've got good points, and I can see your reasoning, and I'm fine with it. ?But I can also see mine. ?And there are things to point to in the poem that give each one the lie.

Many poems are like this. ?Trying to point to the "real meaning" is sort of like pointing at a cloud and saying, "Look, that one looks like a dog." ?To which someone else says, "No, no, that's a barcalounger." ?And a passerby says, "What the hell are you two talking about?"

Being a non-drinker, can I get a Diet Coke, or will that embarrass the rest of you?

JohnJ


--- On Tue, 2/3/09, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
To: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 10:44 AM




  

 
John Jeffrey wrote:

  
        Bob,
        I do agree that your reading is as reasonable as mine.? And
yes, the poem talks about cherry trees in bloom--but if you're
going to be that literal (not cherry trees, but cherry trees in bloom)
then I would think that you'd stumble with "About the woodlands I will
go / To see the cherry hung with snow." ?He doesn't say, "looking
as if they are hung with snow." ?He specifically says "hung with snow."
?So if you're following a literal reading, then you've got a bit of a
snow problem. ?But if you're going to say that the snow is metaphoric,
or symbolic, or even just an image for blooms, then that would open the
door for a less-literal reading of the rest of the poem.
        



Then what's "look at things in bloom" a metaphor for?? Actually, I take
it as a synecdoche for spring.? It doesn't work, in my view, as any
kind of trope for "the beauty of cherry trees," though the "blooms
along the bough" could.



I did see your argument before you presented it, but the opposite is
true, too: if you take "snow" as literal, you have to take "look at
things in bloom" literally by your reasoning, too, and you can't.?
Sorry, I can't get past "look at things in bloom."? Trees with snow on
them aren't in bloom.? And I have given other reasons against the
interpretation that I'll repeat when (or if) I get to my evaluation,
which I've only just sketched, so far.


  
        And if the Mole is worth 20 of me, then he's... ?let me
think... ?20 times... carry the 4... ?hmmm. ? ?Ah, who cares. ?Math is
stupit.
        JohnJ
        

'Cause you know I'm right!



--Bob

 




      
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Tue Feb  3 11:19:48 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:19:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <930466.90778.qm@web54112.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <930466.90778.qm@web54112.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <49886EA4.8010102@opus40.org>

Take from twenty moles a score,
That leaves -- come to think of it -- not much more.


John Jeffrey wrote:
>
> Bob,
>
> I do agree that your reading is as reasonable as mine.  And yes, the 
> poem talks about cherry trees/ in bloom/--but if you're going to be 
> that literal (not cherry trees, but cherry trees in bloom) then I 
> would think that you'd stumble with "About the woodlands I will go / 
> To see the cherry hung with snow."  He doesn't say, "/looking/ as if 
> they are hung with snow."  He specifically says "hung with snow."  So 
> if you're following a literal reading, then you've got a bit of a snow 
> problem.  But if you're going to say that the snow is metaphoric, or 
> symbolic, or even just an image for blooms, then that would open the 
> door for a less-literal reading of the rest of the poem.
>
> And if the Mole is worth 20 of me, then he's...  let me think...  20 
> times... carry the 4...  hmmm.    Ah, who cares.  Math is stupit.
>
> JohnJ
>
>
>
> --- On *Tue, 2/3/09, Bob Grumman /<bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>/* wrote:
>
>     From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
>     Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
>     To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
>     <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 9:52 AM
>
>     John Jeffrey wrote:
>>     Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore
>>     he must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty
>>     of them when they are hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it
>>     for my two score years and ten.
>>
>>     JohnJ
>>
>     Sorry, John, but you seem to me to be arguing that Housman is saying:
>
>         And since to look at things in bloom
>         Fifty springs are little room,
>         About the woodlands I will go
>
>         To do something other than look at cherry trees in bloom.
>
>     If he'd been talking about the beauty of cherry trees, that would
>     make more sense, but he hasn't been: he's been talking about the
>     beauty of cherry trees/ in bloom/ (and, implicitly, about the
>     beauty of spring).
>
>     Do you not agree that my reading is at least as reasonable as
>     yours?  I've seen it that way for probably close to 50 years, but
>     that's irrelevant; I have definitely been mistaken about some
>     poems for longer than that.
>
>     Note to Judy: The Mole is on my side, and he's worth twenty Johns
>     and 19.5 Michaels, so phooey on you.  I would add that if you only
>     can't appreciate a poem whose most overt message is "boring," you
>     won't be able to appreciate many of the best poems in the
>     language.  It's not a poem's message that counts, but how the poem
>     expresses it.
>
>     --Hohenprofessor Bob
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     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
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb  3 11:23:59 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:23:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <498796B8.9020801@nut-n-but.net>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu><6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net><8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-193F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com><8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
	<498796B8.9020801@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8CB5432F403BA51-DF4-425@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>

Bob, by mental math, the reader should get to 50 by the first two lines of the second stanza. Then he does it again for us to get to 50
in the third and fourth lines of the same stanza. And then in the final stanza he gives us 50 years again. So that's thrice! (once implicit, twice explicit), three references to what 'may' be 50 more years for the speaker on earth. And it's all?only suppostional, because none of knows the length of our time on earth. 

Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Sent: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 7:58 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman


> (The second stanza may be a classic example of filling things out for > sake of rime scheme. The information is all given in first two > lines, but then is restated by reversing the mental math. It begins to > sound a bit like one of those math word problems you were tested with > in grade school: "If one train traveling west left Cleveland at 10 > o'clock, traveling 100 miles per hour, and twenty minutes later > another train left Chicago traveling east...)?
Haw, James, I consider the second stanza to be what makes this poem great. Pretty much for the reasons you find it poor, although I don't think it fills things out for the sake of the rhyme scheme. The first two lines tell us the speaker is 20. It doesn't tell us that leaves him 50 more. We can do the arithmetic, yes, but the poet is directing us from the age of the poet to how many years he has left. He's making that the subject.?
?
--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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 11:35:56 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:35:56 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] on the down low
In-Reply-To: <648208b60902030729y172e49b9x81dc1d1081d5a413@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB53A3B314CBFF-1184-324@webmail-dx01.sysops.aol.com>
	<648208b60902030729y172e49b9x81dc1d1081d5a413@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4988726C.1060503@nut-n-but.net>

Nice to see this blog.  There seems to be a wide range of stuff there.  
Some does seem too little verbal to count as poetry, for me.  But some 
of them are quite verbal.  Anyway, I bookmarked the site.  Lots of names 
new to me.

--Bob



From grahamd at ripon.edu  Tue Feb  3 11:37:31 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:37:31 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Sounding Bunting
In-Reply-To: <215273.47209.qm@web45608.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <C5ADCEEB.5AA0%grahamd@ripon.edu>



On 2/3/09 9:19 AM, "David Baratier" <editor at pavementsaw.org> wrote:

 
> 
> Go back to mapping of poems.
> The key to Bunting is sound spoken aloud.
> 
> 
> Be well
> 
> David Baratier, Editor
===================================

Good point.  I'd say that precisely here is the link with Pound, though.
For all their fabled "difficulty" of surface & allusiveness, both Bunting
and Pound are wonderful when read aloud.  At their best.

Four white heifers with sprawling hooves
         trundle the waggon.
   Its ill-roped crates heavy with fruit sway.
The chisel point of the goad, blue and white,
         glitters ahead,
   a flame to follow lance-high in a man?s hand
who does not shave. His linen trousers
         like him want washing.
   You can see his baked skin through his shirt.
He has no shoes and his hat has a hole in it.
         ?Hu ! vaca ! Hu ! vaca !?
   he says staccato without raising his voice;
?Adios caballero? legato but
         in the same tone.

--Basil Bunting.  fr. *Odes* 30: "The Or0tava Road."

For what it's worth, I like Bunting much much more than Pound, myself.

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
====================================================






From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb  3 11:51:17 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 11:51:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902030851p12bd103cr5e9a87cb9ae6f950@mail.gmail.com>

Finnegan, I was too narrow as well. Just reminding us of some deep part of
our nature and our relation to the rest of the world, not necessarily in a
new way, but just returning it vividly to our minds, may be a lesser thing
than presenting "an old thing in a new way, from a different/overloked
angle/perspective," but it's no small beer, much  less failure.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 10:55 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Mike,
> But do you think Houseman did in this case...that is, allow us to revisit a
> great common theme in a new way?
> I don't think he did. But I'd agree that my assertion was too narrow. It
> should have put it this way:
> Great poets see a new thing, an overlooked thing. Or they see an old thing
> in a new way, from a different/overloked angle/perspective.
> Finnegan
>
> Amid blossoming cherry
> I feel my years may be shortened.
> Let petals fall on me now.
> --A. E. Housman
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Snider <mandolin at mikesnider.org>
> Sent: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 8:50 pm
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
>
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 7:44 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>  (In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something
>> conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry
>> trees in
>> bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the
>> poet. The great poets tend to see as beautiful the things that other's might
>> overlook. A haiku poet would have done this poem in three lines, and saved
>> us209 more, pace the logic of the second stanza.)
>>
>
>  Finnegan, sometmes the great poets point to things the rest of us may
> overlook ? and sometimes thy remind us of the great common themes of human
> life, in langauge that ,makes it new again.
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? *Find
> out now!<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 11:51:56 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 17:51:56 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902030851q4e94ba4co37d992902da1090b@mail.gmail.com>

Don't the petals resound of much Chinese bird/flower paintings started way
down the dynasties. Isn't the beauty of the entire poem right in those
petals?

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 4:55 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Mike,
> But do you think Houseman did in this case...that is, allow us to revisit a
> great common theme in a new way?
> I don't think he did. But I'd agree that my assertion was too narrow. It
> should have put it this way:
> Great poets see a new thing, an overlooked thing. Or they see an old thing
> in a new way, from a different/overloked angle/perspective.
> Finnegan
>
> Amid blossoming cherry
> I feel my years may be shortened.
> Let petals fall on me now.
> --A. E. Housman
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Snider <mandolin at mikesnider.org>
> Sent: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 8:50 pm
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
>
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 7:44 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>  (In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something
>> conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry
>> trees in
>> bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the
>> poet. The great poets tend to see as beautiful the things that other's might
>> overlook. A haiku poet would have done this poem in three lines, and saved
>> us209 more, pace the logic of the second stanza.)
>>
>
>  Finnegan, sometmes the great poets point to things the rest of us may
> overlook ? and sometimes thy remind us of the great common themes of human
> life, in langauge that ,makes it new again.
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? *Find
> out now!<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Tue Feb  3 12:01:32 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:01:32 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bunting's advice
Message-ID: <C5ADD48C.5AA5%grahamd@ripon.edu>

    Bunting's advice to young poets

I SUGGEST
1. Compose aloud; poetry is a sound.
2. Vary rhythm enough to stir the emotion you want but not so as to lose
impetus.
3. Use spoken words and syntax.
4. Fear adjective; they bleed nouns. Hate the passive.
5. Jettison ornament gaily but keep shape

Put your poem away till you forget it, then:
6. Cut out every word you dare.
7. Do it again a week later, and again.

Never explain - your reader is as smart as you.
-- 
Source:  Basil Bunting Poetry Centre
http://www.dur.ac.uk/basil-bunting-poetry.centre/poems.quotes/quotes/



====================================================
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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 12:07:00 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:07:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902030851q4e94ba4co37d992902da1090b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com><8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902030851q4e94ba4co37d992902da1090b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498879B4.3080700@nut-n-but.net>

Anny Ballardini wrote:
> Don't the petals resound of much Chinese bird/flower paintings started 
> way down the dynasties. Isn't the beauty of the entire poem right in 
> those petals?
I think so.  Lots of cherry blossoms out of Japan, too.  A main subject 
of haiku.

--Bob



From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Tue Feb  3 12:55:51 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:55:51 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Reader more clever than poem?
In-Reply-To: <200902031402.n13E2j0N002975@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902031402.n13E2j0N002975@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <9FAA8D9A-A546-47F2-8AF5-EF3FA61206B0@verizon.net>


  John J. wrote:

>>>  he must go out even when they're not in bloom
>>> and see the beauty of them when they are
>>> hung with snow.

	We just ignore, then, the setting of the poem's season:
         "Wearing white for EASTERTIDE"?

	Or we could hold on to the improved, more
	unusual version by reading that line as
         a yearning on the trees' part for resurrection
         by mocking up the Easter season via its snowblooms.

        I think Housman posits Spring as the poem's setting
       (wielding Ocham's razor) while we re-write in order to have
        blossom-like snow on the boughs strikingly at the last.

        For such a reading, we must think: 'wearing white
        AS IF THE SEASON WERE SPRING.'

        A more complex poem, certainly. Does it matter if
        it's not the poem Housman wrote? (honest question).

	gadflyingly,

	Barry


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 12:56:45 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:56:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902030851p12bd103cr5e9a87cb9ae6f950@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com><8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
	<6768ac830902030851p12bd103cr5e9a87cb9ae6f950@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4988855D.5080306@nut-n-but.net>

Michael Snider wrote:
> Finnegan, I was too narrow as well. Just reminding us of some deep 
> part of our nature and our relation to the rest of the world, not 
> necessarily in a new way, but just returning it vividly to our minds, 
> may be a lesser thing than presenting "an old thing in a new way, from 
> a different/overloked angle/perspective," but it's no small beer, much 
>  less failure.
I don't believe you can make something in poetry vivid without 
presenting it in some new way, however small.  As I hope to argue if you 
guys don't stop distracting me(!), the Housman does this, in my view, 
and not in a small new way but in more than one new way, and possibly in 
at least one unsmall new way.

--Bob





From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 13:28:25 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 13:28:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bunting's advice
In-Reply-To: <C5ADD48C.5AA5%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <C5ADD48C.5AA5%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902031028r6a9f666emdb42ecb1c47eaa28@mail.gmail.com>

David,

Do you know the source on this?  The website you provide doesn't list one.

Thanks for posting this list.

Best,
Jeff

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 12:01 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

>     Bunting's advice to young poets
>
> I SUGGEST
> 1. Compose aloud; poetry is a sound.
> 2. Vary rhythm enough to stir the emotion you want but not so as to lose
> impetus.
> 3. Use spoken words and syntax.
> 4. Fear adjective; they bleed nouns. Hate the passive.
> 5. Jettison ornament gaily but keep shape
>
> Put your poem away till you forget it, then:
> 6. Cut out every word you dare.
> 7. Do it again a week later, and again.
>
> Never explain - your reader is as smart as you.
> --
> Source:  Basil Bunting Poetry Centre
> http://www.dur.ac.uk/basil-bunting-poetry.centre/poems.quotes/quotes/
>
>
>
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ====================================================
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
Blog:  http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com
Obama Myths:  http://www.matthew25.org/paf/index.htm
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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 13:43:17 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 10:43:17 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
In-Reply-To: <9FAA8D9A-A546-47F2-8AF5-EF3FA61206B0@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <141249.95939.qm@web54106.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Again, though, is the problem of taking some lines/words as completely literal--"bloom" and "Eastertide"--and then not addressing "snow".

Of course, it could be an early Easter, and therefore early in spring, and maybe the cherry trees actually are hung with snow. ?Maybe they've bloomed and then it snowed, like Hal's DC trees.? Or, since Housman was a Brit, maybe he didn't like snow and meant it to mean "that bloomin' snow."

Still, I agree that the poem's current season is spring, and the the cherry trees are currently 9in the poem) hung with bloom--"now" as Housman says. ?My point is that the last line reads "About the woodlands I WILL go / To see the cherry hung with snow." ?That simple auxiliary will throws the sentence into the future. ?He could mean that he will go about the woodlands just after writing the poem (even though in the "now" of the poem the trees are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line seem odd) or that he will also go in winter when the trees actually are hung with snow.

Now, really, back to work... ?I mean it this time.

JohnJ



--- On Tue, 2/3/09, Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net> wrote:
From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Reader more clever than poem?
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 12:55 PM

 John J. wrote:

>>>  he must go out even when they're not in bloom
>>> and see the beauty of them when they are
>>> hung with snow.

	We just ignore, then, the setting of the poem's season:
        "Wearing white for EASTERTIDE"?

	Or we could hold on to the improved, more
	unusual version by reading that line as
        a yearning on the trees' part for resurrection
        by mocking up the Easter season via its snowblooms.

       I think Housman posits Spring as the poem's setting
      (wielding Ocham's razor) while we re-write in order to have
       blossom-like snow on the boughs strikingly at the last.

       For such a reading, we must think: 'wearing white
       AS IF THE SEASON WERE SPRING.'

       A more complex poem, certainly. Does it matter if
       it's not the poem Housman wrote? (honest question).

	gadflyingly,

	Barry
_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



      
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb  3 14:02:48 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 14:02:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <661423.3545.qm@web54111.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <49886666.3070107@nut-n-but.net>
	<661423.3545.qm@web54111.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902031102u2b5fac10pbc33aa75959152c0@mail.gmail.com>

Well, doubtless I'll be embarrassed by your drinking Diet anything.
Judy

2009/2/3 John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com>

> I don't necessarily think there's a "right" on this one.  You've got good
> points, and I can see your reasoning, and I'm fine with it.  But I can also
> see mine.  And there are things to point to in the poem that give each one
> the lie.
>
> Many poems are like this.  Trying to point to the "real meaning" is sort of
> like pointing at a cloud and saying, "Look, that one looks like a dog."  To
> which someone else says, "No, no, that's a barcalounger."  And a passerby
> says, "What the hell are you two talking about?"
>
> Being a non-drinker, can I get a Diet Coke, or will that embarrass the rest
> of you?
>
>
> JohnJ
>
>
> --- On *Tue, 2/3/09, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>* wrote:
>
> From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
> To: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" <
> new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 10:44 AM
>
>
> John Jeffrey wrote:
>
>  Bob,
>
> I do agree that your reading is as reasonable as mine.  And yes, the poem
> talks about cherry trees* in bloom*--but if you're going to be that
> literal (not cherry trees, but cherry trees in bloom) then I would think
> that you'd stumble with "About the woodlands I will go / To see the cherry
> hung with snow."  He doesn't say, "*looking* as if they are hung with
> snow."  He specifically says "hung with snow."  So if you're following a
> literal reading, then you've got a bit of a snow problem.  But if you're
> going to say that the snow is metaphoric, or symbolic, or even just an image
> for blooms, then that would open the door for a less-literal reading of the
> rest of the poem.
>
>
> Then what's "look at things in bloom" a metaphor for?  Actually, I take it
> as a synecdoche for spring.  It doesn't work, in my view, as any kind of
> trope for "the beauty of cherry trees," though the "blooms along the bough"
> could.
>
> I did see your argument before you presented it, but the opposite is true,
> too: if you take "snow" as literal, you have to take "look at things in
> bloom" literally by your reasoning, too, and you can't.  Sorry, I can't get
> past "look at things in bloom."  Trees with snow on them aren't in bloom.
> And I have given other reasons against the interpretation that I'll repeat
> when (or if) I get to my evaluation, which I've only just sketched, so far.
>
>  And if the Mole is worth 20 of me, then he's...  let me think...  20
> times... carry the 4...  hmmm.    Ah, who cares.  Math is stupit.
>
> JohnJ
>
> 'Cause you know I'm right!
>
> --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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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb  3 14:36:55 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 14:36:55 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <4988855D.5080306@nut-n-but.net>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
	<6768ac830902030851p12bd103cr5e9a87cb9ae6f950@mail.gmail.com>
	<4988855D.5080306@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902031136p61ca31b3j793fe0130d93d79e@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> Michael Snider wrote:
>
>> Finnegan, I was too narrow as well. Just reminding us of some deep part of
>> our nature and our relation to the rest of the world, not necessarily in a
>> new way, but just returning it vividly to our minds, may be a lesser thing
>> than presenting "an old thing in a new way, from a different/overloked
>> angle/perspective," but it's no small beer, much  less failure.
>>
> I don't believe you can make something in poetry vivid without presenting
> it in some new way, however small.  As I hope to argue if you guys don't
> stop distracting me(!), the Housman does this, in my view, and not in a
> small new way but in more than one new way, and possibly in at least one
> unsmall new way.
>
> --Bob
>
> What do you mean by new? Seems to me saying something in a memorable and
> beautiful  way is new enough ? unless you've plagiarized!
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 15:06:46 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 15:06:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>

A few weeks (months?) ago, I was looking for a copy of Kenner's *A Homemade
World*, and one of you NewPo cats posted a fantastic link to a site that
search online bookstore:  everything from Abebooks to Powell's and beyond,
if I remember correctly.

Does anyone remember the site I was talking about?

Thanks,
Jeff Newberry

--
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From david.weinstock at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 15:10:05 2009
From: david.weinstock at gmail.com (David Weinstock)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 15:10:05 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <437b1e3a0902031210jf2c7fd8o41a865bef0f0e552@mail.gmail.com>

abebooks.com represents hundreds of used/rare booksellers, try that.




On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>wrote:

> A few weeks (months?) ago, I was looking for a copy of Kenner's *A
> Homemade World*, and one of you NewPo cats posted a fantastic link to a
> site that search online bookstore:  everything from Abebooks to Powell's and
> beyond, if I remember correctly.
>
> Does anyone remember the site I was talking about?
>
> Thanks,
> Jeff Newberry
>
> --
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
..........................................................

DAVID WEINSTOCK
240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753

Home: 802-388-6939
Cell:    802-989-4314
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 15:18:54 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 21:18:54 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
In-Reply-To: <437b1e3a0902031210jf2c7fd8o41a865bef0f0e552@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
	<437b1e3a0902031210jf2c7fd8o41a865bef0f0e552@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902031218g16eaf78ao17084d0719dc9fe@mail.gmail.com>

This is a good link but not the one Jeff mentions, I remember someone sent
it over but I do not have it.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:10 PM, David Weinstock
<david.weinstock at gmail.com>wrote:

> abebooks.com represents hundreds of used/rare booksellers, try that.
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> A few weeks (months?) ago, I was looking for a copy of Kenner's *A
>> Homemade World*, and one of you NewPo cats posted a fantastic link to a
>> site that search online bookstore:  everything from Abebooks to Powell's and
>> beyond, if I remember correctly.
>>
>> Does anyone remember the site I was talking about?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jeff Newberry
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> ..........................................................
>
> DAVID WEINSTOCK
> 240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753
>
> Home: 802-388-6939
> Cell:    802-989-4314
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From wwmorgan at ilstu.edu  Tue Feb  3 15:21:20 2009
From: wwmorgan at ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 14:21:20 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902031218g16eaf78ao17084d0719dc9fe@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
	<437b1e3a0902031210jf2c7fd8o41a865bef0f0e552@mail.gmail.com>
	<4b65c2d70902031218g16eaf78ao17084d0719dc9fe@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004a01c9863c$fe576570$fb063050$@edu>

I think Jeff and Anny may be thinking of www.bookfinder.com

 

Bill Morgan

 

From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Anny Ballardini
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 2:19 PM
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp, Views
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Book Site?

 

This is a good link but not the one Jeff mentions, I remember someone sent
it over but I do not have it.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:10 PM, David Weinstock <david.weinstock at gmail.com>
wrote:

abebooks.com represents hundreds of used/rare booksellers, try that.

 



 

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>
wrote:

A few weeks (months?) ago, I was looking for a copy of Kenner's A Homemade
World, and one of you NewPo cats posted a fantastic link to a site that
search online bookstore:  everything from Abebooks to Powell's and beyond,
if I remember correctly.

Does anyone remember the site I was talking about?

Thanks,
Jeff Newberry

-- 




_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




-- 
..........................................................

DAVID WEINSTOCK
240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753

Home: 802-388-6939
Cell:    802-989-4314



_______________________________________________
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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 15:26:21 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 21:26:21 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
In-Reply-To: <004a01c9863c$fe576570$fb063050$@edu>
References: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
	<437b1e3a0902031210jf2c7fd8o41a865bef0f0e552@mail.gmail.com>
	<4b65c2d70902031218g16eaf78ao17084d0719dc9fe@mail.gmail.com>
	<004a01c9863c$fe576570$fb063050$@edu>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902031226n295ea0b8h13f7c7c4f196862b@mail.gmail.com>

Yes, !
I put it on my blog, we have to remember: find a book, bookfinder... that
easy...
thanks.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:21 PM, Bill Morgan <wwmorgan at ilstu.edu> wrote:

>  I think Jeff and Anny may be thinking of www.bookfinder.com
>
>
>
> Bill Morgan
>
>
>
> *From:* new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu [mailto:
> new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] *On Behalf Of *Anny Ballardini
> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 03, 2009 2:19 PM
> *To:* NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp, Views
> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
>
>
>
> This is a good link but not the one Jeff mentions, I remember someone sent
> it over but I do not have it.
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:10 PM, David Weinstock <david.weinstock at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> abebooks.com represents hundreds of used/rare booksellers, try that.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>  A few weeks (months?) ago, I was looking for a copy of Kenner's *A
> Homemade World*, and one of you NewPo cats posted a fantastic link to a
> site that search online bookstore:  everything from Abebooks to Powell's and
> beyond, if I remember correctly.
>
> Does anyone remember the site I was talking about?
>
> Thanks,
> Jeff Newberry
>
> --
>
>
>   _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> --
> ..........................................................
>
> DAVID WEINSTOCK
> 240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753
>
> Home: 802-388-6939
> Cell:    802-989-4314
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>
>


-- 
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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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb  3 16:10:58 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 16:10:58 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
In-Reply-To: <141249.95939.qm@web54106.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <9FAA8D9A-A546-47F2-8AF5-EF3FA61206B0@verizon.net>
	<141249.95939.qm@web54106.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902031310i5fc84cbcq19ce53b9379aa493@mail.gmail.com>

Folks, I do believe it's metaphorical snow. The most popular variety of
flowering cherry has a nearly pure white blossom and blooms only for a week
or so, then drops its petals so quickly it often seems like snowfall.
They're a symbol in Japan for transience and mortality, among other things,
and Housman would surely have known that, given the  craze for Japanese
culture near the turn of the last century.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:43 PM, John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Again, though, is the problem of taking some lines/words as completely
> literal--"bloom" and "Eastertide"--and then not addressing "snow".
>
> Of course, it could be an early Easter, and therefore early in spring, and
> maybe the cherry trees actually are hung with snow.  Maybe they've bloomed
> and then it snowed, like Hal's DC trees.  Or, since Housman was a Brit,
> maybe he didn't like snow and meant it to mean "that bloomin' snow."
>
> Still, I agree that the poem's current season is spring, and the the cherry
> trees are currently 9in the poem) hung with bloom--"now" as Housman says.
>  My point is that the last line reads "About the woodlands I WILL go / To
> see the cherry hung with snow."  That simple auxiliary *will* throws the
> sentence into the future.  He could mean that he will go about the woodlands
> just after writing the poem (even though in the "now" of the poem the trees
> are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line seem odd) or
> that he will also go in winter when the trees actually are hung with snow.
>
> Now, really, back to work...  I mean it this time.
>
> JohnJ
>
>
>
> --- On *Tue, 2/3/09, Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>* wrote:
>
> From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Reader more clever than poem?
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 12:55 PM
>
>
>  John J. wrote:
>
> >>>  he must go out even when they're not in bloom
> >>> and see the beauty of them when they are
> >>> hung with snow.
>
> 	We just ignore, then, the setting of the poem's season:
>         "Wearing white for EASTERTIDE"?
>
> 	Or we could hold on to the improved, more
> 	unusual version by reading that line as
>         a yearning on the trees' part for resurrection
>         by mocking up the Easter season via its snowblooms.
>
>        I think Housman posits Spring as the poem's setting
>       (wielding Ocham's razor) while we re-write in order to have
>        blossom-like snow on the boughs strikingly at the last.
>
>        For such a reading, we must think: 'wearing white
>        AS IF THE SEASON WERE SPRING.'
>
>        A more complex poem, certainly. Does it matter if
>        it's not the poem Housman wrote? (honest question).
>
> 	gadflyingly,
>
> 	Barry
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://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
>
>
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 16:13:03 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:13:03 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902031136p61ca31b3j793fe0130d93d79e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com><8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com><6768
	ac830902030851p12bd103cr5e9a87cb9ae6f950@mail.gmail.com><4988855D.5080306@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902031136p61ca31b3j793fe0130d93d79e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4988B35F.8040703@nut-n-but.net>

Michael Snider wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>> wrote:
>
>     Michael Snider wrote:
>
>         Finnegan, I was too narrow as well. Just reminding us of some
>         deep part of our nature and our relation to the rest of the
>         world, not necessarily in a new way, but just returning it
>         vividly to our minds, may be a lesser thing than presenting
>         "an old thing in a new way, from a different/overloked
>         angle/perspective," but it's no small beer, much  less failure.
>
>     I don't believe you can make something in poetry vivid without
>     presenting it in some new way, however small.  As I hope to argue
>     if you guys don't stop distracting me(!), the Housman does this,
>     in my view, and not in a small new way but in more than one new
>     way, and possibly in at least one unsmall new way.
>
>     --Bob
>
>     What do you mean by new? Seems to me saying something in a
>     memorable and beautiful  way is new enough ? unless you've
>     plagiarized!
>
I think I'm saying that in order to say something in a memorable and 
beautiful way, you have to say it in some new way--that can be as small 
as using some ordinary word in a just slightly different way.  One 
possible newness of Housman's poem is its use of arithmetic, I think.  
Not that arithmetic hadn't been used before, but his use of it seems 
different from all others I'm familiar with.  I'll elaborate in due 
course, I hope.

I'm arguing a Very Minor Semantics point.

--Bob
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From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb  3 16:20:50 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:20:50 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB545C6C57CCCC-1D0-1067@webmail-me19.sysops.aol.com>

I've had good luck with this site...it's searches several databases, like Alibris, abebooks, Powells, Biblio, etc.
You have to click on the Search Used link...
http://www.addall.com/
In fact yesterday I ordered I got The Prophets of Paris, for $8 plus shipping.
Which will be coming to me from Night Heron Books in Laramie Wyoming. 
Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>
To: NewPoetry <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 3:06 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?


A few weeks (months?) ago, I was looking for a copy of Kenner's A Homemade World, and one of you NewPo cats posted a fantastic link to a site that search online bookstore:? everything from Abebooks to Powell's and beyond, if I remember correctly.

Does anyone remember the site I was talking about?

Thanks,
Jeff Newberry

-- 





_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From reneea at verizon.net  Tue Feb  3 16:21:22 2009
From: reneea at verizon.net (Renee Ashley)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:21:22 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
References: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
	<437b1e3a0902031210jf2c7fd8o41a865bef0f0e552@mail.gmail.com>
	<4b65c2d70902031218g16eaf78ao17084d0719dc9fe@mail.gmail.com>
	<004a01c9863c$fe576570$fb063050$@edu>
	<4b65c2d70902031226n295ea0b8h13f7c7c4f196862b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003d01c98645$5da994f0$0201a8c0@Barnette>

You could also try http://www.bestwebbuys.com/books/
best,
Renee Ashley
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From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Tue Feb  3 16:35:27 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:35:27 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>


On Feb 3, 2009, at 9:00 AM, John J. wrote:

>  the trees are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow"  
> line seem odd)

goshes, John, not odd unless metaphor itself is always so.

The cherry's blossoms LOOK like snow. To evoke the blooms
with this particular metaphor lets the ubi sunt motif click in a
bit: blooming is evanescent, gone in a twink like 70 years of life,
so we're reminded of winter even in the glory of spring, adding
even more urgency as to the carpe diem guiding idea of the piece.

definitively,

Barry
>



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 17:08:32 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:08:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>

Quick question for anyone more knowledgeable than I about Housman's 
work: how metaphoric a poet is he?

--Bob



From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb  3 17:21:35 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:21:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8CB5464E88E0CB3-D68-2F4@webmail-me19.sysops.aol.com>

Housman was a?well-built Victorian of about 3000 square feet, 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. No garage. Stayed away from the Painted Ladies.


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Sent: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 5:08 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...


Quick question for anyone more knowledgeable than I about Housman's work: how metaphoric a poet is he??
?
--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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb  3 17:49:07 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 17:49:07 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <8CB5464E88E0CB3-D68-2F4@webmail-me19.sysops.aol.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB5464E88E0CB3-D68-2F4@webmail-me19.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902031449u271bc529qd43a000deac7de4e@mail.gmail.com>

;-)

2009/2/3 <jforjames at aol.com>

> Housman was a well-built Victorian of about 3000 square feet, 3 bedrooms
> and 2 baths. No garage. Stayed away from the Painted Ladies.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> Sent: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 5:08 pm
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
>
> Quick question for anyone more knowledgeable than I about Housman's work:
> how metaphoric a poet is he?
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
> ------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? *Find
> out now!<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Feb  3 18:13:22 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:13:22 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>

> Quick question for anyone more knowledgeable than I about Housman's work: 
> how metaphoric a poet is he?
>
> --Bob

It's metaphors all the way down, Bob.  Housman's Shropshire is an intensely 
*literary construct, melded together from scraps and echoes of Shakespeare, 
the Bible, and the Rubaiyat.  (Would "Loveliest of trees ..." exist without 
Sonnet 18? -- Summer's lease hath all too short a date.)

It's got nothing at all to do with any existing England, and everything to 
do with Housman's state of mind.

He's profoundly derivative of better poems, and poets, as the comparison 
below suggests.

Within his narrow range, he *is powerful, but finally his imaginative world 
is tightly resticted.  The laureate of whinge.  He attempts to justify this 
in "Terence, this is stupid stuff ...", but the justification itself simply 
enacts the complaint he's trying to address.

The speaker of Poem VIII, "Farewell to barn and stack and tree ..." is the 
archetypical Housman figure, who has just returned from murdering someone 
(in this case his brother), and is uncertain whether to join the army, 
commit suicide, or be hanged for murder.

Other than Mithradates, no one dies old in Housman -- in this Shropshire of 
the mind, growing old is a sign of failure:

         XIX:  "To An Athlete Dying Young":

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
>From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

(To add to this catalogue, Housman has a very restricted and repetitive 
vocabulary, laced and loaded with semi-archaisms.)

My favourite Housman poem, and the one through which I tend to read the rest 
of his work, is "Hughley Steeple":

LXI

HUGHLEY STEEPLE

The vane on Hughley steeple
 Veers bright, a far-known sign,
And there lie Hughley people,
 And there lie friends of mine.
Tall in their midst the tower
 Divides the shade and sun,
And the clock strikes the hour
 And tells the time to none.

To south the headstones cluster,
 The sunny mounds lie thick;
The dead are more in muster
 At Hughley than the quick.
North, for a soon-told number,
 Chill graves the sexton delves,
And steeple-shadowed slumber
 The slayers of themselves.

To north, to south, lie parted,
 With Hughley tower above,
The kind, the single-hearted,
 The lads I used to love.
And, south or north, 'tis only
 A choice of friends one knows,
And I shall ne'er be lonely
 Asleep with these or those.

Incidentally, Project Gutenberg has copies of both _The Shropshire Lad_ and 
_Last Poems_, while all the poems can be found here:

        http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~martinh/poems/complete_housman.html

Robin

HOUSMAN AND SHAKESPEARE

Poem XXXI

WITH rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.



Song from _The Winter's Tale_

FEAR no more the heat o' the sun
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Feb  3 18:25:09 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:25:09 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
	<FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <5D7117D1C2A3447D8FA1DF0761D1F688@RobinPC>

Oops, sorry -- _Pericles_, of course.

Well, one Shakespearean Late Romance is very much like another ..  <g>

(And there's an irony in that in the context of the play, it's sung over the 
body of the cross-dressed Fidele, who isn't actually dead.  By her brothers, 
who at that point don't know they are her brothers.  Weird!)

R.

> Song from _The Winter's Tale_
>
> FEAR no more the heat o' the sun
> Nor the furious winter's rages; 




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Feb  3 18:29:01 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:29:01 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <5D7117D1C2A3447D8FA1DF0761D1F688@RobinPC>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net><FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
	<5D7117D1C2A3447D8FA1DF0761D1F688@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <CED9D0AA9D1C4BC9B83411FA886663C1@RobinPC>

> Oops, sorry -- _Pericles_, of course.
>
> Well, one Shakespearean Late Romance is very much like another ..  <g>

I spoke there truer than I meant, and I'd like to pretend (though this is 
not the case) that the mistake or mistakes was or were deliberate.

So one last time ...

CYMBELINE 




From editor at eratiopostmodernpoetry.com  Tue Feb  3 19:00:31 2009
From: editor at eratiopostmodernpoetry.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?e=B7ratio?=)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:00:31 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Correspondance (a sketchbook) New Digital Art Eratio
	Editions
Message-ID: <61531.74.73.224.204.1233705631.squirrel@webmail1.web.com>

e?
E?ratio Editions is happy to announce the publication of Correspondance (a
sketchbook) by Joseph F. Keppler.

Correspondance (a sketchbook) by Joseph F. Keppler.  Digital art.

?What can I call this work?  Neither painting nor critique yet informed by
art, the following are sketches to me.  Rather than executed on paper,
they?re drawings designed using the pervasive computer.  These graphics
approach oeuvre subjectively, not as meticulous copies or art history
illustrations, but as some poetic efforts.  My laptop simply opens a new
capacity for thinking about art and drawing it.  As studies these are
(a)musing tributes as well as appropriate(d) attributes.?  ?Joseph F.
Keppler, from the introduction.

What the cognoscenti are saying about Correspondance (a sketchbook):

?Readability and meaning construction, as well as the relation between the
visual and the literary, have been concerns of Joe?s for many years.  In
Correspondance we see Joe, who is also an astute critic on both literary
and visual art, take an artist?s approach, a visual poet?s approach, a
visual artist?s approach.  Joe Keppler is very unusual in his deep
engagement both with art history and the literary.  He?s a poet, a visual
poet, a sound poet, a sculptor of steel, a photographer, a painter, a
polyartist.  Not only in his practice but in his wide reading and viewing
of contemporary and historical work.  I don?t know anybody else as
voracious as he is not only in his own artistic practice but in learning
about art and philosophy.  He is an incredibly learned man as well as an
important poet and artist.  He shows us what it now means to be literate.?
 ?Jim Andrews  Vispo-Langu(im)age

?Correspondance is suffused with correspondence, bright exchanges between
artist and subject, playful responses between form, light, color, and art
history.  Poet and sculptor, Joe Keppler brings both mediums to bear,
poetry and sculpture, word and material, hand in hand.  Keppler adds a
third-dimension to the graceful dance (Joe the humble artist says, ?bump?)
through his lifelong study of painting and sculpture: allusions to
significant works, quotations of style, and adaptations that bring old
works to new life.  In this series of sketches, poet, artist, and art will
wheel you across the dance floors of the page.?  ?Crag Hill  Poetry
Scorecard

http://www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/eratioeditions.html

Also available from E?ratio Editions:

#5.  Six Comets Are Coming by Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino.  Volume I of
the collected works including Go and Go Mirrored, with revised
introductions, corrected text and restored original font.

#4.  The Logoclasody Manifesto.  Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino on
logoclasody, logoclastics, eidetics and pannarrativity.  Addenda include
the Crash Course in Logoclastics, Concrete to Eidetic (on visual poetry)
and On Mathematical Poetry.

#3.  Waves by M?rton Kopp?ny.  ?These works are minimalist by design, but
should we paraphrase the thought channeled therein, the effect would be
encyclopedic, ranging through philosophy, psychology, politics, and the
human emotions.?

#2.  Mending My Black Sweater and other poems by Mary Ann Sullivan.  Poems
of making conscious, of acceptance and of self-remembering, and of
personal responsibility.

#1.  Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino joins John M. Bennett In the Bennett
Tree.  Collaborative poems, images, an introduction and a full-length
critical essay pay homage to American poet John M. Bennett.

http://www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/eratioeditions.html


E?ratio Editions, a series of elegantly produced, quick loading e-chaps,
is reading for poetry, innovative narrative prose, critical and
theoretical essays, and digital art.  Please see the Contact page for
further guidelines and where to send.  Query editor with sample.

taxis de pasa logos
e?



From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 19:09:46 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 16:09:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <997098.69731.qm@web54110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Sigh...  This is the sort of email back&forth that exhausts me, all these qualifications on small points.  Anyway, I have no problem with metaphor.  I dated one back in the eighties--or thought I did.  My point was part of a larger discussion: That if the rest of the poem is read in a solely literally way, then how would the snow be explained?

To me, the snow is either a) the blooms look like snow (a fanciful description or an out-n-out metaphor) or b) the speaker is talking about winter, when the branches actually are hung with snow (which could still be read metaphorically).

Food calls.  I can smell it.  And that's no metaphor.

John J







________________________________
From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 4:35:27 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...


On Feb 3, 2009, at 9:00 AM, John J. wrote:

>  the trees are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line seem odd)

goshes, John, not odd unless metaphor itself is always so.

The cherry's blossoms LOOK like snow. To evoke the blooms
with this particular metaphor lets the ubi sunt motif click in a
bit: blooming is evanescent, gone in a twink like 70 years of life,
so we're reminded of winter even in the glory of spring, adding
even more urgency as to the carpe diem guiding idea of the piece.

definitively,

Barry
> 

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



      
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb  3 19:14:03 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:14:03 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <997098.69731.qm@web54110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<997098.69731.qm@web54110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902031614i67f5eccya8424341be2e10b9@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:09 PM, John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
> To me, the snow is either a) the blooms look like snow (a fanciful
> description or an out-n-out metaphor) or b) the speaker is talking about
> winter, when the branches actually are hung with snow (which could still be
> read metaphorically).
>

an out and out metaphor, and a pretty common one. It's not just that popular
varieties of flowering cherry are virtually all white, but that they last a
week or so at most (like other snow i spring, unless you ive in New
Hampshire), and that when they fall they look like snow falling ? and not
just a flurry.
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Tue Feb  3 19:15:02 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:15:02 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
Message-ID: <c29.4e724795.36ba3806@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/3/2009 3:11:20 PM Central Standard Time, 
mandolin at mikesnider.org writes: 
> 
> Folks, I do believe it's metaphorical snow. The most popular variety of 
> flowering cherry has a nearly pure white blossom and blooms only for a week or 
> so, then drops its petals so quickly it often seems like snowfall. They're a 
> symbol in Japan for transience and mortality, among other things, and Housman 
> would surely have known that, given the  craze for Japanese culture near the 
> turn of the last century.
> 
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:43 PM, John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Again, though, is the problem of taking some lines/words as completely 
>> literal--"bloom" and "Eastertide"--and then not addressing "snow".
>> 
>> Of course, it could be an early Easter, and therefore early in spring, and 
>> maybe the cherry trees actually are hung with snow.  Maybe they've bloomed 
>> and then it snowed, like Hal's DC trees.  Or, since Housman was a Brit, maybe 
>> he didn't like snow and meant it to mean "that bloomin' snow."
>> 
>> Still, I agree that the poem's current season is spring, and the the cherry 
>> trees are currently 9in the poem) hung with bloom--"now" as Housman says.  
>> My point is that the last line reads "About the woodlands I WILL go / To see 
>> the cherry hung with snow."  That simple auxiliary willthrows the sentence 
>> into the future.  He could mean that he will go about the woodlands just 
>> after writing the poem (even though in the "now" of the poem the trees are NOT 
>> hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line seem odd) or that he 
>> will also go in winter when the trees actually are hung with snow.
>> 
>> Now, really, back to work...  I mean it this time.
>> 
>> JohnJ
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
I agree with Mike.  Look at the tenses.  Starts in the present and then 
shifts to future, both distant and near.  The "snow" is a metaphor; it doesn't snow 
that much in England anyway, witness the recent news of London totally bogged 
down by 8".  But it does bring a nice metaphoric note of mortality in at the 
end of the poem.  He could have said something like "And through the woodlands 
I'll go round / To see the cherry fleeced and downed."  But he didn't.  The 
repetition of "woodland(s)" indicates that he'll keep on doing in the immediate 
future just what he's doing in the present, enjoying the cherry blossoms.  
Besides, a cherry tree covered with real snow would be indistinguishable from 
any other tree, wouldn't it?  It's only the lovely blossoms that make it stand 
out from other shrubberies, after all.

This has the past-present-future structure of many famous lyrics: Frost's 
"The Road Not Taken," for example.  I did it; I'm thinking about it now; I'll 
resolve to do something in the future.
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Tue Feb  3 19:20:34 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:20:34 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
Message-ID: <c62.413f7194.36ba3952@cs.com>

And he does repeat "springs" as well.  Maybe a synecdoche (an easy one) but 
literally a reference to the cherry hung with blossoms at the appropriate time 
of year.
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Feb  3 19:26:41 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 00:26:41 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <997098.69731.qm@web54110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<997098.69731.qm@web54110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1751654B1FA64B7AA5FD1528EE1E8487@RobinPC>

From: John Jeffrey:

<<
My point was part of a larger discussion: That if the rest of the poem is 
read in a solely literally way, then how would the snow be explained?
>>

Well, the poem has, as early as the first stanza, the cherry tree as a 
metaphorical bride, "Wearing white for Eastertide."

(There are other possibilities for the lady in white, but for various 
reasons, this is the one I'd go for.)

So blossom-as-wedding-dress transmutes into the blossom as snow in the final 
stanza.

As for "hung with bloom ... hung with snow ... ," if spring comes, can 
winter be far behind?

For some reason, Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush" springs, or falls, to mind.

R.

<<
To me, the snow is either a) the blooms look like snow (a fanciful 
description or an out-n-out metaphor) or b) the speaker is talking about 
winter, when the branches actually are hung with snow (which could still be 
read metaphorically).

Food calls.  I can smell it.  And that's no metaphor.

John J
>>








From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 4:35:27 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...


On Feb 3, 2009, at 9:00 AM, John J. wrote:

>  the trees are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line 
> seem odd)

goshes, John, not odd unless metaphor itself is always so.

The cherry's blossoms LOOK like snow. To evoke the blooms
with this particular metaphor lets the ubi sunt motif click in a
bit: blooming is evanescent, gone in a twink like 70 years of life,
so we're reminded of winter even in the glory of spring, adding
even more urgency as to the carpe diem guiding idea of the piece.

definitively,

Barry
>

_______________________________________________
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 




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 19:37:55 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:37:55 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902031614i67f5eccya8424341be2e10b9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><997098.69731.qm@web54
	110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<6768ac830902031614i67f5eccya8424341be2e10b9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4988E363.2080805@nut-n-but.net>

I read/hear the poem working toward a climactic metaphor.  Again I ask, 
is Housman one to use many metaphors in his poems?

--Bob



From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb  3 19:36:41 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:36:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <4988E363.2080805@nut-n-but.net>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<6768ac830902031614i67f5eccya8424341be2e10b9@mail.gmail.com>
	<4988E363.2080805@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902031636p5f6ed2b1yfd533a25c604cf2@mail.gmail.com>

Yes.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:37 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> I read/hear the poem working toward a climactic metaphor.  Again I ask, is
> Housman one to use many metaphors in his poems?
>
> --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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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb  3 19:57:12 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:57:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902031636p5f6ed2b1yfd533a25c604cf2@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<6768ac830902031614i67f5eccya8424341be2e10b9@mail.gmail.com>
	<4988E363.2080805@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902031636p5f6ed2b1yfd533a25c604cf2@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902031657g5e3bbd39kcdf3d2fc37aacfcd@mail.gmail.com>

All right that was too flippant. But I open the collected at random and
here's the second of twostwo stanzas in number XX of Last Poems:
Fall, winwinter, fall; for he,
    Prompt hand and headpiece clever,
         Has woven  winter robe
And made of earth and sea
     His overcoat for ever,
          And wears the turning globe.


On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Michael Snider <mandolin at mikesnider.org>wrote:




> Yes.
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:37 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:
>
>> I read/hear the poem working toward a climactic metaphor.  Again I ask, is
>> Housman one to use many metaphors in his poems?
>>
>> --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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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 20:27:16 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 17:27:16 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
References: <c29.4e724795.36ba3806@cs.com>
Message-ID: <639101.14866.qm@web54112.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Seeing Gwynn's name reminded me of a piece of paper I have tucked in a book... a poem I've always loved that ends this way:

         Glazed with ice,
Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone,
         And our own
Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below--
         Snow on snow.







________________________________
From: "Rsgwynn1 at cs.com" <Rsgwynn1 at cs.com>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 7:15:02 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?

In a message dated 2/3/2009 3:11:20 PM Central Standard Time, mandolin at mikesnider.org writes: 


Folks, I do believe it's metaphorical snow. The most popular variety of flowering cherry has a nearly pure white blossom and blooms only for a week or so, then drops its petals so quickly it often seems like snowfall. They're a symbol in Japan for transience and mortality, among other things, and Housman would surely have known that, given the  craze for Japanese culture near the turn of the last century.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:43 PM, John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com> wrote:

Again, though, is the problem of taking some lines/words as completely literal--"bloom" and "Eastertide"--and then not addressing "snow".

Of course, it could be an early Easter, and therefore early in spring, and maybe the cherry trees actually are hung with snow.  Maybe they've bloomed and then it snowed, like Hal's DC trees.  Or, since Housman was a Brit, maybe he didn't like snow and meant it to mean "that bloomin' snow."

Still, I agree that the poem's current season is spring, and the the cherry trees are currently 9in the poem) hung with bloom--"now" as Housman says.  My point is that the last line reads "About the woodlands I WILL go / To see the cherry hung with snow."  That simple auxiliary willthrows the sentence into the future.  He could mean that he will go about the woodlands just after writing the poem (even though in the "now" of the poem the trees are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line seem odd) or that he will also go in winter when the trees actually are hung with snow.

Now, really, back to work...  I mean it this time.

JohnJ







I agree with Mike.  Look at the tenses.  Starts in the present and then shifts to future, both distant and near.  The "snow" is a metaphor; it doesn't snow that much in England anyway, witness the recent news of London totally bogged down by 8".  But it does bring a nice metaphoric note of mortality in at the end of the poem.  He could have said something like "And through the woodlands I'll go round / To see the cherry fleeced and downed."  But he didn't.  The repetition of "woodland(s)" indicates that he'll keep on doing in the immediate future just what he's doing in the present, enjoying the cherry blossoms.  Besides, a cherry tree covered with real snow would be indistinguishable from any other tree, wouldn't it?  It's only the lovely blossoms that make it stand out from other shrubberies, after all.

This has the past-present-future structure of many famous lyrics: Frost's "The Road Not Taken," for example.  I did it; I'm thinking about it now; I'll resolve to do something in the future.


      
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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 20:34:23 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 17:34:23 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
Message-ID: <147419.90313.qm@web54101.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Crap!  I sent it before I finished....



Seeing Gwynn's name reminded me of a piece of paper I have tucked in a book... a poem I've always loved that ends this way:

         Glazed with ice,
Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone,
         And our own
Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below--
         Snow on snow.

It's one of Gywnn's poems, and since it's similar to Housman's, I say Sam is disqualified from commenting on the Housman.  (Besides, he disagreed with my view.  And since I really like Sam's work, I just can't have someone I admire disagreeing with me, so there you go.  Disqualified!  Sorry.)

John








________________________________
From: "Rsgwynn1 at cs.com" <Rsgwynn1 at cs.com>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 7:15:02 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?

In a message dated 2/3/2009 3:11:20 PM Central Standard Time, mandolin at mikesnider.org writes: 


Folks, I do believe it's metaphorical snow. The most popular variety of flowering cherry has a nearly pure white blossom and blooms only for a week or so, then drops its petals so quickly it often seems like snowfall. They're a symbol in Japan for transience and mortality, among other things, and Housman would surely have known that, given the  craze for Japanese culture near the turn of the last century.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:43 PM, John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com> wrote:

Again, though, is the problem of taking some lines/words as completely literal--"bloom" and "Eastertide"--and then not addressing "snow".

Of course, it could be an early Easter, and therefore early in spring, and maybe the cherry trees actually are hung with snow.  Maybe they've bloomed and then it snowed, like Hal's DC trees.  Or, since Housman was a Brit, maybe he didn't like snow and meant it to mean "that bloomin' snow."

Still, I agree that the poem's current season is spring, and the the cherry trees are currently 9in the poem) hung with bloom--"now" as Housman says.  My point is that the last line reads "About the woodlands I WILL go / To see the cherry hung with snow."  That simple auxiliary willthrows the sentence into the future.  He could mean that he will go about the woodlands just after writing the poem (even though in the "now" of the poem the trees are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line seem odd) or that he will also go in winter when the trees actually are hung with snow.

Now, really, back to work...  I mean it this time.

JohnJ







I agree with Mike.  Look at the tenses.  Starts in the present and then shifts to future, both distant and near.  The "snow" is a metaphor; it doesn't snow that much in England anyway, witness the recent news of London totally bogged down by 8".  But it does bring a nice metaphoric note of mortality in at the end of the poem.  He could have said something like "And through the woodlands I'll go round / To see the cherry fleeced and downed."  But he didn't.  The repetition of "woodland(s)" indicates that he'll keep on doing in the immediate future just what he's doing in the present, enjoying the cherry blossoms.  Besides, a cherry tree covered with real snow would be indistinguishable from any other tree, wouldn't it?  It's only the lovely blossoms that make it stand out from other shrubberies, after all.

This has the past-present-future structure of many famous lyrics: Frost's "The Road Not Taken," for example.  I did it; I'm thinking about it now; I'll resolve to do something in the future.


      
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From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb  3 20:36:37 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:36:37 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <c62.413f7194.36ba3952@cs.com>
References: <c62.413f7194.36ba3952@cs.com>
Message-ID: <8CB548027F84B5D-1598-1E7C@MBLK-M33.sysops.aol.com>


I believe that all the readings of the poem could be plotted and would resolve around
a mean. Something like the Gaussian standard distribution. It's not that variant readings are
wrong, but that when you plot enough readings (large?sample) they begin to stack up?around 
some kind 'peak reading'; which could be the 'right' or just the 'popular' response to the poem.
Anyway, that is how literature gets built...with shared responses, each somewhat in error
pointing to that?'perfect reading' (which is not attainable, except in theory). Literature is not 
built from thousands of wildly variant (idiosyncratic) readings skewed in all directions.

Today I would say that there are blossoms and not real snow on that peak.

Finnegan
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 21:28:10 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:28:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
In-Reply-To: <147419.90313.qm@web54101.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <147419.90313.qm@web54101.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4988FD3A.8090708@nut-n-but.net>

John Jeffrey wrote:
> Crap!  I sent it before I finished....
>
>
> **
> Seeing Gwynn's name reminded me of a piece of paper I have tucked in a 
> book... a poem I've always loved that ends this way:
>
>          Glazed with ice,
> Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone,
>          And our own
> Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below--
>          Snow on snow.
>
> It's one of Gywnn's poems, and since it's similar to Housman's, I say 
> Sam is disqualified from commenting on the Housman.  (Besides, he 
> disagreed with my view.  And since I really like Sam's work, I just 
> can't have someone I admire disagreeing with me, so there you go.  
> Disqualified!  Sorry.)
>
> John
Hmm, since Mole and I also disagree with you, it means . . . 

--Bob
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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 22:02:30 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:02:30 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
References: <147419.90313.qm@web54101.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<4988FD3A.8090708@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <484676.30050.qm@web54102.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

...it means I'm going to bed.




________________________________
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 9:28:10 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?

 John Jeffrey wrote: 
Crap!  I sent it before I finished....



 
Seeing Gwynn's name reminded me of a piece of paper I have
tucked in a book... a poem I've always loved that ends this way:

         Glazed with ice,
Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone,
         And our own
Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below--
         Snow on snow.

It's one of Gywnn's poems, and since it's similar to Housman's, I say
Sam is disqualified from commenting on the Housman.  (Besides, he
disagreed with my view.  And since I really like Sam's work, I just
can't have someone I admire disagreeing with me, so there you go. 
Disqualified!  Sorry.)

John
Hmm, since Mole and I also disagree with you, it means . . .  

--Bob



      
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Feb  4 00:05:36 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 00:05:36 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
Message-ID: <d17.3f5b7e09.36ba7c20@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/3/2009 7:27:41 PM Central Standard Time, 
jjeffreymail at yahoo.com writes: 
> 
> Seeing Gwynn's name reminded me of a piece of paper I have tucked in a 
> book... a poem I've always loved that ends this way:
> 
>          Glazed with ice,
> Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone,
>          And our own
> Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below--
>          Snow on snow.
> 
> 
> 
> 
How nice!  Many thanks!  We got four inches of snow down her in mid-December, 
first time in over 20 years.  
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Feb  4 00:08:39 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 00:08:39 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
Message-ID: <d53.40837f85.36ba7cd7@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/3/2009 7:34:41 PM Central Standard Time, 
jjeffreymail at yahoo.com writes: 
> 
> Crap!  I sent it before I finished....
> 
> 
> 
> Seeing Gwynn's name reminded me of a piece of paper I have tucked in a 
> book... a poem I've always loved that ends this way:
> 
>          Glazed with ice,
> Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone,
>          And our own
> Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below--
>          Snow on snow.
> 
> It's one of Gywnn's poems, and since it's similar to Housman's, I say Sam is 
> disqualified from commenting on the Housman.  (Besides, he disagreed with my 
> view.  And since I really like Sam's work, I just can't have someone I 
> admire disagreeing with me, so there you go.  Disqualified!  Sorry.)
> 
> John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
But, dammit, this was literal.  It really did snow after the camellia started 
blooming (though that silly plant always started blooming in January).  We've 
moved since, but I trust it continues blooming in all kinds of weather!  It's 
not uncommon for azaleas to bloom down here and get nipped by a late frost.
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From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Wed Feb  4 00:17:18 2009
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:17:18 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bunting's advice
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902031028r6a9f666emdb42ecb1c47eaa28@mail.gmail.com>
References: <C5ADD48C.5AA5%grahamd@ripon.edu>
	<731bb17a0902031028r6a9f666emdb42ecb1c47eaa28@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1A33D87E-C4D1-496F-9DFC-698D5EC14932@ripon.edu>

Wish I did, but no. The Bunting site did seem to be legit, anyway. So  
perhaps one could contact the archivist there?

David Graham
Grahamd at Ripon.edu


On Feb 3, 2009, at 12:28 PM, "Jeff Newberry" <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> David,
>
> Do you know the source on this?  The website you provide doesn't  
> list one.
>
> Thanks for posting this list.
>
> Best,
> Jeff
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 12:01 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>  
> wrote:
>    Bunting's advice to young poets
>
> I SUGGEST
> 1. Compose aloud; poetry is a sound.
> 2. Vary rhythm enough to stir the emotion you want but not so as to  
> lose impetus.
> 3. Use spoken words and syntax.
> 4. Fear adjective; they bleed nouns. Hate the passive.
> 5. Jettison ornament gaily but keep shape
>
> Put your poem away till you forget it, then:
> 6. Cut out every word you dare.
> 7. Do it again a week later, and again.
>
> Never explain - your reader is as smart as you.
> -- 
> Source:  Basil Bunting Poetry Centre
> http://www.dur.ac.uk/basil-bunting-poetry.centre/poems.quotes/quotes/
>
>
>
> ====================================================
> 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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> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Blog:  http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com
> Obama Myths:  http://www.matthew25.org/paf/index.htm
>
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Wed Feb  4 11:00:06 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:00:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
	<FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>

I am curious to know if USAmericans on this list have heard or read the word
that Robin uses below, "whinge".  I hadn't heard it until fairly recently,
and still have a tough time reasoning out examples of it.  It's a lovely
word, but I can't nail how a whinge is different from complaining or
'bitching' [a commonly used but not lovely word, I think].  I've been told
that a 'whinge' is used for things about which nothing can be done, like bad
weather.  But apart from the weather example, I can't identify a whinge as
different from complaining or 'bitching'.
BTW, Robin's reference to "Terence" is for AEH's #62, the second to last
poem, in _The Shropshire Lad_ [which can be found at Project Gutenberg].

Judy

2009/2/3 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>

<snip>



>
> Within his narrow range, he *is powerful, but finally his imaginative world
> is tightly resticted.  The laureate of whinge.  He attempts to justify this
> in "Terence, this is stupid stuff ...", but the justification itself simply
> enacts the complaint he's trying to address.


<snip>
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Wed Feb  4 11:09:39 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:09:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
	<FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902040809t22d89771w242e32b68c64e92c@mail.gmail.com>

I've  read it and even used it, Judy, but I'm not sure I've ever heard it
from another's mouth. Come to think of it, I believe the summer I traveled
with Fred Truner (1974) may have been where I got it. There's and
explanation here (
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/03/on-whinge-and-whine.html ) which
matches my usage. It's not incompatible with what Robin says, I think ?
Robin?

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Judy Prince
<jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>wrote:

> I am curious to know if USAmericans on this list have heard or read the
> word that Robin uses below, "whinge".  I hadn't heard it until fairly
> recently, and still have a tough time reasoning out examples of it.  It's a
> lovely word, but I can't nail how a whinge is different from complaining or
> 'bitching' [a commonly used but not lovely word, I think].  I've been told
> that a 'whinge' is used for things about which nothing can be done, like bad
> weather.  But apart from the weather example, I can't identify a whinge as
> different from complaining or 'bitching'.
> BTW, Robin's reference to "Terence" is for AEH's #62, the second to last
> poem, in _The Shropshire Lad_ [which can be found at Project Gutenberg].
>
> Judy
>
> 2009/2/3 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
>
> <snip>
>
>
>
>>
>> Within his narrow range, he *is powerful, but finally his imaginative
>> world is tightly resticted.  The laureate of whinge.  He attempts to justify
>> this in "Terence, this is stupid stuff ...", but the justification itself
>> simply enacts the complaint he's trying to address.
>
>
> <snip>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From wwmorgan at ilstu.edu  Wed Feb  4 11:16:33 2009
From: wwmorgan at ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 10:16:33 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902040809t22d89771w242e32b68c64e92c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
	<FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
	<6768ac830902040809t22d89771w242e32b68c64e92c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <012701c986e3$f2d4a490$d87dedb0$@edu>

It's a favorite word of several of my favorite UK friends (I'm from the
US)-and it usually seems to assign a degree of self-pity and peevishness to
the person who is said to be "whingeing."

 

Bill Morgan

 

From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Snider
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 10:10 AM
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp, Views
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...

 

I've  read it and even used it, Judy, but I'm not sure I've ever heard it
from another's mouth. Come to think of it, I believe the summer I traveled
with Fred Truner (1974) may have been where I got it. There's and
explanation here (
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/03/on-whinge-and-whine.html ) which
matches my usage. It's not incompatible with what Robin says, I think -
Robin?

 

 

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
wrote:

I am curious to know if USAmericans on this list have heard or read the word
that Robin uses below, "whinge".  I hadn't heard it until fairly recently,
and still have a tough time reasoning out examples of it.  It's a lovely
word, but I can't nail how a whinge is different from complaining or
'bitching' [a commonly used but not lovely word, I think].  I've been told
that a 'whinge' is used for things about which nothing can be done, like bad
weather.  But apart from the weather example, I can't identify a whinge as
different from complaining or 'bitching'. 

 

BTW, Robin's reference to "Terence" is for AEH's #62, the second to last
poem, in _The Shropshire Lad_ [which can be found at Project Gutenberg].  

 

Judy

2009/2/3 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>

 

<snip>

 


Within his narrow range, he *is powerful, but finally his imaginative world
is tightly resticted.  The laureate of whinge.  He attempts to justify this
in "Terence, this is stupid stuff ...", but the justification itself simply
enacts the complaint he's trying to address.

 

<snip> 


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

 

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From susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net  Wed Feb  4 11:19:39 2009
From: susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net (Susan Holahan)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:19:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
	<FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <DDF71946-6883-4BB3-8F27-608145846424@sbcglobal.net>

Isn't "whinge" very close to "whine"? But isn't "whinge" still wholly  
a Brit locution? So any distinctions in how it's used can't really be  
appreciated, this side of the water?

Susan H.

Cruel thing to say about AEH, anyway, after spending so much time on  
him.


On Feb 4, 2009, at 11:00 AM, Judy Prince wrote:

> I am curious to know if USAmericans on this list have heard or read  
> the word that Robin uses below, "whinge".  I hadn't heard it until  
> fairly recently, and still have a tough time reasoning out examples  
> of it.  It's a lovely word, but I can't nail how a whinge is  
> different from complaining or 'bitching' [a commonly used but not  
> lovely word, I think].  I've been told that a 'whinge' is used for  
> things about which nothing can be done, like bad weather.  But apart  
> from the weather example, I can't identify a whinge as different  
> from complaining or 'bitching'.
>
> BTW, Robin's reference to "Terence" is for AEH's #62, the second to  
> last poem, in _The Shropshire Lad_ [which can be found at Project  
> Gutenberg].
>
> Judy
>
> 2009/2/3 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
>
> <snip>
>
>
> Within his narrow range, he *is powerful, but finally his  
> imaginative world is tightly resticted.  The laureate of whinge.  He  
> attempts to justify this in "Terence, this is stupid stuff ...", but  
> the justification itself simply enacts the complaint he's trying to  
> address.
>
> <snip>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Feb  4 11:30:54 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 16:30:54 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902040809t22d89771w242e32b68c64e92c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net><FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC><7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
	<6768ac830902040809t22d89771w242e32b68c64e92c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC>

<<
( http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/03/on-whinge-and-whine.html ) which 
matches my usage. It's not incompatible with what Robin says, I think ? 
Robin?
>>

Pretty much how I'd see it, Michael, with the proviso that it's generally 
northern English and mostly Scots.

{Hm -- whinging would overlap between northern England and Scotland, while 
girning would be locally Scottish.}

The OED doesn't flag "whinge (V)" as a peculiarly Scottish usage, but most 
of the examples given there are from Scots texts, and there's a long entry 
in the DSL.

Robin 




From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Wed Feb  4 11:52:58 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 08:52:58 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

I've got family living in Wales (near the England border) and they use whinge all the time, especially my ex, talking about the kids. ?It's a word used to describe kids--or kid-like complaining, "whinging about cleaning his room... ?about doing homework... ?about not getting any sweets at Tesco," which is why it's associated closer to whine.

I've never heard it here in the U.S. (New England).

But I don't know if I agree that Housman whinges, unless you mean the man and not his poetry. ?Then again, I've had enough of talking about Housman for a while. ?(And, yes, I still think that snow can mean snow as well as a methaphor!)

JohnJ

P.S. Another favorite Brit phrase is "taking the piss." ?That always cracks me up.



--- On Wed, 2/4/09, Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:
From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 11:30 AM

<<
( http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/03/on-whinge-and-whine.html ) which
matches my usage. It's not incompatible with what Robin says, I think ?
Robin?
>> 

Pretty much how I'd see it, Michael, with the proviso that it's
generally northern English and mostly Scots.

{Hm -- whinging would overlap between northern England and Scotland, while
girning would be locally Scottish.}

The OED doesn't flag "whinge (V)" as a peculiarly Scottish usage,
but most of the examples given there are from Scots texts, and there's a
long entry in the DSL.

Robin 

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



      
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Wed Feb  4 12:12:20 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 12:12:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC>
	<915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com>

Hey, John, actually the #62's quite funny, whether intentionally or not, I
dunno.  It has a poet called "Terence" jibe'ly addressed by a bloke who
thinks his poetry's pitiful, then Terence's response, the interpretations of
which I'd be curious to find out from some of you [but you, John, can take a
break, of course from all this AEH interp stuff].  How much irony AEH uses,
I can't be certain.
Last night I read as much as Google Books would allow of Graves' fascinating
biog of Housman, and it does anchor rather firmly his reasons for melancholy
and obsession with deaths, loss of loves and so on.

Back to talk of 'whinge':  Your examples are great!  HOWEVER, I still think
that the English have a [to them not] subtle different situational use for
the word.  It's that difference in the understanding of how it's applied
that I wanted to get, but apparently NP has no [few?] English folk.  Bloody
shame!  <g>

And now to advance a nother odd [at least it used to be, to me] English
syntax which I'd never heard 'til recently, but which's apparently used in
some places in the USAmerican northeast.  Examples:  "Jane wants picked up
at the train station" or "The bedroom needs cleaned".  More typical in the
USA for would be "Jane wants TO BE picked up...." or "The bedroom needs
CLEANING".

Best and enjoying this,

Judy

2009/2/4 John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com>

> I've got family living in Wales (near the England border) and they use
> whinge all the time, especially my ex, talking about the kids.  It's a word
> used to describe kids--or kid-like complaining, "whinging about cleaning his
> room...  about doing homework...  about not getting any sweets at Tesco,"
> which is why it's associated closer to whine.
>
> I've never heard it here in the U.S. (New England).
>
> But I don't know if I agree that Housman whinges, unless you mean the man
> and not his poetry.  Then again, I've had enough of talking about Housman
> for a while.  (And, yes, I still think that snow can mean snow as well as a
> methaphor!)
>
> JohnJ
>
> P.S. Another favorite Brit phrase is "taking the piss."  That always cracks
> me up.
>
>
>
> --- On *Wed, 2/4/09, Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>*wrote:
>
> From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <
> new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 11:30 AM
>
>
> <<
> ( http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/03/on-whinge-and-whine.html ) which
> matches my usage. It's not incompatible with what Robin says, I think ?
> Robin?
> >>
>
> Pretty much how I'd see it, Michael, with the proviso that it's
> generally northern English and mostly Scots.
>
> {Hm -- whinging would overlap between northern England and Scotland, while
> girning would be locally Scottish.}
>
> The OED doesn't flag "whinge (V)" as a peculiarly Scottish usage,
> but most of the examples given there are from Scots texts, and there's a
> long entry in the DSL.
>
> Robin
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://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
>
>
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From editor at arrowheadpress.co.uk  Wed Feb  4 12:20:33 2009
From: editor at arrowheadpress.co.uk (Roger Collett)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 17:20:33 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
References: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC><915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <027401c986ec$e49cb990$6501a8c0@ROCKY>

This particular syntax is Northern English, particularly Cumbria and Scottish, Dumfries and Galloway 
(and Ayrshire? Robin?)

Roger Collett
Arrowhead Press
http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality."
Jules de Gaultier

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Judy Prince 
  To: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com ; NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,Views 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 5:12 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...




  And now to advance a nother odd [at least it used to be, to me] English syntax which I'd never heard 'til recently, but which's apparently used in some places in the USAmerican northeast.  Examples:  "Jane wants picked up at the train station" or "The bedroom needs cleaned".  More typical in the USA for would be "Jane wants TO BE picked up...." or "The bedroom needs CLEANING".  


  Best and enjoying this,


  Judy



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From lsgrimes at stonegulch.com  Wed Feb  4 12:27:23 2009
From: lsgrimes at stonegulch.com (Linda Sue Grimes)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:27:23 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <2FD0BC5100BA4313B6AF6BC57C04127E@LindaSue>

No very...

lsg
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bob Grumman 
  To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 4:08 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...


  Quick question for anyone more knowledgeable than I about Housman's 
  work: how metaphoric a poet is he?

  --Bob

  _______________________________________________
  New-Poetry mailing list
  New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Feb  4 12:31:01 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 17:31:01 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <DDF71946-6883-4BB3-8F27-608145846424@sbcglobal.net>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net><FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC><7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
	<DDF71946-6883-4BB3-8F27-608145846424@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <D973CE5A57734ABC9D2C56C465A8EB7C@RobinPC>

From: Susan Holahan

<<
Cruel thing to say about AEH, anyway, after spending so much time on him.
>>

There are variant versions of the traditional song, "Isn't It Grand, Boys?", 
but while it post-dates Housman, it could have been composed with him in 
mind.

{I had a student once who coined the term "sentimental pessimism" to dismiss 
George Crabbe.  Struck me at the time that it was even more appropriate to 
Housman.}

Follows a short version ...

Robin

        Isn't It Grand, Boys?

Look at the coffin, with golden handles
Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody-well dead?

Let's not have a sniffle, let's have a bloody-good cry
And always remember: The longer you live
The sooner you'll bloody-well die

Look at the flowers, all bloody withered
Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody-well dead?

Let's not have a sniffle, let's have a bloody-good cry
And always remember: The longer you live
The sooner you'll bloody-well die.

Look at the mourners, bloody-great hypocrites
Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody-well dead?




From lsgrimes at stonegulch.com  Wed Feb  4 12:35:49 2009
From: lsgrimes at stonegulch.com (Linda Sue Grimes)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:35:49 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Housman and Metaphors
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><997098.69731.qm@web54110.mail.re2.yahoo.com><6768ac830902031614i67f5eccya8424341be2e10b9@mail.gmail.com>
	<4988E363.2080805@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <89710077C9264E45BB2F19348E662EC2@LindaSue>

No, Housman does not use many metaphors...most of his poems are narrative and quite literal...even when referring to the afterlife as in "Is my team ploughing," "Bredon Hill," and "To an athlete dying young"  

lsg
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bob Grumman 
  To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 6:37 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...


  I read/hear the poem working toward a climactic metaphor.  Again I ask, 
  is Housman one to use many metaphors in his poems?

  --Bob

  _______________________________________________
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  New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
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From susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net  Wed Feb  4 12:37:06 2009
From: susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net (Susan Holahan)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 12:37:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com>
References: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC>
	<915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <458B69AE-09D2-4D85-9353-BCC890FE3F8F@sbcglobal.net>


On Feb 4, 2009, at 12:12 PM, Judy Prince wrote:

>
> And now to advance a nother odd [at least it used to be, to me]  
> English syntax which I'd never heard 'til recently, but which's  
> apparently used in some places in the USAmerican northeast.   
> Examples:  "Jane wants picked up at the train station" or "The  
> bedroom needs cleaned".  More typical in the USA for would be "Jane  
> wants TO BE picked up...." or "The bedroom needs CLEANING".
>
>


Judy, where on earth? I've lived in lots of places in the Northeast  
and never come across that bit of weirdness. "Jane wants picking  
up. . ." --or that style of thing-- I've heard from Brits, and New  
Yorker writers used to borrow Brit style. Otherwise. . .

In the hills of west-central Vermont, a handyman type, warning me  
about a project, would say, "That'll be very spendy." Not syntax, of  
course, just vocab. But sweet.

Susan H.


From susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net  Wed Feb  4 12:41:25 2009
From: susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net (Susan Holahan)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 12:41:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <D973CE5A57734ABC9D2C56C465A8EB7C@RobinPC>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net><FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC><7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
	<DDF71946-6883-4BB3-8F27-608145846424@sbcglobal.net>
	<D973CE5A57734ABC9D2C56C465A8EB7C@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <855B59AE-F006-4A99-83E1-428E1A1C5145@sbcglobal.net>

Gee. Composed by a post-modern laureate of whinge, no doubt. Thanks  
for sharing.

Crabbe, at least, fulfilled the destiny his name announced for him.

Susan H.



On Feb 4, 2009, at 12:31 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:

> From: Susan Holahan
>
> <<
> Cruel thing to say about AEH, anyway, after spending so much time on  
> him.
>>>
>
> There are variant versions of the traditional song, "Isn't It Grand,  
> Boys?", but while it post-dates Housman, it could have been composed  
> with him in mind.
>
> {I had a student once who coined the term "sentimental pessimism" to  
> dismiss George Crabbe.  Struck me at the time that it was even more  
> appropriate to Housman.}
>
> Follows a short version ...
>
> Robin
>
>       Isn't It Grand, Boys?
>
> Look at the coffin, with golden handles
> Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody-well dead?
>
> Let's not have a sniffle, let's have a bloody-good cry
> And always remember: The longer you live
> The sooner you'll bloody-well die
>
> Look at the flowers, all bloody withered
> Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody-well dead?
>
> Let's not have a sniffle, let's have a bloody-good cry
> And always remember: The longer you live
> The sooner you'll bloody-well die.
>
> Look at the mourners, bloody-great hypocrites
> Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody-well dead?
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Feb  4 12:57:24 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 17:57:24 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <855B59AE-F006-4A99-83E1-428E1A1C5145@sbcglobal.net>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net><FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC><7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com><DDF71946-6883-4BB3-8F27-608145846424@sbcglobal.net><D973CE5A57734ABC9D2C56C465A8EB7C@RobinPC>
	<855B59AE-F006-4A99-83E1-428E1A1C5145@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <5AEF12F8004D4825AD002AF30578706F@RobinPC>

From: "Susan Holahan" <susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net>

> Gee. Composed by a post-modern laureate of whinge, no doubt.

Probably more music hall than post-modern.  The other resonant text which 
draws on the same tone is, "She Was Poor But Honest":

        "It's the same the whole world over,
        It's the poor what gets the blame,
        It's the rich what gets the pleasure,
        Isn't it a bloody shame?"

I'm not sure how the chronology runs, but this can be set beside Thomas 
Hardy's "The Ruined Maid":

        "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
        And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
        "My dear - a raw country girl, such as you be,
        Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.

Robin

*************************

                 She Was Poor But Honest


    She was poor but she was honest,
    Victim of a rich man's game.
    First he loved her, then he left her,
    And she lost her maiden name.

    Then she ran away to London
    For to hide her grief and shame.
    There she met an Army captain,
    And she lost her name again.

    "It's the same the whole world over.
    It's the poor that gets the blame.
    It's the rich that gets the pleasure.
    Ain't it all a bleeding shame?"

    See him riding in a carriage
    Past the gutter where she stands.
    He has made a stylish marriage,
    While she wrings her ringless hands.

    See him there at the theatre,
    In the front row with the best,
    While the girl that he has ruined
    Entertains a sordid guest.

    "It's the same the whole world over.
    It's the poor that gets the blame.
    It's the rich that gets the pleasure.
    Ain't it all a bleeding shame?"

    See her on the bridge at midnight,
    Crying "Farewell, blighted love".
    Then a scream, a splash, and . . Goodness!
    What is she a-doing of?

    When they dragged her from the river
    Water from her clothes they wrung.
    Though they thought that she was drownded,
    Still her corpse got up and sung:

    "It's the same the whole world over,
    It's the poor what gets the blame,
    It's the rich what gets the pleasure,
    Isn't it a blooming shame?"

****************************

Thomas Hardy: "The Ruined Maid"

        "O Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
        Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
        And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"
        "O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.

        "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
        Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
        And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"
        "Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.

        "At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
        And 'thik oon,' and 'the?s oon,'' and 't'other'; but now
        Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!"--
        "Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.

        "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
        But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
        And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!"
        "We never do work when we're ruined," said she.

        "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
        And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
        To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"
        "True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.

        "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
        And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
        "My dear - a raw country girl, such as you be,
        Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.





From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Feb  4 13:02:29 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 18:02:29 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <027401c986ec$e49cb990$6501a8c0@ROCKY>
References: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC><915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com><7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com>
	<027401c986ec$e49cb990$6501a8c0@ROCKY>
Message-ID: <CBE71C2FB7F24764BBE37D3451736872@RobinPC>

<<
This particular syntax is Northern English, particularly Cumbria and 
Scottish, Dumfries and Galloway
(and Ayrshire? Robin?)
>>

I think throughout central Scotland, Roger, certainly Ayrshire and Glasgow.

Pretty much Received Standard Spoken Scots -- I was already quite old before 
I was forced to realise it wasn't also RSE.

Robin 




From editor at arrowheadpress.co.uk  Wed Feb  4 13:11:46 2009
From: editor at arrowheadpress.co.uk (Roger Collett)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 18:11:46 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
References: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC><915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com><7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com><027401c986ec$e49cb990$6501a8c0@ROCKY>
	<CBE71C2FB7F24764BBE37D3451736872@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <02a501c986f4$0c291150$6501a8c0@ROCKY>

Ah well, the Scots always did claim Carlisle as theirs.
Back to lurking. Just keeping an eye on what Judy's up to, as per instructions from Beijing.

Roger 




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robin Hamilton" <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 6:02 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...


> <<
> This particular syntax is Northern English, particularly Cumbria and 
> Scottish, Dumfries and Galloway
> (and Ayrshire? Robin?)
>>>
> 
> I think throughout central Scotland, Roger, certainly Ayrshire and Glasgow.
> 
> Pretty much Received Standard Spoken Scots -- I was already quite old before 
> I was forced to realise it wasn't also RSE.
> 
> Robin 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Wed Feb  4 14:24:21 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 14:24:21 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <02a501c986f4$0c291150$6501a8c0@ROCKY>
References: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC>
	<915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com>
	<027401c986ec$e49cb990$6501a8c0@ROCKY>
	<CBE71C2FB7F24764BBE37D3451736872@RobinPC>
	<02a501c986f4$0c291150$6501a8c0@ROCKY>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902041124l65a072e0h22a2287e59fe195d@mail.gmail.com>

"I ain't been ruined", if that's wot you mean, Roger.  <g>  But must confess
that a recent Morrisey piccie in the Groan has certain fascinatin' um
rhythms........
Ah but then that's Irish, innit?  Not Scottish.

squirrulfoot

2009/2/4 Roger Collett <editor at arrowheadpress.co.uk>

> Ah well, the Scots always did claim Carlisle as theirs.
> Back to lurking. Just keeping an eye on what Judy's up to, as per
> instructions from Beijing.
>
> Roger
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robin Hamilton" <
> robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views" <
> new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 6:02 PM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
>
>
>  <<
>>
>> This particular syntax is Northern English, particularly Cumbria and
>> Scottish, Dumfries and Galloway
>> (and Ayrshire? Robin?)
>>
>>>
>>>>
>> I think throughout central Scotland, Roger, certainly Ayrshire and
>> Glasgow.
>>
>> Pretty much Received Standard Spoken Scots -- I was already quite old
>> before I was forced to realise it wasn't also RSE.
>>
>> Robin
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Wed Feb  4 15:20:51 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 21:20:51 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fan Ogilvie
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902041220l79f471b9lbd25249e84ada67f@mail.gmail.com>

I do recommend this book, dearly!
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/you-life----new-book/story.aspx?guid={9CD1E0EC-C8FC-465F-BEEE-CB93152C4B19}&dist=msr_2



-- 
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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From susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net  Wed Feb  4 19:54:38 2009
From: susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net (Susan Holahan)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 19:54:38 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <5AEF12F8004D4825AD002AF30578706F@RobinPC>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net><FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC><7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com><DDF71946-6883-4BB3-8F27-608145846424@sbcglobal.net><D973CE5A57734ABC9D2C56C465A8EB7C@RobinPC>
	<855B59AE-F006-4A99-83E1-428E1A1C5145@sbcglobal.net>
	<5AEF12F8004D4825AD002AF30578706F@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <AC7843C3-E731-4C1C-BFF1-4E062C2FCE95@sbcglobal.net>

Who would part with the moment when the poor-but-honest one,  
apparently dead, rises to give us the chorus one more?

The Hardy is marvelously twisty, as he often is.

And your resources for discussion are remarkable.

Thanks.

Susan H.


On Feb 4, 2009, at 12:57 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:

> From: "Susan Holahan" <susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net>
>
>> Gee. Composed by a post-modern laureate of whinge, no doubt.
>
> Probably more music hall than post-modern.  The other resonant text  
> which draws on the same tone is, "She Was Poor But Honest":
>
>       "It's the same the whole world over,
>       It's the poor what gets the blame,
>       It's the rich what gets the pleasure,
>       Isn't it a bloody shame?"
>
> I'm not sure how the chronology runs, but this can be set beside  
> Thomas Hardy's "The Ruined Maid":
>
>       "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
>       And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
>       "My dear - a raw country girl, such as you be,
>       Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.
>
> Robin
>
> *************************
>
>                She Was Poor But Honest
>
>
>   She was poor but she was honest,
>   Victim of a rich man's game.
>   First he loved her, then he left her,
>   And she lost her maiden name.
>
>   Then she ran away to London
>   For to hide her grief and shame.
>   There she met an Army captain,
>   And she lost her name again.
>
>   "It's the same the whole world over.
>   It's the poor that gets the blame.
>   It's the rich that gets the pleasure.
>   Ain't it all a bleeding shame?"
>
>   See him riding in a carriage
>   Past the gutter where she stands.
>   He has made a stylish marriage,
>   While she wrings her ringless hands.
>
>   See him there at the theatre,
>   In the front row with the best,
>   While the girl that he has ruined
>   Entertains a sordid guest.
>
>   "It's the same the whole world over.
>   It's the poor that gets the blame.
>   It's the rich that gets the pleasure.
>   Ain't it all a bleeding shame?"
>
>   See her on the bridge at midnight,
>   Crying "Farewell, blighted love".
>   Then a scream, a splash, and . . Goodness!
>   What is she a-doing of?
>
>   When they dragged her from the river
>   Water from her clothes they wrung.
>   Though they thought that she was drownded,
>   Still her corpse got up and sung:
>
>   "It's the same the whole world over,
>   It's the poor what gets the blame,
>   It's the rich what gets the pleasure,
>   Isn't it a blooming shame?"
>
> ****************************
>
> Thomas Hardy: "The Ruined Maid"
>
>       "O Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
>       Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
>       And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"
>       "O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.
>
>       "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
>       Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
>       And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"
>       "Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.
>
>       "At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
>       And 'thik oon,' and 'the?s oon,'' and 't'other'; but now
>       Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!"--
>       "Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.
>
>       "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
>       But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
>       And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!"
>       "We never do work when we're ruined," said she.
>
>       "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
>       And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
>       To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"
>       "True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.
>
>       "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
>       And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
>       "My dear - a raw country girl, such as you be,
>       Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb  4 20:04:48 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:04:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] History of Flarf 
Message-ID: <8CB5544E0771331-110C-F73@MBLK-M22.sysops.aol.com>


http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/02/books/flarf-from-glory-days-to-glory-hole


?It was a full year-and-a-half before the next book, Drew Gardner?s Petroleum Hat (Roof, 2005), saw publication, and with it came the first serious Flarf blowback.


A glowing review of Gardner?s book by Joyelle McSweeny in the Constant Critic compared one of his poems, ?Chicks Dig War,? to Allen Ginsberg?s ?Howl?: ?More women than men are enjoying the war [?] Phallocentric chicks:/They dig guys with big wars.?


This did not go down so well with some poets, for whom Ginsberg is a kind of Christ figure. On a listserv based in North Carolina, one poet railed against ?Chicks Dig War,? likening Flarf, generally, to ?gang-bang pornos.?


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From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb  4 20:55:04 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:55:04 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] ursprache is 3
Message-ID: <8CB554BE5DAF204-110C-1213@MBLK-M22.sysops.aol.com>

Last week my blog had its third anniversary...
http://ursprache.blogspot.com/

A recent quote post...

Together with alliteration and formulaic phrasing, Old English poetry used patterns of repetition, echo, and interlacement to create powerfully resonant blocks of verse. There is an aesthetic quality to this poetry, a quality of intricate word weaving that moves the reader, or the listener, through the narrative or descriptive moment. In fact, one of the expressions used for making poetry in Old English was wordum wrixlan?to weave together words. There was a fabric of language for the Anglo-Saxons, a patterning of sounds and sense that matched the intricate patterning of their visual arts: serpentine designs and complex interlocking geometric forms in manuscript illumination or in metalwork are the visual equivalent of the interlocking patterns of the verse.

?Seth Lerer, ?Caedmon Learns to Sing,? Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language (Columbia University Press, 2007)

My m.o. is that you have read a handful of my aphoristic musings ars poetica?to get to a posted quote.
Finnegan


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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Wed Feb  4 23:39:30 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:39:30 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq,
	Doc Williams and old Walt...where's Ginsberg?
Message-ID: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org>

Among the inevitable roster of athletes and entertainers inducted into 
the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Monday, three literary luminaries were 
recognized by the state for their contributions. From a shortlist of 
nominees, New Jersey residents selected Pulitzer Prize?winning poet 
William Carlos Williams, who also served the community as a physician; 
Walt Whitman, who lived in Camden during the latter part of his life; 
and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who attended school in Hackensack.

Williams?s granddaughter, Daphne Fox-Williams, who lives in the poet?s 
hometown of Rutherford, told the /Star-Ledger /that the honor was 
anticipated. ?He contributed his life to New Jersey as much as anybody 
else who's ever lived here,? Fox-Williams said of her grandfather. ?The 
recognition is long overdue.?

The writers join astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and 
basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, as well as seven others, in the Hall 
of Fame's second round of inductions. Toni Morrison was among the first 
honorees in 2007. A formal induction ceremony will take place on May 3 
at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.

?This group of hall of famers embodies the spirit of New Jersey, a 
combination of drive, determination and creativity that has led them to 
greatness,? New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said in a statement. ?The 
New Jersey hall should serve as a reminder that the people of New Jersey 
strive for excellence and engage in myriad productive and rewarding 
activities that help society and give back to mankind.?

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb  5 01:39:46 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 07:39:46 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] ursprache is 3
In-Reply-To: <8CB554BE5DAF204-110C-1213@MBLK-M22.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB554BE5DAF204-110C-1213@MBLK-M22.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902042239x4552f34dvb4e5d890eca8e1d1@mail.gmail.com>

A poem by itself.

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 2:55 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Last week my blog had its third anniversary...
> http://ursprache.blogspot.com/
>
> A recent quote post...
>
> Together with alliteration and formulaic phrasing, Old English poetry used
> patterns of repetition, echo, and interlacement to create powerfully
> resonant blocks of verse. There is an aesthetic quality to this poetry, a
> quality of intricate word weaving that moves the reader, or the listener,
> through the narrative or descriptive moment. In fact, one of the expressions
> used for making poetry in Old English was *wordum wrixlan*?to weave
> together words. There was a fabric of language for the Anglo-Saxons, a
> patterning of sounds and sense that matched the intricate patterning of
> their visual arts: serpentine designs and complex interlocking geometric
> forms in manuscript illumination or in metalwork are the visual equivalent
> of the interlocking patterns of the verse.
>
> ?Seth Lerer, "Caedmon Learns to Sing," *Inventing English: A Portable
> History of the Language* (Columbia University Press, 2007)
>
> My m.o. is that you have read a handful of my aphoristic musings ars
> poetica to get to a posted quote.
> Finnegan
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? *Find
> out now!<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb  5 01:40:31 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 07:40:31 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] ursprache is 3
In-Reply-To: <8CB554BE5DAF204-110C-1213@MBLK-M22.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB554BE5DAF204-110C-1213@MBLK-M22.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902042240uc529a11l57125de82580adab@mail.gmail.com>

And Happiest Birthday to _ursprache_!

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 2:55 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Last week my blog had its third anniversary...
> http://ursprache.blogspot.com/
>
> A recent quote post...
>
> Together with alliteration and formulaic phrasing, Old English poetry used
> patterns of repetition, echo, and interlacement to create powerfully
> resonant blocks of verse. There is an aesthetic quality to this poetry, a
> quality of intricate word weaving that moves the reader, or the listener,
> through the narrative or descriptive moment. In fact, one of the expressions
> used for making poetry in Old English was *wordum wrixlan*?to weave
> together words. There was a fabric of language for the Anglo-Saxons, a
> patterning of sounds and sense that matched the intricate patterning of
> their visual arts: serpentine designs and complex interlocking geometric
> forms in manuscript illumination or in metalwork are the visual equivalent
> of the interlocking patterns of the verse.
>
> ?Seth Lerer, "Caedmon Learns to Sing," *Inventing English: A Portable
> History of the Language* (Columbia University Press, 2007)
>
> My m.o. is that you have read a handful of my aphoristic musings ars
> poetica to get to a posted quote.
> Finnegan
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? *Find
> out now!<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb  5 09:27:48 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 09:27:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq,Doc Williams and old Walt...where's
	Ginsberg?
In-Reply-To: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org>
References: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> Among the inevitable roster of athletes and entertainers inducted into 
> the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Monday, three literary luminaries were 
> recognized by the state for their contributions. From a shortlist of 
> nominees, New Jersey residents selected Pulitzer Prize?winning poet 
> William Carlos Williams, who also served the community as a physician; 
> Walt Whitman, who lived in Camden during the latter part of his life; 
> and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who attended school in Hackensack.
>
> Williams?s granddaughter, Daphne Fox-Williams, who lives in the poet?s 
> hometown of Rutherford, told the /Star-Ledger /that the honor was 
> anticipated. ?He contributed his life to New Jersey as much as anybody 
> else who's ever lived here,? Fox-Williams said of her grandfather. 
> ?The recognition is long overdue.?
>
> The writers join astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and 
> basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, as well as seven others, in the 
> Hall of Fame's second round of inductions. Toni Morrison was among the 
> first honorees in 2007. A formal induction ceremony will take place on 
> May 3 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
>
> ?This group of hall of famers embodies the spirit of New Jersey, a 
> combination of drive, determination and creativity that has led them 
> to greatness,? New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said in a statement. 
> ?The New Jersey hall should serve as a reminder that the people of New 
> Jersey strive for excellence and engage in myriad productive and 
> rewarding activities that help society and give back to mankind.?
>
I understand David Graham has been invited to the presentation to do a 
reading of "The Red Wheelbarrow."

--Bob



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb  5 11:01:17 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:01:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq,Doc Williams and old Walt...where's
	Ginsberg?
In-Reply-To: <498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>
References: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org> <498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org>

Will they pay by the word?

Bob Grumman wrote:
> TheOldMole wrote:
>> Among the inevitable roster of athletes and entertainers inducted 
>> into the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Monday, three literary luminaries 
>> were recognized by the state for their contributions. From a 
>> shortlist of nominees, New Jersey residents selected Pulitzer 
>> Prize?winning poet William Carlos Williams, who also served the 
>> community as a physician; Walt Whitman, who lived in Camden during 
>> the latter part of his life; and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who attended 
>> school in Hackensack.
>>
>> Williams?s granddaughter, Daphne Fox-Williams, who lives in the 
>> poet?s hometown of Rutherford, told the /Star-Ledger /that the honor 
>> was anticipated. ?He contributed his life to New Jersey as much as 
>> anybody else who's ever lived here,? Fox-Williams said of her 
>> grandfather. ?The recognition is long overdue.?
>>
>> The writers join astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and 
>> basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, as well as seven others, in the 
>> Hall of Fame's second round of inductions. Toni Morrison was among 
>> the first honorees in 2007. A formal induction ceremony will take 
>> place on May 3 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
>>
>> ?This group of hall of famers embodies the spirit of New Jersey, a 
>> combination of drive, determination and creativity that has led them 
>> to greatness,? New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said in a statement. 
>> ?The New Jersey hall should serve as a reminder that the people of 
>> New Jersey strive for excellence and engage in myriad productive and 
>> rewarding activities that help society and give back to mankind.?
>>
> I understand David Graham has been invited to the presentation to do a 
> reading of "The Red Wheelbarrow."
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb  5 11:46:16 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 17:46:16 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq, Doc Williams and old Walt...where's 
	Ginsberg?
In-Reply-To: <498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org>
References: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org> <498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>
	<498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902050846i1e7ce557k62a87171477ab899@mail.gmail.com>

You terrible long tongues (as they say in Italy), I loved it instead, and I
think they should keep it up!


On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 5:01 PM, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:

> Will they pay by the word?
>
>
> Bob Grumman wrote:
>
>> TheOldMole wrote:
>>
>>> Among the inevitable roster of athletes and entertainers inducted into
>>> the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Monday, three literary luminaries were
>>> recognized by the state for their contributions. From a shortlist of
>>> nominees, New Jersey residents selected Pulitzer Prize?winning poet William
>>> Carlos Williams, who also served the community as a physician; Walt Whitman,
>>> who lived in Camden during the latter part of his life; and F. Scott
>>> Fitzgerald, who attended school in Hackensack.
>>>
>>> Williams's granddaughter, Daphne Fox-Williams, who lives in the poet's
>>> hometown of Rutherford, told the /Star-Ledger /that the honor was
>>> anticipated. "He contributed his life to New Jersey as much as anybody else
>>> who's ever lived here," Fox-Williams said of her grandfather. "The
>>> recognition is long overdue."
>>>
>>> The writers join astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and
>>> basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, as well as seven others, in the Hall of
>>> Fame's second round of inductions. Toni Morrison was among the first
>>> honorees in 2007. A formal induction ceremony will take place on May 3 at
>>> the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
>>>
>>> "This group of hall of famers embodies the spirit of New Jersey, a
>>> combination of drive, determination and creativity that has led them to
>>> greatness," New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said in a statement. "The New
>>> Jersey hall should serve as a reminder that the people of New Jersey strive
>>> for excellence and engage in myriad productive and rewarding activities that
>>> help society and give back to mankind."
>>>
>>>  I understand David Graham has been invited to the presentation to do a
>> reading of "The Red Wheelbarrow."
>>
>> --Bob
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
> --
> Tad Richards
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
> http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb  5 14:10:12 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:10:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq,
	Doc Williams and old Walt...where'sGinsberg?
In-Reply-To: <498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org>
References: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org> <498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>
	<498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498B3994.5030205@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> Will they pay by the word?
Well, I heard they offered David ten thousand, but but he turned it 
down, memorably saying that the poem was so good, he'd pay /them/ to let 
him read it.  So if we don't hear from him for a while, it'll be because 
he's practicing.

--Bob


>
> Bob Grumman wrote:
>> TheOldMole wrote:
>>> Among the inevitable roster of athletes and entertainers inducted 
>>> into the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Monday, three literary 
>>> luminaries were recognized by the state for their contributions. 
>>> From a shortlist of nominees, New Jersey residents selected Pulitzer 
>>> Prize?winning poet William Carlos Williams, who also served the 
>>> community as a physician; Walt Whitman, who lived in Camden during 
>>> the latter part of his life; and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who attended 
>>> school in Hackensack.
>>>
>>> Williams?s granddaughter, Daphne Fox-Williams, who lives in the 
>>> poet?s hometown of Rutherford, told the /Star-Ledger /that the honor 
>>> was anticipated. ?He contributed his life to New Jersey as much as 
>>> anybody else who's ever lived here,? Fox-Williams said of her 
>>> grandfather. ?The recognition is long overdue.?
>>>
>>> The writers join astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and 
>>> basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, as well as seven others, in the 
>>> Hall of Fame's second round of inductions. Toni Morrison was among 
>>> the first honorees in 2007. A formal induction ceremony will take 
>>> place on May 3 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
>>>
>>> ?This group of hall of famers embodies the spirit of New Jersey, a 
>>> combination of drive, determination and creativity that has led them 
>>> to greatness,? New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said in a statement. 
>>> ?The New Jersey hall should serve as a reminder that the people of 
>>> New Jersey strive for excellence and engage in myriad productive and 
>>> rewarding activities that help society and give back to mankind.?
>>>
>> I understand David Graham has been invited to the presentation to do 
>> a reading of "The Red Wheelbarrow."
>>
>> --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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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Thu Feb  5 14:11:18 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 13:11:18 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq,
	Doc Williams and old Walt...where'sGinsberg?
In-Reply-To: <498B3994.5030205@nut-n-but.net>
References: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org> <498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>
	<498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org> <498B3994.5030205@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <74DC637B-6600-4735-BEB1-0BCFB930EA61@ripon.edu>

Old joke about the famously laconic Calvin Coolidge:

Citizen:  "Mr. President, I've made a bet that I can get you to say  
more than two words.  What do you think of that?"

President Coolidge:  "You lose."


--------

William Carlos Williams?:  what a blabbermouth. . . .


========================================
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 Feb 5, 2009, at 1:10 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:

> TheOldMole wrote:
>>
>> Will they pay by the word?
> Well, I heard they offered David ten thousand, but but he turned it  
> down, memorably saying that the poem was so good, he'd pay them to  
> let him read it.  So if we don't hear from him for a while, it'll  
> be because he's practicing.
>
> --Bob

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From skip at louisiana.edu  Thu Feb  5 14:13:09 2009
From: skip at louisiana.edu (Skip Fox)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 13:13:09 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Payment for Poetry
In-Reply-To: <881193.31765.qm@web83308.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <8F79F9039A4D452692CE20D0047F1342@win.louisiana.edu>

What I often tell graduate students: "Hell, you damn near have to pay people
to read it* any more. That's why they invented creative writing in grad
school."

 

*poetry

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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb  5 14:20:46 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:20:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq,
	Doc Williams and old Walt...where'sGinsberg?
In-Reply-To: <498B3994.5030205@nut-n-but.net>
References: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org>
	<498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>	<498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org>
	<498B3994.5030205@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498B3C0E.5010801@opus40.org>

SO much depends....

so MUCH depends....

so much dePENDS....

ah, the agony of it!

Bob Grumman wrote:
> TheOldMole wrote:
>> Will they pay by the word?
> Well, I heard they offered David ten thousand, but but he turned it 
> down, memorably saying that the poem was so good, he'd pay /them/ to 
> let him read it.  So if we don't hear from him for a while, it'll be 
> because he's practicing.
>
> --Bob
>
>
>>
>> Bob Grumman wrote:
>>> TheOldMole wrote:
>>>> Among the inevitable roster of athletes and entertainers inducted 
>>>> into the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Monday, three literary 
>>>> luminaries were recognized by the state for their contributions. 
>>>> From a shortlist of nominees, New Jersey residents selected 
>>>> Pulitzer Prize?winning poet William Carlos Williams, who also 
>>>> served the community as a physician; Walt Whitman, who lived in 
>>>> Camden during the latter part of his life; and F. Scott Fitzgerald, 
>>>> who attended school in Hackensack.
>>>>
>>>> Williams?s granddaughter, Daphne Fox-Williams, who lives in the 
>>>> poet?s hometown of Rutherford, told the /Star-Ledger /that the 
>>>> honor was anticipated. ?He contributed his life to New Jersey as 
>>>> much as anybody else who's ever lived here,? Fox-Williams said of 
>>>> her grandfather. ?The recognition is long overdue.?
>>>>
>>>> The writers join astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and 
>>>> basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, as well as seven others, in the 
>>>> Hall of Fame's second round of inductions. Toni Morrison was among 
>>>> the first honorees in 2007. A formal induction ceremony will take 
>>>> place on May 3 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
>>>>
>>>> ?This group of hall of famers embodies the spirit of New Jersey, a 
>>>> combination of drive, determination and creativity that has led 
>>>> them to greatness,? New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said in a 
>>>> statement. ?The New Jersey hall should serve as a reminder that the 
>>>> people of New Jersey strive for excellence and engage in myriad 
>>>> productive and rewarding activities that help society and give back 
>>>> to mankind.?
>>>>
>>> I understand David Graham has been invited to the presentation to do 
>>> a reading of "The Red Wheelbarrow."
>>>
>>> --Bob
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb  5 14:31:54 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:31:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Kevin Davies & the state of the art
Message-ID: <8CB55DF896C8E7A-15B8-170F@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com>


http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090223/davis

Happy Thoughts!: The Poetry of Kevin Davies By Jordan Davis
This article appeared in the February 23, 2009 edition of The Nation.

February 4, 2009


Since the decline of patronage and the rise of the English department, high-minded poets from Ezra Pound and Charles Olson on through the Language poets have spent much of the energy they might otherwise have devoted to vocables and sense to writing essays of noisy, semicomprehensible worry--about poetry's place in society, society's place in poetry, poetry's place in poetry. Davies's poetry is mercifully free of that kind of self-regard, which it has replaced with an even better, more archaic form of self-regard: alienation and self-loathing. This is actually a promising development. For all its proclaimed devotion to negativity, the poetic avant-garde has until now had no curmudgeon with the charm or persistence of a Philip Larkin or Dorothy Parker. 


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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb  5 14:56:04 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 20:56:04 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Payment for Poetry
In-Reply-To: <8F79F9039A4D452692CE20D0047F1342@win.louisiana.edu>
References: <881193.31765.qm@web83308.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<8F79F9039A4D452692CE20D0047F1342@win.louisiana.edu>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902051156i4eb62d9chad4db8c7948fbecc@mail.gmail.com>

I often thought the same thing, and it also came out clearly when some
people did not want to read their poems

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 8:13 PM, Skip Fox <skip at louisiana.edu> wrote:

>  What I often tell graduate students: "Hell, you damn near have to pay
> people to read it* any more. That's why they invented creative writing in
> grad school."
>
>
>
> *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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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb  5 15:27:07 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:27:07 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book of note,
	plus various books on craft and writing poetry
Message-ID: <8CB55E73FD66716-15B8-1BB5@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com>


I just encountered this book on the WomPo list, I thought I'd pass it on...looks like it could be good:

Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry 
http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/BID1508.htm


Also, they had a thread going on craft books...here's the list compiled & posted by Joan Mazza:

Addonizio, Kim and Laux, Dorianne. The Poet?s Companion: A Guide to 
Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Norton. 1997


Allen, Donald. Poetics of the New American Poetry. Grove Press. 1974.


Arp, Thomas R. Perrine?s Sound and Sense. Harcourt Brace. 1997.


Behn, Robin. The Practice of Poetry. HarperPerennial. 1992


Bender, Sheila. Writing Personal Poetry: Creating Poems From Your Life 

Experiences. Writer?s Digest Books. 1998


Buckley, Christopher and Christopher Merrill, eds. What Will Suffice: 

Contemporary Poets on the Art of Poetry. Salt Lake City. 1995.


Bugeja, Michael J. The Art and Craft of Poetry. Writer?s Digest Books. 1994.

Bugeja, Michael J. Poet?s Guide: How to Publish and Perform Your Work. Story 
Line Press. 1995.


Citino, David. The Eye of the Poet: Six Views of the Art and Craft of 
Poetry. Oxford University Press. 2002


Cook, Jon, ed. Poetry in Theory: Anthology 1900 ? 2000. Wiley-Blackwell. 
2004.


Corn, Alfred. The Poem?s Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody. Story Line Press. 
2003.


Dobyns, Stephen. Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry. St. Martin?s 
Griffin. 1997.


Drake, Barbara. Writing Poetry. Harco
urt Brace. 1983.


Drury, John. Creating Poetry. Writer?s Digest Books. 1991

Drury, John. The Poetry Dictionary. Writer?s Digest Books. 1995.


Elledge, Jim. Sweet Nothings: An Anthology of Rock and Roll in American 
Poetry. Indiana University Press. 1994


Ellmann, Richard. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Norton. 1988


Ferguson, Margaret. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Norton. 1996


Finch, Annie, ed. A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary 
Women. Story Line Press. 1194


Fiske, Robert Hartwell and Laura Cherry, eds. Poem, Revised: 54 Poems, 
Revisions, Discussions. Marion Street Press. 2008


Fox, John. Finding What You Didn?t Lose: Expressing Your Truth and 
Creativity Through Poem-Making. Tarcher/Putnam. 1995.


Fox, John. Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making. Tarcher/Putnam. 
1997.


Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. McGraw-Hill. 1979.


Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. 
Shambhala. 1986.


Hall, Donald. Claims for Poetry. University of Michigan. 1982.


Hass, Robert. Twentieth Century Pleasures. W.W. Norton. 1985.


Hirsch, Edward. How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry. Harvest. 
1999.


Hirshfield, Jane. Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (Essays). 
HarperCollins. 1997.


Hollander, John. Rhyme?s Reason. Yale University Press. 1981.


Hugo, Richard. The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and 
Writing. Norton. 1979.


Kinzie, Mary. A Poet?s Guide to Poetry. T
he University of Chicago Press. 
1999.


Kooser, Ted. The Poetry Home Repair Manual. University of Nebraska Press. 
2005.


Kowit, Steve. In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet?s Portable Workshop. 
Norton. 1997.


Lammon, Martin. Written in Water, Written in Stone: Twenty Years of Poets on 
Poetry. University of Michigan. 1996.


Lehman, David. Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms: 65 Leading Contemporary 
Poets Select and Comment on Their Poems. Collier/Macmillan. 1987.


Longenbach, James. The Art of the Poetic Line. Graywolf. 2007.


Mayes, Frances. The Discovery of Poetry. Harvest/Harcourt. 2001.


Myers, Jack. The Portable Poetry Workshop. Thomson/Wadsworth. 2005.


Oliver, Mary. A Poetry Handbook. Harvest Original. 1995.

Oliver, Mary. Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading 
Metrical Verse. Mariner/Houghton Mifflin. 1998

Oliver, Mary. Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems. Mariner Books. 
2000.


Orr, Gregory. Poetry as Survival. University of Georgia Press. 2002

Orr, Gregory & Ellen Bryant Voigt. Poets Teaching Poets, Self, and the 
World. University of Michigan Press. 1996.


Packard, William. The Art of Poetry Writing. St. Martin?s Press. 1992


Padgett, Ron. Handbook of Poetic Forms. Teachers & Writers Collaborative. 
1987.


Paschen, Elise. Poetry Speaks: Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from 
Tennyson to Plath. Sourcebooks MediaFusion. 2001.


Reeves, Judy. A Writer?s Book of Days: A Spirited Companion and Lively Muse 
for the Writing Life. New World L
ibrary. 1999.


Richards, Mary Caroline. Centering in Pottery, Poetry and the Person. 
Wesleyan. 1989.


Roethke, Theodore. David Wagoner, Intro. Straw for the Fire: From the 
Notebooks of Theodore Roethke. Copper Canyon Press. 2006

Roethke, Theodore. On Poetry and Craft. Copper Canyon Press. 2001.


Rukeyser, Muriel. The Life of Poetry. Paris Press. 1996.


Snodgrass, W.D. De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Bad. Graywolf Press. 
2001.


Sontag, Kate and David Graham, eds. After Confession: Poetry as 
Autobiography. Graywolf Press. 2001


Stafford, William. Writing the Australian Crawl. University of Michigan 
Press. 1978.

Stafford, William. You Must Revise Your Life. University of Michigan Press. 
1987.

Stafford, William. Crossing Unmarked Snow. University of Michigan Press. 
1998.

Stafford, William. The Answers are Inside the Mountains. University of 
Michigan Press. 2003.


Sweeney, Matthew. Writing Poetry and Getting Published. NTC Publishing. 
1997.


Turco, Lewis. The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics. UPNE. 2000.


Wallace, Robert. Writing Poems. HarperCollinsCollegePublishers. 1996.


Webster?s Compact Rhyming Dictionary. Miriam-Webster, Inc. 1987


Woolridge, Susan G. Poemcrazy: freeing your life with words. Clarkson 
Potter. 1996.


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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb  5 16:14:17 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:14:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] =?utf-8?q?Richard_Howard=E2=80=99s_Jewish_Roots?=
Message-ID: <8CB55EDD6DCCCC7-B78-CDF@WEBMAIL-MA17.sysops.aol.com>


Praising Sacred Places: Richard Howard?s Jewish Roots

By Benjamin Ivry
Tue. Feb 03, 2009


For a half-century, the poet, critic, and translator Richard Howard has been an expert investigator of artistic motivations and inspirations, yet his own roots, as a product of Cleveland?s Jewish middle class, have rarely been explored. On Feb 8, Howard will give a reading at New York?s Metropolitan Museum to introduce the new Pierre Bonnard exhibit, logically enough, since he translated ?Bonnard/Matisse: Letters Between Friends? (Abrams,1992), among hundreds of other books.

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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb  5 16:26:19 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:26:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book of note, plus various books on craft and writing
	poetry
In-Reply-To: <8CB55E73FD66716-15B8-1BB5@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB55E73FD66716-15B8-1BB5@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498B597B.4050402@opus40.org>

50 Contemporary Poets: The Creative Process 
<http://www.amazon.com/50-Contemporary-Poets-Creative-Process/dp/0679303170/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233868699&sr=1-6>  
-Alberta Turner

jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> I just encountered this book on the WomPo list, I thought I'd pass it 
> on...looks like it could be good:
>
> Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry
> *http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/BID1508.htm*
>
>
> Also, they had a thread going on craft books...here's the list 
> compiled & posted by Joan Mazza:
>
> Addonizio, Kim and Laux, Dorianne. The Poet?s Companion: A Guide to
> Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Norton. 1997
>
> Allen, Donald. Poetics of the New American Poetry. Grove Press. 1974.
>
> Arp, Thomas R. Perrine?s Sound and Sense. Harcourt Brace. 1997.
>
> Behn, Robin. The Practice of Poetry. HarperPerennial. 1992
>
> Bender, Sheila. Writing Personal Poetry: Creating Poems From Your Life
>
> Experiences. Writer?s Digest Books. 1998
>
> Buckley, Christopher and Christopher Merrill, eds. What Will Suffice:
>
> Contemporary Poets on the Art of Poetry. Salt Lake City. 1995.
>
> Bugeja, Michael J. The Art and Craft of Poetry. Writer?s Digest Books. 
> 1994.
> Bugeja, Michael J. Poet?s Guide: How to Publish and Perform Your Work. 
> Story
> Line Press. 1995.
>
> Citino, David. The Eye of the Poet: Six Views of the Art and Craft of
> Poetry. Oxford Unive rsity Press. 2002
>
> Cook, Jon, ed. Poetry in Theory: Anthology 1900 ? 2000. Wiley-Blackwell.
> 2004.
>
> Corn, Alfred. The Poem?s Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody. Story Line 
> Press.
> 2003.
>
> Dobyns, Stephen. Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry. St. Martin?s
> Griffin. 1997.
>
> Drake, Barbara. Writing Poetry. Harcourt Brace. 1983.
>
> Drury, John. Creating Poetry. Writer?s Digest Books. 1991
> Drury, John. The Poetry Dictionary. Writer?s Digest Books. 1995.
>
> Elledge, Jim. Sweet Nothings: An Anthology of Rock and Roll in American
> Poetry. Indiana University Press. 1994
>
> Ellmann, Richard. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Norton. 1988
>
> Ferguson, Margaret. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Norton. 1996
>
> Finch, Annie, ed. A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary
> Women. Story Line Press. 1194
>
> Fiske, Robert Hartwell and Laura Cherry, eds. Poem, Revised: 54 Poems,
> Revisions, Discussions. Marion Street Press. 2008
>
> Fox, John. Finding What You Didn?t Lose: Expressing Your Truth and
> Creativity Through Poem-Making. Tarcher/Putnam. 1995.
>
> Fox, John. Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making. 
> Tarcher/Putnam.
> 1997.
>
> Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. McGraw-Hill. 1979.
>
> Goldberg, Natalie. Wr iting Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within.
> Shambhala. 1986.
>
> Hall, Donald. Claims for Poetry. University of Michigan. 1982.
>
> Hass, Robert. Twentieth Century Pleasures. W.W. Norton. 1985.
>
> Hirsch, Edward. How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry. Harvest.
> 1999.
>
> Hirshfield, Jane. Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (Essays).
> HarperCollins. 1997.
>
> Hollander, John. Rhyme?s Reason. Yale University Press. 1981.
>
> Hugo, Richard. The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and
> Writing. Norton. 1979.
>
> Kinzie, Mary. A Poet?s Guide to Poetry. The University of Chicago Press.
> 1999.
>
> Kooser, Ted. The Poetry Home Repair Manual. University of Nebraska Press.
> 2005.
>
> Kowit, Steve. In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet?s Portable Workshop.
> Norton. 1997.
>
> Lammon, Martin. Written in Water, Written in Stone: Twenty Years of 
> Poets on
> Poetry. University of Michigan. 1996.
>
> Lehman, David. Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms: 65 Leading 
> Contemporary
> Poets Select and Comment on Their Poems. Collier/Macmillan. 1987.
>
> Longenbach, James. The Art of the Poetic Line. Graywolf. 2007.
>
> Mayes, Frances. The Discovery of Poetry. Harvest/Harcourt. 2001.
>
> Myers, Jack. The Portable Poetry Workshop. Thomson/Wadsworth. 2005.
>
> Oliver, Mary. A Poetry Handbook. Harvest Original. 1995.
> Oliver, Mary. Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading
> Metrical Verse. Mariner/Houghton Mifflin. 1998
> Oliver, Mary. Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems. Mariner Books.
> 2000.
>
> Orr, Gregory. Poetry as Survival. University of Georgia Press. 2002
> Orr, Gregory & Ellen Bryant Voigt. Poets Teaching Poets, Self, and the
> World. University of Michigan Press. 1996.
>
> Packard, William. The Art of Poetry Writing. St. Martin?s Press. 1992
>
> Padgett, Ron. Handbook of Poetic Forms. Teachers & Writers Collaborative.
> 1987.
>
> Paschen, Elise. Poetry Speaks: Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from
> Tennyson to Plath. Sourcebooks MediaFusion. 2001.
>
> Reeves, Judy. A Writer?s Book of Days: A Spirited Companion and Lively 
> Muse
> for the Writing Life. New World Library. 1999.
>
> Richards, Mary Caroline. Centering in Pottery, Poetry and the Person.
> Wesleyan. 1989.
>
> Roethke, Theodore. David Wagoner, Intro. Straw for the Fire: From the
> Notebooks of Theodore Roethke. Copper Canyon Press. 2006
> Roethke, Theodore. On Poetry and Craft. Copper Canyon Press. 2001.
>
> Rukeyser, Muriel. The Life of Poetry. Paris Press. 1996.
>
> Snodgrass, W.D. De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Bad. Graywolf Press.
> 2001.
> 0A
>
> Sontag, Kate and David Graham, eds. After Confession: Poetry as
> Autobiography. Graywolf Press. 2001
>
> Stafford, William. Writing the Australian Crawl. University of Michigan
> Press. 1978.
> Stafford, William. You Must Revise Your Life. University of Michigan 
> Press.
> 1987.
> Stafford, William. Crossing Unmarked Snow. University of Michigan Press.
> 1998.
> Stafford, William. The Answers are Inside the Mountains. University of
> Michigan Press. 2003.
>
> Sweeney, Matthew. Writing Poetry and Getting Published. NTC Publishing.
> 1997.
>
> Turco, Lewis. The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics. UPNE. 2000.
>
> Wallace, Robert. Writing Poems. HarperCollinsCollegePublishers. 1996.
>
> Webster?s Compact Rhyming Dictionary. Miriam-Webster, Inc. 1987
>
> Woolridge, Susan G. Poemcrazy: freeing your life with words. Clarkson
> Potter. 1996.
>  
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? 
> *Find out now! 
> <http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>* 
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From editor at pavementsaw.org  Thu Feb  5 17:40:29 2009
From: editor at pavementsaw.org (David Baratier)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 14:40:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: History of Flarf 
In-Reply-To: <200902051700.n15H060N003134@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <25357.44874.qm@web45604.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

We published the first book of Flarf, Rodney Koeneke's Rouge State, which was followed by Mike Magee's MS (spuyten duyvil)and Kasey's Deer Head Nation (tougher disguises). Or the first pre-Flarf book of Flarf depending on your angle.

That one poet on a listserv based in North Carolina should stop spouting so much seed to gang-bang pornos to make metonomy about flarf. 
 
Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1




      



From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb  5 17:49:52 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:49:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Picasso and the Allure of Language
Message-ID: <8CB55FB312F5BDA-115C-1563@Webmail-mg16.sim.aol.com>

http://www.courant.com/entertainment/museums/galleries/hc-picasso.artfeb05,0,2972604.story

Picasso and the Allure of Language" draws on the university's rich collection of donated Picassos, now numbering more than 100 pieces. It's the first major show there to bring together the various holdings on campus ? from the art gallery as well as the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

It represents the first reunion of the Picasso works originally owned by Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo Stein in the gallery's collections, with materials from the Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas papers in the Beinecke Library, which range from postcards and letters to an audio recording of Stein reading her written accounts of Picasso.

http://artgallery.yale.edu/pages/info/renovations_upcoming.html
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From halvard at gmail.com  Thu Feb  5 18:03:51 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 17:03:51 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book of note, plus various books on craft and 
	writing poetry
In-Reply-To: <498B597B.4050402@opus40.org>
References: <8CB55E73FD66716-15B8-1BB5@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com>
	<498B597B.4050402@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902051503x6bd17841q89f9bf71a927500a@mail.gmail.com>

Oy, makes me drowsy just looking at that list.
Hal

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 3:26 PM, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:

> 50 Contemporary Poets: The Creative Process <
> http://www.amazon.com/50-Contemporary-Poets-Creative-Process/dp/0679303170/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233868699&sr=1-6>
>  -Alberta Turner
>
> jforjames at aol.com wrote:
>
>> I just encountered this book on the WomPo list, I thought I'd pass it
>> on...looks like it could be good:
>>
>> Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry
>> *http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/BID1508.htm*
>>
>>
>> Also, they had a thread going on craft books...here's the list compiled &
>> posted by Joan Mazza:
>>
>> Addonizio, Kim and Laux, Dorianne. The Poet's Companion: A Guide to
>> Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Norton. 1997
>>
>> Allen, Donald. Poetics of the New American Poetry. Grove Press. 1974.
>>
>> Arp, Thomas R. Perrine's Sound and Sense. Harcourt Brace. 1997.
>>
>> Behn, Robin. The Practice of Poetry. HarperPerennial. 1992
>>
>> Bender, Sheila. Writing Personal Poetry: Creating Poems From Your Life
>>
>> Experiences. Writer's Digest Books. 1998
>>
>> Buckley, Christopher and Christopher Merrill, eds. What Will Suffice:
>>
>> Contemporary Poets on the Art of Poetry. Salt Lake City. 1995.
>>
>> Bugeja, Michael J. The Art and Craft of Poetry. Writer's Digest Books.
>> 1994.
>> Bugeja, Michael J. Poet's Guide: How to Publish and Perform Your Work.
>> Story
>> Line Press. 1995.
>>
>> Citino, David. The Eye of the Poet: Six Views of the Art and Craft of
>> Poetry. Oxford Unive rsity Press. 2002
>>
>> Cook, Jon, ed. Poetry in Theory: Anthology 1900 ? 2000. Wiley-Blackwell.
>> 2004.
>>
>> Corn, Alfred. The Poem's Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody. Story Line Press.
>> 2003.
>>
>> Dobyns, Stephen. Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry. St. Martin's
>> Griffin. 1997.
>>
>> Drake, Barbara. Writing Poetry. Harcourt Brace. 1983.
>>
>> Drury, John. Creating Poetry. Writer's Digest Books. 1991
>> Drury, John. The Poetry Dictionary. Writer's Digest Books. 1995.
>>
>> Elledge, Jim. Sweet Nothings: An Anthology of Rock and Roll in American
>> Poetry. Indiana University Press. 1994
>>
>> Ellmann, Richard. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Norton. 1988
>>
>> Ferguson, Margaret. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Norton. 1996
>>
>> Finch, Annie, ed. A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary
>> Women. Story Line Press. 1194
>>
>> Fiske, Robert Hartwell and Laura Cherry, eds. Poem, Revised: 54 Poems,
>> Revisions, Discussions. Marion Street Press. 2008
>>
>> Fox, John. Finding What You Didn't Lose: Expressing Your Truth and
>> Creativity Through Poem-Making. Tarcher/Putnam. 1995.
>>
>> Fox, John. Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making.
>> Tarcher/Putnam.
>> 1997.
>>
>> Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. McGraw-Hill. 1979.
>>
>> Goldberg, Natalie. Wr iting Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within.
>> Shambhala. 1986.
>>
>> Hall, Donald. Claims for Poetry. University of Michigan. 1982.
>>
>> Hass, Robert. Twentieth Century Pleasures. W.W. Norton. 1985.
>>
>> Hirsch, Edward. How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry. Harvest.
>> 1999.
>>
>> Hirshfield, Jane. Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (Essays).
>> HarperCollins. 1997.
>>
>> Hollander, John. Rhyme's Reason. Yale University Press. 1981.
>>
>> Hugo, Richard. The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and
>> Writing. Norton. 1979.
>>
>> Kinzie, Mary. A Poet's Guide to Poetry. The University of Chicago Press.
>> 1999.
>>
>> Kooser, Ted. The Poetry Home Repair Manual. University of Nebraska Press.
>> 2005.
>>
>> Kowit, Steve. In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop.
>> Norton. 1997.
>>
>> Lammon, Martin. Written in Water, Written in Stone: Twenty Years of Poets
>> on
>> Poetry. University of Michigan. 1996.
>>
>> Lehman, David. Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms: 65 Leading
>> Contemporary
>> Poets Select and Comment on Their Poems. Collier/Macmillan. 1987.
>>
>> Longenbach, James. The Art of the Poetic Line. Graywolf. 2007.
>>
>> Mayes, Frances. The Discovery of Poetry. Harvest/Harcourt. 2001.
>>
>> Myers, Jack. The Portable Poetry Workshop. Thomson/Wadsworth. 2005.
>>
>> Oliver, Mary. A Poetry Handbook. Harvest Original. 1995.
>> Oliver, Mary. Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading
>> Metrical Verse. Mariner/Houghton Mifflin. 1998
>> Oliver, Mary. Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems. Mariner Books.
>> 2000.
>>
>> Orr, Gregory. Poetry as Survival. University of Georgia Press. 2002
>> Orr, Gregory & Ellen Bryant Voigt. Poets Teaching Poets, Self, and the
>> World. University of Michigan Press. 1996.
>>
>> Packard, William. The Art of Poetry Writing. St. Martin's Press. 1992
>>
>> Padgett, Ron. Handbook of Poetic Forms. Teachers & Writers Collaborative.
>> 1987.
>>
>> Paschen, Elise. Poetry Speaks: Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from
>> Tennyson to Plath. Sourcebooks MediaFusion. 2001.
>>
>> Reeves, Judy. A Writer's Book of Days: A Spirited Companion and Lively
>> Muse
>> for the Writing Life. New World Library. 1999.
>>
>> Richards, Mary Caroline. Centering in Pottery, Poetry and the Person.
>> Wesleyan. 1989.
>>
>> Roethke, Theodore. David Wagoner, Intro. Straw for the Fire: From the
>> Notebooks of Theodore Roethke. Copper Canyon Press. 2006
>> Roethke, Theodore. On Poetry and Craft. Copper Canyon Press. 2001.
>>
>> Rukeyser, Muriel. The Life of Poetry. Paris Press. 1996.
>>
>> Snodgrass, W.D. De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Bad. Graywolf Press.
>> 2001.
>> 0A
>>
>> Sontag, Kate and David Graham, eds. After Confession: Poetry as
>> Autobiography. Graywolf Press. 2001
>>
>> Stafford, William. Writing the Australian Crawl. University of Michigan
>> Press. 1978.
>> Stafford, William. You Must Revise Your Life. University of Michigan
>> Press.
>> 1987.
>> Stafford, William. Crossing Unmarked Snow. University of Michigan Press.
>> 1998.
>> Stafford, William. The Answers are Inside the Mountains. University of
>> Michigan Press. 2003.
>>
>> Sweeney, Matthew. Writing Poetry and Getting Published. NTC Publishing.
>> 1997.
>>
>> Turco, Lewis. The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics. UPNE. 2000.
>>
>> Wallace, Robert. Writing Poems. HarperCollinsCollegePublishers. 1996.
>>
>> Webster's Compact Rhyming Dictionary. Miriam-Webster, Inc. 1987
>>
>> Woolridge, Susan G. Poemcrazy: freeing your life with words. Clarkson
>> Potter. 1996.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? *Find
>> out now! <
>> http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>*
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
>
> --
> Tad Richards
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
> http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb  5 18:41:41 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:41:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book of note, plus various books on craft and writing
	poetry
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902051503x6bd17841q89f9bf71a927500a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB55E73FD66716-15B8-1BB5@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com><498B597B.4050402@opus40.org>
	<f160a1210902051503x6bd17841q89f9bf71a927500a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498B7935.9030901@nut-n-but.net>

Funny, Jerry--thanks.

--Bob



From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb  5 18:41:47 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:41:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this virtual coil
	(at least for now)
Message-ID: <8CB560271A2357A-115C-1883@Webmail-mg16.sim.aol.com>


Having hit three years of blogging,?I got thinking about blogging and wondering whether or how long?I'd keep it up, 
and that got me thinking about some of the blogs on my blogroll that seem to be defunct:

Reginald Shepherd really did die. A stalwart blogger who will be missed...and yet his mate does continue to post now & again in his memory...
http://reginaldshepherd.blogspot.com/

Rachel Loden, who has popped up on?NewPoetry?from time to time, was an occasional blogger but she seemed to stop for good?after posting an?obit to another poet...
http://wordstrumpet.blogspot.com/

And Chris Lott, also of this list, says he's done...Maybe he'll say more about why he no longer feels the cyber magic?
http://www.cosmopoetica.com/blog/

Simon DeDeo, a frequent commentator on poetry/poetics, a poetry and science guy, fell into a black hole back in March...
http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/

Then there is Alfred Corn who announced he was finished with blogging, but retracted of late, saying he'd blog, but less...
http://alfredcornsweblog.blogspot.com/

Well, I guess new blogs will pop up?to fill the virtual voids left by the late and?dearly departed.

Finnegan

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb  5 19:34:09 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:34:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book of note,
	plus various books on craft and writingpoetry
In-Reply-To: <498B7935.9030901@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB55E73FD66716-15B8-1BB5@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com><498B597B.4050402@opus40.org><f160a1210902051503x6bd17841q89f9
	bf71a927500a@mail.gmail.com> <498B7935.9030901@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498B8581.3070508@nut-n-but.net>

Ooops, a misfire.

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb  5 19:36:58 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:36:58 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this virtual
	coil(at least for now)
In-Reply-To: <8CB560271A2357A-115C-1883@Webmail-mg16.sim.aol.com>
References: <8CB560271A2357A-115C-1883@Webmail-mg16.sim.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498B862A.1020200@nut-n-but.net>

I turned my blog off for three months this past summer after over three 
years of daily posts.  But I'm back to daily--and getting as many as 7 
customers at times.

--Bob



From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb  5 20:11:47 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:11:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Dirac's poetry
Message-ID: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/4316309/The-Strangest-Man-the-Hidden-Life-of-Paul-Dirac-by-Graham-Farmelo---review.html

?To draw its picture is like a blind man touching a snowflake,? he said. ?One touch and it?s gone.? 


The man behind the maths was something of a snowflake himself. Outwardly cold and untouchable. Nearly silent. Certainly unique.
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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 09:11:09 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:11:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
Message-ID: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>


http://media.www.gonzagabulletin.com/media/storage/paper375/news/2009/02/06/Entertainment/LiYoung.Lee.Exterminator.Restaurateur.And.Poet-3616895.shtml

Li-young Lee: exterminator, restaurateur and poet
Courtney Gullette


I am a fan of "The Daily Show," but I was surprised when John Stewart joked that Obama used poetry after the inauguration as a way of clearing the crowd off the Washington Mall. There seems to be the notion today that poetry is somehow an elitist art form, existing only for academics and those who wish to join them. 


The more than 400 students, professors and members of the Spokane community who attended Li-Young Lee's reading seem to undermine the idea that poetry has little place in our society. 


As an English major I thought I was the target audience for Gonzaga's Writers Series. I was half expecting to find a sparsely seated auditorium on Tuesday night. However I was astonished as the 400 chairs in Cataldo filled and Dr. Tod Marshall recruited students to set up even more for the horde standing in the back.
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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 09:14:08 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:14:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Tufts winners
Message-ID: <8CB567C4F2F85ED-500-27AE@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>


http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-etw-kingsleytufts-6,0,7553120.story

Poets named as winners of Kingsley Tufts Poetry Awards
By Lee Margulies, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 
February 5, 2009 


Matthea Harvey, a Brooklyn, N.Y., resident who teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, has won the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award from Claremont Graduate University.


The prize, established in 1992 to honor work by a mid-career poet, was given for her book "Modern Life."


Matthew Dickman, a Portland, Ore., writer, was selected by the Claremont judges to receive the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award for his book "All-American Poem."
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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 09:18:50 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:18:50 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Man in the Newspaper Hat 
Message-ID: <8CB567CF7A02EEF-500-280F@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>


http://broadwayworld.com/article/THE_MAN_IN_THE_NEWSPAPER_HAT_Begins_35_Runs_Thru_41_20090205


MANYTRACKS is pleased to announce the world premiere of THE MAN IN THE NEWSPAPER HAT by Hayley Heaton, directed by Katrin Hilbe. THE MAN IN THE NEWSPAPER HAT plays a three-week limited engagement at the 45th Street Theatre (345 W 45th St). Performances begin Thursday, March 5th and continue through Wednesday, April 1st.


The Man in the Newspaper Hat is a fictionalized portrayal of what went into the creation of Elizabeth Bishop's poem, "Visits to St. Elizabeths." Bishop wrote this poem during her visits with the controversial poet, Ezra Pound who was remanded to St. Elizabeths in 1946 after having stood trial for treason where a special jury found him incompetent. Each scene is built upon aspects of Bishop's poem and follows both characters as they come together, "poet to poet?.

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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 11:43:10 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:43:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] si(gh)ting: VisPo.com
Message-ID: <8CB5691211F6348-1F4-40A@WEBMAIL-DC08.sysops.aol.com>

http://vispo.com/
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From r_loden at sbcglobal.net  Fri Feb  6 12:27:28 2009
From: r_loden at sbcglobal.net (Rachel Loden)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 09:27:28 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this virtual coil
	(at least for now)
In-Reply-To: <8CB560271A2357A-115C-1883@Webmail-mg16.sim.aol.com>
Message-ID: <006801c98880$2fe29660$220110ac@GLASSCASTLE>

Hey Jim, 

As Dr. Henry Frankenstein observed back in 1931, "It's alive. It's alive...
It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive,
IT'S ALIVE!" 

Wordstrumpet will shudder to life again later this year -- as Dr. F. said,
"the brain of a dead man waiting to live again in a body I made with my own
hands!" 

Happy to be on your radar, in any case, even after my temporary demise

All best wishes,

Rachel

P.S. Now to read YOUR blog....

________________________________

	From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of jforjames at aol.com
	Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 3:42 PM
	To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
	Subject: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this
virtual coil(at least for now)
	
	
	Having hit three years of blogging, I got thinking about blogging
and wondering whether or how long I'd keep it up, 
	and that got me thinking about some of the blogs on my blogroll that
seem to be defunct:
	
	Reginald Shepherd really did die. A stalwart blogger who will be
missed...and yet his mate does continue to post now & again in his memory...
	http://reginaldshepherd.blogspot.com/
	
	Rachel Loden, who has popped up on NewPoetry from time to time, was
an occasional blogger but she seemed to stop for good after posting an obit
to another poet...
	http://wordstrumpet.blogspot.com/
	
	And Chris Lott, also of this list, says he's done...Maybe he'll say
more about why he no longer feels the cyber magic?
	http://www.cosmopoetica.com/blog/
	
	Simon DeDeo, a frequent commentator on poetry/poetics, a poetry and
science guy, fell into a black hole back in March...
	http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/
	
	Then there is Alfred Corn who announced he was finished with
blogging, but retracted of late, saying he'd blog, but less...
	http://alfredcornsweblog.blogspot.com/
	
	Well, I guess new blogs will pop up to fill the virtual voids left
by the late and dearly departed.
	
	Finnegan
	

	________________________________

	Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean?
Find out now!
<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCO
MMshopdrspwebf0001>  




From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 13:11:12 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:11:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this virtual coil
	(at least for now)
In-Reply-To: <006801c98880$2fe29660$220110ac@GLASSCASTLE>
Message-ID: <8CB569D6D82178B-11AC-3CC@WEBMAIL-DY33.sysops.aol.com>

Rachel,
Glad to hear you alive and thriving. It's impossible to do everything. And you have young son, right?

Jim Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: Rachel Loden <r_loden at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 12:27 pm
Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this virtual coil (at least for now)



Hey Jim, 

As Dr. Henry Frankenstein observed back in 1931, "It's alive. It's alive...
It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive,
IT'S ALIVE!" 

Wordstrumpet will shudder to life again later this year -- as Dr. F. said,
"the brain of a dead man waiting to live again in a body I made with my own
hands!" 

Happy to be on your radar, in any case, even after my temporary demise

All best wishes,

Rachel

P.S. Now to read YOUR blog....

________________________________

    From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of jforjames at aol.com
    Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 3:42 PM
    To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
    Subject: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this
virtual coil(at least for now)
    
    
    Having hit three years of blogging, I got thinking about blogging
and wondering whether or how long I'd keep it up, 
    and that got me thinking about some of the blogs on my blogroll that
seem to be defunct:
    
    Reginald Shepherd really did die. A stalwart blogger who will be
missed...and yet his mate does continue to post now & again in his memory...
    http://reginaldshepherd.blogspot.com/
    
    Rachel Loden, who has popped up on NewPoetry from time to time, was
an occasional blogger but she seemed to stop for good after posting an obit
to another poet...
    http://wordstrumpet.blogspot.com/
    
    And Chris Lott, also of this list, says he's done...Maybe he'll say
more about why he no longer feels the cyber magic?
    http://www.cosmopoetica.com/blog/
    
    Simon DeDeo, a frequent commentator on poetry/poetics, a poetry and
science guy, fell into a black hole back in March...
    http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/
    
    Then there is Alfred Corn who announced he was finished with
blogging, but retracted of late, saying he'd blog, but less...
    http://alfredcornsweblog.blogspot.com/
    
    Well, I guess new blogs will pop up to fill the virtual voids left
by the late and dearly departed.
 
   
    Finnegan
    

    ________________________________

    Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean?
Find out now!
<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCO
MMshopdrspwebf0001>  


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb  6 15:08:27 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:08:27 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net>

I never heard of this guy, which is nothing new.  Can anyone tell me if 
he packs them in because of his poetry, as opposed to because of his 
Message?  I'm curious. 

--Bob G.



From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Fri Feb  6 15:34:17 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 15:34:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>
	<498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9dc6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com>

Bob,

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/291
http://www.blueflowerarts.com/li.html
http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Lee.html

Why not investigate?

Jeff

On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 3:08 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> I never heard of this guy, which is nothing new.  Can anyone tell me if he
> packs them in because of his poetry, as opposed to because of his Message?
>  I'm curious.
> --Bob G.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 
You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that
is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and
experience, from which each according to his own immediate and peculiar
needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden
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From cheekc at muohio.edu  Fri Feb  6 16:24:08 2009
From: cheekc at muohio.edu (cris cheek)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 16:24:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5C2888AE-0BC9-47A1-AC43-AC069ABA971D@muohio.edu>

Bunting IS in the best available anthology for 20th Century British &  
Irish Poetry, the Oxford; alongside several other poets that ought to  
be more widely discussed i the US . . . Brian Coffey, WS Graham, Lyn  
Robert . . .

go Jeff

Bunting's ear is a fine one

cris


On Feb 2, 2009, at 11:11 AM, Jeff Newberry wrote:

> I've been reading Keith Tuma's By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and  
> Postmodern British Poetry and American Readers and his Anthology of  
> Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry for my comprehensive  
> examinations.
>
> I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been  
> reading, poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading  
> for my exams.  So, forgive me if some of my questions of  
> observations seem elementary or self-evident.
>
> By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is Basil  
> Bunting, a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate and  
> graduate years as an English major.  I like Briggflats quite a lot,  
> though I'm still grappling with the poem.  Bunting's lines with  
> their heavy stresses and Anglo-saxon vocabulary remind me of  
> Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."  The poem itself is a  
> Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound immediately.
>
> But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with  
> Eliot's more "universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe  
> "far-reaching?") concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with  
> this place (his place?):  Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into  
> the landscape, carving itself into the land, not unlike the mason  
> carving stone in the poem's opening lines.  Despite his concern  
> with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in a dose of  
> mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves  
> through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved  
> notions--such as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.
>
> So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on  
> earth is he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me-- 
> I've not checked) in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.   
> Perhaps he's not ignored; perhaps I've just missed him.   
> Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a conversation about a  
> poet who really has my ear right now.
>
> Best,
> Jeff Newberry
>
> -- 
>
> <ATT00001.txt>

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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Fri Feb  6 16:28:58 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 16:28:58 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <5C2888AE-0BC9-47A1-AC43-AC069ABA971D@muohio.edu>
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
	<5C2888AE-0BC9-47A1-AC43-AC069ABA971D@muohio.edu>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902061328j2edc1010o2a7c9c8662873c8@mail.gmail.com>

Cris--

I agree.  The more I've read his work, the more I like it.  A few people
posted some psuedo-insults on the list, but I'm not deterred.

Did Keith Tuma edit the volume that you mention?

Best,
Jeff

On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 4:24 PM, cris cheek <cheekc at muohio.edu> wrote:

> Bunting IS in the best available anthology for 20th Century British & Irish
> Poetry, the Oxford; alongside several other poets that ought to be more
> widely discussed i the US . . . Brian Coffey, WS Graham, Lyn Robert . . .
> go Jeff
>
> Bunting's ear is a fine one
>
> cris
>
>
> On Feb 2, 2009, at 11:11 AM, Jeff Newberry wrote:
>
> I've been reading Keith Tuma's *By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and Postmodern
> British Poetry and American Readers* and his *Anthology of
> Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry* for my comprehensive
> examinations.
>
> I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been reading,
> poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading for my exams.  So,
> forgive me if some of my questions of observations seem elementary or
> self-evident.
>
> By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is Basil
> Bunting, a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate and graduate years
> as an English major.  I like *Briggflats* quite a lot, though I'm still
> grappling with the poem.  Bunting's lines with their heavy stresses and
> Anglo-saxon vocabulary remind me of Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."
> The poem itself is a Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound
> immediately.
>
> But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with Eliot's more
> "universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe "far-reaching?")
> concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with this place (his place?):
> Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into the landscape, carving itself into
> the land, not unlike the mason carving stone in the poem's opening lines.
> Despite his concern with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in
> a dose of mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves
> through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved notions--such
> as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.
>
> So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on earth is
> he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me--I've not checked)
> in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.  Perhaps he's not ignored;
> perhaps I've just missed him.  Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a
> conversation about a poet who really has my ear right now.
>
> Best,
> Jeff Newberry
>
> --
>
> <ATT00001.txt>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that
is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and
experience, from which each according to his own immediate and peculiar
needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb  6 17:36:00 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:36:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9dc6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com><498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net>
	<731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9dc6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net>

Jeff Newberry wrote:
> Bob,
>
> http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/291
> http://www.blueflowerarts.com/li.html
> http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Lee.html
>
> Why not investigate?
>
> Jeff
Gee, Jeff, for a minute I was going to thank you.  Sometimes I'm curious 
about something but not curious enough to "investigate."  So I use 
New-Poetry for what I believe one of its principal functions is--to get 
an answer from someone who might be able easily to provide it--the way I 
myself do at times.

--Bob



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Fri Feb  6 18:00:45 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:00:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Tufts winners
In-Reply-To: <8CB567C4F2F85ED-500-27AE@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>
References: <8CB567C4F2F85ED-500-27AE@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498CC11D.5060806@opus40.org>

By Matthea Harvey:

SETTING THE TABLE

To cut through night you'll need your sharpest scissors. Cut around the 
birch, the bump of the bird nest on its lowest limb. Then with your nail 
scissors, trim around the baby beaks waiting for worms fall from the 
sky. Snip around the lip of the mailbox and the pervert's shoe peeking 
out from behind the Chevy. Before dawn, rip the silhouette from the sky 
and drag it inside. Frame the long black stripe and hang it in the 
dining room. Sleep. When you wake, redo the scene as day in doily. Now 
you have a lacy fence, a huge cherry blossom of a holly bush, a birch 
sugared with snow. Frame the white version and hang it opposite the 
black. Get your dinner and eat it between the two scenes. Your food will 
taste just right.


by Matthew Dickman

SHOW US THE PLEIADES

 
If the snow does not fall
outside the hospital window
then cherry blossom
If the body does not float
above the hospital bed
then saline drip
Your kingdom drops away
from you like your very own
face, sloped. A king
transformed into a mountain.
Show us your brain
a blackberry
Show us your tumor
a lagoon
Heaven is a cup of teeth,
it shines. What island have we
washed upon where a man
must live in the pit of his own body
sending notes
to the rest of us on earth?
Christ walks down the hall. If
the snow does not fall outside
the sanatorium window
then rain drop
Christ with his fists dragging
and your name locked inside
His mouth.
If the body does not float above
the sanatorium bed
then electric shock-
a body coming down the wild hall forever.
And if cotton then gauze-
a young surgeon holding your brain
in his hands and chanting
over it-
the cerebral cortex
the cerebellum glowing
forever and ever amen
If not that story then this:
Lift the pillars of heaven off our tired shoulders.
If death then skyscraper.
Show us the Pleiades
Show us the Pleiades
burning
outside the hospice window.



jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-etw-kingsleytufts-6,0,7553120.story
> Poets named as winners of Kingsley Tufts Poetry Awards
> By Lee Margulies, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
> February 5, 2009
>
> Matthea Harvey, a Brooklyn, N.Y., resident who teaches at Sarah 
> Lawrence College, has won the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award 
> from Claremont Graduate University.
>
> The prize, established in 1992 to honor work by a mid-career poet, was 
> given for her book "Modern Life."
>
> Matthew Dickman, a Portland, Ore., writer, was selected by the 
> Claremont judges to receive the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award for 
> his book "All-American Poem."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? 
> *Find out now! 
> <http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>* 
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Fri Feb  6 18:38:09 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:38:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] My Examiner Valentine's Day Column: How to Write a
 Love Poem to Your Sweetie if You're Not a Poet
Message-ID: <498CC9E1.9060102@opus40.org>

Valentine's Day Examiner column: How to write a love poem for your 
sweetie if you're not a poet.

http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb  6 19:47:01 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:47:01 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] On the Excellence of Housman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>

A Rough Attempt At Rating Housman's Cherry Blossom Poem

                  II


    Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
    Is hung with bloom along the bough,
    And stands about the woodland ride
    Wearing white for Eastertide.

    Now, of my threescore years and ten,
    Twenty will not come again,
    And take from seventy springs a score,
    It only leaves me fifty more.

    And since to look at things in bloom
    Fifty springs are little room,
    About the woodlands I will go
    To see the cherry hung with snow.

    A. E. Housman


My paraphrase (with some metaparaphrasing in italics):

    Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
   
The boughs of the cherry trees, which are the most beautiful trees

    Is hung with bloom along the bough,

are laden with blossoms at this time

    And stands about the woodland ride

and line the trail through the woods

    Wearing white for Eastertide.

decked out in a white hue appropriate for Easter
(/which is the happiest time of the year/)

    Now, of my threescore years and ten,
    Twenty will not come again,

At this time, twenty of the seventy years (/the Bible suggests I'll have/)
are gone permanently.

    And take from seventy springs a score,

If you subtract twenty springtimes from seventy

    It only leaves me fifty more.

it will leave me just fifty more years of life

    And since to look at things in bloom
    Fifty springs are little room,

Because fifty years of springtimes don't give one much time
to enjoying looking at Nature's blossomings

    About the woodlands I will go

I'll proceed through the woods (right away)

    To see the cherry hung with snow.

To take in (as much as I can of) the beauty of the snow-like blossoms of 
the cherry tree.
The snow is metaphorical because:

(1) the speaker is going to "look at things in bloom."

(2) the speaker has be celebrating spring entirely to this point; 
nothing he's said indicates
that he's going to wait until winter comes, then go out and look at the 
snow on the cherry
trees (which, in any case, would be little different from the snow on 
other deciduous
trees); among other problems with the emotional logic of this, it 
suggests that he is
capable, after all his praise of them, of forgetting about the cherry 
blossoms out there for
him to enjoy right now.

(3)  I simply can't read the poem as not being about someone fully 
engaged in the moment-
-the speaker spends four lines speaking in the highest terms of the 
beauty of cherry
blossoms, then six indicating how little time he has to enjoy them (the 
blossoms) despite
his having fifty more years to live; this sets up his last two lines as 
close to the synthesis
of a standard syllogism: cherry blossoms are worth seeing; I haven't 
much time to see
them; therefore, I will--what? put on my snowshoes are go look at them 
when they have
snow on their branches?  Not for me.

(4) the argument has been made that "snow" as a metaphor comes out of 
nowhere--but
earlier in the poem, the trees are personified; that they are "hung" 
with blooms is
somewhat figurative, too, suggesting, as it does, not the sprouting of 
blooms, but
someone's going about decorating them.  In any case, the metaphor in 
line four is an
involved, important one--the trees aren't just wearing human apparel, 
they are celebrating
the season.
 
(5) if the poet wanted us to believe the speaker was going to look at 
the cherry trees in
winter, he could easily have changed the poem to tell us that 
explicitly: for instance, by
saying, "About the woods, I'll also go/ When blooms have been replaced 
by snow."  Or the
like.  Why would the poet not have made sure we saw the point if it was 
that?  Was he
some kind of devious Empsonian?  He doesn't seem so to me.

(6) I would add that "snow" as a metaphor gives the poem a nice climax 
that echoes what
I consider the main virtue of the poem, its contrasting light and dark, 
and the transient and
enduring.

(7) Even with its rhetoric, the poem seems to be speaking of blossoms as 
it ends, not of literal snow, because it ends with a near repeat of its 
second line.  This could be taken as a clever twist--first spring, then 
winter; but it seems too abrupt for me, and my other arguments are 
against it.  The final lines work far better for me as a satisfying 
complete return to its initial subject.

By my revised check-list, this poem qualifies as excellent because:

(1) it both expresses things importantly true and represents things 
centrally beautiful.

a. it expresses the joy of an individual thinking about and anticipating 
seeing the beauty of
cherry trees in bloom (an implied synecdoche for spring); it thus 
represents something
centrally beautiful: a human being's love for Nature and beauty

b. it expresses the belief that cherry trees in bloom and, implicitly, 
Nature (and existence) is
not only beautiful but, in human terms, inexhaustible because a full 
lifetime will barely, or
not, give us time fully to enjoy it; it thus expresses something that 
will seem to many
people imprtantly true--that existence's beauty makes life worthwhile; 
at the same time, the
poem accentuates the beauty of spring by contrasting it with winter at 
the end, and with
arithmetic in the middle.

c. blending in with a. and b. is what it suggests about the brevity of 
human life: we have
little time to enjoy its beauty, so we should make the most of what time 
we have--which is
so clearly importantly true that, stated in prose, it is a banality.  
Note, however, that
Housman gives this carpe diem them an amusing twist (in keeping with the 
high spirits of
the piece: the poem is not about making the most of the day but of one's 
lifetime.

d. in the meantime, in stating that--for its speaker, at any 
rate--looking at cherry trees
hung with blossoms is of first importance, it expresses something else 
that is importantly
true to non-utilitarians: that beauty is second to nothing else in value 
to a human life
Indeed, for the speaker, it is something to devote fifty springs to, not 
just a day--he isn't
thinking of a fling with Persephone but marriage to her.

e. at the same time, it suggests with a reference to easter, and 
references to spring, not to
mention its focus on cherry blossoms, the cyclic ongoingness of 
existence: however fragile
and transient Nature's cherry blossoms are, and--implicitly--human life, 
rebirth will occur;
it thus expresses a third thing importantly true for the religious, and 
even for those who
are not religious but believe in the kind of reincarnation Shelley and 
Nietzsche did (and I
do); for those who don't believe in reincarnation, it still expresses 
the important truth that
Nature itself will endure.

f. finally, the poem is itself an object of beauty due to its sounds, 
images and diction,
sufficiently so in my view for me to be able confidently to claim it 
represents something
which is centrally beautiful--itself, in particular, and poetry, in 
general. 

(2) it is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or 
something that makes
its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but 
eventually achieves Clarity;

Few, I think, would argue that Housman's poem is unclear.  But its full 
meaning takes time
to get to, it seems to me.  It also has a personification not brilliant 
but perfect for the poem
that complicates the poem just enough to provide what seems to me 
sufficient Thematic
Misdirection.  I say that because I believe all figures of speech do 
this--they are errors
generating confusion it takes a mind a few seconds to overcome.  
Metrical poetry also is
different enough from prose to slow a reader's journey toward 
understanding the poem in
whole.  This poem is far from having the thematic misdirection many 
poems have, but it
has enough, so gets a check here.

(3) it has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like 
which pulls its
elements reasonably close together; 

I presented my interpretation of the poem as a unified set of four 
consequential truths and a
closely inter-related representation of beauty.  Its packaging as a 
lyric poem of beauty
further unifies it.  So the poem scores well here.

(4) it contains few or no superfluous words;

All the poem's words seem necessary either to its meaning or its 
acoustics, and only rarely
not to both.  All metrical poems have occasional words that are there 
for the metrics or
rhyme almost entirely, or fall out of one or the other of those things 
to maintain meaning.
So the poem gets a check here, too.

(5) it boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems 
have such as
uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
art), and imagery;

To me the main special constituent this poem has that few of no other 
poems have is the
wry interruption from pure, almost too sweet lyric, into grade school 
arithmetic it takes--
with a Biblical allusion giving it ponderousness completely opposed to 
the lightness of
cherry blossoms, and delight in cherry blossoms.  This strikes me as a 
wonderful change of
tone: cerebral analysis versus emotional spontaneity, heaviness versus 
gaiety, play,
implicitly, versus duty.

I suspect but would not swear that the poem also has a melodiousness 
rare in poetry, a
melodiousness kept from excess by the speaker's drawn-out calculations.  
One other
triumph it achieves, although I would not call it uncommonly effective, 
is its
personification of the cherry trees as wearing white garments to 
celebrate Easter.  We're in
the archetypal here: Spring!  Rebirth!  Celebration!  Joy!  Universal 
Love of Existence!

(6) it avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery 
or thought; too
overt Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;

I give it a check here, too.  It uses a standard form, but it's one 
appropriate to a fairly
serious albeit happy work: pentameter and tetrameter (as opposed to 
Dickinson's more
jingly tetrameter and trimeter), with missing weak stresses at the 
beginning of several
lines, which enlivens the poem, to my ear.  Nothing brilliant about the 
rhymes, but they
work as well as the rhymes or just about any poem.  "Along the bough," 
for instance, is
pretty clearly in the poem for meter and rhyme since it's unneeded for 
the meaning--where
else would blooms be hung?  But it works so well melodationally, one 
can't reasonably
criticize it.  "Is hung with bloom along the bough" not only closes an 
end-rhyme, but
carries out a b- and an l-alliteration, and a g-consonance, and four 
open vowels combine
with the two l's and the w to liquify the line, the l's in particular 
carrying on the l-
alliteration that begins the poem, and continues into the third line.  
And the w's go on in
the rest of this stanza to form a 4-member alliteration.  The sound 
effects in the rest of the
poem are similarly effective.  And, as I mentioned in my brief against 
taking "snow" as
literal snow, the poem is a near-perfectly crafted little mechanism, 
with a theme stated at
its beginning, veered rather distantly from, then returned triumphantly to.


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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 20:33:00 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:33:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com><498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net><731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9dc6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com>
	<498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8CB56DB255D7960-14C8-14B9@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>

Bob, I think this is a gotcha moment. You oft complain about our lack of attention to VisPoers & those
whose poetic practice is 'otherstream', and often you are right, but now, by acknowledging??
you don't?know nothin' about Li-Young Lee...that's like being under a VizPo rock for a decade or more.

Li-Young Lee has been a fixture of the contemporary scene for at least 10 years. His book
Rose is an all time best seller among contemporary poetry. It's probably not
too much a stretch to say that sales of Rose have kept Boa Editions in business.
http://www.boaeditions.org/bookstore/details.php?prodId=129
Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Sent: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 5:36 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in


Jeff Newberry wrote:?
> Bob,?
>?
> http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/291?
> http://www.blueflowerarts.com/li.html?
> http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Lee.html?
>?
> Why not investigate??
>?
> Jeff?
Gee, Jeff, for a minute I was going to thank you. Sometimes I'm curious about something but not curious enough to "investigate." So I use New-Poetry for what I believe one of its principal functions is--to get an answer from someone who might be able easily to provide it--the way I myself do at times.?
?
--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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From gejs1 at rochester.rr.com  Fri Feb  6 21:13:35 2009
From: gejs1 at rochester.rr.com (Gerald Schwartz)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 21:13:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com><498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net><731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9dc6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com><498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB56DB255D7960-14C8-14B9@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <5B4002C887344B9CA91AF4AF7C086772@yourae066c3a9b>

Li-Young Lee and Kim Addonizio
seem to be a matched set... both
at Boa...

... neither, however, ever did to
a crowd what Lux Interior did...
and then some--

Gerald S.


  Bob, I think this is a gotcha moment. You oft complain about our lack of attention to VisPoers & those
  whose poetic practice is 'otherstream', and often you are right, but now, by acknowledging  
  you don't know nothin' about Li-Young Lee...that's like being under a VizPo rock for a decade or more.

  Li-Young Lee has been a fixture of the contemporary scene for at least 10 years. His book
  Rose is an all time best seller among contemporary poetry. It's probably not
  too much a stretch to say that sales of Rose have kept Boa Editions in business.
  http://www.boaeditions.org/bookstore/details.php?prodId=129
  Finnegan


  -----Original Message-----
  From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
  Sent: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 5:36 pm
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in


  Jeff Newberry wrote: 
  > Bob, 
  > 
  > http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/291 
  > http://www.blueflowerarts.com/li.html 
  > http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Lee.html 
  > 
  > Why not investigate? 
  > 
  > Jeff 
  Gee, Jeff, for a minute I was going to thank you. Sometimes I'm curious about something but not curious enough to "investigate." So I use New-Poetry for what I believe one of its principal functions is--to get an answer from someone who might be able easily to provide it--the way I myself do at times. 
   
  --Bob 
   
  _______________________________________________ 
  New-Poetry mailing list 
  New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry 



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Great Deals on Dell Laptops. Starting at $499. 


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  New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
  http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 21:21:10 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:21:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <5B4002C887344B9CA91AF4AF7C086772@yourae066c3a9b>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com><498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net><731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9dc6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com><498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net><8CB56DB255D7960-14C8-14B9@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>
	<5B4002C887344B9CA91AF4AF7C086772@yourae066c3a9b>
Message-ID: <8CB56E1E069A1F4-14C8-169D@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>

You're Crampin' my style, man. 
Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald Schwartz <gejs1 at rochester.rr.com>
Sent: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 9:13 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in



Li-Young Lee and Kim Addonizio

seem to be a matched set... both

at Boa...

?

.... neither, however, ever did to

a crowd what Lux Interior did...

and then some--

?

Gerald S.




Bob, I think this is a gotcha moment. You oft complain about our lack of attention to VisPoers & those
whose poetic practice is 'otherstream', and often you are right, but now, by acknowledging??
you don't?know nothin' about Li-Young Lee...that's like being under a VizPo rock for a decade or more.

Li-Young Lee has been a fixture of the contemporary scene for at least 10 years. His book
Rose is an all time best seller among contemporary poetry. It's probably not
too much a stretch to say that sales of Rose have kept Boa Editions in business.
http://www.boaeditions.org/bookstore/details.php?prodId=129
Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Sent: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 5:36 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in


Jeff Newberry wrote:?
> Bob,?
>?
> http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/291?
> http://www.blueflowerarts.com/li.html?
> http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Lee.html?
>?
> Why not investigate??
>?
> Jeff?
Gee, Jeff, for a minute I was going to thank you. Sometimes I'm curious about something but not curious enough to "investigate." So I use New-Poetry for what I believe one of its principal functions is--to get an answer from someone who might be able easily to provide it--the way I myself do at times.?
?
--Bob?
?
_______________________________________________?
New-Poetry mailing list?
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu?
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry?



Great Deals on Dell Laptops. Starting at $499. 




_______________________________________________
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

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb  6 21:30:41 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 21:30:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
Message-ID: <1fe5540520cb4ad2a12a9bccb3470523.bobgrumman@nut-n-but.net>





------- Original Message -------
>From    : Gerald Schwartz[mailto:gejs1 at rochester.rr.com]
Sent    : 2/6/2009 9:13:35 PM
To      : new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Cc      : 
Subject : RE: Re: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in

 
Li-Young Lee and Kim Addonizio
seem to be a matched set... both
at Boa...
 
... neither, however, ever did to
a crowd what Lux Interior did...
and then some--
 
Gerald S.


Bob, 
  I think this is a gotcha moment. You oft complain about our lack of attention 
  to VisPoers & those
whose poetic practice is 'otherstream', and often 
  you are right, but now, by acknowledging  
you don't know 
  nothin' about Li-Young Lee...that's like being under a VizPo rock for a decade 
  or more.

Li-Young Lee has been a fixture of the contemporary scene for 
  at least 10 years. His book
Rose is an all time best seller among 
  contemporary poetry. It's probably not
too much a stretch to say that sales 
  of Rose have kept Boa Editions in business.
http://www.boaeditions.org/bookstore/details.php?prodId=129
Finnegan


And I should have heard of one knownstreamer?  Why?  That's not ignoring a whole field of 
poetry.  There are good visual poets I've never heard of.

Now, is he popular because of his poetry or because of his message?

--Bob 






From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 07:44:17 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 13:44:17 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] My Examiner Valentine's Day Column: How to Write a 
	Love Poem to Your Sweetie if You're Not a Poet
In-Reply-To: <498CC9E1.9060102@opus40.org>
References: <498CC9E1.9060102@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902070444sf30fbc6qfbb8620aa76f3004@mail.gmail.com>

Interesting, will do ...

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 12:38 AM, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:

> Valentine's Day Examiner column: How to write a love poem for your sweetie
> if you're not a poet.
>
> http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner
>
> --
> Tad Richards
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
> http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sat Feb  7 07:58:34 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 07:58:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Marilyn Chin
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902070458y9c8d2d2me8ccf09ff9384c1b@mail.gmail.com>

A dear friend just sent me this excellent [Excellent] poem, Turtle Soup, by
Marilyn Chin.
Best,

Judy who enjoys Chin's humour as well as her other Excellent poetic bits

------------------------------

*Turtle Soup*

You go home one evening tired from work,
and your mother boils you turtle soup.
Twelve hours hunched over the hearth
(who knows what else is in that cauldron).

You say, "Ma, you've poached the symbol of long life;
that turtle lived four thousand years, swam
the Wet, up the Yellow, over the Yangtze.
Witnessed the Bronze Age, the High Tang,
grazed on splendid sericulture."
(So, she boils the life out of him.)

"All our ancestors have been fools.
Remember Uncle Wu who rode ten thousand miles
to kill a famous Manchu and ended up
with his head on a pole? Eat, child,
its liver will make you strong."

"Sometimes you're the life, sometimes the sacrifice."
Her sobbing is inconsolable.
So, you spread that gentle napkin
over your lap in decorous Pasadena.

Baby, some high priestess has got it wrong.
The golden decal on the green underbelly
says "Made in Hong Kong."

Is there nothing left but the shell
and humanity's strange inscriptions,
the songs, the rites, the oracles?

FOR BEN HUANG

Copyright (c) 1993 by Marilyn Chin, from *The Pheonix Gone, The Terrace Empty
*Online Source: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/m/mdherrin/turtle.html
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 08:30:29 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 14:30:29 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Marilyn Chin
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902070458y9c8d2d2me8ccf09ff9384c1b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902070458y9c8d2d2me8ccf09ff9384c1b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902070530u7df360c2t42f0dd0234a6c47e@mail.gmail.com>

I know this poem.

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 1:58 PM, Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>wrote:

> A dear friend just sent me this excellent [Excellent] poem, Turtle Soup, by
> Marilyn Chin.
> Best,
>
> Judy who enjoys Chin's humour as well as her other Excellent poetic bits
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *Turtle Soup*
>
> You go home one evening tired from work,
> and your mother boils you turtle soup.
> Twelve hours hunched over the hearth
> (who knows what else is in that cauldron).
>
> You say, "Ma, you've poached the symbol of long life;
> that turtle lived four thousand years, swam
> the Wet, up the Yellow, over the Yangtze.
> Witnessed the Bronze Age, the High Tang,
> grazed on splendid sericulture."
> (So, she boils the life out of him.)
>
> "All our ancestors have been fools.
> Remember Uncle Wu who rode ten thousand miles
> to kill a famous Manchu and ended up
> with his head on a pole? Eat, child,
> its liver will make you strong."
>
> "Sometimes you're the life, sometimes the sacrifice."
> Her sobbing is inconsolable.
> So, you spread that gentle napkin
> over your lap in decorous Pasadena.
>
> Baby, some high priestess has got it wrong.
> The golden decal on the green underbelly
> says "Made in Hong Kong."
>
> Is there nothing left but the shell
> and humanity's strange inscriptions,
> the songs, the rites, the oracles?
>
> FOR BEN HUANG
>
> Copyright (c) 1993 by Marilyn Chin, from *The Pheonix Gone, The Terrace
> Empty
> *Online Source: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/m/mdherrin/turtle.html
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From cheekc at muohio.edu  Sat Feb  7 08:38:27 2009
From: cheekc at muohio.edu (cris cheek)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 08:38:27 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902061328j2edc1010o2a7c9c8662873c8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
	<5C2888AE-0BC9-47A1-AC43-AC069ABA971D@muohio.edu>
	<731bb17a0902061328j2edc1010o2a7c9c8662873c8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <176A5F44-7006-4EC2-9E4A-EF04A45A92ED@muohio.edu>

Yes, the Oxford is Keith's work. It's going to stand in the way of  
contenders for some time yet. Not because it is perfect. No anthology  
could claim to be. Because it makes a great attempt to represent the  
full range of what's been going on on in British and Irish poetries  
throughout the 20th Century. And because the annotations, compiled by  
Nate Dorward are extremely fine.

Bunting's presence played an important role. Almost a reluctant one  
in that he did not seem to seek the limelight. The tale of Tom  
Pickard's encouragement is salutary.

Briggflatt's is simply "one" of the really great long poems written  
in England in the 20th Century.

cris


On Feb 6, 2009, at 4:28 PM, Jeff Newberry wrote:

> Cris--
>
> I agree.  The more I've read his work, the more I like it.  A few  
> people posted some psuedo-insults on the list, but I'm not deterred.
>
> Did Keith Tuma edit the volume that you mention?
>
> Best,
> Jeff
>
> On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 4:24 PM, cris cheek <cheekc at muohio.edu> wrote:
> Bunting IS in the best available anthology for 20th Century British  
> & Irish Poetry, the Oxford; alongside several other poets that  
> ought to be more widely discussed i the US . . . Brian Coffey, WS  
> Graham, Lyn Robert . . .
>
> go Jeff
>
> Bunting's ear is a fine one
>
> cris
>
>
> On Feb 2, 2009, at 11:11 AM, Jeff Newberry wrote:
>
>> I've been reading Keith Tuma's By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and  
>> Postmodern British Poetry and American Readers and his Anthology  
>> of Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry for my comprehensive  
>> examinations.
>>
>> I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been  
>> reading, poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading  
>> for my exams.  So, forgive me if some of my questions of  
>> observations seem elementary or self-evident.
>>
>> By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is  
>> Basil Bunting, a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate  
>> and graduate years as an English major.  I like Briggflats quite a  
>> lot, though I'm still grappling with the poem.  Bunting's lines  
>> with their heavy stresses and Anglo-saxon vocabulary remind me of  
>> Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."  The poem itself is a  
>> Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound immediately.
>>
>> But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with  
>> Eliot's more "universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe  
>> "far-reaching?") concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with  
>> this place (his place?):  Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into  
>> the landscape, carving itself into the land, not unlike the mason  
>> carving stone in the poem's opening lines.  Despite his concern  
>> with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in a dose of  
>> mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves  
>> through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved  
>> notions--such as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.
>>
>> So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on  
>> earth is he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me-- 
>> I've not checked) in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.   
>> Perhaps he's not ignored; perhaps I've just missed him.   
>> Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a conversation about a  
>> poet who really has my ear right now.
>>
>> Best,
>> Jeff Newberry
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> <ATT00001.txt>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables;  
> and that is what art really is, particular stories of particular  
> people and experience, from which each according to his own  
> immediate and peculiar needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H.  
> Auden
>
> <ATT00001.txt>

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From editor at pavementsaw.org  Sat Feb  7 11:20:25 2009
From: editor at pavementsaw.org (David Baratier)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 08:20:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
Message-ID: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Gerry--

What is a Lux interior?

Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young Lee reading as proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best known US poets can only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves the opposite. 

Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1


      



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb  7 11:24:30 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:24:30 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] On the Excellence of Housman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>
	<498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498DB5BE.9010406@nut-n-but.net>

I forgot something when I posted my little essay: a thank you to 
New-Poetry for being here for me to post it to, and to all whose 
comments and ideas on excellence in poetry and on this poem in 
particular, including many opposed to mine, that I stole or bounced off 
of into enlargements or improvements of ones I already had.  I know I 
sound now like someone who just won a Tuft's Prize or something, but I 
consider my essay, still in progress though I'm sure it is, an important 
minor achievement for me, however others may view it.

--Bob



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sat Feb  7 11:29:02 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:29:02 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>

The writer, a college student, is saying that an audience of 400 
indicates that poetry is much more important on her campus than she 
might have supposed. If a popular lecture -- on the Darwin anniversary, 
let's say -- draws 15,000 on the same campus, then she's wrong. If it 
draws, say, 600, then she's still right.

David Baratier wrote:
> Gerry--
>
> What is a Lux interior?
>
> Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young Lee reading as proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best known US poets can only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves the opposite. 
>
> Be well
>
> David Baratier, Editor
>
> Pavement Saw Press
> 321 Empire Street
> Montpelier OH 43543
> http://pavementsaw.org
>
> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>
>
>       
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb  7 11:41:20 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:41:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <8CB56E1E069A1F4-14C8-169D@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com><498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net><731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9d
	c6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com><498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net><8CB56DB255D7960-14C8-14B9@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com><5B4002C88734
	4B9CA91AF4AF7C086772@yourae066c3a9b>
	<8CB56E1E069A1F4-14C8-169D@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498DB9B0.3020309@nut-n-but.net>

Follow-up note.  My complaint is not with people who privately bother 
only with one kind of poetry, but with those who publish books of "the 
best" poem (of all kinds) of a year, or give out money or paid vacations 
to poets, or teach classes in contemporary poetry not devoted 
specifically to one poet or kind of poetry, or write criticism 
supposedly of poetry in general, and ignore important entire schools of 
it like visual poetry.  If if were chosen to do any of those things, I 
would make sure I got as good an idea as possible of what poetry was out 
there, including Lee's, including commercially-successful poetry (which 
I admit to knowing close to zero about since Bukowski kicked off and 
McKuen slipped out of fame)--because I would research it and ask for help.

My press has published poetry ranging from, yes, Iowa Plaintext Lyrics, 
to "asemic" poetry (which I refuse to accept as poetry but am willing to 
publish, anyway).  I've reviewed poetry of various contemporary schools 
for /American Book Review/--though its editors only let me review an 
otherstream poet once.  I will admit that I no longer keep up with 
poetry, and never did to a tenth of the extent people like David do.  
But if any of the many reporters who constantly interview me ever asks 
me to describe the State Of Contemporary American Poetry, I will 
forthrightly say that I lack the data to do an accurate job of that, but 
that THE &$##%!!@#ESTABLISHME NTHATESVISUALPOETRYBECA
US EOFHOWMUCHB ETTERTHAN--.  I mean, I will say that the only good poets 
current are those posting to New-Poetry . . .  except for that Anny woman.

--Bob
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From halvard at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 11:42:00 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 10:42:00 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498DB9B0.3020309@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>
	<498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net> <498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB56DB255D7960-14C8-14B9@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>
	<8CB56E1E069A1F4-14C8-169D@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>
	<498DB9B0.3020309@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902070842q718fdfeflb3682c2cbca8de84@mail.gmail.com>

Keeping up with poetry! Now there's a concept.
Hal

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

>  Follow-up note.  My complaint is not with people who privately bother only
> with one kind of poetry, but with those who publish books of "the best" poem
> (of all kinds) of a year, or give out money or paid vacations to poets, or
> teach classes in contemporary poetry not devoted specifically to one poet or
> kind of poetry, or write criticism supposedly of poetry in general, and
> ignore important entire schools of it like visual poetry.  If if were chosen
> to do any of those things, I would make sure I got as good an idea as
> possible of what poetry was out there, including Lee's, including
> commercially-successful poetry (which I admit to knowing close to zero about
> since Bukowski kicked off and McKuen slipped out of fame)--because I would
> research it and ask for help.
>
> My press has published poetry ranging from, yes, Iowa Plaintext Lyrics, to
> "asemic" poetry (which I refuse to accept as poetry but am willing to
> publish, anyway).  I've reviewed poetry of various contemporary schools for
> *American Book Review*--though its editors only let me review an
> otherstream poet once.  I will admit that I no longer keep up with poetry,
> and never did to a tenth of the extent people like David do.  But if any of
> the many reporters who constantly interview me ever asks me to describe the
> State Of Contemporary American Poetry, I will forthrightly say that I lack
> the data to do an accurate job of that, but that THE &$##%!!@#ESTABLISHME
> NTHATESVISUALPOETRYBECA
> US EOFHOWMUCHB ETTERTHAN--.  I mean, I will say that the only good poets
> current are those posting to New-Poetry . . .  except for that Anny woman.
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sat Feb  7 11:46:24 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:46:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902070842q718fdfeflb3682c2cbca8de84@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>	<498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net>
	<498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net>	<8CB56DB255D7960-14C8-14B9@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>	<8CB56E1E069A1F4-14C8-169D@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>	<498DB9B0.3020309@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902070842q718fdfeflb3682c2cbca8de84@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498DBAE0.4030709@opus40.org>

I have enough trouble keeping up with the Johnsons.

Halvard Johnson wrote:
> Keeping up with poetry! Now there's a concept.
>
> Hal
>
> On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>> wrote:
>
>     Follow-up note.  My complaint is not with people who privately
>     bother only with one kind of poetry, but with those who publish
>     books of "the best" poem (of all kinds) of a year, or give out
>     money or paid vacations to poets, or teach classes in contemporary
>     poetry not devoted specifically to one poet or kind of poetry, or
>     write criticism supposedly of poetry in general, and ignore
>     important entire schools of it like visual poetry.  If if were
>     chosen to do any of those things, I would make sure I got as good
>     an idea as possible of what poetry was out there, including Lee's,
>     including commercially-successful poetry (which I admit to knowing
>     close to zero about since Bukowski kicked off and McKuen slipped
>     out of fame)--because I would research it and ask for help.
>
>     My press has published poetry ranging from, yes, Iowa Plaintext
>     Lyrics, to "asemic" poetry (which I refuse to accept as poetry but
>     am willing to publish, anyway).  I've reviewed poetry of various
>     contemporary schools for /American Book Review/--though its
>     editors only let me review an otherstream poet once.  I will admit
>     that I no longer keep up with poetry, and never did to a tenth of
>     the extent people like David do.  But if any of the many reporters
>     who constantly interview me ever asks me to describe the State Of
>     Contemporary American Poetry, I will forthrightly say that I lack
>     the data to do an accurate job of that, but that THE
>     &$##%!!@#ESTABLISHME NTHATESVISUALPOETRYBECA
>     US EOFHOWMUCHB ETTERTHAN--.  I mean, I will say that the only good
>     poets current are those posting to New-Poetry . . .  except for
>     that Anny woman.
>
>     --Bob
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     New-Poetry mailing list
>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> halvard at gmail.com <mailto:halvard at gmail.com>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html 
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/index.html>
> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html 
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/vidalocabooks.html>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb  7 11:50:28 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:50:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498DBBD4.2090302@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> The writer, a college student, is saying that an audience of 400 
> indicates that poetry is much more important on her campus than she 
> might have supposed. If a popular lecture -- on the Darwin 
> anniversary, let's say -- draws 15,000 on the same campus, then she's 
> wrong. If it draws, say, 600, then she's still right.
>
There is also the problem of why the poet is popular.  Is it due, I 
still want to know, to his poetry or his message?  If the Pope had a 
book of poems published and drew a crowd of 400 or 4000 to a reading, 
would it indicate poetry is popular?

--Bob G.


> David Baratier wrote:
>> Gerry--
>>
>> What is a Lux interior?
>>
>> Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young Lee reading as 
>> proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best known US poets 
>> can only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves the opposite.
>> Be well
>>
>> David Baratier, Editor
>>
>> Pavement Saw Press
>> 321 Empire Street
>> Montpelier OH 43543
>> http://pavementsaw.org
>>
>> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
>> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>>
>>
>>      
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>   
>




From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Feb  7 12:05:17 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 11:05:17 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <40037250-979E-454F-BFB7-B5F13DA0EA4F@ripon.edu>

This argument really refuses to die a decent death, rising every so  
often from the ashes to totter around and scare poets anew and give  
highbrow journalists an easy topic to tut-tut about.  Usually in the  
absence of any facts beyond a couple flashy anecdotes.

Poetry's not as popular as bread & circuses, and never has been.

My guess is that at least as many Americans read a bit of poetry now  
and then as attend modern dance performances, but I can't prove that,  
and you probably can't disprove it, either.  It's apples-and-oranges  
and a distraction from all things important and holy anyway.

A given:  more people watch pro wrestling than read Li-Young Lee.    
But is that really the most interesting comparison to keep making,  
whether you're Edmund Wilson or Dana Gioia?

The curious matter is that poetry's death is such an old story.  Why,  
as Donald Hall asked in an essay many years back, do so many poets  
and others yearn to declare poetry dead?  Especially when there is  
rather a lot of evidence to the contrary.  Now *that's* a fascinating  
question.  See Hall's essays for what is still, to my knowledge, the  
best treatment of this issue.  "Death to the Death of Poetry" would  
be a decent place to start.

For my part, I've been attending poetry readings for more than 30  
years which were lively and packed with listeners, in many states  
across the land, on and off campus.  For decades now I've seen poets  
like Gwendolyn Brooks or Robert Bly routinely draw much bigger  
audiences than lectures on anthropology or the films of Ingmar  
Bergman, for instance.  A couple weeks ago on my college campus a  
poet even I've never heard of drew an audience of about 30 or 40 to a  
reading that no one was required to attend.  That's simply not  
unusual, in my experience.

Should I moan because, across town, Beyonce is filling a stadium?

In a world where even a poet as obscure as myself has read to  
audiences in the triple digits more than once, I believe that the  
notion of poetry's "popularity" is, at least, complicated.

Bob G is still fussing, I see, because no one will rise to his bait &  
declare that Li-Young Lee is or is not "popular" due to his  
"message."  That's probably because it *is* so obviously bait, and  
not indicative of a desire to know more about Li-Young Lee.  Jeff  
Newberry and Jim Finnegan already nailed him on that.  Bob's question  
is also, just incidentally, a nice example of the fallacy of  
bifurcation.  I mean, was Shakespeare popular "because" of his skill  
as a playwright, or because there are murders and lots of sex jokes  
in his plays?

For extra credit: what *was* the message in *Othello*, anyway?

========================================
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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From halvard at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 12:10:04 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 11:10:04 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <40037250-979E-454F-BFB7-B5F13DA0EA4F@ripon.edu>
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>
	<40037250-979E-454F-BFB7-B5F13DA0EA4F@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902070910n44a42748g96f89c7f67f5a48a@mail.gmail.com>

Hey, even when that Yevtushenko guy used to fill soccer stadiums in the USSR
backin the good, old Cold War days, that was almost entirely because there
wasn't anything
good on TV.

Hal

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 11:05 AM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> This argument really refuses to die a decent death, rising every so often
> from the ashes to totter around and scare poets anew and give highbrow
> journalists an easy topic to tut-tut about.  Usually in the absence of any
> facts beyond a couple flashy anecdotes.
> Poetry's not as popular as bread & circuses, and never has been.
>
> My guess is that at least as many Americans read a bit of poetry now and
> then as attend modern dance performances, but I can't prove that, and you
> probably can't disprove it, either.  It's apples-and-oranges and a
> distraction from all things important and holy anyway.
>
> A given:  more people watch pro wrestling than read Li-Young Lee.   But is
> that really the most interesting comparison to keep making, whether you're
> Edmund Wilson or Dana Gioia?
>
> The curious matter is that poetry's death is such an old story.  Why, as
> Donald Hall asked in an essay many years back, do so many poets and others
> yearn to declare poetry dead?  Especially when there is rather a lot of
> evidence to the contrary.  Now *that's* a fascinating question.  See Hall's
> essays for what is still, to my knowledge, the best treatment of this issue.
>  "Death to the Death of Poetry" would be a decent place to start.
>
> For my part, I've been attending poetry readings for more than 30 years
> which were lively and packed with listeners, in many states across the land,
> on and off campus.  For decades now I've seen poets like Gwendolyn Brooks or
> Robert Bly routinely draw much bigger audiences than lectures on
> anthropology or the films of Ingmar Bergman, for instance.  A couple weeks
> ago on my college campus a poet even I've never heard of drew an audience of
> about 30 or 40 to a reading that no one was required to attend.  That's
> simply not unusual, in my experience.
>
> Should I moan because, across town, Beyonce is filling a stadium?
>
> In a world where even a poet as obscure as myself has read to audiences in
> the triple digits more than once, I believe that the notion of poetry's
> "popularity" is, at least, complicated.
>
> Bob G is still fussing, I see, because no one will rise to his bait &
> declare that Li-Young Lee is or is not "popular" due to his "message."
>  That's probably because it *is* so obviously bait, and not indicative of a
> desire to know more about Li-Young Lee.  Jeff Newberry and Jim Finnegan
> already nailed him on that.  Bob's question is also, just incidentally, a
> nice example of the fallacy of bifurcation.  I mean, was Shakespeare popular
> "because" of his skill as a playwright, or because there are murders and
> lots of sex jokes in his plays?
>
> For extra credit: what *was* the message in *Othello*, anyway?
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb  7 12:52:57 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:52:57 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <40037250-979E-454F-BFB7-B5F13DA0EA4F@ripon.edu>
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com><498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>
	<40037250-979E-454F-BFB7-B5F13DA0EA4F@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <498DCA79.6050409@nut-n-but.net>

Bob G is still fussing, I see, because no one will rise to his bait & 
declare that Li-Young Lee is or is not "popular" due to his "message." 
 That's probably because it *is* so obviously bait, and not indicative 
of a desire to know more about Li-Young Lee.

Right, David.  But I always answer your baited questions, and 
you--oddly--never respond to my answers.
>  Jeff Newberry and Jim Finnegan already nailed him on that.
And I revealed the weakness of their case--without rebuttal so far.

> Bob's question is also, just incidentally, a nice example of the 
> fallacy of bifurcation.  I mean, was Shakespeare popular "because" of 
> his skill as a playwright, or because there are murders and lots of 
> sex jokes in his plays?
Both, David.  My question was a casual one that I thought anyone reading 
it would take to be "is Lee's popularity based on his being some kind of 
new-age prophet,  as the text on him suggested to me he is, as well as a 
poet or is it based purely on what he does as a poet?  This is central 
to whether his popularity indicates that poetry as poetry is popular or 
not.  I truly don't know but I truly am not interested enough in popular 
poetry to find out on my own.
>  
>
> For extra credit: what *was* the message in *Othello*, anyway?
That jealousy is a bad thing.

--Bob G.



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 13:37:31 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 19:37:31 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Segantini and the bad mothers
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902071037y2636f01aiea84d1be24afa4a9@mail.gmail.com>

I am wondering, am I the only one who thinks that The Bad Mothers are simply
"bad mothers"?
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=2&id=30

My assumption starts from a very simple linguistic statement, that a mother
is a woman who has a child. A female human being who does not have a child
is defined a woman, a girl, a lady, ... but not a "mother".

I am specifically denying the following:

The Punishment of Lust belongs to a series of paintings produced between
1891-96 on the theme of bad mothers (cattive madri). Segantini was inspired
by Nirvana, a poem written by the 12th century monk Luigi Illica in
imitation of the Indian text Panghiavahli. Illica's poem contained the
phrase 'la Mala Madre' (the bad or wicked mother with an echo similar to 'la
mala femmina' or prostitute) to describe those women who refused the
responsibilities of motherhood.





-- 
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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From gejs1 at rochester.rr.com  Sat Feb  7 14:48:35 2009
From: gejs1 at rochester.rr.com (Gerald Schwartz)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 14:48:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <466B731155A74091AC4915CCB1EE197A@yourae066c3a9b>


Lux Interior, along with partner Poison Ivy,
fronted The Cramps...
He passed from this to a hotter coil the other
day.

'86 or '87 saw them @ the Q.

Same year as the Chilli Peppers... and Living
Colour, 247 Spyz...

Wasn't I using a Lee draw as proof, didn't mean
 to at least. (Was being haughty/ sarcastic... thinking
someone like Lux had so much more to put in front of

an audience than a Lee, etc.)
But, since Interior's death and Lee's "draw" entered into my
consciousness at the same time, decided something need be
(in a twisted-lime kinda way)said.

On a same note, I did see Sala in the late seventies, opening for
the Stooges, holding the stage with the best of them.

g.

> Gerry--
>
> What is a Lux interior?
>
> Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young Lee reading as 
> proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best known US poets can 
> only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves the opposite.
>
> Be well
>
> David Baratier, Editor
>
> Pavement Saw Press
> 321 Empire Street
> Montpelier OH 43543
> http://pavementsaw.org
>
> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 17:42:47 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 15:42:47 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <466B731155A74091AC4915CCB1EE197A@yourae066c3a9b>
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<466B731155A74091AC4915CCB1EE197A@yourae066c3a9b>
Message-ID: <648208b60902071442y46d9405ek2b0d08e752f89f68@mail.gmail.com>

Just reading the name/term "Lux Interior" was like lighting a sparkler
and I should have ridden one of the little comets and written a poem.
None of the little lights had anything to do with a punk group or
particular persona.  Now "Lux Interior" is tainted, so to speak.  Can
it be cleansed?

- Jim

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Gerald Schwartz <gejs1 at rochester.rr.com> wrote:
>
> Lux Interior, along with partner Poison Ivy,
> fronted The Cramps...
> He passed from this to a hotter coil the other
> day.
>
> '86 or '87 saw them @ the Q.
>
> Same year as the Chilli Peppers... and Living
> Colour, 247 Spyz...
>
> Wasn't I using a Lee draw as proof, didn't mean
> to at least. (Was being haughty/ sarcastic... thinking
> someone like Lux had so much more to put in front of
>
> an audience than a Lee, etc.)
> But, since Interior's death and Lee's "draw" entered into my
> consciousness at the same time, decided something need be
> (in a twisted-lime kinda way)said.
>
> On a same note, I did see Sala in the late seventies, opening for
> the Stooges, holding the stage with the best of them.
>
> g.
>
>> Gerry--
>>
>> What is a Lux interior?
>>
>> Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young Lee reading as
>> proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best known US poets can
>> only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves the opposite.
>>
>> Be well
>>
>> David Baratier, Editor
>>
>> Pavement Saw Press
>> 321 Empire Street
>> Montpelier OH 43543
>> http://pavementsaw.org
>>
>> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
>> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
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> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From amanda at surkont.com  Sat Feb  7 17:48:34 2009
From: amanda at surkont.com (Amanda Surkont)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 14:48:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <40037250-979E-454F-BFB7-B5F13DA0EA4F@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <917296.5697.qm@web1108.biz.mail.sk1.yahoo.com>

Because it makes them feel better about not getting paid for it... .best, manda

--- On Sat, 2/7/09, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote: <clipped in the interest of netiquette"


The curious matter is that poetry's death is such an old story. ?Why, as Donald Hall asked in an essay many years back, do so many poets and others yearn to declare poetry dead? ?Especially when there is rather a lot of evidence to the contrary. ?Now *that's* a fascinating question. ?
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sat Feb  7 18:20:49 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 18:20:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] On the Excellence of Housman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>
	<498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902071520u6004ab4bieddd8531d9ed41fb@mail.gmail.com>

What exercise for an exercise, Bob!  Good thing you only have to paraphrase
and evaluate next the 'Banana' poem.
Since what you're mainly doing is trying to refute Linda Sue Grimes, John
Jeffrey, and my interp that 'snow' means 'snow' in the last line, I'll go
ahead and carve a coupla hours out of my Saturday evening to refute your
attempt, interleaving below with ALL CAPS because we can't do colours.

Here goes:

2009/2/6 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

>  A Rough Attempt At Rating Housman's Cherry Blossom Poem
>
>                   II
>
>
>     Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>     Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>     And stands about the woodland ride
>     Wearing white for Eastertide.
>
>     Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>     Twenty will not come again,
>     And take from seventy springs a score,
>     It only leaves me fifty more.
>
>     And since to look at things in bloom
>     Fifty springs are little room,
>     About the woodlands I will go
>     To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
>     A. E. Housman
>
>
> My paraphrase (with some metaparaphrasing in italics):
>
>     Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>
> The boughs of the cherry trees, which are the most beautiful trees
>
>     Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>
> are laden with blossoms at this time
>
>     And stands about the woodland ride
>
> and line the trail through the woods
>
>     Wearing white for Eastertide.
>
> decked out in a white hue appropriate for Easter
> (*which is the happiest time of the year*)
>
>     Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>     Twenty will not come again,
>
> At this time, twenty of the seventy years (*the Bible suggests I'll have*)
>
> are gone permanently.
>
>     And take from seventy springs a score,
>
> If you subtract twenty springtimes from seventy
>
>     It only leaves me fifty more.
>
> it will leave me just fifty more years of life
>
>     And since to look at things in bloom
>     Fifty springs are little room,
>
> Because fifty years of springtimes don't give one much time
> to enjoying looking at Nature's blossomings
>
>     About the woodlands I will go
>
> I'll proceed through the woods (right away)
>
>     To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
> To take in (as much as I can of) the beauty of the snow-like blossoms of
> the cherry tree.
> The snow is metaphorical because:
>
> (1) the speaker is going to "look at things in bloom."  REASONABLE POINT IF
> YOU WANT TO STAY SUPER-LITERAL THROUGHOUT THE POEM, WHICH YOU DON'T.
>
> (2) the speaker has be celebrating spring entirely to this point; nothing
> he's said indicates
> that he's going to wait until winter comes, then go out and look at the
> snow on the cherry
> trees (which, in any case, would be little different from the snow on other
> deciduous
> trees); among other problems with the emotional logic of this, it suggests
> that he is
> capable, after all his praise of them, of forgetting about the cherry
> blossoms out there for
> him to enjoy right now.  YOU AND I AGREE THAT HE SAVES 'THE BEST', 'THE
> ZINGER', 'THE DECISIVE POINT' 'TIL HIS LAST LINE; WE DISAGREE ON WHETHER
> SNOW IS SNOW OR SNOW IS BLOSSOMS.  RE YOUR PARENTHETICAL POINT, HE WISHES TO
> FOCUS ON HIS FAVE TREE, THE CHERRY, SO IS WISE TO CONTINUE WITH IT.
>  FINALLY, BECAUSE HE LOVES MOST OF ALL THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS AND FIGURES HE
> HASN'T ENUFF SPRINGTIMES TO SEE THEM, HE WILL SEE ITS BOUGHS LADEN WITH
> WHITE IN THE 50 WINTERS HE THINKS HE HAS LEFT.
>
> (3)  I simply can't read the poem as not being about someone fully engaged
> in the moment-
> -the speaker spends four lines speaking in the highest terms of the beauty
> of cherry
> blossoms, then six indicating how little time he has to enjoy them (the
> blossoms) despite
> his having fifty more years to live; this sets up his last two lines as
> close to the synthesis
> of a standard syllogism: cherry blossoms are worth seeing; I haven't much
> time to see
> them; therefore, I will--what? put on my snowshoes are go look at them when
> they have
> snow on their branches?  Not for me.  AGAIN, WE DIFFER ONLY ON HIS
> DECISION, HOW HE DECIDES TO SEE BEAUTY AS OFTEN AS HE CAN.  YOU ASSUME THAT
> IF HE TRAMPS AROUND THE WOODS MORE [EACH SPRING] THAN HE HAS DONE, OR MORE
> THAN HE HAS JUST 'THIS' SPRING FINISHED DOING, HE WILL BE SATISFIED.  YOU
> MAY BE RIGHT; I THINK YOU'RE NOT.
>
> (4) the argument has been made that "snow" as a metaphor comes out of
> nowhere--but
> earlier in the poem, the trees are personified; that they are "hung" with
> blooms is
> somewhat figurative, too, suggesting, as it does, not the sprouting of
> blooms, but
> someone's going about decorating them.  In any case, the metaphor in line
> four is an
> involved, important one--the trees aren't just wearing human apparel, they
> are celebrating
> the season.  HOUSMAN'S LOW-LEVEL PERSONIFICATIONS IN THE FIRST STANZA
> PRETTY MUCH EXHAUST HIS FIGURATIVES FOR THE POEM.  'HUNG', 'STANDS', AND
> 'WEARING' TRY CLICHEDLY TO DESCRIBE WHAT HE LOVES, ARE LIMITED TO THE FIRST
> STANZA, AND APPEAR AFTER HE HAS ASSERTED WHAT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, TO HIM,
> THE BLOOMING CHERRY TREE.  THEREAFTER, HE LOGICS AND CONCLUDES WITHOUT
> FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
>


>
>
> (5) if the poet wanted us to believe the speaker was going to look at the
> cherry trees in
> winter, he could easily have changed the poem to tell us that explicitly:
> for instance, by
> saying, "About the woods, I'll also go/ When blooms have been replaced by
> snow."  Or the
> like.  Why would the poet not have made sure we saw the point if it was
> that?  Was he
> some kind of devious Empsonian?  He doesn't seem so to me.  THE BOTTOM HALF
> OF HIS LAST STANZA'S EXPLICIT TO ME AND OTHERS, AND MORE POETIC THAN YOUR
> REPLACEMENT, WHICH SEEMS TO ME UNNECESSARY.
>
> (6) I would add that "snow" as a metaphor gives the poem a nice climax that
> echoes what
> I consider the main virtue of the poem, its contrasting light and dark, and
> the transient and
> enduring.  A PROFOUND CONCLUSION LIVES IN HIS LITERAL LAST LINE.  IT IMPELS
> US TO LOOK FOR BEAUTY IN THE THINGS AND TIMES THAT WE TEND NOT TO EXPECT
> THEM.  FOR EXAMPLE, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, SO LET ME LOOK AT YOU MORE.....IS NOT
> PROFOUND.  YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL AT THIS MOMENT, AND I WILL SEE YOUR BEAUTY IN
> OTHER WAYS, AT THE STARKEST TIMES, EVEN WHEN ALL OTHERS WOULD SEE UGLINESS
> AND WANT.  THAT'S WISE, THOUGHT-PROVOKING, AND URGES SEEING THE SPIRITUAL IN
> THE TEMPORAL, THE SENSUAL.  THAT INTERPRETATION-EXPLANATION COVERS YOUR NEXT
> SEVERAL POINTS.
>


> BEST TO YOU, BEAUTIFUL BOB, FOR YOUR EFFORTS.  WE AWAIT YOUR 'BANANA'
> EVALUATION.
>

JUDY


>
> (7) Even with its rhetoric, the poem seems to be speaking of blossoms as it
> ends, not of literal snow, because it ends with a near repeat of its second
> line.  This could be taken as a clever twist--first spring, then winter; but
> it seems too abrupt for me, and my other arguments are against it.  The
> final lines work far better for me as a satisfying complete return to its
> initial subject.
>
> By my revised check-list, this poem qualifies as excellent because:
>
> (1) it both expresses things importantly true and represents things
> centrally beautiful.
>
> a. it expresses the joy of an individual thinking about and anticipating
> seeing the beauty of
> cherry trees in bloom (an implied synecdoche for spring); it thus
> represents something
> centrally beautiful: a human being's love for Nature and beauty
>
> b. it expresses the belief that cherry trees in bloom and, implicitly,
> Nature (and existence) is
> not only beautiful but, in human terms, inexhaustible because a full
> lifetime will barely, or
> not, give us time fully to enjoy it; it thus expresses something that will
> seem to many
> people imprtantly true--that existence's beauty makes life worthwhile; at
> the same time, the
> poem accentuates the beauty of spring by contrasting it with winter at the
> end, and with
> arithmetic in the middle.
>
> c. blending in with a. and b. is what it suggests about the brevity of
> human life: we have
> little time to enjoy its beauty, so we should make the most of what time we
> have--which is
> so clearly importantly true that, stated in prose, it is a banality.  Note,
> however, that
> Housman gives this carpe diem them an amusing twist (in keeping with the
> high spirits of
> the piece: the poem is not about making the most of the day but of one's
> lifetime.
>
> d. in the meantime, in stating that--for its speaker, at any rate--looking
> at cherry trees
> hung with blossoms is of first importance, it expresses something else that
> is importantly
> true to non-utilitarians: that beauty is second to nothing else in value to
> a human life
> Indeed, for the speaker, it is something to devote fifty springs to, not
> just a day--he isn't
> thinking of a fling with Persephone but marriage to her.
>
> e. at the same time, it suggests with a reference to easter, and references
> to spring, not to
> mention its focus on cherry blossoms, the cyclic ongoingness of existence:
> however fragile
> and transient Nature's cherry blossoms are, and--implicitly--human life,
> rebirth will occur;
> it thus expresses a third thing importantly true for the religious, and
> even for those who
> are not religious but believe in the kind of reincarnation Shelley and
> Nietzsche did (and I
> do); for those who don't believe in reincarnation, it still expresses the
> important truth that
> Nature itself will endure.
>
> f. finally, the poem is itself an object of beauty due to its sounds,
> images and diction,
> sufficiently so in my view for me to be able confidently to claim it
> represents something
> which is centrally beautiful--itself, in particular, and poetry, in
> general.
>
> (2) it is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or
> something that makes
> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
> eventually achieves Clarity;
>
> Few, I think, would argue that Housman's poem is unclear.  But its full
> meaning takes time
> to get to, it seems to me.  It also has a personification not brilliant but
> perfect for the poem
> that complicates the poem just enough to provide what seems to me
> sufficient Thematic
> Misdirection.  I say that because I believe all figures of speech do
> this--they are errors
> generating confusion it takes a mind a few seconds to overcome.  Metrical
> poetry also is
> different enough from prose to slow a reader's journey toward understanding
> the poem in
> whole.  This poem is far from having the thematic misdirection many poems
> have, but it
> has enough, so gets a check here.
>
> (3) it has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which
> pulls its
> elements reasonably close together;
>
> I presented my interpretation of the poem as a unified set of four
> consequential truths and a
> closely inter-related representation of beauty.  Its packaging as a lyric
> poem of beauty
> further unifies it.  So the poem scores well here.
>
> (4) it contains few or no superfluous words;
>
> All the poem's words seem necessary either to its meaning or its acoustics,
> and only rarely
> not to both.  All metrical poems have occasional words that are there for
> the metrics or
> rhyme almost entirely, or fall out of one or the other of those things to
> maintain meaning.
> So the poem gets a check here, too.
>
> (5) it boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have
> such as
> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
> art), and imagery;
>
> To me the main special constituent this poem has that few of no other poems
> have is the
> wry interruption from pure, almost too sweet lyric, into grade school
> arithmetic it takes--
> with a Biblical allusion giving it ponderousness completely opposed to the
> lightness of
> cherry blossoms, and delight in cherry blossoms.  This strikes me as a
> wonderful change of
> tone: cerebral analysis versus emotional spontaneity, heaviness versus
> gaiety, play,
> implicitly, versus duty.
>
> I suspect but would not swear that the poem also has a melodiousness rare
> in poetry, a
> melodiousness kept from excess by the speaker's drawn-out calculations.
> One other
> triumph it achieves, although I would not call it uncommonly effective, is
> its
> personification of the cherry trees as wearing white garments to celebrate
> Easter.  We're in
> the archetypal here: Spring!  Rebirth!  Celebration!  Joy!  Universal Love
> of Existence!
>
> (6) it avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or
> thought; too
> overt Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
> I give it a check here, too.  It uses a standard form, but it's one
> appropriate to a fairly
> serious albeit happy work: pentameter and tetrameter (as opposed to
> Dickinson's more
> jingly tetrameter and trimeter), with missing weak stresses at the
> beginning of several
> lines, which enlivens the poem, to my ear.  Nothing brilliant about the
> rhymes, but they
> work as well as the rhymes or just about any poem.  "Along the bough," for
> instance, is
> pretty clearly in the poem for meter and rhyme since it's unneeded for the
> meaning--where
> else would blooms be hung?  But it works so well melodationally, one can't
> reasonably
> criticize it.  "Is hung with bloom along the bough" not only closes an
> end-rhyme, but
> carries out a b- and an l-alliteration, and a g-consonance, and four open
> vowels combine
> with the two l's and the w to liquify the line, the l's in particular
> carrying on the l-
> alliteration that begins the poem, and continues into the third line.  And
> the w's go on in
> the rest of this stanza to form a 4-member alliteration.  The sound effects
> in the rest of the
> poem are similarly effective.  And, as I mentioned in my brief against
> taking "snow" as
> literal snow, the poem is a near-perfectly crafted little mechanism, with a
> theme stated at
> its beginning, veered rather distantly from, then returned triumphantly to.
>
>
>
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sat Feb  7 19:44:29 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 19:44:29 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] On the Excellence of Housman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902071520u6004ab4bieddd8531d9ed41fb@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>	<498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902071520u6004ab4bieddd8531d9ed41fb@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498E2AED.9060309@opus40.org>

Re: AGAIN, WE DIFFER ONLY ON HIS DECISION, HOW HE DECIDES TO SEE BEAUTY 
AS OFTEN AS HE CAN.  YOU ASSUME THAT IF HE TRAMPS AROUND THE WOODS MORE 
[EACH SPRING] THAN HE HAS DONE, OR MORE THAN HE HAS JUST 'THIS' SPRING 
FINISHED DOING, HE WILL BE SATISFIED.  YOU MAY BE RIGHT; I THINK YOU'RE 
NOT. 

He doesn't do either. The poem is not written by a 70-year-old man 
reflecting on all the cherry blossoms he's seen, and/or all the snowy 
trees he's seen. This is an ecstatic burst by a 20-year-old. We have 
know way of knowing whether he'll follow through on it beyond that morning.


Judy Prince wrote:
> What exercise for an exercise, Bob!  Good thing you only have to 
> paraphrase and evaluate next the 'Banana' poem.  
>
> Since what you're mainly doing is trying to refute Linda Sue Grimes, 
> John Jeffrey, and my interp that 'snow' means 'snow' in the last line, 
> I'll go ahead and carve a coupla hours out of my Saturday evening to 
> refute your attempt, interleaving below with ALL CAPS because we can't 
> do colours.
>
> Here goes:
>
> 2009/2/6 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>>
>
>     A Rough Attempt At Rating Housman's Cherry Blossom Poem
>
>                       II
>
>
>         Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>         Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>         And stands about the woodland ride
>         Wearing white for Eastertide.
>
>         Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>         Twenty will not come again,
>         And take from seventy springs a score,
>         It only leaves me fifty more.
>
>         And since to look at things in bloom
>         Fifty springs are little room,
>         About the woodlands I will go
>         To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
>         A. E. Housman
>
>
>     My paraphrase (with some metaparaphrasing in italics):
>
>         Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>        
>     The boughs of the cherry trees, which are the most beautiful trees
>
>         Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>
>     are laden with blossoms at this time
>
>         And stands about the woodland ride
>
>     and line the trail through the woods
>
>         Wearing white for Eastertide.
>
>     decked out in a white hue appropriate for Easter
>     (/which is the happiest time of the year/)
>
>         Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>         Twenty will not come again,
>
>     At this time, twenty of the seventy years (/the Bible suggests
>     I'll have/)
>     are gone permanently.
>
>         And take from seventy springs a score,
>
>     If you subtract twenty springtimes from seventy
>
>         It only leaves me fifty more.
>
>     it will leave me just fifty more years of life
>
>         And since to look at things in bloom
>         Fifty springs are little room,
>
>     Because fifty years of springtimes don't give one much time
>     to enjoying looking at Nature's blossomings
>
>         About the woodlands I will go
>
>     I'll proceed through the woods (right away)
>
>         To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
>     To take in (as much as I can of) the beauty of the snow-like
>     blossoms of the cherry tree.
>     The snow is metaphorical because:
>
>     (1) the speaker is going to "look at things in bloom."  REASONABLE
>     POINT IF YOU WANT TO STAY SUPER-LITERAL THROUGHOUT THE POEM, WHICH
>     YOU DON'T.
>
>     (2) the speaker has be celebrating spring entirely to this point;
>     nothing he's said indicates
>     that he's going to wait until winter comes, then go out and look
>     at the snow on the cherry
>     trees (which, in any case, would be little different from the snow
>     on other deciduous
>     trees); among other problems with the emotional logic of this, it
>     suggests that he is
>     capable, after all his praise of them, of forgetting about the
>     cherry blossoms out there for
>     him to enjoy right now.  YOU AND I AGREE THAT HE SAVES 'THE BEST',
>     'THE ZINGER', 'THE DECISIVE POINT' 'TIL HIS LAST LINE; WE DISAGREE
>     ON WHETHER SNOW IS SNOW OR SNOW IS BLOSSOMS.  RE YOUR
>     PARENTHETICAL POINT, HE WISHES TO FOCUS ON HIS FAVE TREE, THE
>     CHERRY, SO IS WISE TO CONTINUE WITH IT.  FINALLY, BECAUSE HE LOVES
>     MOST OF ALL THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS AND FIGURES HE HASN'T ENUFF
>     SPRINGTIMES TO SEE THEM, HE WILL SEE ITS BOUGHS LADEN WITH WHITE
>     IN THE 50 WINTERS HE THINKS HE HAS LEFT.  
>
>     (3)  I simply can't read the poem as not being about someone fully
>     engaged in the moment-
>     -the speaker spends four lines speaking in the highest terms of
>     the beauty of cherry
>     blossoms, then six indicating how little time he has to enjoy them
>     (the blossoms) despite
>     his having fifty more years to live; this sets up his last two
>     lines as close to the synthesis
>     of a standard syllogism: cherry blossoms are worth seeing; I
>     haven't much time to see
>     them; therefore, I will--what? put on my snowshoes are go look at
>     them when they have
>     snow on their branches?  Not for me.  AGAIN, WE DIFFER ONLY ON HIS
>     DECISION, HOW HE DECIDES TO SEE BEAUTY AS OFTEN AS HE CAN.  YOU
>     ASSUME THAT IF HE TRAMPS AROUND THE WOODS MORE [EACH SPRING] THAN
>     HE HAS DONE, OR MORE THAN HE HAS JUST 'THIS' SPRING FINISHED
>     DOING, HE WILL BE SATISFIED.  YOU MAY BE RIGHT; I THINK YOU'RE NOT.  
>
>     (4) the argument has been made that "snow" as a metaphor comes out
>     of nowhere--but
>     earlier in the poem, the trees are personified; that they are
>     "hung" with blooms is
>     somewhat figurative, too, suggesting, as it does, not the
>     sprouting of blooms, but
>     someone's going about decorating them.  In any case, the metaphor
>     in line four is an
>     involved, important one--the trees aren't just wearing human
>     apparel, they are celebrating
>     the season.  HOUSMAN'S LOW-LEVEL PERSONIFICATIONS IN THE FIRST
>     STANZA PRETTY MUCH EXHAUST HIS FIGURATIVES FOR THE POEM.  'HUNG',
>     'STANDS', AND 'WEARING' TRY CLICHEDLY TO DESCRIBE WHAT HE LOVES,
>     ARE LIMITED TO THE FIRST STANZA, AND APPEAR AFTER HE HAS ASSERTED
>     WHAT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, TO HIM, THE BLOOMING CHERRY TREE.
>      THEREAFTER, HE LOGICS AND CONCLUDES WITHOUT FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
>
>  
>
>
>      
>     (5) if the poet wanted us to believe the speaker was going to look
>     at the cherry trees in
>     winter, he could easily have changed the poem to tell us that
>     explicitly: for instance, by
>     saying, "About the woods, I'll also go/ When blooms have been
>     replaced by snow."  Or the
>     like.  Why would the poet not have made sure we saw the point if
>     it was that?  Was he
>     some kind of devious Empsonian?  He doesn't seem so to me.  THE
>     BOTTOM HALF OF HIS LAST STANZA'S EXPLICIT TO ME AND OTHERS, AND
>     MORE POETIC THAN YOUR REPLACEMENT, WHICH SEEMS TO ME UNNECESSARY.
>
>     (6) I would add that "snow" as a metaphor gives the poem a nice
>     climax that echoes what
>     I consider the main virtue of the poem, its contrasting light and
>     dark, and the transient and
>     enduring.  A PROFOUND CONCLUSION LIVES IN HIS LITERAL LAST LINE.
>      IT IMPELS US TO LOOK FOR BEAUTY IN THE THINGS AND TIMES THAT WE
>     TEND NOT TO EXPECT THEM.  FOR EXAMPLE, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, SO LET
>     ME LOOK AT YOU MORE.....IS NOT PROFOUND.  YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL AT
>     THIS MOMENT, AND I WILL SEE YOUR BEAUTY IN OTHER WAYS, AT THE
>     STARKEST TIMES, EVEN WHEN ALL OTHERS WOULD SEE UGLINESS AND WANT.
>      THAT'S WISE, THOUGHT-PROVOKING, AND URGES SEEING THE SPIRITUAL IN
>     THE TEMPORAL, THE SENSUAL.  THAT INTERPRETATION-EXPLANATION COVERS
>     YOUR NEXT SEVERAL POINTS.
>
>  
>
>     BEST TO YOU, BEAUTIFUL BOB, FOR YOUR EFFORTS.  WE AWAIT YOUR
>     'BANANA' EVALUATION.  
>
>
> JUDY 
>
>
>
>     (7) Even with its rhetoric, the poem seems to be speaking of
>     blossoms as it ends, not of literal snow, because it ends with a
>     near repeat of its second line.  This could be taken as a clever
>     twist--first spring, then winter; but it seems too abrupt for me,
>     and my other arguments are against it.  The final lines work far
>     better for me as a satisfying complete return to its initial subject.
>
>     By my revised check-list, this poem qualifies as excellent because:
>
>     (1) it both expresses things importantly true and represents
>     things centrally beautiful.
>
>     a. it expresses the joy of an individual thinking about and
>     anticipating seeing the beauty of
>     cherry trees in bloom (an implied synecdoche for spring); it thus
>     represents something
>     centrally beautiful: a human being's love for Nature and beauty
>
>     b. it expresses the belief that cherry trees in bloom and,
>     implicitly, Nature (and existence) is
>     not only beautiful but, in human terms, inexhaustible because a
>     full lifetime will barely, or
>     not, give us time fully to enjoy it; it thus expresses something
>     that will seem to many
>     people imprtantly true--that existence's beauty makes life
>     worthwhile; at the same time, the
>     poem accentuates the beauty of spring by contrasting it with
>     winter at the end, and with
>     arithmetic in the middle.
>
>     c. blending in with a. and b. is what it suggests about the
>     brevity of human life: we have
>     little time to enjoy its beauty, so we should make the most of
>     what time we have--which is
>     so clearly importantly true that, stated in prose, it is a
>     banality.  Note, however, that
>     Housman gives this carpe diem them an amusing twist (in keeping
>     with the high spirits of
>     the piece: the poem is not about making the most of the day but of
>     one's lifetime.
>
>     d. in the meantime, in stating that--for its speaker, at any
>     rate--looking at cherry trees
>     hung with blossoms is of first importance, it expresses something
>     else that is importantly
>     true to non-utilitarians: that beauty is second to nothing else in
>     value to a human life
>     Indeed, for the speaker, it is something to devote fifty springs
>     to, not just a day--he isn't
>     thinking of a fling with Persephone but marriage to her.
>
>     e. at the same time, it suggests with a reference to easter, and
>     references to spring, not to
>     mention its focus on cherry blossoms, the cyclic ongoingness of
>     existence: however fragile
>     and transient Nature's cherry blossoms are, and--implicitly--human
>     life, rebirth will occur;
>     it thus expresses a third thing importantly true for the
>     religious, and even for those who
>     are not religious but believe in the kind of reincarnation Shelley
>     and Nietzsche did (and I
>     do); for those who don't believe in reincarnation, it still
>     expresses the important truth that
>     Nature itself will endure.
>
>     f. finally, the poem is itself an object of beauty due to its
>     sounds, images and diction,
>     sufficiently so in my view for me to be able confidently to claim
>     it represents something
>     which is centrally beautiful--itself, in particular, and poetry,
>     in general. 
>
>     (2) it is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection,
>     or something that makes
>     its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
>     eventually achieves Clarity;
>
>     Few, I think, would argue that Housman's poem is unclear.  But its
>     full meaning takes time
>     to get to, it seems to me.  It also has a personification not
>     brilliant but perfect for the poem
>     that complicates the poem just enough to provide what seems to me
>     sufficient Thematic
>     Misdirection.  I say that because I believe all figures of speech
>     do this--they are errors
>     generating confusion it takes a mind a few seconds to overcome. 
>     Metrical poetry also is
>     different enough from prose to slow a reader's journey toward
>     understanding the poem in
>     whole.  This poem is far from having the thematic misdirection
>     many poems have, but it
>     has enough, so gets a check here.
>
>     (3) it has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the
>     like which pulls its
>     elements reasonably close together; 
>
>     I presented my interpretation of the poem as a unified set of four
>     consequential truths and a
>     closely inter-related representation of beauty.  Its packaging as
>     a lyric poem of beauty
>     further unifies it.  So the poem scores well here.
>
>     (4) it contains few or no superfluous words;
>
>     All the poem's words seem necessary either to its meaning or its
>     acoustics, and only rarely
>     not to both.  All metrical poems have occasional words that are
>     there for the metrics or
>     rhyme almost entirely, or fall out of one or the other of those
>     things to maintain meaning.
>     So the poem gets a check here, too.
>
>     (5) it boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other
>     poems have such as
>     uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics,
>     visual
>     art), and imagery;
>
>     To me the main special constituent this poem has that few of no
>     other poems have is the
>     wry interruption from pure, almost too sweet lyric, into grade
>     school arithmetic it takes--
>     with a Biblical allusion giving it ponderousness completely
>     opposed to the lightness of
>     cherry blossoms, and delight in cherry blossoms.  This strikes me
>     as a wonderful change of
>     tone: cerebral analysis versus emotional spontaneity, heaviness
>     versus gaiety, play,
>     implicitly, versus duty.
>
>     I suspect but would not swear that the poem also has a
>     melodiousness rare in poetry, a
>     melodiousness kept from excess by the speaker's drawn-out
>     calculations.  One other
>     triumph it achieves, although I would not call it uncommonly
>     effective, is its
>     personification of the cherry trees as wearing white garments to
>     celebrate Easter.  We're in
>     the archetypal here: Spring!  Rebirth!  Celebration!  Joy! 
>     Universal Love of Existence!
>
>     (6) it avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction,
>     imagery or thought; too
>     overt Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
>     I give it a check here, too.  It uses a standard form, but it's
>     one appropriate to a fairly
>     serious albeit happy work: pentameter and tetrameter (as opposed
>     to Dickinson's more
>     jingly tetrameter and trimeter), with missing weak stresses at the
>     beginning of several
>     lines, which enlivens the poem, to my ear.  Nothing brilliant
>     about the rhymes, but they
>     work as well as the rhymes or just about any poem.  "Along the
>     bough," for instance, is
>     pretty clearly in the poem for meter and rhyme since it's unneeded
>     for the meaning--where
>     else would blooms be hung?  But it works so well melodationally,
>     one can't reasonably
>     criticize it.  "Is hung with bloom along the bough" not only
>     closes an end-rhyme, but
>     carries out a b- and an l-alliteration, and a g-consonance, and
>     four open vowels combine
>     with the two l's and the w to liquify the line, the l's in
>     particular carrying on the l-
>     alliteration that begins the poem, and continues into the third
>     line.  And the w's go on in
>     the rest of this stanza to form a 4-member alliteration.  The
>     sound effects in the rest of the
>     poem are similarly effective.  And, as I mentioned in my brief
>     against taking "snow" as
>     literal snow, the poem is a near-perfectly crafted little
>     mechanism, with a theme stated at
>     its beginning, veered rather distantly from, then returned
>     triumphantly to.
>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
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>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb  7 21:57:59 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 21:57:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] On the Excellence of Housman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <498E2AED.9060309@opus40.org>
References: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>
	<498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902071520u6004ab4bieddd8531d9ed41fb@mail.gmail.com>
	<498E2AED.9060309@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498E4A37.4080801@nut-n-but.net>

For some reason, Judy's post never reached my computer.


TheOldMole wrote:
> Re: AGAIN, WE DIFFER ONLY ON HIS DECISION, HOW HE DECIDES TO SEE 
> BEAUTY AS OFTEN AS HE CAN.  YOU ASSUME THAT IF HE TRAMPS AROUND THE 
> WOODS MORE [EACH SPRING] THAN HE HAS DONE, OR MORE THAN HE HAS JUST 
> 'THIS' SPRING FINISHED DOING, HE WILL BE SATISFIED.  YOU MAY BE RIGHT; 
> I THINK YOU'RE NOT.
> He doesn't do either. The poem is not written by a 70-year-old man 
> reflecting on all the cherry blossoms he's seen, and/or all the snowy 
> trees he's seen. This is an ecstatic burst by a 20-year-old. We have 
> know way of knowing whether he'll follow through on it beyond that 
> morning.

The Mole has it.
>
>
> Judy Prince wrote:
>> What exercise for an exercise, Bob!  Good thing you only have to 
>> paraphrase and evaluate next the 'Banana' poem. 
That will be harder.

>> Since what you're mainly doing is trying to refute Linda Sue Grimes, 
>> John Jeffrey, and my interp that 'snow' means 'snow' in the last 
>> line, I'll go ahead and carve a coupla hours out of my Saturday 
>> evening to refute your attempt, interleaving below with ALL CAPS 
>> because we can't do colours.
I was mainly trying to say why the poem seemed excellent to me, Judy, 
but felt I had to consider your reading.

>>
>>
>> Here goes:
>>
>> 2009/2/6 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
>> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>>
>>
>>     A Rough Attempt At Rating Housman's Cherry Blossom Poem
>>
>>                       II
>>
>>
>>         Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>>         Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>>         And stands about the woodland ride
>>         Wearing white for Eastertide.
>>
>>         Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>>         Twenty will not come again,
>>         And take from seventy springs a score,
>>         It only leaves me fifty more.
>>
>>         And since to look at things in bloom
>>         Fifty springs are little room,
>>         About the woodlands I will go
>>         To see the cherry hung with snow.
>>
>>         A. E. Housman
>>
>>
>>     My paraphrase (with some metaparaphrasing in italics):
>>
>>         Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>>            The boughs of the cherry trees, which are the most 
>> beautiful trees
>>
>>         Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>>
>>     are laden with blossoms at this time
>>
>>         And stands about the woodland ride
>>
>>     and line the trail through the woods
>>
>>         Wearing white for Eastertide.
>>
>>     decked out in a white hue appropriate for Easter
>>     (/which is the happiest time of the year/)
>>
>>         Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>>         Twenty will not come again,
>>
>>     At this time, twenty of the seventy years (/the Bible suggests
>>     I'll have/)
>>     are gone permanently.
>>
>>         And take from seventy springs a score,
>>
>>     If you subtract twenty springtimes from seventy
>>
>>         It only leaves me fifty more.
>>
>>     it will leave me just fifty more years of life
>>
>>         And since to look at things in bloom
>>         Fifty springs are little room,
>>
>>     Because fifty years of springtimes don't give one much time
>>     to enjoy looking at Nature's blossomings
>>
>>         About the woodlands I will go
>>
>>     I'll proceed through the woods (right away)
>>
>>         To see the cherry hung with snow.
>>
>>     To take in (as much as I can of) the beauty of the snow-like
>>     blossoms of the cherry tree.
>>     The snow is metaphorical because:
>>
>>     (1) the speaker is going to "look at things in bloom."  REASONABLE
>>     POINT IF YOU WANT TO STAY SUPER-LITERAL THROUGHOUT THE POEM, WHICH
>>     YOU DON'T.
I don't really follow you here, Judy.  All poems are sometimes literal, 
sometimes not.  Anyway, if the speaker says he wants to look at things 
in bloom, and has already spoken emphatically about how cherry trees are 
literally in bloom, then it makes sense to think the speaker means 
things in bloom.  Moreover, this is just one argument for my case.

>>
>>
>>     (2) the speaker has be celebrating spring entirely to this point;
>>     nothing he's said indicates
>>     that he's going to wait until winter comes, then go out and look
>>     at the snow on the cherry
>>     trees (which, in any case, would be little different from the snow
>>     on other deciduous
>>     trees); among other problems with the emotional logic of this, it
>>     suggests that he is
>>     capable, after all his praise of them, of forgetting about the
>>     cherry blossoms out there for
>>     him to enjoy right now.  YOU AND I AGREE THAT HE SAVES 'THE BEST',
>>     'THE ZINGER', 'THE DECISIVE POINT' 'TIL HIS LAST LINE;
Not quite.  I think the poem reaches a nice climax, but I'm not sure 
it's stronger than the first stanza.  And my climax happens in the last 
two lines--he's going to go about the woodlands to enjoy the cherry trees.



>> WE DISAGREE
>>     ON WHETHER SNOW IS SNOW OR SNOW IS BLOSSOMS.  RE YOUR
>>     PARENTHETICAL POINT, HE WISHES TO FOCUS ON HIS FAVE TREE, THE
>>     CHERRY, SO IS WISE TO CONTINUE WITH IT.  FINALLY, BECAUSE HE LOVES
>>     MOST OF ALL THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS AND FIGURES HE HASN'T ENUFF
>>     SPRINGTIMES TO SEE THEM, HE WILL SEE ITS BOUGHS LADEN WITH WHITE
>>     IN THE 50 WINTERS HE THINKS HE HAS LEFT. 
What about my point that he's eager to view the cherry trees?  Why would 
he tell us that he wants to view them, so will go view them six months 
from now?




>>     (3)  I simply can't read the poem as not being about someone fully
>>     engaged in the moment-
>>     -the speaker spends four lines speaking in the highest terms of
>>     the beauty of cherry
>>     blossoms, then six indicating how little time he has to enjoy them
>>     (the blossoms) despite
>>     his having fifty more years to live; this sets up his last two
>>     lines as close to the synthesis
>>     of a standard syllogism: cherry blossoms are worth seeing; I
>>     haven't much time to see
>>     them; therefore, I will--what? put on my snowshoes are go look at
>>     them when they have
>>     snow on their branches?  Not for me.  
Also, as I and Sam have asked, what's so great about cherry trees with 
snow on them?  How are they significantly different from any other 
deciduous trees with snow on them?



>> AGAIN, WE DIFFER ONLY ON HIS
>>     DECISION, HOW HE DECIDES TO SEE BEAUTY AS OFTEN AS HE CAN.  
Yes, but the poem, as I keep on saying, implies that he wants to enjoy 
that beauty NOW.


>> YOU
>>     ASSUME THAT IF HE TRAMPS AROUND THE WOODS MORE [EACH SPRING] THAN
>>     HE HAS DONE, OR MORE THAN HE HAS JUST 'THIS' SPRING FINISHED
>>     DOING, HE WILL BE SATISFIED.
Nothing in the poem says he's been looking at the trees.  And I don't 
find him just intending to increase his viewing time.  I read him as 
Mole does, thinking he'd better get out to the woodlands to enjoy THIS 
spring's cherry blossoms.  It's implied that he will feel the same way 
every spring.  But there's no search for a way of seeing more of the 
cherries, and the focus is on the blossoms, nothing else. 


>>   YOU MAY BE RIGHT; I THINK YOU'RE NOT. 
>>     (4) the argument has been made that "snow" as a metaphor comes out
>>     of nowhere--but
>>     earlier in the poem, the trees are personified; that they are
>>     "hung" with blooms is
>>     somewhat figurative, too, suggesting, as it does, not the
>>     sprouting of blooms, but
>>     someone's going about decorating them.  In any case, the metaphor
>>     in line four is an
>>     involved, important one--the trees aren't just wearing human
>>     apparel, they are celebrating
>>     the season.  


>> HOUSMAN'S LOW-LEVEL PERSONIFICATIONS IN THE FIRST
>>     STANZA PRETTY MUCH EXHAUST HIS FIGURATIVES FOR THE POEM.
I consider wearing white for Eastertide as high-level as 
personifications go, myself.  And it dominates the fist stanza of a 
three-stanza poem.  The second stanza is by obvious contrast 
non-metaphorical, anti-poetic, even.  And the third stanza, in my 
reading, ends like the first, with a figure of speech, a fairly good one.


>>   'HUNG',
>>     'STANDS', AND 'WEARING' TRY CLICHEDLY TO DESCRIBE WHAT HE LOVES,
>>     ARE LIMITED TO THE FIRST STANZA, AND APPEAR AFTER HE HAS ASSERTED
>>     WHAT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, TO HIM, THE BLOOMING CHERRY TREE.
>>      THEREAFTER, HE LOGICS AND CONCLUDES WITHOUT FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
in your opinion.
>>
>>  
>>
>>
>>          (5) if the poet wanted us to believe the speaker was going 
>> to look
>>     at the cherry trees in
>>     winter, he could easily have changed the poem to tell us that
>>     explicitly: for instance, by
>>     saying, "About the woods, I'll also go/ When blooms have been
>>     replaced by snow."  Or the
>>     like.  Why would the poet not have made sure we saw the point if
>>     it was that?  Was he
>>     some kind of devious Empsonian?  He doesn't seem so to me.
 
>>     THE BOTTOM HALF OF HIS LAST STANZA'S EXPLICIT TO ME AND OTHERS, AND
>>     MORE POETIC THAN YOUR REPLACEMENT, WHICH SEEMS TO ME UNNECESSARY.
The overwhelming majority of readers of the poem saw it as I do.  My 
point is that if he meant "snow" literally, he was not clear about it, 
and could have been--unless he wanted contradictory meanings, and he 
wasn't that sort of poet, I don't think.
>>
>>     (6) I would add that "snow" as a metaphor gives the poem a nice
>>     climax that echoes what
>>     I consider the main virtue of the poem, its contrasting light and
>>     dark, and the transient and
>>     enduring.  

>> A PROFOUND CONCLUSION LIVES IN HIS LITERAL LAST LINE.
>>      IT IMPELS US TO LOOK FOR BEAUTY IN THE THINGS AND TIMES THAT WE
>>     TEND NOT TO EXPECT THEM.  FOR EXAMPLE, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, SO LET
>>     ME LOOK AT YOU MORE.....IS NOT PROFOUND.
to you.  But that's not what I said the poem is saying.  It's saying you 
are beautiful so I'd better make sure I get as much of you as I can.  
Not profound, but poems aren't meant to say profound things, they are 
meant to be profoundly beautiful about unprofound things.

>>   YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL AT
>>     THIS MOMENT, AND I WILL SEE YOUR BEAUTY IN OTHER WAYS, AT THE
>>     STARKEST TIMES, EVEN WHEN ALL OTHERS WOULD SEE UGLINESS AND WANT.
>>      THAT'S WISE, THOUGHT-PROVOKING, AND URGES SEEING THE SPIRITUAL IN
>>     THE TEMPORAL, THE SENSUAL.  THAT INTERPRETATION-EXPLANATION COVERS
>>     YOUR NEXT SEVERAL POINTS.

To me it seems you like this sentiment so are imposing it on an 
expression of delighted hedonism. 
>>
>>  
>>
>>     BEST TO YOU, BEAUTIFUL BOB, FOR YOUR EFFORTS.  WE AWAIT YOUR
>>     'BANANA' EVALUATION. 
>>
>> JUDY
Thanks for popping back at me, Judy.  I hope I can do justice to the 
banana poem.  It will be interesting.  Not sure I'll recover from my 
bout with AE, though.  And I never really did the Emily, in my opinion.

--Bob



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 22:11:06 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 04:11:06 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] On the Excellence of Housman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>
	<498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902071911h3e4dff7ft7ccb7a3217e7e525@mail.gmail.com>

You did your homework.


On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 1:47 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

>  A Rough Attempt At Rating Housman's Cherry Blossom Poem
>
>                   II
>
>
>     Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>     Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>     And stands about the woodland ride
>     Wearing white for Eastertide.
>
>     Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>     Twenty will not come again,
>     And take from seventy springs a score,
>     It only leaves me fifty more.
>
>     And since to look at things in bloom
>     Fifty springs are little room,
>     About the woodlands I will go
>     To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
>     A. E. Housman
>
>
> My paraphrase (with some metaparaphrasing in italics):
>
>     Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>
> The boughs of the cherry trees, which are the most beautiful trees
>
>     Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>
> are laden with blossoms at this time
>
>     And stands about the woodland ride
>
> and line the trail through the woods
>
>     Wearing white for Eastertide.
>
> decked out in a white hue appropriate for Easter
> (*which is the happiest time of the year*)
>
>     Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>     Twenty will not come again,
>
> At this time, twenty of the seventy years (*the Bible suggests I'll have*)
>
> are gone permanently.
>
>     And take from seventy springs a score,
>
> If you subtract twenty springtimes from seventy
>
>     It only leaves me fifty more.
>
> it will leave me just fifty more years of life
>
>     And since to look at things in bloom
>     Fifty springs are little room,
>
> Because fifty years of springtimes don't give one much time
> to enjoying looking at Nature's blossomings
>
>     About the woodlands I will go
>
> I'll proceed through the woods (right away)
>
>     To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
> To take in (as much as I can of) the beauty of the snow-like blossoms of
> the cherry tree.
> The snow is metaphorical because:
>
> (1) the speaker is going to "look at things in bloom."
>
> (2) the speaker has be celebrating spring entirely to this point; nothing
> he's said indicates
> that he's going to wait until winter comes, then go out and look at the
> snow on the cherry
> trees (which, in any case, would be little different from the snow on other
> deciduous
> trees); among other problems with the emotional logic of this, it suggests
> that he is
> capable, after all his praise of them, of forgetting about the cherry
> blossoms out there for
> him to enjoy right now.
>
> (3)  I simply can't read the poem as not being about someone fully engaged
> in the moment-
> -the speaker spends four lines speaking in the highest terms of the beauty
> of cherry
> blossoms, then six indicating how little time he has to enjoy them (the
> blossoms) despite
> his having fifty more years to live; this sets up his last two lines as
> close to the synthesis
> of a standard syllogism: cherry blossoms are worth seeing; I haven't much
> time to see
> them; therefore, I will--what? put on my snowshoes are go look at them when
> they have
> snow on their branches?  Not for me.
>
> (4) the argument has been made that "snow" as a metaphor comes out of
> nowhere--but
> earlier in the poem, the trees are personified; that they are "hung" with
> blooms is
> somewhat figurative, too, suggesting, as it does, not the sprouting of
> blooms, but
> someone's going about decorating them.  In any case, the metaphor in line
> four is an
> involved, important one--the trees aren't just wearing human apparel, they
> are celebrating
> the season.
>
> (5) if the poet wanted us to believe the speaker was going to look at the
> cherry trees in
> winter, he could easily have changed the poem to tell us that explicitly:
> for instance, by
> saying, "About the woods, I'll also go/ When blooms have been replaced by
> snow."  Or the
> like.  Why would the poet not have made sure we saw the point if it was
> that?  Was he
> some kind of devious Empsonian?  He doesn't seem so to me.
>
> (6) I would add that "snow" as a metaphor gives the poem a nice climax that
> echoes what
> I consider the main virtue of the poem, its contrasting light and dark, and
> the transient and
> enduring.
>
> (7) Even with its rhetoric, the poem seems to be speaking of blossoms as it
> ends, not of literal snow, because it ends with a near repeat of its second
> line.  This could be taken as a clever twist--first spring, then winter; but
> it seems too abrupt for me, and my other arguments are against it.  The
> final lines work far better for me as a satisfying complete return to its
> initial subject.
>
> By my revised check-list, this poem qualifies as excellent because:
>
> (1) it both expresses things importantly true and represents things
> centrally beautiful.
>
> a. it expresses the joy of an individual thinking about and anticipating
> seeing the beauty of
> cherry trees in bloom (an implied synecdoche for spring); it thus
> represents something
> centrally beautiful: a human being's love for Nature and beauty
>
> b. it expresses the belief that cherry trees in bloom and, implicitly,
> Nature (and existence) is
> not only beautiful but, in human terms, inexhaustible because a full
> lifetime will barely, or
> not, give us time fully to enjoy it; it thus expresses something that will
> seem to many
> people imprtantly true--that existence's beauty makes life worthwhile; at
> the same time, the
> poem accentuates the beauty of spring by contrasting it with winter at the
> end, and with
> arithmetic in the middle.
>
> c. blending in with a. and b. is what it suggests about the brevity of
> human life: we have
> little time to enjoy its beauty, so we should make the most of what time we
> have--which is
> so clearly importantly true that, stated in prose, it is a banality.  Note,
> however, that
> Housman gives this carpe diem them an amusing twist (in keeping with the
> high spirits of
> the piece: the poem is not about making the most of the day but of one's
> lifetime.
>
> d. in the meantime, in stating that--for its speaker, at any rate--looking
> at cherry trees
> hung with blossoms is of first importance, it expresses something else that
> is importantly
> true to non-utilitarians: that beauty is second to nothing else in value to
> a human life
> Indeed, for the speaker, it is something to devote fifty springs to, not
> just a day--he isn't
> thinking of a fling with Persephone but marriage to her.
>
> e. at the same time, it suggests with a reference to easter, and references
> to spring, not to
> mention its focus on cherry blossoms, the cyclic ongoingness of existence:
> however fragile
> and transient Nature's cherry blossoms are, and--implicitly--human life,
> rebirth will occur;
> it thus expresses a third thing importantly true for the religious, and
> even for those who
> are not religious but believe in the kind of reincarnation Shelley and
> Nietzsche did (and I
> do); for those who don't believe in reincarnation, it still expresses the
> important truth that
> Nature itself will endure.
>
> f. finally, the poem is itself an object of beauty due to its sounds,
> images and diction,
> sufficiently so in my view for me to be able confidently to claim it
> represents something
> which is centrally beautiful--itself, in particular, and poetry, in
> general.
>
> (2) it is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or
> something that makes
> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
> eventually achieves Clarity;
>
> Few, I think, would argue that Housman's poem is unclear.  But its full
> meaning takes time
> to get to, it seems to me.  It also has a personification not brilliant but
> perfect for the poem
> that complicates the poem just enough to provide what seems to me
> sufficient Thematic
> Misdirection.  I say that because I believe all figures of speech do
> this--they are errors
> generating confusion it takes a mind a few seconds to overcome.  Metrical
> poetry also is
> different enough from prose to slow a reader's journey toward understanding
> the poem in
> whole.  This poem is far from having the thematic misdirection many poems
> have, but it
> has enough, so gets a check here.
>
> (3) it has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which
> pulls its
> elements reasonably close together;
>
> I presented my interpretation of the poem as a unified set of four
> consequential truths and a
> closely inter-related representation of beauty.  Its packaging as a lyric
> poem of beauty
> further unifies it.  So the poem scores well here.
>
> (4) it contains few or no superfluous words;
>
> All the poem's words seem necessary either to its meaning or its acoustics,
> and only rarely
> not to both.  All metrical poems have occasional words that are there for
> the metrics or
> rhyme almost entirely, or fall out of one or the other of those things to
> maintain meaning.
> So the poem gets a check here, too.
>
> (5) it boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have
> such as
> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
> art), and imagery;
>
> To me the main special constituent this poem has that few of no other poems
> have is the
> wry interruption from pure, almost too sweet lyric, into grade school
> arithmetic it takes--
> with a Biblical allusion giving it ponderousness completely opposed to the
> lightness of
> cherry blossoms, and delight in cherry blossoms.  This strikes me as a
> wonderful change of
> tone: cerebral analysis versus emotional spontaneity, heaviness versus
> gaiety, play,
> implicitly, versus duty.
>
> I suspect but would not swear that the poem also has a melodiousness rare
> in poetry, a
> melodiousness kept from excess by the speaker's drawn-out calculations.
> One other
> triumph it achieves, although I would not call it uncommonly effective, is
> its
> personification of the cherry trees as wearing white garments to celebrate
> Easter.  We're in
> the archetypal here: Spring!  Rebirth!  Celebration!  Joy!  Universal Love
> of Existence!
>
> (6) it avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or
> thought; too
> overt Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
> I give it a check here, too.  It uses a standard form, but it's one
> appropriate to a fairly
> serious albeit happy work: pentameter and tetrameter (as opposed to
> Dickinson's more
> jingly tetrameter and trimeter), with missing weak stresses at the
> beginning of several
> lines, which enlivens the poem, to my ear.  Nothing brilliant about the
> rhymes, but they
> work as well as the rhymes or just about any poem.  "Along the bough," for
> instance, is
> pretty clearly in the poem for meter and rhyme since it's unneeded for the
> meaning--where
> else would blooms be hung?  But it works so well melodationally, one can't
> reasonably
> criticize it.  "Is hung with bloom along the bough" not only closes an
> end-rhyme, but
> carries out a b- and an l-alliteration, and a g-consonance, and four open
> vowels combine
> with the two l's and the w to liquify the line, the l's in particular
> carrying on the l-
> alliteration that begins the poem, and continues into the third line.  And
> the w's go on in
> the rest of this stanza to form a 4-member alliteration.  The sound effects
> in the rest of the
> poem are similarly effective.  And, as I mentioned in my brief against
> taking "snow" as
> literal snow, the poem is a near-perfectly crafted little mechanism, with a
> theme stated at
> its beginning, veered rather distantly from, then returned triumphantly to.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From editor at pavementsaw.org  Sat Feb  7 23:02:34 2009
From: editor at pavementsaw.org (David Baratier)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 20:02:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <466B731155A74091AC4915CCB1EE197A@yourae066c3a9b>
Message-ID: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Didn't know, out in nowhere
I hope that microphone eating perv stays sick on the other side
and haunts those retards from the Voice.

Is the other Jerome Sala?

Never was about the cramps, always held the Gories above them, just wasn't into the glitz more about the rockabily. 

Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1


--- On Sat, 2/7/09, Gerald Schwartz <gejs1 at rochester.rr.com> wrote:

> From: Gerald Schwartz <gejs1 at rochester.rr.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
> To: editor at pavementsaw.org, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009, 7:48 PM
> Lux Interior, along with partner Poison Ivy,
> fronted The Cramps...
> He passed from this to a hotter coil the other
> day.
> 
> '86 or '87 saw them @ the Q.
> 
> Same year as the Chilli Peppers... and Living
> Colour, 247 Spyz...
> 
> Wasn't I using a Lee draw as proof, didn't mean
>  to at least. (Was being haughty/ sarcastic... thinking
> someone like Lux had so much more to put in front of
> 
> an audience than a Lee, etc.)
> But, since Interior's death and Lee's
> "draw" entered into my
> consciousness at the same time, decided something need be
> (in a twisted-lime kinda way)said.
> 
> On a same note, I did see Sala in the late seventies,
> opening for
> the Stooges, holding the stage with the best of them.
> 
> g.
> 
> > Gerry--
> >
> > What is a Lux interior?
> >
> > Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young
> Lee reading as 
> > proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best
> known US poets can 
> > only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves
> the opposite.
> >
> > Be well
> >
> > David Baratier, Editor
> >
> > Pavement Saw Press
> > 321 Empire Street
> > Montpelier OH 43543
> > http://pavementsaw.org
> >
> > Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
> > http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 03:21:58 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 09:21:58 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] university of baltimore
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902080021v2fd1c57boba4aa7c0b0e2fb25@mail.gmail.com>

is looking for submissions:
http://welter.ubalt.edu/welter/submissions.html



-- 
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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 04:28:50 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 10:28:50 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] roanoke marginal arts festival
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902080128n6aea1eb3q1d6e9946837aebb3@mail.gmail.com>

2009 roanoke marginal arts
festival<http://roanokemarginalartsfestival.blogspot.com/>

mail art, sound poetry, visual poetry,
ubu enchained, silent films scored
by live bands, power tool drag racing,
collab fests, a conceptual art auction,
a parade, readings, workshops, power
point presentations, boxing, bicycling,
exhibits, performances, lectures. dance
improv, an absurdist church service...

-- 
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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 07:35:39 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 13:35:39 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Umbrella
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902080435m75f9e926p68ab2e4eae841268@mail.gmail.com>

is accepting submission:
http://www.umbrellajournal.com/winter2008/editorial.html

C.E.Chaffin, member of the present list, is a contributing editor.
http://www.umbrellajournal.com/winter2008/editorial.html



-- 
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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 07:46:15 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 07:46:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Baiting
In-Reply-To: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <498ED417.6060009@nut-n-but.net>

Sorry to keep a rather dumb and trivial tangent going, but on reflection 
I've decided that the first time I asked whether Lee was packing them in 
because of his message (/primarily/, as I guess I have to point out for 
the literalists) rather than his poetry, I was simply curious, as I 
said.  I was not trying to get into an argument about the otherstream 
versus the knownstream.  I won't deny that I /was/ also implicitly 
sniping yet again at bigtimers--but I was ready to be pleased with and 
for Lee if someone whose opinion I esteemed said his poetry was what 
what drawing crowds, or even that he message was drawing crowds but he 
was a good poet aside from that.

Evidence supporting my defense: I was going to post a rude reaction to 
the Tufts prize-winners but didn't--because I decided after a non-skim 
of the second poem that it was quite good (although flawed--I think the 
word "hospice" was too pathos-laden).  The non-poem that got the 
professor a hundred grand, though, was standard for that kind of 
stale-by-now thing.  Unless it's completely unrepresentative of the 
professor's work, I think her getting the loot a blow against poetry.

--Bob G.
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 07:52:44 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 07:52:44 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry--Andrews
In-Reply-To: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <498ED59C.9090209@nut-n-but.net>

I need a true copy of this poem--sorry to be nit-picking, but its words 
are not all it is--the page it's on is part of it (as it isn't in 
conventional poems).  Its context is important, too: we know it was in a 
magazine.  If anyone has it, I'd like to know what is said about the 
piece in the table of contents.  All this because the piece won't work 
without its being clearly recognized as a poem (or as at least a 
would-be poem).

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 08:31:23 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:31:23 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Housman--I'm Still At It
In-Reply-To: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <498EDEAB.7000206@nut-n-but.net>

This argument of mine with Judy made me suddenly see something about the 
Housman
poem I hadn't seen before.  It explains a reason I've always 
automatically liked the poem.
What I now see is that the poem is a subtle chant:

line 2: "(the cherry) is hung with bloom"  rah rah

line 4: "(the cherry) is wearing white (blooms)"  rah rah

line 9: "look at things in bloom"  rah rah

line 12:  "see the cherry hung with (bloom the color as delicacy of) 
snow"  rah rah

Okay, call it just a sort of refrain.  The point is, the poem's speaker 
tells us about blooms
much more than he has to.  Once he's told us that the cherry trees are 
blossoming in line 2,
for instance, he needn't tell us they're wearing white--if conveying 
information was all the
poem was intending to do.  It seems to me unarguable that the poet is 
driving the cherry
blossom image into us--in a way almost like Stein's "rose is a rose is a 
rose."  His poetry
keeps the repetitionfrom being boring (for most of his readers).  If I'm 
right about this,
then the snow image at the end has to be a metaphor.

If I'm wrong, the poet has spent all of an eleven-line poem except its 
last word celebrating
cherry blossoms.  Would anyone reading the poem expect him to switch to 
winter
anywhere before the final word?  Is there any other successful poem that 
carries out such
an abrupt switch?

Here's a better, though still not Housmanian, rendering of the poem's 
third stanza as I
think it would have had to have been if the snow-as-snow reading were valid:

And since to look at lovely things
Requires more time than fifty springs
About the winter woods I'll go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

No good poet, in my opinion, sneaks a greatly altered meaning, however 
profound some
take it to be, into a poem at the very end.  The one suggested here, I 
would add, goes
against a main virtue of the poem: its expression of a buoyant love of 
cherry blossoms, a
love turned to a chant, and one demanding, it seems to me, immediate 
involvement with
the love-objects.

--Bob




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 08:54:42 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:54:42 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Segantini and the bad mothers
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902071037y2636f01aiea84d1be24afa4a9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4b65c2d70902071037y2636f01aiea84d1be24afa4a9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498EE422.3080307@nut-n-but.net>

Anny Ballardini wrote:
> I am wondering, am I the only one who thinks that The Bad Mothers are 
> simply "bad mothers"?
> http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=2&id=30 
> <http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=2&id=30>
>
> My assumption starts from a very simple linguistic statement, that a 
> mother is a woman who has a child. A female human being who does not 
> have a child is defined a woman, a girl, a lady, ... but not a "mother".
>
> I am specifically denying the following:
>
> The Punishment of Lust belongs to a series of paintings produced 
> between 1891-96 on the theme of bad mothers (cattive madri). Segantini 
> was inspired by Nirvana, a poem written by the 12th century monk Luigi 
> Illica in imitation of the Indian text Panghiavahli. Illica's poem 
> contained the phrase 'la Mala Madre' (the bad or wicked mother with an 
> echo similar to 'la mala femmina' or prostitute) to describe those 
> women who refused the responsibilities of motherhood.
I'm coming into this with no background, Anny, but the paragraph above 
makes sense to me: a bad mother is a woman who has a child but neglects 
it--in this way refusing the responsibilities of motherhood.  She isn't 
refusing motherhood, as you seem to be thinking but the responsibilities 
that go with it..

Hey, I may not know what I'm talking about, but I'm not baiting you, honest!

--Bob
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 09:20:07 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 15:20:07 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Segantini and the bad mothers
In-Reply-To: <498EE422.3080307@nut-n-but.net>
References: <4b65c2d70902071037y2636f01aiea84d1be24afa4a9@mail.gmail.com>
	<498EE422.3080307@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902080620u2fe2a8u667d8e107677a92b@mail.gmail.com>

Thank you very much Bob. I can feel the tone in your mail. I also need to
say that mine was a rhetorical statement. I have already made up my mind and
I'm just openly criticizing what many people in this field give for granted.

Have a nice Sunday. Already afternoon here, days off just disappear!

Anny

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 2:54 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

>  Anny Ballardini wrote:
>
> I am wondering, am I the only one who thinks that The Bad Mothers are
> simply "bad mothers"?
>
> http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=2&id=30
>
> My assumption starts from a very simple linguistic statement, that a mother
> is a woman who has a child. A female human being who does not have a child
> is defined a woman, a girl, a lady, ... but not a "mother".
>
> I am specifically denying the following:
>
> The Punishment of Lust belongs to a series of paintings produced between
> 1891-96 on the theme of bad mothers (cattive madri). Segantini was inspired
> by Nirvana, a poem written by the 12th century monk Luigi Illica in
> imitation of the Indian text Panghiavahli. Illica's poem contained the
> phrase 'la Mala Madre' (the bad or wicked mother with an echo similar to 'la
> mala femmina' or prostitute) to describe those women who refused the
> responsibilities of motherhood.
>
> I'm coming into this with no background, Anny, but the paragraph above
> makes sense to me: a bad mother is a woman who has a child but neglects
> it--in this way refusing the responsibilities of motherhood.  She isn't
> refusing motherhood, as you seem to be thinking but the responsibilities
> that go with it..
>
> Hey, I may not know what I'm talking about, but I'm not baiting you,
> honest!
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From gejs1 at rochester.rr.com  Sun Feb  8 09:58:52 2009
From: gejs1 at rochester.rr.com (Gerald Schwartz)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 09:58:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <6324304097654F85A6DFFA28D2AD77EC@yourae066c3a9b>



> Didn't know, out in nowhere
> I hope that microphone eating perv stays sick on the other side
> and haunts those retards from the Voice.
>
> Is the other Jerome Sala?


Yep, That's him.

> Never was about the cramps, always held the Gories above them, just wasn't 
> into the glitz more about the rockabily.

I took it all in, especially spectacle, of which
music was one of the components of the mighty.
>
> Be well
>
> David Baratier, Editor
>
> Pavement Saw Press
> 321 Empire Street
> Montpelier OH 43543
> http://pavementsaw.org
>
> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>
>
> --- On Sat, 2/7/09, Gerald Schwartz <gejs1 at rochester.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Gerald Schwartz <gejs1 at rochester.rr.com>
>> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
>> To: editor at pavementsaw.org, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" 
>> <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>> Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009, 7:48 PM
>> Lux Interior, along with partner Poison Ivy,
>> fronted The Cramps...
>> He passed from this to a hotter coil the other
>> day.
>>
>> '86 or '87 saw them @ the Q.
>>
>> Same year as the Chilli Peppers... and Living
>> Colour, 247 Spyz...
>>
>> Wasn't I using a Lee draw as proof, didn't mean
>>  to at least. (Was being haughty/ sarcastic... thinking
>> someone like Lux had so much more to put in front of
>>
>> an audience than a Lee, etc.)
>> But, since Interior's death and Lee's
>> "draw" entered into my
>> consciousness at the same time, decided something need be
>> (in a twisted-lime kinda way)said.
>>
>> On a same note, I did see Sala in the late seventies,
>> opening for
>> the Stooges, holding the stage with the best of them.
>>
>> g.
>>
>> > Gerry--
>> >
>> > What is a Lux interior?
>> >
>> > Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young
>> Lee reading as
>> > proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best
>> known US poets can
>> > only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves
>> the opposite.
>> >
>> > Be well
>> >
>> > David Baratier, Editor
>> >
>> > Pavement Saw Press
>> > 321 Empire Street
>> > Montpelier OH 43543
>> > http://pavementsaw.org
>> >
>> > Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
>> > http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > New-Poetry mailing list
>> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>> >
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sun Feb  8 09:53:54 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:53:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Baiting
In-Reply-To: <498ED417.6060009@nut-n-but.net>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<498ED417.6060009@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498EF202.4060700@opus40.org>

Well, you know me, Bob -- I'll always rise to a challenge. But in this 
case I had nothing to say. I don't think message and technique exist 
locked away in separate rooms. In general, people are going to be more 
interested in reading stuff they're interested reading, and they're 
going to be interested in reading that stuff delivered by the best 
writers. This is true in every field, It's why horror fans read Stephen 
King more than they read some shlub, and romance readers are going to 
spring for Nora Roberts more often than Roberts-plagiarizer Cassie Edwards.

Bob Grumman wrote:
> Sorry to keep a rather dumb and trivial tangent going, but on 
> reflection I've decided that the first time I asked whether Lee was 
> packing them in because of his message (/primarily/, as I guess I have 
> to point out for the literalists) rather than his poetry, I was simply 
> curious, as I said.  I was not trying to get into an argument about 
> the otherstream versus the knownstream.  I won't deny that I /was/ 
> also implicitly sniping yet again at bigtimers--but I was ready to be 
> pleased with and for Lee if someone whose opinion I esteemed said his 
> poetry was what what drawing crowds, or even that he message was 
> drawing crowds but he was a good poet aside from that.
>
> Evidence supporting my defense: I was going to post a rude reaction to 
> the Tufts prize-winners but didn't--because I decided after a non-skim 
> of the second poem that it was quite good (although flawed--I think 
> the word "hospice" was too pathos-laden).  The non-poem that got the 
> professor a hundred grand, though, was standard for that kind of 
> stale-by-now thing.  Unless it's completely unrepresentative of the 
> professor's work, I think her getting the loot a blow against poetry.
>
> --Bob G.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sun Feb  8 10:04:53 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:04:53 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Housman--I'm Still At It
In-Reply-To: <498EDEAB.7000206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<498EDEAB.7000206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498EF495.4030906@opus40.org>

He also tells more about the mathematics of life expectancy than he has 
to. This is all stuff that shouldn't work -- that we tell our freshman 
comp students not to do. Hey, I forgot to tell you this! And then he 
tells you the same thing over again. But here it works sublimely. It's 
not dissimilar to what I tell my beginning screenwriting students, after 
I show them The Bicycle Thief. Any of you could make this movie. You 
could get amateur actors, like DeSica did. You could take a hand-held 
camera and go out and shoot it in the streets of Poughkeepsie. You could 
even raise the money for it, since it's a shoestring budget. The only 
thing you'd need would be genius.

Bob Grumman wrote:
> This argument of mine with Judy made me suddenly see something about 
> the Housman
> poem I hadn't seen before.  It explains a reason I've always 
> automatically liked the poem.
> What I now see is that the poem is a subtle chant:
>
> line 2: "(the cherry) is hung with bloom"  rah rah
>
> line 4: "(the cherry) is wearing white (blooms)"  rah rah
>
> line 9: "look at things in bloom"  rah rah
>
> line 12:  "see the cherry hung with (bloom the color as delicacy of) 
> snow"  rah rah
>
> Okay, call it just a sort of refrain.  The point is, the poem's 
> speaker tells us about blooms
> much more than he has to.  Once he's told us that the cherry trees are 
> blossoming in line 2,
> for instance, he needn't tell us they're wearing white--if conveying 
> information was all the
> poem was intending to do.  It seems to me unarguable that the poet is 
> driving the cherry
> blossom image into us--in a way almost like Stein's "rose is a rose is 
> a rose."  His poetry
> keeps the repetitionfrom being boring (for most of his readers).  If 
> I'm right about this,
> then the snow image at the end has to be a metaphor.
>
> If I'm wrong, the poet has spent all of an eleven-line poem except its 
> last word celebrating
> cherry blossoms.  Would anyone reading the poem expect him to switch 
> to winter
> anywhere before the final word?  Is there any other successful poem 
> that carries out such
> an abrupt switch?
>
> Here's a better, though still not Housmanian, rendering of the poem's 
> third stanza as I
> think it would have had to have been if the snow-as-snow reading were 
> valid:
>
> And since to look at lovely things
> Requires more time than fifty springs
> About the winter woods I'll go
> To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
> No good poet, in my opinion, sneaks a greatly altered meaning, however 
> profound some
> take it to be, into a poem at the very end.  The one suggested here, I 
> would add, goes
> against a main virtue of the poem: its expression of a buoyant love of 
> cherry blossoms, a
> love turned to a chant, and one demanding, it seems to me, immediate 
> involvement with
> the love-objects.
>
> --Bob
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 10:25:51 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:25:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Baiting
In-Reply-To: <498EF202.4060700@opus40.org>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com><498ED417.6060009@nut-n-but.net>
	<498EF202.4060700@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498EF97F.6030203@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> Well, you know me, Bob -- I'll always rise to a challenge. But in this 
> case I had nothing to say. I don't think message and technique exist 
> locked away in separate rooms. 
Nor do I, but they both have an effect.  Take Obama's speeches: are they 
praised because they say what many people want to hear or are they 
praised because they are genuinely eloquent?  No baiting here: I haven't 
listened to any of them, so have no opinion, and don't care.  Just an 
example.  I can't think of any poets or other writers as good examples, 
but am sure there are many who said what people of their time liked but 
didn't last because they didn't say it lastingly. 

> In general, people are going to be more interested in reading stuff 
> they're interested reading, and they're going to be interested in 
> reading that stuff delivered by the best writers. This is true in 
> every field, It's why horror fans read Stephen King more than they 
> read some shlub, and romance readers are going to spring for Nora 
> Roberts more often than Roberts-plagiarizer Cassie Edwards.
I half-agree.  One problem is that when a really good writer writes a 
genre novel, it will be called a Serious Novel--and won't capture the 
audience a Stephen King novel will. 
I'm not sure the truly best genre novels are the most popular.  But 
maybe.  I think Rex Stout was terrific, for example, and his stuff was 
very popular.

--Bob













From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 10:42:29 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:42:29 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Housman--I'm Still At It
In-Reply-To: <498EF495.4030906@opus40.org>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com><498EDEAB.7000206@nut-n-but.net>
	<498EF495.4030906@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498EFD65.1080403@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> He also tells more about the mathematics of life expectancy than he 
> has to.
Yes!


> This is all stuff that shouldn't work -- that we tell our freshman 
> comp students not to do.
Exactly what I was thinking as I read it critically.
> Hey, I forgot to tell you this! And then he tells you the same thing 
> over again. But here it works sublimely. It's not dissimilar to what I 
> tell my beginning screenwriting students, after I show them The 
> Bicycle Thief. Any of you could make this movie. You could get amateur 
> actors, like DeSica did. You could take a hand-held camera and go out 
> and shoot it in the streets of Poughkeepsie. You could even raise the 
> money for it, since it's a shoestring budget. The only thing you'd 
> need would be genius.

What kind of baiting is this, Mole.  I agree with all of it.  Ah, but 
the fish you're after is that Judy person!

--Bob



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 15:15:41 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 21:15:41 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: university of baltimore
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902080021v2fd1c57boba4aa7c0b0e2fb25@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4b65c2d70902080021v2fd1c57boba4aa7c0b0e2fb25@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902081215k291bb048i6f79854f80e77ca2@mail.gmail.com>

Margarete Peterson adds:

If anyone from your list does end up getting printed in Welter, we
have a reading for all the contributors in April at the university.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 9:21 AM
Subject: university of baltimore
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp, Views" <
new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


is looking for submissions:
http://welter.ubalt.edu/welter/submissions.html



-- 
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!




-- 
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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 15:31:16 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 21:31:16 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] SPRING
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902081231x14d64d63x54feb4b2feb010f3@mail.gmail.com>

By honoring Ezra Pound and Olga Rudge who were instrumental in Vivaldi's
revival, I am forwarding the present call for poems for the Spring
collection.



You can find Autumn:

http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=318



and Winter:

http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=329



already on the Poets' Corner.



*La Primavera* *Spring*

*Allegro*
Giunt' ? la Primavera e festosetti
La Salutan gl' Augei con lieto canto,
E i fonti allo Spirar de' Zeffiretti
Con dolce mormorio Scorrono intanto:
Vengon' coprendo l' aer di nero amanto
E Lampi, e tuoni ad annuntiarla eletti
Indi tacendo questi, gl' Augelletti;
Tornan' di nuovo al lor canoro incanto:

*Largo*
E quindi sul fiorito ameno prato
Al caro mormorio di fronde e piante
Dorme 'l Caprar col fido can' ? lato.

*Allegro*
Di pastoral Zampogna al suon festante
Danzan Ninfe e Pastor nel tetto amato
Di primavera all' apparir brillante.



*Spring*

*Allegro*
Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over
heaven,
Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs
once more.

*Largo*
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the
goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.

*Allegro*
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly
dance beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.



* *

* *

>From Wikipedia under the Four Seasons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Seasons_(Vivaldi)<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Seasons_%28Vivaldi%29>



you can also listen to John Harrison's wonderful violin, you should so wish!

My best wishes,


Anny

-- 
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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From editor at pavementsaw.org  Sun Feb  8 18:16:46 2009
From: editor at pavementsaw.org (David Baratier)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 15:16:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
Message-ID: <59363.47734.qm@web45614.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Bob--
?
I understood your point ages ago. 
?
In the late eighties, I read for?the AIDS quilt which was brought to the New York State Museum in Albany. Many "poets," including one very famous one, read poems that were against AIDS. "AIDS is bad," "friends died," "boo for AIDS," "where is money for testing," I got to wear this rubber thing," etcetera. And people cheered. But the?superior writers (ie poets) used some other metaphor with no stated connection, one was about a medicine ball.
?
Why does someone have to prove to you that Li is a good poet, and not due to content? In fact, his subject matter is the opposite of what you want to hear, it gets tedious, the first two?collections and part of the third are "Dead Dad" books.?But he is the best known and living narrative "Dead Dad" writer there is.?
?


Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1


      
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 19:39:12 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:39:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <59363.47734.qm@web45614.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <59363.47734.qm@web45614.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <498F7B30.6060601@nut-n-but.net>

David Baratier wrote:
> Bob--
>  
> I understood your point ages ago.
>  
> In the late eighties, I read for the AIDS quilt which was brought to 
> the New York State Museum in Albany. Many "poets," including one very 
> famous one, read poems that were against AIDS. "AIDS is bad," "friends 
> died," "boo for AIDS," "where is money for testing," I got to wear 
> this rubber thing," etcetera. And people cheered. But the superior 
> writers (ie poets) used some other metaphor with no stated connection, 
> one was about a medicine ball.
>  
> Why does someone have to prove to you that Li is a good poet, and not 
> due to content? In fact, his subject matter is the opposite of what 
> you want to hear, it gets tedious, the first two collections and part 
> of the third are "Dead Dad" books. But he is the best known and living 
> narrative "Dead Dad" writer there is. 
>  
>
I was asking for proof, David--I just wanted to know, basically, what 
kind of poetry he was writing that was drawing crowds--without reading 
it myself, which I don't have time to do.  And now, you've pretty much 
told me. 

thanks, Bob


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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sun Feb  8 19:44:24 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:44:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498F7B30.6060601@nut-n-but.net>
References: <59363.47734.qm@web45614.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<498F7B30.6060601@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498F7C68.6080206@opus40.org>

This took more time than reading it yourself would have.

Bob Grumman wrote:
> David Baratier wrote:
>> Bob--
>>  
>> I understood your point ages ago.
>>  
>> In the late eighties, I read for the AIDS quilt which was brought to 
>> the New York State Museum in Albany. Many "poets," including one very 
>> famous one, read poems that were against AIDS. "AIDS is bad," 
>> "friends died," "boo for AIDS," "where is money for testing," I got 
>> to wear this rubber thing," etcetera. And people cheered. But 
>> the superior writers (ie poets) used some other metaphor with no 
>> stated connection, one was about a medicine ball.
>>  
>> Why does someone have to prove to you that Li is a good poet, and not 
>> due to content? In fact, his subject matter is the opposite of what 
>> you want to hear, it gets tedious, the first two collections and part 
>> of the third are "Dead Dad" books. But he is the best known and 
>> living narrative "Dead Dad" writer there is. 
>>  
>>
> I was asking for proof, David--I just wanted to know, basically, what 
> kind of poetry he was writing that was drawing crowds--without reading 
> it myself, which I don't have time to do.  And now, you've pretty much 
> told me. 
>
> thanks, Bob
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 20:03:54 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:03:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498F7C68.6080206@opus40.org>
References: <59363.47734.qm@web45614.mail.sp1.yahoo.com><498F7B30.6060601@nut-n-but.net>
	<498F7C68.6080206@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498F80FA.5030609@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> This took more time than reading it yourself would have.
Haw, you're right, Mole--but I didn't think when I made my first post on 
the subject.

--Bob G.



From jforjames at aol.com  Sun Feb  8 20:37:36 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:37:36 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Poem of the Week- B. H. Fairchild
In-Reply-To: <8FC4B31000A74E5F8003361482A479DE@Schlueter>
References: <8FC4B31000A74E5F8003361482A479DE@Schlueter>
Message-ID: <8CB586E1C809071-1730-4@WEBMAIL-DZ28.sysops.aol.com>


-----Original Message-----
From: PoemoftheWeek.org <andrewmcfadyenketchum at poemoftheweek.org>
To: Poem of theWeek <andrewmcfadyenketchum at poemoftheweek.org>
Sent: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 3:43 pm
Subject: Poem of the Week- B. H. Fairchild





Poem Of The Week?? 02-08-09?
?

????????????????????

B. H. Fairchild

?

?

?

Beauty



Therefore, 
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful. . . 
-James Wright, "Autumn Begins in Martin's Ferry, Ohio" 

I. 
We are at the Bargello in Florence, and she says, 
what are you thinking? and I say, beauty, thinking 
of how very far we are now from the machine shop
and the dry fields of Kansas, the treeless horizons 
of slate skies and the muted passions of roughnecks 
and scrabble farmers drunk and romantic enough 
to weep more or less silently at the darkened end 
of the bar out of, what else, loneliness, meaning 
the ache of thwarted desire, of, in a word, beauty, 
or rather its absence, and it occurs to me again 
that no male member of my family has ever used 
this word in my hearing or anyone else's except 
in reference, perhaps, to a new pickup or dead deer.
This insight, this backward vision, first came to me 
as a young man as some weirdness of the air waves 
slipped through the static of our new Motorola 
with a discussion of beauty between Robert Penn Warren 
and Paul Weiss at Yale College. We were in Kansas 
eating barbecue-flavored20potato chips and waiting 
for Father Knows Best to float up through the snow
of rural TV in 1963. I felt transported, stunned. 
Here are two grown men discussing "beauty" 
seriously and with dignity as if they and the topic 
were as normal as normal topics of discussion 
between men such as soybean prices or why 
the commodities market was a sucker's game 
or Oklahoma football or Gimpy Neiderland 
almost dying from his hemorrhoid operation. 
They were discussing beauty and tossing around 
allusions to Plato and Aristotle and someone 
named Pater, and they might be homosexuals. 
That would be a natural conclusion, of course, 
since here were two grown men talking about "beauty"
instead of scratching their crotches and cursing 
the goddamned government trying to run everybody's 
business. Not a beautiful thing, that. The government. 
Not beautiful, though a man would not use that word. 
One time my Uncle Ross from California called my mom's 
Sunday dinner centerpiece "lovely" and my father 
left the room, clearly troubled by the word "lovely" 
coupled probably with the very idea of California 
and the fact that my Uncle Ross liked to tap-dance. 
The light from the venetian blinds, the autumn, 
silver Kansas light laving the table that Sunday, 
is what I recall now because it was beautiful, 
though I of course would not have said so then, beautiful, 
as so many moments forgotten but later remembered 
come back to us in slants and pools and uprisings of light, 
beautiful in 
itself, but more beautiful mingled 
with memory, the light leaning across my mother's 
carefully set table, across the empty chair 
beside my Uncle Ross, the light filtering down 
from the green plastic slats in the roof of the machine shop 
where I worked with my father so many afternoons, 
standing or crouched in pools of light and sweat with men 
who knew the true meaning of labor and money and other 
hard, true things and did not, did not ever, use the word, beauty. 

II. 
Late November, shadows gather in the shop's north end, 
and I'm watching Bobby Sudduth do piece work on the Hobbs. 
He fouls another cut, motherfucker, fucking bitch machine, 
and starts over, sloppy, slow, about two joints away 
from being fired, but he just doesn't give a shit. 
He sets the bit again, white wrists flashing in the lamplight 
and showing botched, blurred tattoos, both from a night 
in Tijuana, and continues his sexual autobiography, 
that's right, fucked my own sister, and I'll tell you, bud, 
it wasn't bad. Later, in the Phillipines, the clap: 
as far as I'm concerned, any man who hasn't had V.D. 
just isn't a man. I walk away, knowing I have just heard 
the dumbest remark ever uttered by man or animal. 
The air around me hums in a dark metallic bass, 
light spilling like grails of milk as someone opens 
the mammoth shop door. A shrill, sullen truculence 
blows in like dust devils, the hot wind nagging 
my blousy overalls, and in the sideyard the winch truck 
b
ackfires and stalls. The sky yellows. Barn sparrows cry 
in the rafters. That afternoon in Dallas Kennedy is shot. 

Two weeks later sitting around on rotary tables 
and traveling blocks whose bearings litter the shop floor 
like huge eggs, we close our lunch boxes and lean back 
with cigarettes and watch smoke and dust motes rise and drift 
into sunlight. All of us have seen the newscasts, 
photographs from Life, have sat there in our cavernous rooms, 
assassinations and crowds flickering over our faces, 
some of us have even dreamed it, sleeping through 
the TV's drone and flutter, seen her arm reaching 
across the lank body, black suits rushing in like moths, 
and the long snake of the motorcade come to rest, 
then the announcer's voice as we wake astonished in the dark. 
We think of it now, staring at the tin ceiling like a giant screen, 
what a strange goddamned country, as Bobby Sudduth 
arches a wadded Fritos bag at the time clock and says, 
Oswald, from that far, you got to admit, that shot was a beauty. 

III. 
The following summer. A black Corvette gleams like a slice 
of onyx in the sideyard, driven there by two young men 
who look like Marlon Brando and mention Hollywood 
when Bobby asks where they're from. The foreman, my father, 
has hired them because we're backed up with work, both shop 
and yard strewn with rig parts, flat-bed haulers rumbling 
in each day lugging damaged drawworks, and we are desperate. 
The noise is awful, a gang of rou
ghnecks from a rig 
on down-time shouting orders, our floor hands knee-deep 
in the drawwork's gears heating the frozen sleeves and bushings 
with cutting torches until they can be hammered loose. 
The iron shell bangs back like a drum-head. Looking 
for some peace, I walk onto the pipe rack for a quick smoke, 
and this is the way it begins for me, this memory, 
this strangest of all memories of the shop and the men 
who worked there, because the silence has come upon me 
like the shadow of cranes flying overhead as they would 
each autumn, like the quiet and imperceptible turning 
of a season, the shop has grown suddenly still here 
in the middle of the workday, and I turn to look 
through the tall doors where the machinist stand now 
with their backs to me, the lathes whining down together,
and in the shop's center I see them standing in a square 
of light, the two men from California, as the welders 
lift their black masks, looking up, and I see their faces first, 
the expressions of children at a zoo, perhaps, 
or after a first snow, as the two men stand naked, 
their clothes in little piles on the floor as if they 
are about to go swimming, and I recall how fragile 
and pale their bodies seemed against the iron and steel 
of the drill presses and milling machines and lathes. 
I did not know the word, exhibitionist, then, and so 
for a moment it seemed only a problem of memory, 
that they had forgotten somehow where they were, 
that this
 was not the locker room after the game, 
that they were not taking a shower, that this was not 
the appropriate place, and they would then remember, 
and suddenly embarrassed, begin shyly to dress again. 
But they did not, and in memory they stand frozen 
and poised as two models in a drawing class, 
of whom the finished sketch might be said, though not by me 
nor any man I knew, to be beautiful, they stand there 
forever, with the time clock ticking behind them, 
time running on but not moving, like the white tunnel 
of silence between the snap of the ball and the thunderclap 
of shoulder pads that never seems to come and then 
there it is, and I hear a quick intake of breath 
on my right behind the Hobbs and it is Bobby Sudduth 
with what I think now was not just anger but a kind 
of terror on his face, an animal wildness 
in the eyes and the jaw tight, making ropes in his neck 
while in a long blur with his left hand raised and gripping 
an iron file he is moving toward the men who wait 
attentive and motionless as deer trembling in a clearing, 
and instantly there is my father between Bobby 
and the men as if he were waking them after a long sleep, 
reaching out to touch the shoulder of the blonde one 
as he says in a voice almost terrible in its gentleness, 
its discretion, you boys will have to leave now. 
He takes one look at Bobby who is shrinking back 
into the shadows of the Hobbs, then walks quickly back 
to=2
0his office at the front of the shop, and soon 
the black Corvette with the orange California plates 
is squealing onto Highway 54 heading west into the sun. 

IV. 
So there they are, as I will always remember them, 
the men who were once fullbacks or tackles or guards 
in their three-point stances knuckling into the mud, 
hungry for highschool glory and the pride of their fathers, 
eager to gallop terribly against each other's bodies, 
each man in his body looking out now at the nakedness 
of a body like his, men who each autumn had followed 
their fathers into the pheasant-rich fields of Kansas 
and as boys had climbed down from the Allis-Chalmers 
after plowing their first straight furrow, licking the dirt 
from their lips, the hand of the father resting lightly 
upon their shoulder, men who in the oven-warm winter 
kitchens of Baptist households saw after a bath the body 
of the father and felt diminished by it, who that same 
winter in the abandoned schoolyard felt the odd intimacy 
of their fist against the larger boy's cheekbone 
but kept hitting, ferociously, and walked away 
feeling for the first time the strength, the abundance, 
of their own bodies. And I imagine the men 
that evening after the strangest day of their lives, 
after they have left the shop without speaking 
and made the long drive home alone in their pickups,
I see them in their little white frame houses on the edge 
of town adrift in the long silence of the evening turning 
finall
y to their wives, touching without speaking the hair 
which she has learned to let fall about her shoulders 
at this hour of the night, lifting the white nightgown 
from her body as she in turn unbuttons his work shirt 
heavy with the sweat and grease of the day's labor until 
they stand naked before each other and begin to touch 
in a slow choreography of familiar gestures their bodies, 
she touching his chest, his hand brushing her breasts, 
and he does not say the word "beautiful" because 
he cannot and never has, and she does not say it 
because it would embarrass him or any other man 
she has ever known, though it is precisely the word 
I am thinking now as I stand before Donatello's David 
with my wife touching my sleeve, what are you thinking? 
and I think of the letter from my father years ago 
describing the death of Bobby Sudduth, a single shot 
from a twelve-gauge which he held against his chest, 
the death of the heart, I suppose, a kind of terrible beauty, 
as someone said of the death of Hart Crane, though that is 
surely a perverse use of the word, and I was stunned then, 
thinking of the damage men will visit upon their bodies, 
what are you thinking? she asks again, and so I begin 
to tell her about a strange afternoon in Kansas, 
about something I have never spoken of, and we walk 
to a window where the shifting light spreads a sheen 
along the casement, and looking out, we see the city 
blazing like miles of uncut wh
eat, the farthest buildings 
taken in their turn, and the great dome, the way 
the metal roof of the machine shop, I tell her, 
would break into flame late on an autumn day, with such beauty. 

??????????????????????? -from The Art of the Lathe

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Author and poet B.H. Fairchild's first published book was a critical study of another poet. Such Holy Song: Music as Idea, Form, and Image in the Poetry of William Blake, which saw print in 1980, looked at the influence of music on the work of the famed late eighteenth-century poet who pioneered Romanticism and created such masterpieces as Songs of Innocence and of Experience and The Four Zoas. In fact, it is primarily these two sets of poems by Blake that Fairchild uses to assert his premise that music is supremely important to Blake's poetic creations. As Brian Wilke pointed out in the Rocky Mountain Review, Such Holy Song itself "has a kind of simple ABA sonata form." The critic explained that chapter one provides a framework for the rest of the book. The next three chapters explore "the theoretical and mythic meaning of music for Blake," "melos" in the Songs of Innocence and of Experience, and the "sound effects, ... musico-dramatic form, and ... musical imagery" in The Four Zoas. The last chapter sums up the book. Fairchild also asserts that melody, in Blake's creative realm, is likened "to the visual ... and the poetic line, ...
 representing the right, healthy form of imagination. ..." In addition, the author includes information about Blake's living conditions, which included a home near "pleasure gardens" where music was frequently performed. 

Critical response to Such Holy Song was generally positive. Wilke noted that the chapter dealing with The Four Zoas is "the best part of the book." Wilke particularly appreciated the explanation "of the poem's sound effects, which Fairchild brings excitingly alive." A Choice contributor noted that Fairchild explores his subject matter and proves his points "clearly and effectively," and declared the volume to be "the first direct attempt to render as accurately as possible the musicality" of Blake's poetry. 

Fairchild has also published volumes of his own poetry, including 1985's The Arrival of the Future, with illustrations by Ross Zirkle, and a volume titled Local Knowledge, which a Publishers Weekly reviewer noted for its "obvious strength." His collection of poems titled The Art of the Lathe: Poems was called "thoughtful and delicately crafted" by Poetry contributor John Taylor. The reviewer went on to note: "His images haunt with a sort of silent metaphysical immobility." Vince Gotera, writing in the North American Review, commented that the author provides "impeccably precise and fresh insight." 

Fairchild received wide recognition and critical praise for his volume of poetry titled Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest. Writing in Poetry, Bill Christophersen noted that the author "continues to mine 
the experience of growing up in various hardscrabble towns of Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas during the Fifties and Sixties." Christophersen went on to write: "Many of these poems, like their predecessors ... are free verse narratives distinguished by their blue-collar settings and crisp detail." A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that "fans of Fairchild's comforting excursions to the familiar isolated territory of machinists won't be disappointed." In a review in the New York Times, Michael Hainey wrote: "This is the American voice at its best." 

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B.H. Fairchild was born in Houston, Texas and grew up there and in small towns in west Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. He attended the University of Kansas and University of Tulsa and now lives with his wife and daughter in Claremont, California. His awards include the Arthur Rense Poetry Prize, a NEA Fellowship in Poetry, a California Arts Grant, a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship to the Sewanee Writers Conference, a National Writers? Union First Prize, and an AWP Anniversary Award. His poetry collections include Local Knowledge, The System of Which the Body Is One Part, and Flight. He is also the author of Such Holy Song, a study of William Blake. His poems have appeared in Southern Review, Poetry, Triquarterly, Hudson Review, Salmagundi, Sewanee Review and other journals.

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A Conversation with B. H. Fairchild, by Paul Mariani

?. . . even then, before the dust would thin
from Kansas skies and we would take the rags
from the windows and20breathe again,
even then, I could turn with Seton's bear
at the gateway to the last canyon
as the Angel of the Wild Things waited,
as the fumes rose like night's warm quilt,
as the hunters crept closer slowly, slowly.
?????? from "Ernest Thompson Seton's Biography of a Grizzly" 

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Image: Much of your work is firmly planted in your Texas and Kansas years, the years you spent in your father's machine shop, working a lathe, living in a world very much like that portrayed in Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 film, The Last Picture Show. Often this Midwestern experience is refracted through the lens of what we used to call high art ? Texas and Kansas refracted through the lenses of Cicero, Augustine, Rilke, and Ren? Char. Your long poem "Beauty," for example, takes place in the Bargello in Florence, where you are looking at the paintings on the Renaissance palace walls in company with your wife, before you circle back to your youth in Kansas in the late 1950s and early 1960s, remembering what the word beauty meant in a context of violence, boredom, and fear. Like William Carlos Williams, James Wright, and James Dickey, all writing in the American grain, you insist on the beauty to be found in what seems to be a desolate landscape. Would you comment?

B.H. Fairchild: Thank you for mentioning The Last Picture Show, which is probably the best visual and dramatic representation ever of the kind of small towns in which I grew up. I saw, or tried to see, that movi
e when it was first released, and after the first two minutes I had to get up and leave. I later saw the whole film, but that first look ? tumbleweeds blowing across the main street, dirt in the air, the absence of trees ? was hard to take. "Refracted through... the lens of high art" is an interesting and useful phrase, though I'm not sure it quite describes what is happening in my poems when high art appears shoulder to shoulder with physical labor or popular culture ? in the title poem of The Art of the Lathe, for instance, when Mozart and Patsy Cline are mentioned together, or the machine shop is compared with the drawing of the blacksmith's shop in Diderot's encyclopedia or with a cathedral such as Suger's Saint-Denis.

I resent the way blue-collar labor is often stereotyped as being utterly divorced from high culture, as if it were performed only by men and women whose lives are a cycle of beer drinking, Monday night football, and NASCAR, and who have never read or wanted to read The Brothers Karamazov or Anna Karenina. I have a cousin, for instance, who is a machinist and comes in and sets the parameters on the lathe (they're computerized now), then leans back and reads Heidegger. Maybe that's exceptional, but I also have a poem, "Toban's Precision Machine Shop," that resulted from walking into a very old shop in San Bernardino (so old the lathes were driven by belts connected to an overhead shaft) where a Mahler symphony was flooding the air.

A large part o
f my intent in The Art of the Lathe was to blur the line between craft and art. The men in those shops, including my father, were highly skilled laborers who performed tasks whose intellectual complexity was at least equal to if not more demanding than those performed by academic intellectuals. Take a good look at Machinery's Handbook if you don't believe me. Maybe lathe work is not an art, though it is certainly a craft, but as a child my first sense of beauty may have been lamplight reflecting from the blue spiral of iron as it peeled off of a threaded end of drill pipe.

One of the most important transitions for me, psychological or otherwise, was the gradual, halting movement out of the physical world of work into the world of art and literature and ideas. Very often, especially in my later teens and early twenties, I was existing in both worlds at the same time, watching a welder lay down a perfect seam while Madame Bovary was walking around in my head, or observing the gleam of a freshly shaped and honed piece of stock while remembering the arc of a Brancusi sculpture. I don't "insist" upon beauty being found in strange, overlooked places; that's just the way it seems to emerge in many of my poems.

Nobody could be more surprised at this than I am. I did not have a talent for machine work and could not wait to escape that little town, at least for nine months, to the world of the university. But that town is where my mind seems to locate the startling fact of beaut
y. And the stranger the circumstances or source of beauty, the more authentic it seems to me.

Image: I wonder if you might talk a bit about your own long, solitary apprenticeship to poetry. Let's start with how you came to compose your first book, The Arrival of the Future, which originally appeared in 1985, when you were forty-three.

BHF: The Arrival of the Future is simply a selection from everything I had written since the early seventies. The delay in the book's appearance had less to do with my development as a poet than it did with the poetry situation then and now. These days, if you have a manuscript of merit, are outside the MFA bureaucracy, and have no one of influence to recommend you, you are limited to entering competitions in order to have a book published. If the manuscript has real value, it will likely be a runner-up or finalist many times before it is actually selected. If it takes you five years to write the book, it may well take five more years before it wins publication.

This makes it so important that the competitions are run fairly. A couple of years ago, I read at a university with a prestigious poetry book series, and two of the professors there ? very nice folks and fine poets ? asked me whether I remembered submitting a manuscript to them some fifteen years before. I didn't, because I had been submitting to so many contests then. They confessed that they had chosen my manuscript as the winner, but the final judge insisted on giving the20prize to his student. I'm glad that they didn't tell me at the time, because I may well have thrown in the towel.

Image: How have you been able to write while teaching all those literature and composition classes, year after year, without any real time off? This had to take away from your ability to sit down and write with the leisure one needs to produce good work.

BHF: Everyone struggles with this. Everything ultimately seems to circle around economics, and someone somewhere is surely writing a book on poetry and money, or they should be. I might still be working on Early Occult Memory Systems if it weren't for the awards given to The Art of the Lathe. With the money from those awards and some generosity from my school, I was able to buy myself a year off from teaching. I had never in my life had a year off to write, and it's amazing how much you can produce when you have the time.

I could never seem to land the good job, though God knows I'm lucky to have any job at all. I've taught eight to ten classes a year at state universities my whole career and had to wedge the writing in whenever I could. The worst part is not the constant awareness of what you're not writing but rather the guilt you feel for the time you're taking away from your family. But other writers who, like me, teach in the Cal State system have been impressively productive: my colleague the novelist James Brown, Tim Steele, Ron Koertge, Charles Harper Webb. The work gets done, somehow.

Image
: How long did it take to, as they say, find your voice?

BHF: I was never very concerned with this when I was trying to teach myself the art of poetry. I was working in almost complete isolation, had never taken a poetry writing class or workshop, and therefore did not hear the phrase used much. Furthermore, I don't think I quite believed in it. I was trying to find my mind more than my voice. Also, because I had once been an aspiring jazz musician, I was trying to teach myself the way such a musician does: reading the best poets, trying to analyze what they did, then trying to do it myself, the way in those days a kid would listen to Charlie Parker or Sonny Stitt or Art Pepper to pick up their technique and ideas. I would also practice each day, giving myself little exercises in image, metaphor, syntax, or form, the way a pianist does five-finger exercises. Instead of trying to find my voice, I thought about precision of technique.

Something of a breakthrough came for me sitting in on a class in prosody taught by the poet Don Welch at Kearney State College, where I taught briefly. It opened up the interior life of the poem for me. Another lucky event was taking a class from Winston Weathers at the University of Tulsa, where he taught a sort of modernized version of classical rhetoric, mostly tropes and schemes.

Image: Who were some of your models? James Agee in prose? James Wright and William Stafford in poetry? Who else? What about European influences?

BHF: Some of=2
0the early influences included prose writers who were doing interesting things with syntax: Hemingway, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, and yes, James Agee, mostly the prose-poem preface to A Death in the Family, a small portion of which I used as the epigraph for my fourth book. I later read his poems, reviews, and Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

Remember, I did not come from a literary background. Some Frost and Whitman excited me in high school, but college was a huge intellectual adventure, and each writer ? Keats, Shakespeare, all the big ones ? was a great discovery. Poetry itself, truly understood as an art form, was a great discovery. As I began to write poems myself, Bill Stafford, James Wright, and Richard Hugo became very important to me because they validated my subject matter. I had grown up in small towns in the oil fields, and I had thought that poems needed to be about Grecian urns and unrequited love and nightingales. Those three poets made it immediately clear that I could write about my own experiences.

Later, in graduate school, I read Anthony Hecht's The Hard Hours, and it impressed me in every possible way. I was as attracted to his sound ? I mean his complex phonemic textures ? as I was to those in Robert Lowell's Lord Weary's Castle and in Sylvia Plath. I'm not sure how all of this plays out in terms of actual influence. As for European or other influences: as you can see from the epigraphs in The Arrival of the Future, I was readi
ng W. S. Merwin's translation of Osip Mandelstam and Cesare Pavese's Hard Labor in the later stages of my manuscript, and they made a deep impression on me.

Image: Can you talk a bit about the shape of this first book, and why you chose the cover you did, your friend Don Van Radke's The Wasp Killers (1977)?

BHF: It's difficult for me to remember now how I constructed the book out of the poems I had then. The title poem, with its epigraph from the theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg, I knew I wanted as the closing poem, and the book is roughly divided into three parts, but it is not a tightly, intricately structured book such as I would later try to do.

The cover I can be more specific about. I made the acquaintance of the painter Don Van Radke when I was putting together Arrival of the Future, saw The Wasp Killers on the wall of his house, and recognized it immediately as a visual translation of the phrase "the arrival of the future." I knew I wanted it on the cover, and when the book finally won a competition, I arranged it with the publisher. But the publisher (a brave, noble, small poetry publisher, like so many) was going out of business even as the book was being produced, so a less expensive cover was substituted, and I was very disappointed. Later, after The Art of the Lathe, Alice James agreed to republish the book the way I originally wanted it, and I thank them for that.

Image: Can you talk about the cross-fertilization process between narrative and lyrical stru
ctures ? the vertical heightening of the lyric, as well as the insistence, if you will, on the more horizontal fidelity to the quotidian?

BHF: It seems obvious that most poems these days are lyric/narrative hybrids. I think of pure lyric as being a vertical movement within a moment of time ? sometimes an infinitely small moment ? and pure narrative as being a horizontal movement in time. I think you can have pure lyric, such as Rilke's "Rose, oh pure contradiction," but that it's almost impossible to have pure narrative, at least in poetry. In fact, I think a narrative poem always has to be a hybrid, even though it's closer to the horizontal axis, because a poem must have at least some lyric depth. Beginning as far back as "In Czechoslovakia" in my second book, Local Knowledge, I became interested in this problem of writing a narrative that sustains momentum without sacrificing lyric depth.

Image: You speak of your first book as a miscellany, but certainly your last two books are finely honed and highly structured. Would you comment on this development? By extension, where do you see your new work going?

BHF: Thank you for the compliment and observation. Yes, it was certainly my intent to make The Art of the Lathe and Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest more than just collections, especially the latter, though it is probably immodest to say so, there being such a gulf between intent and execution. But I at least wanted more of a thematic consistency in The 
Art of the Lathe; I hoped that there would be a development between the strangeness, even forbiddenness, of the idea of beauty in the first poem and the location and celebration of it in the work itself (that is, the machine work) in the title poem which closes the book.

Early Occult Memory Systems has two memory systems and two centers. One, the subject of the first poem, the title poem, I invented for myself as a child. It is about not only memory but memory's desire: to forget nothing, to hold on to everything as if one were going to live forever. The other memory system is the one that was so important to Renaissance intellectuals such as Giordano Bruno, whose wonderful memory theater really derived from classical rhetoricians (thus the Renaissance habit of referring to such systems as "occult," meaning simply pre-Christian or pagan).

One center of the book occurs in the middle of the long poem, "The Blue Buick," when Roy Garcia, having taught the boy-narrator Bruno's system, says that the boy would then forget nothing and "everything would be imprinted on his soul." The other center is "The Deposition," in which the eyes of the dead Christ twice say to the persona, "I know who you are." Here is the idea that one can never know oneself truly, that a finite mind can only be fully comprehended by an infinite one. This poem lies between the epigraph from James Agee that ends in the child's voice, "these [the adults] receive me... but will not ever tell me who I am," and the very la
st sentence of the final poem of the book, "The Memory Palace": "and still you do not know who you are." In that final poem, the two centers merge: the boy from "The Blue Buick," now an old man in the final moments of dying, uses Bruno's memory system to remember everything that he loved. He wants to achieve memory's desire, the same desire he had as a child, to forget nothing, to hold on to everything forever.

Image: There's not a great deal in your poems about your wife and children; that is, there's no self-portrait of yourself as husband and father. Instead, the focus is on you as a young man in the working world of Kansas. Would you care to say something about your parents as shapers? Your father is everywhere, your mother less so, except perhaps in The Memory Palace. Why is this?

BHF: There are perfectly natural reasons, including the usual psychological ones, for family, especially parents, to appear in one's poems. However, in my case they were also playing out a quintessentially American story, though I became conscious of that only in retrospect. Like so many of their generation, they grew up on small, homestead farms, and ? subsistence farming being an extremely hard life ? migrated to towns and cities, learned a trade, struggled through the depression of the thirties, then World War II, and finally came upon that slim opportunity, like the light seeping through a crack in the door, to pull themselves up into the middle class through unrelenting work and sacrifice and
 a little luck.

My father had to quit high school in the tenth grade to help support his family ? a fairly common story in those days ? but he was smart, strong, and, like my mom, could work harder than any human being I had ever seen. I much preferred the years when he was a wage-earning lathe machinist in Texas to later, when he risked everything they had saved to own a small piece of a machine shop in Kansas. That shop was built on rumors about the Hugoton gas field that never played out, sank entirely into the red in its first few years, looked every day like it was going under, and exacted a huge toll on the emotional life of our family and on my parents' marriage. My father was the most exploited worker in the shop. He frequently worked sixteen-hour days, often worked at night (he once stood over a lathe for forty-eight hours straight), never had weekends, and brought home, it seemed, nothing but worry and despair about losing everything. In the early years in Texas, from a child's point of view, life was wonderful; in fact, you could say I was, in William Matthews's phrase, the victim of a happy childhood.

If your father had come home from World War II ? and that's a very big if ? growing up in the late forties in a blue-collar neighborhood could be paradise.

There were fathers in undershirts at twilight, home from work, watering their lawns, hose in one hand, beer in the other, mothers talking on front porches, kids screaming and runn
ing through the yards, playing stickball in the street, all of this until dark. This was before the great narcotic, television, came along to pull everyone inside and turn neighborhoods into cemeteries. There was the occasional weekend fishing trip to the beach in Galveston. But then came the move to Kansas, exile from paradise, and that constant, unvarying cycle of work/eat/sleep that made less and less sense to me until it made no sense at all.

For reasons that are fairly evident if you read the poems, I have written more about my father than my mother. But my mother made me the obsessive reader I became, by putting books in my hands at an early age so that I was reading pretty well by the age of four. I was sick a lot as a kid, and for me being sick was almost pleasurable, because she would always place a stack of new books beside me in bed. She also taught me there was such a thing as unconditional love.

On the other hand, among my earliest memories is standing by my father as he operated a lathe. He was a perfectionist and so introduced me to the idea of craft, "a small thing done well." The odd fact that I fell in love with craft itself before I ever came to poetry has had a huge influence on the way I think about poetry. I vividly remember how he would point out something another machinist had done as "good work," clearly the highest kind of praise, and how disdainfully he would refer to other work as "sloppy." It was a moral distinction as much as an ae
sthetic one and made a deep impression on me. But then later, in Kansas, came the financial pressures, despair, and anger, and I was increasingly drawn to what was called "the life of the mind." Even later came the political arguments, and the sense of having failed him. It's an old story, isn't it? And a very American one.

Image: Could you say something about your interest in those American obsessions that keep cropping up in your poems? I mean cars, baseball, and jazz.

BHF: During the bad years, the one thing between my father and me that did not sour was baseball. He and his brothers had been terrific ballplayers, and baseball was the only sport I wasn't terrible at. In fact, one of my earliest aesthetic experiences ? the sense of something that might be called beauty, though I could not have said so at the time ? was playing second base in a double play. It went so smoothly, a perfect line reeled out from the shortstop to me to first base, and I felt my body disappear inside a motion, gave myself to something larger than myself, something that might possibly be called beautiful. So, without planning to do so, I seem to have written several poems about baseball. I don't follow the majors the way I used to, though Boston's victory last year in the series brought tears to my eyes. For just a few moments it felt like Brooklyn in 1955, and all the old feeling came back.

Image: What about your connection with jazz?

BHF: As the work/eat/sleep cycle began to domi
nate everything, to appear inevitable and unending, and as the isolation of the town became claustrophobic (the nearest large town was Amarillo, Texas, 180 miles away, which was also the nearest bookstore), I think I would have died if it hadn't been for the excellent local library and jazz. I was fascinated with bebop, though it was hard to get records (a drive to Amarillo again). I have a poem in Early Occult Memory Systems about hearing Charlie Parker for the first time over WNOE, a station in New Orleans that we could sometimes pick up late at night. I played tenor saxophone pretty well, though I had a completely oversized sense of my own talent. I used to dream about running off to Fifty-second Street in Manhattan, the center of bebop at that time. If I had, I wouldn't have lasted five minutes. I somehow discovered Downbeat magazine and would wait patiently for my subscription to arrive each month.

Nat Hentoff, the famous jazz critic and later equally famous civil rights champion, had a regular column with record reviews, and it was another ridiculous fantasy of mine that Hentoff would someday review a record of mine. Some forty years later I walked into my house and turned on my answering machine, and a voice said, "Hi. I'm Nat Hentoff, and I'd like to review your recent book of poems for the Wall Street Journal." Suddenly I was eighteen years old all over again. I couldn't shut up about it, though my wife suggested that might be a good idea. My father hated the poems, but he wou
ld have been very proud to see me mentioned in the Wall Street Journal.

Image: Does your ongoing interest in jazz figure into the musical phrasing of your own poetry? I'm wondering about what Pound calls melopoeia, the musical sense of the line.

BHF: I don't think jazz had any direct influence on syntactical phrasing or improvised meter in my work, meter with variations being, even in Shakespeare, inherently analogous to an improvised melodic line in jazz, regardless of influence. Any kind of musical training gives one an ear for the auditory dimension of poetry, especially sound texture and pulse. I was constantly attracted to someone's sound, whether Lowell, Hecht, Plath, Hugo, whoever. Plath loved internal rhyme and the occasional monosyllabic with strong consonants on each end, while Hugo had that very strong duple meter ? whether iambic or trochaic ? running through his poems.

Image: Can you say something about the world of art as it appears in your work? I'm thinking not only of the Bargello, but of the seventeenth-century Dutch realists as complements to your work, and even more of Edward Hopper, that quintessentially American poet of isolation, even to the point of finally emptying his lighted rooms of human presence altogether. You have a poem in The Art of the Lathe called "All the People in Hopper's Paintings." 

BHF: That poem attempts to put into words the almost ineffable effect his work had on me and so many other American poets. I never entered an art museum until college,20so I had only seen his paintings in books, but even then they stunned me, and I would linger in awe and wonder over them for hours. They explained something in me and in the America I had lived in that I could simply not articulate. Recently I gave a reading at Yale and happened onto their little art museum, which has to be one of the best of any college in this country. I went up to the second floor, walked to the end of the hall, and there were four Hoppers, including three of my favorites, especially Western Motel, which can almost be read as an allegory about southern California. I got paid well for the reading, but seeing those paintings was the real pay-off.

Image: You've also been influenced by William Stafford.

BHF: It was a wonderful surprise to discover in my mid-thirties that Stafford had graduated from my high school. I heard him read in Texas, and he prefaced a poem by referring to one of his high school teachers, who had also taught my sister and appears as a librarian in one of my poems. We corresponded a bit after that, and I would attend his readings in my area in California whenever I could. I was very proud of my hometown when they recently decided to name the high school library after him. His son, Kim, a prince of a guy who has written an absolutely beautiful memoir of his father, was there for the dedication.

But I first met Stafford much earlier, when he visited my fiction class in 1962 at the University of Kansas. He tried to explain th
at writing was really easy, and I was offended because I was young and angry and wanted to think that writing was the most difficult task in the world. In my office I have a photo of Stafford and myself next to his poem, "What I Heard Whispered at the Edge of Liberal, Kansas."

Image: I want to go back for a moment to Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest, whose very title evokes for me the great Jesuit Matteo Ricci teaching the Confucian scholars in Beijing, as well as the figures of Cicero and Bruno. There's something evocative and spiritual ? perhaps religious ? about the poems, which shed a light of something like grace on the lost world of the machine shop and the lathe. It's something you seem to do so quietly and yet insistently.

BHF: I think that in that way Early Occult Memory Systems might be called a religious book (I am avoiding the word spiritual, which the New Age people seem to have beaten to death). I was raised a Methodist, then spent twenty years disguised to myself as an agnostic, then became a Lutheran, and finally an Anglican. I know: that would seem to be the slow boat to Rome, but it's a big ocean, after all. The hunger never abates. One reads constantly out of the hunger, sometimes foolishly, I think ? Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Weil, Bonhoeffer, Merton, the whole boatload, and especially now Ren? Girard ? but it's always there. At this point in my life, I don't think it's a problem of belief anymore.
 It's simply who I am.

Image: I'm curious: why Ren? Girard in particular? And what do you mean that at this point in your life this is simply who you are?

BHF: Girard is an anthropologist and literary theorist who, in his Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, among other books, offers a non-sacrificial reading of the crucifixion based on the ideas of mimetic rivalries and scapegoat mechanisms. It's an exciting reading, utterly convincing, and nobody has ever seen Christ's sacrifice in this way.

As for the second question, I mean that being a Christian no longer seems to present a problem of belief for me, or at least not in the same way it once did (I'm thinking of Paul Tillich's dialectic of belief: doubt and faith as two sides of the same coin). It's simply who I am. That is, it seems to be a fact or condition of my being at an even deeper level than doubt itself. My wife began learning Hebrew in high school and then converted to Judaism. One thing I envy her is that arguing with God is very much a part of her Jewish tradition. I wish that were so, or more so, in the Christian tradition.

Image: I find a certain undeniable sacramental quality in many of your poems, as if you were standing outside yourself and looking back at the world of your youth, a world that exists now largely in the golden alembic of your esthetic memory. In particular you point readers to the sacramental nature of work. You show us work's spiritual dimension, the sense in which=2
0it can dignify, valorize, and make holy the individual.

BHF: Yes, work can be sacramental, especially work that you do with your hands. I think for my father it was often sacramental, though he would have been embarrassed by that phrase as being too grand. The trouble is that in a capitalist economy, corporate employers constantly take advantage of that, saying, in effect, "If the work is so important to them, so sacred, they won't mind a cut in wages."

The work of teaching can certainly be sacramental, and in the same way boards of regents will say, "If they love teaching so much, they won't quit if we double the class size." The working-class ethic is very simple: do the best work you can do, do it on time, and never work for free, because that means you place no value on what you do for a living. If the work is sacred, then by God place a value on it.

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What they're saying?about The Art of the Lathe
?"The Art of the Lathe by B.H. Fairchild has become a contemporary classic?a passionate example of the plain style, so finely crafted and perfectly pitched?.workhorse narratives suffused with tenderness and elegiac music?"
?Los Angeles Times 

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"With elegance and restrained subtlety, Mr. Fairchild interweaves topics that become something like musical themes, including the central theme of machine work....Anyone who can lay claim to the authorship of this much excellent poetry wins my unqualified and grateful admiration."
?from the introduction 
by Anthony Hecht 

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"These remarkably textured, generous, haunting poems articulate the absence and longing that are created by experience and that in turn keep experience alive. Anyone who wishes to understand not only the contemporary American idiom but the reasons for that idiom will have to read B.H. Fairchild?s The Art of the Lathe."
?Wyatt Prunty 

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?"The Art of the Lathe by B.H. Fairchild has become a contemporary classic?a passionate example of the plain style, so finely crafted and perfectly pitched?.workhorse narratives suffused with tenderness and elegiac music?"
?Los Angeles Times 

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"With elegance and restrained subtlety, Mr. Fairchild interweaves topics that become something like musical themes, including the central theme of machine work....Anyone who can lay claim to the authorship of this much excellent poetry wins my unqualified and grateful admiration."
?from the introduction by Anthony Hecht 

?

"These remarkably textured, generous, haunting poems articulate the absence and longing that are created by experience and that in turn keep experience alive. Anyone who wishes to understand not only the contemporary American idiom but the reasons for that idiom will have to read B.H. Fairchild?s The Art of the Lathe."
?Wyatt Prunty 

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????????????????????

B. H. Fairchild

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Beauty

=0
A
Therefore, 
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful. . . 
-James Wright, "Autumn Begins in Martin's Ferry, Ohio" 

I. 
We are at the Bargello in Florence, and she says, 
what are you thinking? and I say, beauty, thinking 
of how very far we are now from the machine shop
and the dry fields of Kansas, the treeless horizons 
of slate skies and the muted passions of roughnecks 
and scrabble farmers drunk and romantic enough 
to weep more or less silently at the darkened end 
of the bar out of, what else, loneliness, meaning 
the ache of thwarted desire, of, in a word, beauty, 
or rather its absence, and it occurs to me again 
that no male member of my family has ever used 
this word in my hearing or anyone else's except 
in reference, perhaps, to a new pickup or dead deer.
This insight, this backward vision, first came to me 
as a young man as some weirdness of the air waves 
slipped through the static of our new Motorola 
with a discussion of beauty between Robert Penn Warren 
and Paul Weiss at Yale College. We were in Kansas 
eating barbecue-flavored potato chips and waiting 
for Father Knows Best to float up through the snow
of rural TV in 1963. I felt transported, stunned. 
Here are two grown men discussing "beauty" 
seriously and with dignity as if they and the topic 
were as normal as normal topics of discussion 
between men such as soybean prices or why 
the commodities market was a sucker's game 
or Oklahoma football or Gimpy Neiderland 
almost
 dying from his hemorrhoid operation. 
They were discussing beauty and tossing around 
allusions to Plato and Aristotle and someone 
named Pater, and they might be homosexuals. 
That would be a natural conclusion, of course, 
since here were two grown men talking about "beauty"
instead of scratching their crotches and cursing 
the goddamned government trying to run everybody's 
business. Not a beautiful thing, that. The government. 
Not beautiful, though a man would not use that word. 
One time my Uncle Ross from California called my mom's 
Sunday dinner centerpiece "lovely" and my father 
left the room, clearly troubled by the word "lovely" 
coupled probably with the very idea of California 
and the fact that my Uncle Ross liked to tap-dance. 
The light from the venetian blinds, the autumn, 
silver Kansas light laving the table that Sunday, 
is what I recall now because it was beautiful, 
though I of course would not have said so then, beautiful, 
as so many moments forgotten but later remembered 
come back to us in slants and pools and uprisings of light, 
beautiful in itself, but more beautiful mingled 
with memory, the light leaning across my mother's 
carefully set table, across the empty chair 
beside my Uncle Ross, the light filtering down 
from the green plastic slats in the roof of the machine shop 
where I worked with my father so many afternoons, 
standing or crouched in pools of light and sweat with men 
who knew the true meaning of labor and money and other 

hard, true things and did not, did not ever, use the word, beauty. 

II. 
Late November, shadows gather in the shop's north end, 
and I'm watching Bobby Sudduth do piece work on the Hobbs. 
He fouls another cut, motherfucker, fucking bitch machine, 
and starts over, sloppy, slow, about two joints away 
from being fired, but he just doesn't give a shit. 
He sets the bit again, white wrists flashing in the lamplight 
and showing botched, blurred tattoos, both from a night 
in Tijuana, and continues his sexual autobiography, 
that's right, fucked my own sister, and I'll tell you, bud, 
it wasn't bad. Later, in the Phillipines, the clap: 
as far as I'm concerned, any man who hasn't had V.D. 
just isn't a man. I walk away, knowing I have just heard 
the dumbest remark ever uttered by man or animal. 
The air around me hums in a dark metallic bass, 
light spilling like grails of milk as someone opens 
the mammoth shop door. A shrill, sullen truculence 
blows in like dust devils, the hot wind nagging 
my blousy overalls, and in the sideyard the winch truck 
backfires and stalls. The sky yellows. Barn sparrows cry 
in the rafters. That afternoon in Dallas Kennedy is shot. 

Two weeks later sitting around on rotary tables 
and traveling blocks whose bearings litter the shop floor 
like huge eggs, we close our lunch boxes and lean back 
with cigarettes and watch smoke and dust motes rise and drift 
into sunlight. All of us have seen the newscasts, 
photographs from
 Life, have sat there in our cavernous rooms, 
assassinations and crowds flickering over our faces, 
some of us have even dreamed it, sleeping through 
the TV's drone and flutter, seen her arm reaching 
across the lank body, black suits rushing in like moths, 
and the long snake of the motorcade come to rest, 
then the announcer's voice as we wake astonished in the dark. 
We think of it now, staring at the tin ceiling like a giant screen, 
what a strange goddamned country, as Bobby Sudduth 
arches a wadded Fritos bag at the time clock and says, 
Oswald, from that far, you got to admit, that shot was a beauty. 

III. 
The following summer. A black Corvette gleams like a slice 
of onyx in the sideyard, driven there by two young men 
who look like Marlon Brando and mention Hollywood 
when Bobby asks where they're from. The foreman, my father, 
has hired them because we're backed up with work, both shop 
and yard strewn with rig parts, flat-bed haulers rumbling 
in each day lugging damaged drawworks, and we are desperate. 
The noise is awful, a gang of roughnecks from a rig 
on down-time shouting orders, our floor hands knee-deep 
in the drawwork's gears heating the frozen sleeves and bushings 
with cutting torches until they can be hammered loose. 
The iron shell bangs back like a drum-head. Looking 
for some peace, I walk onto the pipe rack for a quick smoke, 
and this is the way it begins for me, this memory, 
this strangest of all memories of the shop
 and the men 
who worked there, because the silence has come upon me 
like the shadow of cranes flying overhead as they would 
each autumn, like the quiet and imperceptible turning 
of a season, the shop has grown suddenly still here 
in the middle of the workday, and I turn to look 
through the tall doors where the machinist stand now 
with their backs to me, the lathes whining down together,
and in the shop's center I see them standing in a square 
of light, the two men from California, as the welders 
lift their black masks, looking up, and I see their faces first, 
the expressions of children at a zoo, perhaps, 
or after a first snow, as the two men stand naked, 
their clothes in little piles on the floor as if they 
are about to go swimming, and I recall how fragile 
and pale their bodies seemed against the iron and steel 
of the drill presses and milling machines and lathes. 
I did not know the word, exhibitionist, then, and so 
for a moment it seemed only a problem of memory, 
that they had forgotten somehow where they were, 
that this was not the locker room after the game, 
that they were not taking a shower, that this was not 
the appropriate place, and they would then remember, 
and suddenly embarrassed, begin shyly to dress again. 
But they did not, and in memory they stand frozen 
and poised as two models in a drawing class, 
of whom the finished sketch might be said, though not by me 
nor any man I knew, to be beautiful,20they stand there 
forever, with the time clock ticking behind them, 
time running on but not moving, like the white tunnel 
of silence between the snap of the ball and the thunderclap 
of shoulder pads that never seems to come and then 
there it is, and I hear a quick intake of breath 
on my right behind the Hobbs and it is Bobby Sudduth 
with what I think now was not just anger but a kind 
of terror on his face, an animal wildness 
in the eyes and the jaw tight, making ropes in his neck 
while in a long blur with his left hand raised and gripping 
an iron file he is moving toward the men who wait 
attentive and motionless as deer trembling in a clearing, 
and instantly there is my father between Bobby 
and the men as if he were waking them after a long sleep, 
reaching out to touch the shoulder of the blonde one 
as he says in a voice almost terrible in its gentleness, 
its discretion, you boys will have to leave now. 
He takes one look at Bobby who is shrinking back 
into the shadows of the Hobbs, then walks quickly back 
to his office at the front of the shop, and soon 
the black Corvette with the orange California plates 
is squealing onto Highway 54 heading west into the sun. 

IV. 
So there they are, as I will always remember them, 
the men who were once fullbacks or tackles or guards 
in their three-point stances knuckling into the mud, 
hungry for highschool glory and the pride of their fathers, 
eager to gallop ter
ribly against each other's bodies, 
each man in his body looking out now at the nakedness 
of a body like his, men who each autumn had followed 
their fathers into the pheasant-rich fields of Kansas 
and as boys had climbed down from the Allis-Chalmers 
after plowing their first straight furrow, licking the dirt 
from their lips, the hand of the father resting lightly 
upon their shoulder, men who in the oven-warm winter 
kitchens of Baptist households saw after a bath the body 
of the father and felt diminished by it, who that same 
winter in the abandoned schoolyard felt the odd intimacy 
of their fist against the larger boy's cheekbone 
but kept hitting, ferociously, and walked away 
feeling for the first time the strength, the abundance, 
of their own bodies. And I imagine the men 
that evening after the strangest day of their lives, 
after they have left the shop without speaking 
and made the long drive home alone in their pickups,
I see them in their little white frame houses on the edge 
of town adrift in the long silence of the evening turning 
finally to their wives, touching without speaking the hair 
which she has learned to let fall about her shoulders 
at this hour of the night, lifting the white nightgown 
from her body as she in turn unbuttons his work shirt 
heavy with the sweat and grease of the day's labor until 
they stand naked before each other and begin to touch 
in a slow choreography of familiar gestures their bodies, 
she touching 
his chest, his hand brushing her breasts, 
and he does not say the word "beautiful" because 
he cannot and never has, and she does not say it 
because it would embarrass him or any other man 
she has ever known, though it is precisely the word 
I am thinking now as I stand before Donatello's David 
with my wife touching my sleeve, what are you thinking? 
and I think of the letter from my father years ago 
describing the death of Bobby Sudduth, a single shot 
from a twelve-gauge which he held against his chest, 
the death of the heart, I suppose, a kind of terrible beauty, 
as someone said of the death of Hart Crane, though that is 
surely a perverse use of the word, and I was stunned then, 
thinking of the damage men will visit upon their bodies, 
what are you thinking? she asks again, and so I begin 
to tell her about a strange afternoon in Kansas, 
about something I have never spoken of, and we walk 
to a window where the shifting light spreads a sheen 
along the casement, and looking out, we see the city 
blazing like miles of uncut wheat, the farthest buildings 
taken in their turn, and the great dome, the way 
the metal roof of the machine shop, I tell her, 
would break into flame late on an autumn day, with such beauty. 

??????????????????????? -from The Art of the Lathe

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Author and poet B.H. Fairchild's first published=2
0book was a critical study of another poet. Such Holy Song: Music as Idea, Form, and Image in the Poetry of William Blake, which saw print in 1980, looked at the influence of music on the work of the famed late eighteenth-century poet who pioneered Romanticism and created such masterpieces as Songs of Innocence and of Experience and The Four Zoas. In fact, it is primarily these two sets of poems by Blake that Fairchild uses to assert his premise that music is supremely important to Blake's poetic creations. As Brian Wilke pointed out in the Rocky Mountain Review, Such Holy Song itself "has a kind of simple ABA sonata form." The critic explained that chapter one provides a framework for the rest of the book. The next three chapters explore "the theoretical and mythic meaning of music for Blake," "melos" in the Songs of Innocence and of Experience, and the "sound effects, ... musico-dramatic form, and ... musical imagery" in The Four Zoas. The last chapter sums up the book. Fairchild also asserts that melody, in Blake's creative realm, is likened "to the visual ... and the poetic line, ... representing the right, healthy form of imagination. ..." In addition, the author includes information about Blake's living conditions, which included a home near "pleasure gardens" where music was frequently performed. 

Critical response to Such Holy Song was generally positive. Wilke noted that the chapter dealing with The Four Zoas is "the best part of the book." Wilke particularly appreciated the explanation "of the poem'
s sound effects, which Fairchild brings excitingly alive." A Choice contributor noted that Fairchild explores his subject matter and proves his points "clearly and effectively," and declared the volume to be "the first direct attempt to render as accurately as possible the musicality" of Blake's poetry. 

Fairchild has also published volumes of his own poetry, including 1985's The Arrival of the Future, with illustrations by Ross Zirkle, and a volume titled Local Knowledge, which a Publishers Weekly reviewer noted for its "obvious strength." His collection of poems titled The Art of the Lathe: Poems was called "thoughtful and delicately crafted" by Poetry contributor John Taylor. The reviewer went on to note: "His images haunt with a sort of silent metaphysical immobility." Vince Gotera, writing in the North American Review, commented that the author provides "impeccably precise and fresh insight." 

Fairchild received wide recognition and critical praise for his volume of poetry titled Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest. Writing in Poetry, Bill Christophersen noted that the author "continues to mine the experience of growing up in various hardscrabble towns of Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas during the Fifties and Sixties." Christophersen went on to write: "Many of these poems, like their predecessors ... are free verse narratives distinguished by their blue-collar settings and crisp detail." A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that "fans of Fairchild's comforting excursions to the familiar isolated territory of machinists won't b
e disappointed." In a review in the New York Times, Michael Hainey wrote: "This is the American voice at its best." 

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B.H. Fairchild was born in Houston, Texas and grew up there and in small towns in west Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. He attended the University of Kansas and University of Tulsa and now lives with his wife and daughter in Claremont, California. His awards include the Arthur Rense Poetry Prize, a NEA Fellowship in Poetry, a California Arts Grant, a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship to the Sewanee Writers Conference, a National Writers? Union First Prize, and an AWP Anniversary Award. His poetry collections include Local Knowledge, The System of Which the Body Is One Part, and Flight. He is also the author of Such Holy Song, a study of William Blake. His poems have appeared in Southern Review, Poetry, Triquarterly, Hudson Review, Salmagundi, Sewanee Review and other journals.

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A Conversation with B. H. Fairchild, by Paul Mariani

?. . . even then, before the dust would thin
from Kansas skies and we would take the rags
from the windows and breathe again,
even then, I could turn with Seton's bear
at the gateway to the last canyon
as the Angel of the Wild Things waited,
as the fumes rose like night's warm quilt,
as the hunters crept closer slowly, slowly.
?????? from "Ernest Thompson Seton's Biography of a Grizzly" 

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Image: Much of your work is firmly planted in your Texas and Kansas years, the years you spent in
 your father's machine shop, working a lathe, living in a world very much like that portrayed in Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 film, The Last Picture Show. Often this Midwestern experience is refracted through the lens of what we used to call high art ? Texas and Kansas refracted through the lenses of Cicero, Augustine, Rilke, and Ren? Char. Your long poem "Beauty," for example, takes place in the Bargello in Florence, where you are looking at the paintings on the Renaissance palace walls in company with your wife, before you circle back to your youth in Kansas in the late 1950s and early 1960s, remembering what the word beauty meant in a context of violence, boredom, and fear. Like William Carlos Williams, James Wright, and James Dickey, all writing in the American grain, you insist on the beauty to be found in what seems to be a desolate landscape. Would you comment?

B.H. Fairchild: Thank you for mentioning The Last Picture Show, which is probably the best visual and dramatic representation ever of the kind of small towns in which I grew up. I saw, or tried to see, that movie when it was first released, and after the first two minutes I had to get up and leave. I later saw the whole film, but that first look ? tumbleweeds blowing across the main street, dirt in the air, the absence of trees ? was hard to take. "Refracted through... the lens of high art" is an interesting and useful phrase, though I'm not sure it quite describes what is happening in my poems when=2
0high art appears shoulder to shoulder with physical labor or popular culture ? in the title poem of The Art of the Lathe, for instance, when Mozart and Patsy Cline are mentioned together, or the machine shop is compared with the drawing of the blacksmith's shop in Diderot's encyclopedia or with a cathedral such as Suger's Saint-Denis.

I resent the way blue-collar labor is often stereotyped as being utterly divorced from high culture, as if it were performed only by men and women whose lives are a cycle of beer drinking, Monday night football, and NASCAR, and who have never read or wanted to read The Brothers Karamazov or Anna Karenina. I have a cousin, for instance, who is a machinist and comes in and sets the parameters on the lathe (they're computerized now), then leans back and reads Heidegger. Maybe that's exceptional, but I also have a poem, "Toban's Precision Machine Shop," that resulted from walking into a very old shop in San Bernardino (so old the lathes were driven by belts connected to an overhead shaft) where a Mahler symphony was flooding the air.

A large part of my intent in The Art of the Lathe was to blur the line between craft and art. The men in those shops, including my father, were highly skilled laborers who performed tasks whose intellectual complexity was at least equal to if not more demanding than those performed by academic intellectuals. Take a good look at Machinery's Handbook if you don't believe me. Maybe lathe work is not an art, though it is certainly20a craft, but as a child my first sense of beauty may have been lamplight reflecting from the blue spiral of iron as it peeled off of a threaded end of drill pipe.

One of the most important transitions for me, psychological or otherwise, was the gradual, halting movement out of the physical world of work into the world of art and literature and ideas. Very often, especially in my later teens and early twenties, I was existing in both worlds at the same time, watching a welder lay down a perfect seam while Madame Bovary was walking around in my head, or observing the gleam of a freshly shaped and honed piece of stock while remembering the arc of a Brancusi sculpture. I don't "insist" upon beauty being found in strange, overlooked places; that's just the way it seems to emerge in many of my poems.

Nobody could be more surprised at this than I am. I did not have a talent for machine work and could not wait to escape that little town, at least for nine months, to the world of the university. But that town is where my mind seems to locate the startling fact of beauty. And the stranger the circumstances or source of beauty, the more authentic it seems to me.

Image: I wonder if you might talk a bit about your own long, solitary apprenticeship to poetry. Let's start with how you came to compose your first book, The Arrival of the Future, which originally appeared in 1985, when you were forty-three.

BHF: The Arrival of the Future is simply a selection from everything I had=2
0written since the early seventies. The delay in the book's appearance had less to do with my development as a poet than it did with the poetry situation then and now. These days, if you have a manuscript of merit, are outside the MFA bureaucracy, and have no one of influence to recommend you, you are limited to entering competitions in order to have a book published. If the manuscript has real value, it will likely be a runner-up or finalist many times before it is actually selected. If it takes you five years to write the book, it may well take five more years before it wins publication.

This makes it so important that the competitions are run fairly. A couple of years ago, I read at a university with a prestigious poetry book series, and two of the professors there ? very nice folks and fine poets ? asked me whether I remembered submitting a manuscript to them some fifteen years before. I didn't, because I had been submitting to so many contests then. They confessed that they had chosen my manuscript as the winner, but the final judge insisted on giving the prize to his student. I'm glad that they didn't tell me at the time, because I may well have thrown in the towel.

Image: How have you been able to write while teaching all those literature and composition classes, year after year, without any real time off? This had to take away from your ability to sit down and write with the leisure one needs to produce good work.

BHF: Everyone struggles with this. Eve
rything ultimately seems to circle around economics, and someone somewhere is surely writing a book on poetry and money, or they should be. I might still be working on Early Occult Memory Systems if it weren't for the awards given to The Art of the Lathe. With the money from those awards and some generosity from my school, I was able to buy myself a year off from teaching. I had never in my life had a year off to write, and it's amazing how much you can produce when you have the time.

I could never seem to land the good job, though God knows I'm lucky to have any job at all. I've taught eight to ten classes a year at state universities my whole career and had to wedge the writing in whenever I could. The worst part is not the constant awareness of what you're not writing but rather the guilt you feel for the time you're taking away from your family. But other writers who, like me, teach in the Cal State system have been impressively productive: my colleague the novelist James Brown, Tim Steele, Ron Koertge, Charles Harper Webb. The work gets done, somehow.

Image: How long did it take to, as they say, find your voice?

BHF: I was never very concerned with this when I was trying to teach myself the art of poetry. I was working in almost complete isolation, had never taken a poetry writing class or workshop, and therefore did not hear the phrase used much. Furthermore, I don't think I quite believed in it. I was trying to find my mind more than my voice. Also, b
ecause I had once been an aspiring jazz musician, I was trying to teach myself the way such a musician does: reading the best poets, trying to analyze what they did, then trying to do it myself, the way in those days a kid would listen to Charlie Parker or Sonny Stitt or Art Pepper to pick up their technique and ideas. I would also practice each day, giving myself little exercises in image, metaphor, syntax, or form, the way a pianist does five-finger exercises. Instead of trying to find my voice, I thought about precision of technique.

Something of a breakthrough came for me sitting in on a class in prosody taught by the poet Don Welch at Kearney State College, where I taught briefly. It opened up the interior life of the poem for me. Another lucky event was taking a class from Winston Weathers at the University of Tulsa, where he taught a sort of modernized version of classical rhetoric, mostly tropes and schemes.

Image: Who were some of your models? James Agee in prose? James Wright and William Stafford in poetry? Who else? What about European influences?

BHF: Some of the early influences included prose writers who were doing interesting things with syntax: Hemingway, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, and yes, James Agee, mostly the prose-poem preface to A Death in the Family, a small portion of which I used as the epigraph for my fourth book. I later read his poems, reviews, and Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

Remember, I did not come from a literary background. Some Frost an
d Whitman excited me in high school, but college was a huge intellectual adventure, and each writer ? Keats, Shakespeare, all the big ones ? was a great discovery. Poetry itself, truly understood as an art form, was a great discovery. As I began to write poems myself, Bill Stafford, James Wright, and Richard Hugo became very important to me because they validated my subject matter. I had grown up in small towns in the oil fields, and I had thought that poems needed to be about Grecian urns and unrequited love and nightingales. Those three poets made it immediately clear that I could write about my own experiences.

Later, in graduate school, I read Anthony Hecht's The Hard Hours, and it impressed me in every possible way. I was as attracted to his sound ? I mean his complex phonemic textures ? as I was to those in Robert Lowell's Lord Weary's Castle and in Sylvia Plath. I'm not sure how all of this plays out in terms of actual influence. As for European or other influences: as you can see from the epigraphs in The Arrival of the Future, I was reading W. S. Merwin's translation of Osip Mandelstam and Cesare Pavese's Hard Labor in the later stages of my manuscript, and they made a deep impression on me.

Image: Can you talk a bit about the shape of this first book, and why you chose the cover you did, your friend Don Van Radke's The Wasp Killers (1977)?

BHF: It's difficult for me to remember now how I constructed the book out of the poems I had t
hen. The title poem, with its epigraph from the theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg, I knew I wanted as the closing poem, and the book is roughly divided into three parts, but it is not a tightly, intricately structured book such as I would later try to do.

The cover I can be more specific about. I made the acquaintance of the painter Don Van Radke when I was putting together Arrival of the Future, saw The Wasp Killers on the wall of his house, and recognized it immediately as a visual translation of the phrase "the arrival of the future." I knew I wanted it on the cover, and when the book finally won a competition, I arranged it with the publisher. But the publisher (a brave, noble, small poetry publisher, like so many) was going out of business even as the book was being produced, so a less expensive cover was substituted, and I was very disappointed. Later, after The Art of the Lathe, Alice James agreed to republish the book the way I originally wanted it, and I thank them for that.

Image: Can you talk about the cross-fertilization process between narrative and lyrical structures ? the vertical heightening of the lyric, as well as the insistence, if you will, on the more horizontal fidelity to the quotidian?

BHF: It seems obvious that most poems these days are lyric/narrative hybrids. I think of pure lyric as being a vertical movement within a moment of time ? sometimes an infinitely small moment ? and pure narrative as being a horizontal movement in time. I think
 you can have pure lyric, such as Rilke's "Rose, oh pure contradiction," but that it's almost impossible to have pure narrative, at least in poetry. In fact, I think a narrative poem always has to be a hybrid, even though it's closer to the horizontal axis, because a poem must have at least some lyric depth. Beginning as far back as "In Czechoslovakia" in my second book, Local Knowledge, I became interested in this problem of writing a narrative that sustains momentum without sacrificing lyric depth.

Image: You speak of your first book as a miscellany, but certainly your last two books are finely honed and highly structured. Would you comment on this development? By extension, where do you see your new work going?

BHF: Thank you for the compliment and observation. Yes, it was certainly my intent to make The Art of the Lathe and Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest more than just collections, especially the latter, though it is probably immodest to say so, there being such a gulf between intent and execution. But I at least wanted more of a thematic consistency in The Art of the Lathe; I hoped that there would be a development between the strangeness, even forbiddenness, of the idea of beauty in the first poem and the location and celebration of it in the work itself (that is, the machine work) in the title poem which closes the book.

Early Occult Memory Systems has two memory systems and two centers. One, the subject of the first poem, the title poem, I invented for mysel
f as a child. It is about not only memory but memory's desire: to forget nothing, to hold on to everything as if one were going to live forever. The other memory system is the one that was so important to Renaissance intellectuals such as Giordano Bruno, whose wonderful memory theater really derived from classical rhetoricians (thus the Renaissance habit of referring to such systems as "occult," meaning simply pre-Christian or pagan).

One center of the book occurs in the middle of the long poem, "The Blue Buick," when Roy Garcia, having taught the boy-narrator Bruno's system, says that the boy would then forget nothing and "everything would be imprinted on his soul." The other center is "The Deposition," in which the eyes of the dead Christ twice say to the persona, "I know who you are." Here is the idea that one can never know oneself truly, that a finite mind can only be fully comprehended by an infinite one. This poem lies between the epigraph from James Agee that ends in the child's voice, "these [the adults] receive me... but will not ever tell me who I am," and the very last sentence of the final poem of the book, "The Memory Palace": "and still you do not know who you are." In that final poem, the two centers merge: the boy from "The Blue Buick," now an old man in the final moments of dying, uses Bruno's memory system to remember everything that he loved. He wants to achieve memory's desire, the same desire he had as a child, to forget nothing, to hold on to everything for
ever.

Image: There's not a great deal in your poems about your wife and children; that is, there's no self-portrait of yourself as husband and father. Instead, the focus is on you as a young man in the working world of Kansas. Would you care to say something about your parents as shapers? Your father is everywhere, your mother less so, except perhaps in The Memory Palace. Why is this?

BHF: There are perfectly natural reasons, including the usual psychological ones, for family, especially parents, to appear in one's poems. However, in my case they were also playing out a quintessentially American story, though I became conscious of that only in retrospect. Like so many of their generation, they grew up on small, homestead farms, and ? subsistence farming being an extremely hard life ? migrated to towns and cities, learned a trade, struggled through the depression of the thirties, then World War II, and finally came upon that slim opportunity, like the light seeping through a crack in the door, to pull themselves up into the middle class through unrelenting work and sacrifice and a little luck.

My father had to quit high school in the tenth grade to help support his family ? a fairly common story in those days ? but he was smart, strong, and, like my mom, could work harder than any human being I had ever seen. I much preferred the years when he was a wage-earning lathe machinist in Texas to later, when he risked everything they had saved to own a small piece of20a machine shop in Kansas. That shop was built on rumors about the Hugoton gas field that never played out, sank entirely into the red in its first few years, looked every day like it was going under, and exacted a huge toll on the emotional life of our family and on my parents' marriage. My father was the most exploited worker in the shop. He frequently worked sixteen-hour days, often worked at night (he once stood over a lathe for forty-eight hours straight), never had weekends, and brought home, it seemed, nothing but worry and despair about losing everything. In the early years in Texas, from a child's point of view, life was wonderful; in fact, you could say I was, in William Matthews's phrase, the victim of a happy childhood.

If your father had come home from World War II ? and that's a very big if ? growing up in the late forties in a blue-collar neighborhood could be paradise.

There were fathers in undershirts at twilight, home from work, watering their lawns, hose in one hand, beer in the other, mothers talking on front porches, kids screaming and running through the yards, playing stickball in the street, all of this until dark. This was before the great narcotic, television, came along to pull everyone inside and turn neighborhoods into cemeteries. There was the occasional weekend fishing trip to the beach in Galveston. But then came the move to Kansas, exile from paradise, and that constant, unvarying cycle of work/eat/sleep that made less and less sense to me until
 it made no sense at all.

For reasons that are fairly evident if you read the poems, I have written more about my father than my mother. But my mother made me the obsessive reader I became, by putting books in my hands at an early age so that I was reading pretty well by the age of four. I was sick a lot as a kid, and for me being sick was almost pleasurable, because she would always place a stack of new books beside me in bed. She also taught me there was such a thing as unconditional love.

On the other hand, among my earliest memories is standing by my father as he operated a lathe. He was a perfectionist and so introduced me to the idea of craft, "a small thing done well." The odd fact that I fell in love with craft itself before I ever came to poetry has had a huge influence on the way I think about poetry. I vividly remember how he would point out something another machinist had done as "good work," clearly the highest kind of praise, and how disdainfully he would refer to other work as "sloppy." It was a moral distinction as much as an aesthetic one and made a deep impression on me. But then later, in Kansas, came the financial pressures, despair, and anger, and I was increasingly drawn to what was called "the life of the mind." Even later came the political arguments, and the sense of having failed him. It's an old story, isn't it? And a very American one.

Image: Could you say something about your interest in those American obsessions that keep20cropping up in your poems? I mean cars, baseball, and jazz.

BHF: During the bad years, the one thing between my father and me that did not sour was baseball. He and his brothers had been terrific ballplayers, and baseball was the only sport I wasn't terrible at. In fact, one of my earliest aesthetic experiences ? the sense of something that might be called beauty, though I could not have said so at the time ? was playing second base in a double play. It went so smoothly, a perfect line reeled out from the shortstop to me to first base, and I felt my body disappear inside a motion, gave myself to something larger than myself, something that might possibly be called beautiful. So, without planning to do so, I seem to have written several poems about baseball. I don't follow the majors the way I used to, though Boston's victory last year in the series brought tears to my eyes. For just a few moments it felt like Brooklyn in 1955, and all the old feeling came back.

Image: What about your connection with jazz?

BHF: As the work/eat/sleep cycle began to dominate everything, to appear inevitable and unending, and as the isolation of the town became claustrophobic (the nearest large town was Amarillo, Texas, 180 miles away, which was also the nearest bookstore), I think I would have died if it hadn't been for the excellent local library and jazz. I was fascinated with bebop, though it was hard to get records (a drive to Amarillo again). I have a poem in Early Occult Me
mory Systems about hearing Charlie Parker for the first time over WNOE, a station in New Orleans that we could sometimes pick up late at night. I played tenor saxophone pretty well, though I had a completely oversized sense of my own talent. I used to dream about running off to Fifty-second Street in Manhattan, the center of bebop at that time. If I had, I wouldn't have lasted five minutes. I somehow discovered Downbeat magazine and would wait patiently for my subscription to arrive each month.

Nat Hentoff, the famous jazz critic and later equally famous civil rights champion, had a regular column with record reviews, and it was another ridiculous fantasy of mine that Hentoff would someday review a record of mine. Some forty years later I walked into my house and turned on my answering machine, and a voice said, "Hi. I'm Nat Hentoff, and I'd like to review your recent book of poems for the Wall Street Journal." Suddenly I was eighteen years old all over again. I couldn't shut up about it, though my wife suggested that might be a good idea. My father hated the poems, but he would have been very proud to see me mentioned in the Wall Street Journal.

Image: Does your ongoing interest in jazz figure into the musical phrasing of your own poetry? I'm wondering about what Pound calls melopoeia, the musical sense of the line.

BHF: I don't think jazz had any direct influence on syntactical phrasing or improvised meter in my work, meter with variations being, even in Shakespeare, inherently analogo
us to an improvised melodic line in jazz, regardless of influence. Any kind of musical training gives one an ear for the auditory dimension of poetry, especially sound texture and pulse. I was constantly attracted to someone's sound, whether Lowell, Hecht, Plath, Hugo, whoever. Plath loved internal rhyme and the occasional monosyllabic with strong consonants on each end, while Hugo had that very strong duple meter ? whether iambic or trochaic ? running through his poems.

Image: Can you say something about the world of art as it appears in your work? I'm thinking not only of the Bargello, but of the seventeenth-century Dutch realists as complements to your work, and even more of Edward Hopper, that quintessentially American poet of isolation, even to the point of finally emptying his lighted rooms of human presence altogether. You have a poem in The Art of the Lathe called "All the People in Hopper's Paintings." 

BHF: That poem attempts to put into words the almost ineffable effect his work had on me and so many other American poets. I never entered an art museum until college, so I had only seen his paintings in books, but even then they stunned me, and I would linger in awe and wonder over them for hours. They explained something in me and in the America I had lived in that I could simply not articulate. Recently I gave a reading at Yale and happened onto their little art museum, which has to be one of the best of any college in this country. I went up to the second flo
or, walked to the end of the hall, and there were four Hoppers, including three of my favorites, especially Western Motel, which can almost be read as an allegory about southern California. I got paid well for the reading, but seeing those paintings was the real pay-off.

Image: You've also been influenced by William Stafford.

BHF: It was a wonderful surprise to discover in my mid-thirties that Stafford had graduated from my high school. I heard him read in Texas, and he prefaced a poem by referring to one of his high school teachers, who had also taught my sister and appears as a librarian in one of my poems. We corresponded a bit after that, and I would attend his readings in my area in California whenever I could. I was very proud of my hometown when they recently decided to name the high school library after him. His son, Kim, a prince of a guy who has written an absolutely beautiful memoir of his father, was there for the dedication.

But I first met Stafford much earlier, when he visited my fiction class in 1962 at the University of Kansas. He tried to explain that writing was really easy, and I was offended because I was young and angry and wanted to think that writing was the most difficult task in the world. In my office I have a photo of Stafford and myself next to his poem, "What I Heard Whispered at the Edge of Liberal, Kansas."

Image: I want to go back for a moment to Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest, whose very title evokes for me the20great Jesuit Matteo Ricci teaching the Confucian scholars in Beijing, as well as the figures of Cicero and Bruno. There's something evocative and spiritual ? perhaps religious ? about the poems, which shed a light of something like grace on the lost world of the machine shop and the lathe. It's something you seem to do so quietly and yet insistently.

BHF: I think that in that way Early Occult Memory Systems might be called a religious book (I am avoiding the word spiritual, which the New Age people seem to have beaten to death). I was raised a Methodist, then spent twenty years disguised to myself as an agnostic, then became a Lutheran, and finally an Anglican. I know: that would seem to be the slow boat to Rome, but it's a big ocean, after all. The hunger never abates. One reads constantly out of the hunger, sometimes foolishly, I think ? Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Weil, Bonhoeffer, Merton, the whole boatload, and especially now Ren? Girard ? but it's always there. At this point in my life, I don't think it's a problem of belief anymore. It's simply who I am.

Image: I'm curious: why Ren? Girard in particular? And what do you mean that at this point in your life this is simply who you are?

BHF: Girard is an anthropologist and literary theorist who, in his Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, among other books, offers a non-sacrificial reading of the crucifixion based on the ideas of mimetic rivalries and scapegoat mechanisms. It
's an exciting reading, utterly convincing, and nobody has ever seen Christ's sacrifice in this way.

As for the second question, I mean that being a Christian no longer seems to present a problem of belief for me, or at least not in the same way it once did (I'm thinking of Paul Tillich's dialectic of belief: doubt and faith as two sides of the same coin). It's simply who I am. That is, it seems to be a fact or condition of my being at an even deeper level than doubt itself. My wife began learning Hebrew in high school and then converted to Judaism. One thing I envy her is that arguing with God is very much a part of her Jewish tradition. I wish that were so, or more so, in the Christian tradition.

Image: I find a certain undeniable sacramental quality in many of your poems, as if you were standing outside yourself and looking back at the world of your youth, a world that exists now largely in the golden alembic of your esthetic memory. In particular you point readers to the sacramental nature of work. You show us work's spiritual dimension, the sense in which it can dignify, valorize, and make holy the individual.

BHF: Yes, work can be sacramental, especially work that you do with your hands. I think for my father it was often sacramental, though he would have been embarrassed by that phrase as being too grand. The trouble is that in a capitalist economy, corporate employers constantly take advantage of that, saying, in effect, "If the work is so important to them, so20sacred, they won't mind a cut in wages."

The work of teaching can certainly be sacramental, and in the same way boards of regents will say, "If they love teaching so much, they won't quit if we double the class size." The working-class ethic is very simple: do the best work you can do, do it on time, and never work for free, because that means you place no value on what you do for a living. If the work is sacred, then by God place a value on it.

?

What they're saying?about The Art of the Lathe
?"The Art of the Lathe by B.H. Fairchild has become a contemporary classic?a passionate example of the plain style, so finely crafted and perfectly pitched?.workhorse narratives suffused with tenderness and elegiac music?"
?Los Angeles Times 

?

"With elegance and restrained subtlety, Mr. Fairchild interweaves topics that become something like musical themes, including the central theme of machine work....Anyone who can lay claim to the authorship of this much excellent poetry wins my unqualified and grateful admiration."
?from the introduction by Anthony Hecht 

?

"These remarkably textured, generous, haunting poems articulate the absence and longing that are created by experience and that in turn keep experience alive. Anyone who wishes to understand not only the contemporary American idiom but the reasons for that idiom will have to read B.H. Fairchild?s The Art of the Lathe."
?Wyatt Prunty 

?

?


?"The Art of the La
the by B.H. Fairchild has become a contemporary classic?a passionate example of the plain style, so finely crafted and perfectly pitched?.workhorse narratives suffused with tenderness and elegiac music?"
?Los Angeles Times 

?

"With elegance and restrained subtlety, Mr. Fairchild interweaves topics that become something like musical themes, including the central theme of machine work....Anyone who can lay claim to the authorship of this much excellent poetry wins my unqualified and grateful admiration."
?from the introduction by Anthony Hecht 

?

"These remarkably textured, generous, haunting poems articulate the absence and longing that are created by experience and that in turn keep experience alive. Anyone who wishes to understand not only the contemporary American idiom but the reasons for that idiom will have to read B.H. Fairchild?s The Art of the Lathe."
?Wyatt Prunty 

?

?
?


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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Sun Feb  8 20:39:33 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 20:39:33 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Poem of the Week- B. H. Fairchild
Message-ID: <c92.40dacc50.36c0e355@aol.com>

A terrific poem by a wonderful poet. 
**************Who's never won?  Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on 
AOL Music. 
(http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?ncid=emlcntusmusi00000003)
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From jforjames at aol.com  Sun Feb  8 20:49:12 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:49:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Literary Publshing Certificate
Message-ID: <8CB586FBDF0A261-1730-85@WEBMAIL-DZ28.sysops.aol.com>

Someone sent me a link to this program. I must admit I thought it was another idea
to scam a couple grand off of unsuspecting young people: Pay us now, so?you can really?lose
some serious loot later publishing literary titles...

http://www.emerson.edu/ce/programs/certificate/Literary-Publishing-Certificate.cfm

Although David Baratier could teach a master class in this subject, I'm sure...so maybe there is way
to teach someone to make a living in literary publishing without the luck of finding a couple Li-Young Lees
early on to publish.

Finnegan
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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 21:00:17 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 21:00:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Poem of the Week- B. H. Fairchild
In-Reply-To: <c92.40dacc50.36c0e355@aol.com>
References: <c92.40dacc50.36c0e355@aol.com>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902081800o377811e2tfaa37a6e3552284c@mail.gmail.com>

I like *Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest* quite a lot, ditto
*Art of the Lathe*.  I bought a copy of *Local Knowledge*, however, and I
can't seem to finish it, though that fact may have more to do with me than
with the poems.

I find Fairchild's experimentation with narrative both compelling and
unique.  His longish poems have an energy that I associate with the most
packed, short lyric poems.  And yet his narrative never seems to grind to a
halt.

I heard him read at a conference a few years ago.  He's a great reader; he
simultaneously chants his poems and tells a story--a mirror of his poetics.


I've not heard anything from him for a while.  I wonder what he's writing
these days.

Best,
Jeff Newberry

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 8:39 PM, <AlMaginnes at aol.com> wrote:

>  A terrific poem by a wonderful poet.
>
> ------------------------------
> Who's never won? Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music<http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?ncid=emlcntusmusi00000003>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that
is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and
experience, from which each according to his own immediate and peculiar
needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden
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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Sun Feb  8 21:17:02 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 21:17:02 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Poem of the Week- B. H. Fairchild
Message-ID: <d0f.4766640b.36c0ec1e@aol.com>

There's a new collection coming out this spring. I think he's been riding  
the visiting poet circuit pretty hard and enjoying his new status. that's  
understandable; he worked a long time to get there and was well into his 50's  
before he had much success at all. 
 
 
**************Who's never won?  Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on 
AOL Music. 
(http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?ncid=emlcntusmusi00000003)
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  8 22:09:05 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 22:09:05 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Poem of the Week- B. H. Fairchild
Message-ID: <c6e.363904e1.36c0f851@cs.com>

A great poem.
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  9 06:09:15 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:09:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Poem of the Week- B. H. Fairchild
In-Reply-To: <c6e.363904e1.36c0f851@cs.com>
References: <c6e.363904e1.36c0f851@cs.com>
Message-ID: <49900EDB.7050003@nut-n-but.net>

Hey, surprise--I approve this poem.

--Bob G.



From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Mon Feb  9 15:00:51 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 15:00:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Larkin on Auden
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902091200q6787be99kc66aedfaff2e94dc@mail.gmail.com>

Does anyone know if there is a hypertext version of Larkin's essay "What's
Become of Wystan?" available online somewhere?

I've tried Google, but I've had no luck.

Best,
Jeff Newberry

-- 
You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that
is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and
experience, from which each according to his own immediate and peculiar
needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden
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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb  9 19:15:21 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:15:21 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Adjectives, who needs 'em?
Message-ID: <8CB592BCBAAEAB6-F38-1364@webmail-de10.sysops.aol.com>

http://lughat.blogspot.com/2009/01/adjectives-who-needs-em.html

So clearly people can do without some adjectives, and clearly the behaviour of adjectives tends to be very similar to the behaviour of some other word class. Why not do without them altogether? It would be easy enough to construct a language where no morphological or syntactic tests could distinguish adjectives from verbs, or from nouns. So if practically every language does take the trouble to distinguish them, there must be some pretty powerful cognitive motivation for it - and some pretty powerful historical tendencies acting to separate adjectives from verbs and/or nouns. 

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From editor at pavementsaw.org  Tue Feb 10 10:22:23 2009
From: editor at pavementsaw.org (David Baratier)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:22:23 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Literary Publshing Certificate
In-Reply-To: <200902091700.n19H060N029682@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <825128.99946.qm@web45608.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Jim--
?
I think the idea of a literary journal certificate is weird, but might be becoming current fashion. University of Houston wanted my input on a Masters program of the same sort they are considering instituting, a solid two year program. A three hour certificate just seems fluffy. Literary journals and poetry publishers?are losers, paper and raw materials is worth more left alone than after production.? It takes more than a three credit class to overcome that obstacle. But why not, instead,?take all the tuition and start publishing anyways and assume all the money is lost?

Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1

From: jforjames at aol.com
Subject: [New-Poetry] Literary Publshing Certificate
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Message-ID: <8CB586FBDF0A261-1730-85 at WEBMAIL-DZ28.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Someone sent me a link to this program. I must admit I thought it was another
idea
to scam a couple grand off of unsuspecting young people: Pay us now, so?you can
really?lose
some serious loot later publishing literary titles...

http://www.emerson.edu/ce/programs/certificate/Literary-Publishing-Certificate.cfm



      
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From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb 10 13:58:19 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:58:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
Message-ID: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>

I ran across the quote below?& posted it to http://ursprache.blogspot.com/?
 I wasn't familiar with Walter Anderson. It turns out he was artist...an outsider artist of sorts, who was?from a well-off Mississippi family. See link below to museum (near Biloxi)?with samples of his artwork...
http://www.walterandersonmuseum.org/frameset3.htm

"The first poetry is always written by sailors and farmers who sing with the wind in their teeth. The second poetry is written by scholars and students, wine drinkers who have learned to know a good thing. The third poetry is sometimes never written; but when it is, it is written by those who have brought nature and art into one thing."

?Walter Anderson (1903-1965), American painter, writer and naturalist.
from Quote, Unquote by Jonathan Williams
Williams was friend of Basil Bunting's and JW died about year ago, as I recall...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/jonathan-williams-poet-essayist-and-publisher-799335.html
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb 10 15:25:28 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:25:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
In-Reply-To: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902101225l649acc3fkdfed4609c7a2da13@mail.gmail.com>

What a wonderful quote!  Thanks, Finnegan.
Best,

Judy

2009/2/10 <jforjames at aol.com>

> I ran across the quote below & posted it to http://ursprache.blogspot.com/
>
> I wasn't familiar with Walter Anderson. It turns out he was artist...an
> outsider artist of sorts, who was from a well-off Mississippi family. See
> link below to museum (near Biloxi) with samples of his artwork...
> http://www.walterandersonmuseum.org/frameset3.htm
>
> "The first poetry is always written by sailors and farmers who sing with
> the wind in their teeth. The second poetry is written by scholars and
> students, wine drinkers who have learned to know a good thing. The third
> poetry is sometimes never written; but when it is, it is written by those
> who have brought nature and art into one thing."
>
> ?Walter Anderson (1903-1965), American painter, writer and naturalist.
> from *Quote, Unquote* by Jonathan Williams
> Williams was friend of Basil Bunting's and JW died about year ago, as I
> recall...
>
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/jonathan-williams-poet-essayist-and-publisher-799335.html
>
> ------------------------------
> *A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps!<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1218694775x1201253752/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=febemailfooterNO62>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From skip at louisiana.edu  Tue Feb 10 16:33:51 2009
From: skip at louisiana.edu (Skip Fox)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:33:51 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902101225l649acc3fkdfed4609c7a2da13@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6F0CEFE2CBCE418D8B3DF238F7E4879C@win.louisiana.edu>

."All things are accomplished through the senses." -Walter Anderson
(1903-1965),

 

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From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb 10 17:48:19 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:48:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] reductio absurdum - the game
Message-ID: <8CB59E8CD82B78A-7C8-AC7@WEBMAIL-DC11.sysops.aol.com>


Paul Hoover posted this facetious short-changing of contemporary/modernist poets & movements...

http://paulhooverpoetry.blogspot.com/

Reviewing poetry is increasingly a lost art, and it's so much work! I've created 26 instant reviews of no more than one line. The idea is match all the poets, critics, or school of poetry with their review. Match all of them and you may win a valuable prize.


1. Emily Dickinson
2. Ted Berrigan
3. Hart Crane
4. John Ashbery
5. Allen Ginsberg
6. Donald Justice
7. Marjorie Welish
8. Language Poetry
9. Marianne Moore
10. Galway Kinnell
11. Laura Riding
12. The New Formalism
13. August Kleinzahler
14. Jack Spicer
15. Gertrude Stein
16. Ezra Pound
17. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
18. Helen Vendler
19. Sharon Olds
20. Charles Olson
21. Dana Gioia
22. Anne Waldman
23. Frank O'Hara
24. Jack Kerouac
25. Gary Snyder
26. Paul Blackburn


A. Badda bing, badda boom.
B. Does a bear shit in the woods?
C. And if not, not.
D. My typewriter is bigger than your typewriter.
E. Big man, small town.
F. A little more uncertainty, please.
G. The well-hung muse.
H. Rebel angels, measured heaven.
I. I think I'll write a dictionary.
J. Stiff shirt in a sad closet.
K. There's no such thing as post-publication.
L. Unsettled by the name Oil Can Boyd.
M. I do not think it will signify to me.
N. Shyness unrequited
O. Nearing the non-ending.
P. Daring as never before.
Q. What price salience?
R. Not waving but drowning
S. Admiral and existentialist.
T. Let me recite you a ballad.
U. Is there sex in this class?
V. I've stopped being Theirs -
W. The emperor's old clothes.
X. Accidents are not itineraries.
Y. Spare hanger in a bone closet.
Z. How strange to be gone in a minute.

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb 10 18:46:33 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:46:33 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
In-Reply-To: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net>

jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> I ran across the quote below & posted it to 
> http://ursprache.blogspot.com/ 
> I wasn't familiar with Walter Anderson. It turns out he was 
> artist...an outsider artist of sorts, who was from a well-off 
> Mississippi family. See link below to museum (near Biloxi) with 
> samples of his artwork...
> http://www.walterandersonmuseum.org/frameset3.htm
>
> "The first poetry is always written by sailors and farmers who sing 
> with the wind in their teeth. The second poetry is written by scholars 
> and students, wine drinkers who have learned to know a good thing. The 
> third poetry is sometimes never written; but when it is, it is written 
> by those who have brought nature and art into one thing."
>
> ?Walter Anderson (1903-1965), American painter, writer and naturalist.
> from /Quote, Unquote/ by Jonathan Williams
> Williams was friend of Basil Bunting's and JW died about year ago, as 
> I recall...
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/jonathan-williams-poet-essayist-and-publisher-799335.html
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! 
> <http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1218694775x1201253752/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=febemailfooterNO62>* 
>
As James knows, these kind of "deep sayings about poetry" don't click 
with me.  But this one made me wonder seriously about who the first 
poets really were.  It's possible the proper question would be who the 
first /non-/poets were.  That is, maybe poetry was natural to our kind 
until mutants began seeing reality and describing it accurately.  More 
likely, poets were simply the first truth-seekers, the first members of 
the tribe to try to understand existence non-utilitarianly, so invented 
a mixture of science, religion and poetry that eventually evolved and 
speciated.  In this reading, the first true poets were intellectuals.  
Certainly, the first poets were not farmers and sailors--although I 
think people truly in love with their trades will be poetic about them, 
and poets might be inspired by their words. 

Just expressing my view, folks. 

--Bob

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From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb 10 20:08:09 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:08:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
In-Reply-To: <499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
	<499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>


When I? read? that the 'first poetry' was written by sailors and farmers with the wind in their teeth,?two Old English poems flashed in my mind:
The Seafarer (sailor)?and Caedmon's Hymn (farmer). These are the poets who are?entirely?engaged in?the poetic as a force
of nature.?
Then, of course, most of fall in the scholar/student category of the second(ary) poetry...who have found a good thing (the art of poetry), and?as wine-drinkers, 
which I read as 'pleasure reader/writers'; poetry isn't keeping us alive?literally, like it is for those with the wind/song in their teeth. 

But sometimes a 'third poetry' wells up merging both the nature and art, producing the sublime form.
Finnegan
--
As James knows, these kind of "deep sayings about poetry" don't click with me.? But this one made me wonder seriously about who the first poets really were.? It's possible the proper question would be who the first non-poets were.? That is, maybe poetry was natural to our kind until mutants began seeing reality and describing it accurately.? More likely, poets were simply the first truth-seekers, the first members of the tribe to try to understand existence non-utilitarianly, so invented a mixture of science, religion and poetry that eventually evolved and speciated.? In this reading, the first true poets were intellectuals.? Certainly, the first poets were not farmers and sailors--although I think people truly in love with their trades will be poetic about them, and poets might be inspired by their words.? 

Just expressing my view, folks.? 

--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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb 10 20:17:54 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:17:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
In-Reply-To: <8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
	<499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902101717v1a581870m142cb9c062a2094e@mail.gmail.com>

Judy being enthusiastic about your analysis!
and enjoying the discussion

2009/2/10 <jforjames at aol.com>

> When I  read  that the 'first poetry' was written by sailors and farmers
> with the wind in their teeth, two Old English poems flashed in my mind:
> The Seafarer (sailor) and Caedmon's Hymn (farmer). These are the poets who
> are entirely engaged in the poetic as a force
> of nature.
> Then, of course, most of fall in the scholar/student category of the
> second(ary) poetry...who have found a good thing (the art of poetry), and as
> wine-drinkers,
> which I read as 'pleasure reader/writers'; poetry isn't keeping us
> alive literally, like it is for those with the wind/song in their teeth.
>
> But sometimes a 'third poetry' wells up merging both the nature and art,
> producing the sublime form.
> Finnegan
> --
> As James knows, these kind of "deep sayings about poetry" don't click with
> me.  But this one made me wonder seriously about who the first poets really
> were.  It's possible the proper question would be who the first *non-*poets
> were.  That is, maybe poetry was natural to our kind until mutants began
> seeing reality and describing it accurately.  More likely, poets were simply
> the first truth-seekers, the first members of the tribe to try to understand
> existence non-utilitarianly, so invented a mixture of science, religion and
> poetry that eventually evolved and speciated.  In this reading, the first
> true poets were intellectuals.  Certainly, the first poets were not farmers
> and sailors--although I think people truly in love with their trades will be
> poetic about them, and poets might be inspired by their words.
>
> Just expressing my view, folks.
>
> --Bob
>
>  _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps!<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1218694775x1201253752/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=febemailfooterNO62>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb 10 20:33:59 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:33:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902101717v1a581870m142cb9c062a2094e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com><499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net><8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902101717v1a581870m142cb9c062a2094e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB59FFF25D41EA-1904-ED0@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>


???? That man knows not,
to whom on earth fairest falls,
how I, care-wretched, ice-cold sea
dwelt on in winter along the exile-tracks,
bereaved both of friend and of kin, 
behung with rime-crystals. Hail showers flew.
I heard nothing there but the sea's sounding,
ice-cold wave.

(The Seafarer)

-
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb 10 20:49:10 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:49:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
In-Reply-To: <8CB59FFF25D41EA-1904-ED0@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
	<499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902101717v1a581870m142cb9c062a2094e@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB59FFF25D41EA-1904-ED0@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902101749q3cd7f075ibaf70f840d22a543@mail.gmail.com>

Lovely.  You've got me flying to my books now!
Judy

2009/2/10 <jforjames at aol.com>

>      That man knows not,
> to whom on earth fairest falls,
> how I, care-wretched, ice-cold sea
> dwelt on in winter along the exile-tracks,
> bereaved both of friend and of kin,
> behung with rime-crystals. Hail showers flew.
> I heard nothing there but the sea's sounding,
> ice-cold wave.
>
> (The Seafarer)
>
> -
>
> ------------------------------
> *A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps!<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1218694775x1201253752/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=febemailfooterNO62>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Feb 10 20:54:42 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:54:42 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902101749q3cd7f075ibaf70f840d22a543@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com><499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net><8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902101717v1a581870m142cb9c062a2094e@mail.gmail.com><8CB59FFF25D41EA-1904-ED0@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902101749q3cd7f075ibaf70f840d22a543@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2C83FD0DAB454A1287661A30D005D93C@RobinPC>

Ezra Pound's version.  In _Personae_?

Michael Alexander probably does it better <g> (not to speak of Edwin Morgan).  

Pound handles OE metrics more handily when he returns to it obliquely in Canto I.

R.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Judy Prince 
  To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,Views 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 1:49 AM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson


  Lovely.  You've got me flying to my books now!


  Judy


  2009/2/10 <jforjames at aol.com>

         That man knows not,
    to whom on earth fairest falls,
    how I, care-wretched, ice-cold sea
    dwelt on in winter along the exile-tracks,
    bereaved both of friend and of kin, 
    behung with rime-crystals. Hail showers flew.
    I heard nothing there but the sea's sounding,
    ice-cold wave.

    (The Seafarer)

    -


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! 

    _______________________________________________
    New-Poetry mailing list
    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
    http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry






------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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  New-Poetry mailing list
  New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
  http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb 10 21:47:52 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:47:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
In-Reply-To: <8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com><499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <49923C58.7010308@nut-n-but.net>

jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> When I  read  that the 'first poetry' was written by sailors and 
> farmers with the wind in their teeth, two Old English poems flashed in 
> my mind:
> The Seafarer (sailor) and Caedmon's Hymn (farmer). These are the poets 
> who are entirely engaged in the poetic as a force
> of nature.

Ah, I was being (too) literal, thinking of sailors and farmers who were 
nothing but sailors and farmers, not of poets who were or had ALSO been 
sailors and farmers. 
> Then, of course, most of fall in the scholar/student category of the 
> second(ary) poetry...who have found a good thing (the art of poetry), 
> and as wine-drinkers,
> which I read as 'pleasure reader/writers'; poetry isn't keeping us 
> alive literally, like it is for those with the wind/song in their teeth.
>
> But sometimes a 'third poetry' wells up merging both the nature and 
> art, producing the sublime form.
> Finnegan
Good defense, but it still seems gush to me.  Seems to me a poet is 
someone who experiences life fully and can write about it, regardless of 
his day job.  And all poetry good or bad is about Nature.  As for 
"merging nature and art," what does it mean?  It's just another way of 
saying one likes it.  I guess I'd want to see an example of a poem that 
merges art and nature and one that does not.  Seems to me the merging 
isn't what counts, but the poetry.

How does one write a poem about nature that doesn't merge nature with 
the poem? 

--Bob



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Wed Feb 11 01:59:55 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 07:59:55 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] reductio absurdum - the game
In-Reply-To: <8CB59E8CD82B78A-7C8-AC7@WEBMAIL-DC11.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB59E8CD82B78A-7C8-AC7@WEBMAIL-DC11.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902102259r787f3f70r85271d0190629e73@mail.gmail.com>

I would not be able to put them together. Is there anybody who does?
Except for Snyder and the existential question on the bear.

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 11:48 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Paul Hoover posted this facetious short-changing of contemporary/modernist
> poets & movements...
>
> http://paulhooverpoetry.blogspot.com/
>
> Reviewing poetry is increasingly a lost art, and it's so much work! I've
> created 26 instant reviews of no more than one line. The idea is match all
> the poets, critics, or school of poetry with their review. Match all of them
> and you may win a valuable prize.
>
> 1. Emily Dickinson
> 2. Ted Berrigan
> 3. Hart Crane
> 4. John Ashbery
> 5. Allen Ginsberg
> 6. Donald Justice
> 7. Marjorie Welish
> 8. Language Poetry
> 9. Marianne Moore
> 10. Galway Kinnell
> 11. Laura Riding
> 12. The New Formalism
> 13. August Kleinzahler
> 14. Jack Spicer
> 15. Gertrude Stein
> 16. Ezra Pound
> 17. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
> 18. Helen Vendler
> 19. Sharon Olds
> 20. Charles Olson
> 21. Dana Gioia
> 22. Anne Waldman
> 23. Frank O'Hara
> 24. Jack Kerouac
> 25. Gary Snyder
> 26. Paul Blackburn
>
> A. Badda bing, badda boom.
> B. Does a bear shit in the woods?
> C. And if not, not.
> D. My typewriter is bigger than your typewriter.
> E. Big man, small town.
> F. A little more uncertainty, please.
> G. The well-hung muse.
> H. Rebel angels, measured heaven.
> I. I think I'll write a dictionary.
> J. Stiff shirt in a sad closet.
> K. There's no such thing as post-publication.
> L. Unsettled by the name Oil Can Boyd.
> M. I do not think it will signify to me.
> N. Shyness unrequited
> O. Nearing the non-ending.
> P. Daring as never before.
> Q. What price salience?
> R. Not waving but drowning
> S. Admiral and existentialist.
> T. Let me recite you a ballad.
> U. Is there sex in this class?
> V. I've stopped being Theirs -
> W. The emperor's old clothes.
> X. Accidents are not itineraries.
> Y. Spare hanger in a bone closet.
> Z. How strange to be gone in a minute.
>
> ------------------------------
> *A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps!<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1218694775x1201253752/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=febemailfooterNO62>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Wed Feb 11 12:21:32 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:21:32 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] from today's Almanac
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902110921p160e9e2bpc3b54281e39ff5a1@mail.gmail.com>

 Coming Home

by Mary Oliver<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,dv4s,dv,5w5y,lgkl,3hrs,fxvj>

When we're driving, in the dark,
on the long road
to Provincetown, which lies empty
for miles, when we're weary,
when the buildings
and the scrub pines lose
their familiar look,
I imagine us rising
from the speeding car,
I imagine us seeing
everything from another place ? the top
of one of the pale dunes
or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea ?
and what we see is the world
that cannot cherish us
but which we cherish,
and what we see is our life
moving like that,
along the dark edges
of everything ? the headlights
like lanterns
sweeping the blackness ?
believing in a thousand
fragile and unprovable things,
looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping
barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.

"Coming Home" by Mary Oliver, from *Dream Work*. (c) The Atlantic Monthly
Press, 1986. Reprinted with permission. (buy
now<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,dv4s,dv,8pzz,g9vp,3hrs,fxvj>)






-- 
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!
-------------- next part --------------
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From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb 11 13:29:32 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:29:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] reductio absurdum - the game
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902102259r787f3f70r85271d0190629e73@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB59E8CD82B78A-7C8-AC7@WEBMAIL-DC11.sysops.aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902102259r787f3f70r85271d0190629e73@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB5A8DD11495C9-1580-F08@FWM-M11.sysops.aol.com>

Anny,
I think I?got maybe 2/3rds of them, but I can't check because he didn't post the answer, at least not?yet.?
It reminded me of a game where people make up one-line glosses to famous poems.
Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
Sent: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 1:59 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] reductio absurdum - the game


I would not be able to put them together. Is there anybody who does?
Except for Snyder and the existential question on the bear.


On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 11:48 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:


Paul Hoover posted this facetious short-changing of contemporary/modernist poets & movements...

http://paulhooverpoetry.blogspot.com/

Reviewing poetry is increasingly a lost art, and it's so much work! I've created 26 instant reviews of no more than one line. The idea is match all the poets, critics, or school of poetry with their review. Match all of them and you may win a valuable prize.


1. Emily Dickinson
2. Ted Berrigan
3. Hart Crane
4. John Ashbery
5. Allen Ginsberg
6. Donald Justice
7. Marjorie Welish
8. Language Poetry
9. Marianne Moore
10. Galway Kinnell
11. Laura Riding
12. The New Formalism
13. August Kleinzahler
14. Jack Spicer
15. Gertrude Stein
16. Ezra Pound
17. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
18. Helen Vendler
19. Sharon Olds
20. Charles Olson
21. Dana Gioia
22. Anne Waldman
23. Frank O'Hara
24. Jack Kerouac
25. Gary Snyder
26. Paul Blackburn


A. Badda bing, badda boom.
B. Does a bear shit in the woods?
C. And if not, not.
D. My typewriter is bigger than your typewriter.
E. Big man, small town.
F. A little more uncertainty, please.
G. The well-hung muse.
H. Rebel angels, measured heaven.
I. I think I'll write a dictionary.
J. Stiff shirt in a sad closet.
K. There's no such thing as post-publication.
L. Unsettled by the name Oil Can Boyd.
M. I do not think it will signify to me.
N. Shyness unrequited
O. Nearing the non-ending.
P. Daring as never before.
Q. What price salience?
R. Not waving but drowning
S. Admiral and existentialist.
T. Let me recite you a ballad.
U. Is there sex in this class?
V. I've stopped being Theirs -
W. The emperor's old clothes.
X. Accidents are not itineraries.
Y. Spare hanger in a bone closet.
Z. How strange to be gone in a minute.



A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! 

_______________________________________________
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

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From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb 11 13:39:17 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:39:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
In-Reply-To: <2C83FD0DAB454A1287661A30D005D93C@RobinPC>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com><499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net><8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902101717v1a581870m142cb9c062a2094e@mail.gmail.com><8CB59FFF25D41EA-1904-ED0@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902101749q3cd7f075ibaf70f840d22a543@mail.gmail.com>
	<2C83FD0DAB454A1287661A30D005D93C@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <8CB5A8F2D4F1B00-1580-FCD@FWM-M11.sysops.aol.com>


Robin,
I'm afraid I just did the ol' Google & clip, here...?
http://faculty.uca.edu/jona/texts/seafarer.htm

That section also appears as the epigraph to play of the same name by Colin McPherson,
using Richard Hamer?s translation from the Anglo-Saxon, rendered thus: 


He knows not 
Who lives most easily on land, how I 
Have spent my winter on the ice-cold sea 
Wretched and anxious, in the paths of exile 
Lacking dear friends, hung round by icicles 
While hail flew past in showers? 

http://www.steppenwolf.org/watchlisten/backstage/detail.aspx?id=189

Finnegan
-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
Sent: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 8:54 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson




Ezra Pound's version.? In _Personae_?

?

Michael Alexander probably does?it better <g> (not to speak of Edwin Morgan).? 

?

Pound handles OE metrics more handily when he returns to it obliquely in Canto I.

?

R.


----- Original Message ----- 

From: Judy Prince 

To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,Views 

Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 1:49 AM

Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson



Lovely. ?You've got me flying to my books now! 



Judy


2009/2/10 <jforjames at aol.com>


???? That man knows not,
to whom on earth fairest falls,
how I, care-wretched, ice-cold sea
dwelt on in winter along the exile-tracks,
bereaved both of friend and of kin, 
behung with rime-crystals. Hail s
howers flew.
I heard nothing there but the sea's sounding,
ice-cold wave.

(The Seafarer)

-






A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! 



_______________________________________________
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




_______________________________________________
ew-Poetry mailing list
ew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
ttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From Sigauke at crc.losrios.edu  Wed Feb 11 13:47:47 2009
From: Sigauke at crc.losrios.edu (Sigauke, Emmanuel)
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:47:47 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Our poetry communities: Sacramento 
In-Reply-To: <8CB5A8F2D4F1B00-1580-FCD@FWM-M11.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com><499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net><8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902101717v1a581870m142cb9c062a2094e@mail.gmail.com><8CB59FFF25D41EA-1904-ED0@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902101749q3cd7f075ibaf70f840d22a543@mail.gmail.com>
	<2C83FD0DAB454A1287661A30D005D93C@RobinPC>
	<8CB5A8F2D4F1B00-1580-FCD@FWM-M11.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <8AB6AE105E0CE34EA7047DA0D6F0A971143DD0000A@lrccd-exch08.LRCCD.ad.losrios.edu>

http://sigaukereviews.today.com/2009/02/10/sacramento-poetry-center-history/

From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu [mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of jforjames at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 10:39 AM
To: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com; new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson

Robin,
I'm afraid I just did the ol' Google & clip, here...
http://faculty.uca.edu/jona/texts/seafarer.htm

That section also appears as the epigraph to play of the same name by Colin McPherson,
using Richard Hamer?s translation from the Anglo-Saxon, rendered thus:

He knows not
Who lives most easily on land, how I
Have spent my winter on the ice-cold sea
Wretched and anxious, in the paths of exile
Lacking dear friends, hung round by icicles
While hail flew past in showers?

http://www.steppenwolf.org/watchlisten/backstage/detail.aspx?id=189

Finnegan
-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
Sent: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 8:54 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
Ezra Pound's version.  In _Personae_?

Michael Alexander probably does it better <g> (not to speak of Edwin Morgan).

Pound handles OE metrics more handily when he returns to it obliquely in Canto I.

R.
----- Original Message -----
From: Judy Prince<mailto:jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,Views<mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 1:49 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson

Lovely.  You've got me flying to my books now!

Judy
2009/2/10 <jforjames at aol.com<mailto:jforjames at aol.com>>
     That man knows not,
to whom on earth fairest falls,
how I, care-wretched, ice-cold sea
dwelt on in winter along the exile-tracks,
bereaved both of friend and of kin,
behung with rime-crystals. Hail showers flew.
I heard nothing there but the sea's sounding,
ice-cold wave.

(The Seafarer)

-


________________________________
A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps!<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1218694775x1201253752/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=febemailfooterNO62>

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>

http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

________________________________
A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps!<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1218694775x1201253752/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=febemailfooterNO62>
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From Sigauke at crc.losrios.edu  Wed Feb 11 13:51:05 2009
From: Sigauke at crc.losrios.edu (Sigauke, Emmanuel)
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:51:05 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Award winning Zimbabwean poet to read at San Francisco
	conference
In-Reply-To: <8CB5A8F2D4F1B00-1580-FCD@FWM-M11.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com><499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net><8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902101717v1a581870m142cb9c062a2094e@mail.gmail.com><8CB59FFF25D41EA-1904-ED0@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902101749q3cd7f075ibaf70f840d22a543@mail.gmail.com>
	<2C83FD0DAB454A1287661A30D005D93C@RobinPC>
	<8CB5A8F2D4F1B00-1580-FCD@FWM-M11.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <8AB6AE105E0CE34EA7047DA0D6F0A971143DD0000B@lrccd-exch08.LRCCD.ad.losrios.edu>

http://sigaukereviews.today.com/2009/02/05/ignatius-mabasa-to-read-shona-poetry-in-san-francisco/

From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu [mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of jforjames at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 10:39 AM
To: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com; new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson

Robin,
I'm afraid I just did the ol' Google & clip, here...
http://faculty.uca.edu/jona/texts/seafarer.htm

That section also appears as the epigraph to play of the same name by Colin McPherson,
using Richard Hamer?s translation from the Anglo-Saxon, rendered thus:

He knows not
Who lives most easily on land, how I
Have spent my winter on the ice-cold sea
Wretched and anxious, in the paths of exile
Lacking dear friends, hung round by icicles
While hail flew past in showers?

http://www.steppenwolf.org/watchlisten/backstage/detail.aspx?id=189

Finnegan
-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
Sent: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 8:54 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
Ezra Pound's version.  In _Personae_?

Michael Alexander probably does it better <g> (not to speak of Edwin Morgan).

Pound handles OE metrics more handily when he returns to it obliquely in Canto I.

R.
----- Original Message -----
From: Judy Prince<mailto:jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,Views<mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 1:49 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson

Lovely.  You've got me flying to my books now!

Judy
2009/2/10 <jforjames at aol.com<mailto:jforjames at aol.com>>
     That man knows not,
to whom on earth fairest falls,
how I, care-wretched, ice-cold sea
dwelt on in winter along the exile-tracks,
bereaved both of friend and of kin,
behung with rime-crystals. Hail showers flew.
I heard nothing there but the sea's sounding,
ice-cold wave.

(The Seafarer)

-


________________________________
A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps!<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1218694775x1201253752/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=febemailfooterNO62>

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>

http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

________________________________
A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps!<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1218694775x1201253752/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=febemailfooterNO62>
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Wed Feb 11 15:16:10 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:16:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] reductio absurdum - the game
In-Reply-To: <8CB5A8DD11495C9-1580-F08@FWM-M11.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB59E8CD82B78A-7C8-AC7@WEBMAIL-DC11.sysops.aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902102259r787f3f70r85271d0190629e73@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB5A8DD11495C9-1580-F08@FWM-M11.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902111216n7fdce19dtaaf453f9c4f3d796@mail.gmail.com>

Do you have any famous examples of those glosses, Finnegan?
Judy

2009/2/11 <jforjames at aol.com>

> Anny,
> I think I got maybe 2/3rds of them, but I can't check because he didn't
> post the answer, at least not yet.
> It reminded me of a game where people make up one-line glosses to famous
> poems.
> Finnegan
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
> Sent: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 1:59 am
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] reductio absurdum - the game
>
> I would not be able to put them together. Is there anybody who does?
> Except for Snyder and the existential question on the bear.
>
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 11:48 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> Paul Hoover posted this facetious short-changing of contemporary/modernist
>> poets & movements...
>>
>> http://paulhooverpoetry.blogspot.com/
>>
>> Reviewing poetry is increasingly a lost art, and it's so much work! I've
>> created 26 instant reviews of no more than one line. The idea is match all
>> the poets, critics, or school of poetry with their review. Match all of them
>> and you may win a valuable prize.
>>
>> 1. Emily Dickinson
>> 2. Ted Berrigan
>> 3. Hart Crane
>> 4. John Ashbery
>> 5. Allen Ginsberg
>> 6. Donald Justice
>> 7. Marjorie Welish
>> 8. Language Poetry
>> 9. Marianne Moore
>> 10. Galway Kinnell
>> 11. Laura Riding
>> 12. The New Formalism
>> 13. August Kleinzahler
>> 14. Jack Spicer
>> 15. Gertrude Stein
>> 16. Ezra Pound
>> 17. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
>> 18. Helen Vendler
>> 19. Sharon Olds
>> 20. Charles Olson
>> 21. Dana Gioia
>> 22. Anne Waldman
>> 23. Frank O'Hara
>> 24. Jack Kerouac
>> 25. Gary Snyder
>> 26. Paul Blackburn
>>
>> A. Badda bing, badda boom.
>> B. Does a bear shit in the woods?
>> C. And if not, not.
>> D. My typewriter is bigger than your typewriter.
>> E. Big man, small town.
>> F. A little more uncertainty, please.
>> G. The well-hung muse.
>> H. Rebel angels, measured heaven.
>> I. I think I'll write a dictionary.
>> J. Stiff shirt in a sad closet.
>> K. There's no such thing as post-publication.
>> L. Unsettled by the name Oil Can Boyd.
>> M. I do not think it will signify to me.
>> N. Shyness unrequited
>> O. Nearing the non-ending.
>> P. Daring as never before.
>> Q. What price salience?
>> R. Not waving but drowning
>> S. Admiral and existentialist.
>> T. Let me recite you a ballad.
>> U. Is there sex in this class?
>> V. I've stopped being Theirs -
>> W. The emperor's old clothes.
>> X. Accidents are not itineraries.
>> Y. Spare hanger in a bone closet.
>> Z. How strange to be gone in a minute.
>>
>>  ------------------------------
>> *A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps!<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1218694775x1201253752/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=febemailfooterNO62>
>> *
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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 listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps!<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1218694775x1201253752/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=febemailfooterNO62>
> *
>
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Wed Feb 11 16:11:31 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:11:31 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
In-Reply-To: <8CB5A8F2D4F1B00-1580-FCD@FWM-M11.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
	<499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902101717v1a581870m142cb9c062a2094e@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB59FFF25D41EA-1904-ED0@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902101749q3cd7f075ibaf70f840d22a543@mail.gmail.com>
	<2C83FD0DAB454A1287661A30D005D93C@RobinPC>
	<8CB5A8F2D4F1B00-1580-FCD@FWM-M11.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902111311k3672240mf8519b2924f0ef45@mail.gmail.com>

Finnegan and Robin,
Here, from his enticingly lucid The Earliest English Poems [Penguin, 3rd ed,
1991], is Michael Alexander's translation of that portion of 'The Seafarer',
lines 10 thru 23:


"                             Cold then
nailed my feet, frost shrank on
its chill clamps, cares sighed
hot about heart, hunger fed
on a mere-wearied mind.
                                    No man blessed
with a happy land-life is like to guess
how I, aching-hearted, on ice-cold seas
have wasted whole winters; the wanderer's beat,
cut off from kind. . . .
hung with hoar-frost.
                                Hail flew in showers,
there was no sound there but the slam of waves
along an icy sea."

-------------------

Best,

Judy

2009/2/11 <jforjames at aol.com>

> Robin,
> I'm afraid I just did the ol' Google & clip, here...
> http://faculty.uca.edu/jona/texts/seafarer.htm
>
> That section also appears as the epigraph to play of the same name by Colin
> McPherson,
> using Richard Hamer's translation from the Anglo-Saxon, rendered thus:
>
> He knows not
> Who lives most easily on land, how I
> Have spent my winter on the ice-cold sea
> Wretched and anxious, in the paths of exile
> Lacking dear friends, hung round by icicles
> While hail flew past in showers?
>
> http://www.steppenwolf.org/watchlisten/backstage/detail.aspx?id=189
>
> Finnegan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
> Sent: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 8:54 pm
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
>
>  Ezra Pound's version.  In _Personae_?
>
> Michael Alexander probably does it better <g> (not to speak of Edwin
> Morgan).
>
> Pound handles OE metrics more handily when he returns to it obliquely in
> Canto I.
>
> R.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> *To:* NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,Views<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 11, 2009 1:49 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
>
>  Lovely.  You've got me flying to my books now!
>  Judy
>
> 2009/2/10 <jforjames at aol.com>
>
>>      That man knows not,
>> to whom on earth fairest falls,
>> how I, care-wretched, ice-cold sea
>> dwelt on in winter along the exile-tracks,
>> bereaved both of friend and of kin,
>> behung with rime-crystals. Hail showers flew.
>> I heard nothing there but the sea's sounding,
>> ice-cold wave.
>>
>> (The Seafarer)
>>
>> -
>>
>>
>>
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From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb 11 18:57:42 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:57:42 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] reductio absurdum - the game
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902111216n7fdce19dtaaf453f9c4f3d796@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB59E8CD82B78A-7C8-AC7@WEBMAIL-DC11.sysops.aol.com><4b65c2d70902102259r787f3f70r85271d0190629e73@mail.gmail.com><8CB5A8DD11495C9-1580-F08@FWM-M11.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902111216n7fdce19dtaaf453f9c4f3d796@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB5ABBA93E88D6-77C-615@mblk-d33.sysops.aol.com>

Judy,
I thought I did, but I can't find any. Something like, and I made this up on spur of the moment:
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - "Man in fugue state wanders?the streets of?London talking to himself."
Finnegan

Do you have any famous examples of those glosses, Finnegan? 



Judy


2009/2/11 <jforjames at aol.com>

Anny,
I think I?got maybe 2/3rds of them, but I can't check because he didn't post the answer, at least not?yet.?
It reminded me of a game where people make up one-line glosses to famous poems.
Finnegan






-----Original Message-----
From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
Sent: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 3:16 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] reductio absurdum - the game


Do you have any famous examples of those glosses, Finnegan?



Judy


2009/2/11 <jforjames at aol.com>

Anny,
I think I?got maybe 2/3rds of them, but I can't check because he didn't post the answer, at least not?yet.?
It reminded me of a game where people make up one-line glosses to famous poems.
Finnegan





-----Original Message-----
From: Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
Sent: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 1:59 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] reductio absurdum - the game


I would not be able to put them together. Is there anybody who does?
Except for Snyder and the existential question on the bear.


On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 11:48 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:


Paul Hoover posted this facetious short-changing of contemporary/modernist poets & movements...

http://paulhooverpoetry.blogspot.com/

Reviewing poetry is increasingly a lost art, and it's so much work! I've created 26 instant reviews of no more than one line. The idea is match all the poets, critics, or school of poetry with their review. Match all of them and you may win a valuable prize.


1. Emily Dickinson
2. Ted Berrigan
3. Hart Crane
4. John Ashbery
5. Allen Ginsberg
6. Donald Justice
7. Marjorie Welish
8. Language Poetry
9. Marianne Moore
10. Galway Kinnell
11. Laura Riding
12. The New Formalism
13. August Kleinzahler
14. Jack Spicer
15. Gertrude Stein
16. Ezra Pound
17. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
18. Helen Vendler
19. Sharon Olds
20. Charles Olson
21. Dana Gioia
22. Anne Waldman
23. Frank O'Hara
24. Jack Kerouac
25. Gary Snyder
26. Paul Blackburn


A. Badda bing, badda boom.
B. Does a bear shit in the woods?
C. And if not, not.
D. My typewriter is bigger than your typewriter.
E. Big man, small town.
F. A little more uncertainty, please.
G. The well-hung muse.
H. Rebel angels, measured heaven.
I. I think I'll write a dictionary.
J. Stiff shirt in a sad closet.
K. There's no such thing as post-publication.
L. Unsettled by the name Oil Can Boyd.
M. I do not think it will signify to me.
N. Shyness unrequited
O. Nearing the non-ending.
P. Daring as never before.
Q. What price salience?
R. Not waving but drowning
S. Admiral and existentialist.
T. Let me recite you a ballad.
U. Is there sex in this class?
V. I've stopped being Theirs -
W. The emperor's old clothes.
X. Accidents are not itineraries.
Y. Spare hanger in a bone closet.
Z. How strange to be gone in a minute.



A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! 

_______________________________________________
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



A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! 



_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry








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New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
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From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb 11 19:06:07 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:06:07 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] latest report from the field of flarf
Message-ID: <8CB5ABCD696A58E-77C-6A8@mblk-d33.sysops.aol.com>

http://lime-tree.blogspot.com/2009/02/dale-smith-deals-death-blow-to-flarf.html

Dale and other anti-Flarfists have probably suspected: the incriminating weight of their arguments is simply too heavy to ignore or resist, and thus any attempts at self-defense must necessarily appear bloodless and ill-considered. In plain terms, Dale is right and we are wrong. Flarf is an untenable poetic adventure 
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb 12 03:49:54 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:49:54 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] JACKET !
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902120049m6686769dh62353a4c363ab284@mail.gmail.com>

Editor: John Tranter -- Associate
Editor: Pam Brown



   Announcing Jacket 36: late 2008 (late
as usual!)



   Special "Literature
Bail-Out" issue, at:



     http://jacketmagazine.com/36/index.shtml







Feature: Barbara Guest: This feature supplements Chicago Review's

         Northern Summer 2008 feature on
Barbara Guest.



== Matthew Cooperman: Envy and Architecture:

     On Barbara Guest's Realisms

== Rachel Blau DuPlessis: 'The other window is the lark':

     on Barbara Guest

== Ken Edwards: Pageant of creativity

== Catherine Kasper: Barbara Guest's Career: Defensive Rapture

== Erica Kaufman: On "The Location of Things"

== Will Montgomery: Sound Leads to Structure:

     Dissonant lyricism in Barbara
Guest's "Miniatures"

== Elizabeth Robinson: Direction

== Marjorie Welish: Spaced Intertext





Feature: New Russian Poetry



Editor: Peter Golub | Co-editor: Tatyana Golub

== Peter Golub: A New Beginning: The Young Post-Soviet Poets

== Peter Golub: Who is Helping the New Russian Poetry?

== Interview: Mikhail Aizenberg in conversation with Peter Golub

== Oleg Dark: On Anastasia Afanasieva Tr. Marian Schwartz

== Anastasia Afanasieva: Tr. Peter Golub

== Olga Livshin:

      Nina Iskrenko (1951-1995):

      Lyricism at the End of an Era

== Nina Iskrenko: Tr. Vitaly Chernetsky

== Nina Iskrenko: Tr. Olga Livshin

== Maxim Amelin: Tr. Christine A. Dunbar

== Aleksandr Anashevich: Tr. Vitaly Chernetsky

== Polina Andrukovich: Tr. Christine A. Dunbar

== Nikolai Baitov: Tr J. Kates

== Polina Barskova: Tr. Peter Golub

== Sveta Bodrunova: Tr. Matvei Yankelevich

== Dmitry Bushuev: Tr. Rebecca Gould and Peter Golub

== Danila Davydov: Tr. Peter Golub

== Alexei Denisov: Tr. Peter Golub

== Nastya Denisova: Tr. Peter Golub

== Elena Fanailova: Tr. Stephanie
Sandler and Genya Turovskaya

== Sergey Gandlevsky: Tr. Philip Metres

== Dina Gatina: Tr. Peter Golub

== Marianna Geide: Tr. Peter Golub

== Pavel Goldin: Tr. Peter Golub

== Dmitry Golynko: Tr. Eugene Ostashevsky

== Lenor Goralik: Tr. Peter Golub

== Anna Gorenko: T. J. Kates and Sibelan Forrester

== Mikhail Gronas: Tr. Christopher Mattison with the author

== Julia Idlis: Tr. Peter Golub

== Viktor Ivaniv: Tr. Peter Golub

== Vadim Kalinin: Tr. Peter Golub

== Gennady Kanevsky: Tr. Matvei Yankelevich

== Natalya Kluchareva: Tr. Peter Golub

== Mikhail Kotov: Tr. Peter Golub

== Ilya Kriger: Tr. Peter Golub

== Sergei Kruglov: Tr. Vitaly Chernetsky

== Sergei Kruglov: Tr. J. Kates

== Ilya Kukulin: Tr. Matvei Yankelevich

== Inga Kuznetsova: Tr. Chris Mattison

== Zhenya Lavut: Tr. Matvei Yankelevich

== Dmitry Lazutkin: Tr. Vitaly Chernetsky

== Valery Ledenev: Tr. Peter Golub

== Olga Livshin: Original work

== Anna Logvinova: Tr. Christopher Mattison

== Gila Loran: Tr. Peter Golub

== Stanislav Lvovsky: Tr. Peter Golub

== Mara Malanova: Tr. Stephanie Sandler

== Ksenya Marennikova: Tr. Peter Golub

== Kiril Medvedev: Tr. Peter Golub

== Tatyana Moseeva: Tr. Peter Golub

== Valery Nugatov: Tr. Peter Golub

== Oleg Pashchenko: Tr. Peter Golub and Sibelan Forrester

== Alexandra Petrova: Tr. Stephanie Sandler

== Andrei Polyakov: Tr. Peter Golub

== Peter Popov: Tr. Peter Golub

== Dmitri Prigov: Tr. Chris Mattison and Philip Metres

== Evgenii Proshchin (Egor Kirsanov): Tr. Sibelan Forrester

== Eugenia Ritz: Tr. Peter Golub

== Andrei Rodionov: Tr. Matvei
Yankelevich

== Arseny Rovinsky: Tr. Peter Golub

== Lev Rubinstein: Tr. Philip Metres

== Anna Russ: Tr. Matvei Yankelevich

== Boris Ryzhii: Tr. Tom Dolack

== Sveta Sdvig: Tr. Peter Golub

== Andrei Sen-Senkov: Tr. Matvei Yankelevich

== Irina Shostakovskaya: Tr. Zachary Schomburg

== Gleb Shulpyakov: Tr. Chris Mattison

== Aleksandr Skidan: Tr. Genya Turovskaya and Natasha Randall

== Maria Stepanova: Tr. Tatyana Golub and Rebecca Gould

== Daria Sukhovei: Tr. Peter Golub

== Fyodor Svarovsky: Tr. Peter Golub

== Dmitry Tonkonogov: Tr. Peter Golub

== Dmitry Vodennikov: Tr. Matvei Yankelevich, Peter Golub, and

     Tatyana Golub

== Olga Zonberg: Tr. Peter Golub

== Nikolai Zvyagintsev: Tr. Peter Golub and Matvei Yankelevich

== List of Translators





Feature: Maged Zaher



== Three Egyptian Poets: edited by Maged Zaher:

     Osama El-Dinasouri, Mohamed
Metwalli, Ahmed Taha





Interviews



== A Document of Listening: H L Hix in conversation with

     Philip Metres, November 2007-May
2008

== Clayton Eshleman in conversation with Paul Hoover and

     Maxine Chernoff: "Sulfur"
and "New American Writing":

     A Dialogue

== Clayton Eshleman in conversation with Ian Irvine

== 'The Truth is in the Work': Barry Gifford in conversation

     with Noel King, Berkeley,
California, 2007

== Dennis Phillips in conversation with Sheila Murphy, 2008

== Hope: an excerpt from Dennis Phillips' novel Hope.





Articles



== Thomas Basboll: Decision and Desire: A 'Rain-sparkling

     Crystogram' in Nabokov's "The
Defence"

== Art Beck: And Yet Another Archaic Torso -- Why?

== Rachel Blau DuPlessis: The Hole: Death, Sexual Difference,

     and Gender Contradictions in
Creeley's Poetry

== Rachel Blau DuPlessis and William Watkin: "Draft 33:

     Deixis"/Notes on
"Deixis": a Midrashic Chain:

     an exchange of thoughts

== Susan Briante: Coultas and Robertson Write the City

     from Surface to Detritus, from I to
We

== Emily Carr: Happily, Revision: Reading Rosmarie Waldrop's

     "The Reproduction of
Profiles"

== Ian Davidson: Frank O'Hara's Places

== Seth Forrest: The Body of the Text: Cerebral Palsy,

     Projective Verse and Prosthetics in
Larry Eigner's Poetry

== Andy Frazee: "Present-Absent": The Dependence on/Transcendence

     of "Shakespeare" in
Stephen Ratcliffe's "[where late the

     sweet] BIRDS SANG" and Jen
Bervin's "NETS"

== Paul Hoover: Black Painting Divided by a White Painting:

     Newlipo: Bringing Proceduralism and
Chance-Poetics

     into the 21st Century.

== Jane Joritz-Nakagawa: Essay: Mistaken Indemnities

== Kent Johnson: Notes on Notes on Translation:

     'Translation must seek to bring over
the strangeness,

     obvious or latent, of the original,
and always guard

     against the temptation to
familiarize it. It is this,

     after all, that is the gain of
translation -- the new

     surplus, semantic or grammatical,
that languages can invest

     in the general economies of others.'

== Basil King: Learning to Draw/A History: 14 Eyes -- Desire:

     on Paul Blackburn

== Graham Lyons: Citation as Explanation: Walter Benjamin

     and Louis Zukofsky, Colporteurs

== Deborah Meadows: Lecture Notes on Icons and Iconoclasts

== John Muckle: Hazlitt's Paroxysms

== David B. Olsen: People are Stranger:

     Listening to Graham Foust

== Richard Owens: Gael Turnbull: The Bricklayer Reconsidered:

     Editing Gael Turnbull's Collected
Poems

== Andrew Schelling: In Which Our Current Post Coyote Poetry

     Gets Tracked to the 1970s

== Jeffrey Side: Empirical and Non-Empirical Identifiers

== Jordan Stempleman: Still, Life Supports a Tending

== J. Townsend: Spiritual Man, Modern Man: The Poetics

     of Frank Samperi

== William Watkin: "Though we keep company with cats and dogs":

     Onomatopoeia, Glossolalia and Happiness in the
work of

     Lyn Hejinian and Giorgio Agamben

== Donald Wellman: Seventies prosody: "the tone leading vowels"





Feature == Clayton Eshleman:



     Tavern of the Scarlet Bagpipe: On
Bosch's

     "Garden of Earthly
Delights"





Feature: Denise Levertov: Editor: Kevin Gallagher



== Kevin Gallagher: Templum: Introduction

== Anne-Marie Cusac: Reading Levertov in Wartime

== Anne Dewey: Gender Difference and the Construction of

     Social Space in Levertov's Writing
after the

     Duncan-Levertov Debate

== John Felstiner: "that witnessing presence": Life Illumined

     Around Denise Levertov

== Sam Hamill: In Her Company: Denise Levertov

== Donna Krolik Hollenberg: A Poet's Revolution: The Life

     of Denise Levertov: An excerpt from
Donna Krolik

     Hollenberg's biography: from Part
Two: Chapter Seven

== Rachelle K. Lerner: Ecstasy of Attention: Denise Levertov

     and Kenneth Rexroth

== Dick Lourie: Two poems

== Mark Pawlak: Draft: From "Glover Circle Notebooks"

== Jose Rodriguez Herrera: In Homage to Levertov:

     Translating Sands of the Well

== Ron Silliman: Unerasing Early Levertov

== Tino Villanueva: Poet in the World: A Tribute to

     Denise Levertov

== Also see: Denise Levertov (poem): Eros, in Jacket 16

== Also see: Robert J. Bertholf: From Robert Duncan's

     Notebooks: On Denise Levertov, in
Jacket 28

== Also see: Robert J. Bertholf: The Robert Duncan / Denise

     Levertov Correspondence: Duncan's
View, in Jacket 28





Feature: George Oppen: Editor: Thomas Devaney



== Rachel Blau DuPlessis: Oppen from seventy-five to

     a hundred, 1983-2008

== Pat Clifford: George Oppen, Buddhadev Bose and Translation

== Stephen Cope: As if Objectivist: Oppen's Political

     Epistemophelia

== George Evans: Pacific

== Al Filreis: Believing in the World Because

     It Is Impossible

== Zack Finch: "I am / of that people the grass / blades touch":

     Walt Whitman and the Aesthetics of
Curiosity in George Oppen's

     Critique of Violence

== Kathleen Fraser: This in which I remember George Oppen

== Bobbie Louise Hawkins: George Oppen, Mary Oppen and a Poem

== Michael Heller: from "Oppen's Thematics: [what are

     poets for?]" (a talk given at
the Kelly Writers House celebration

     of George Oppen, April 7, 2008)

== Eric Hoffman: Of Hours: George Oppen, Albert Camus and

     the Illuminated World

== Geoffrey O'Brien: In Memory of Oppen

== Bob Perelman: Oppen's Poetics and Politics Today

== Patrick Pritchett: Writing the Disasters: Late Modernism

     and the Persistence of the Messianic
in George Oppen and

     Michael Palmer





Reviews



== Robert Adamson: "The Golden Bird: New and selected poems",

     reviewed by Joseph Donahue

== Unexplained evidence: George Albon: "Momentary Songs",

     reviewed by Michael Cross

== Textures of otherness: Charles Alexander: "Certain Slants",

     reviewed by Jonathan Stalling

== Questions of Travel: Ana Bozicevic-Bowling: "Document",

     reviewed by Matthew Thorburn

== A Gathering of Words: Michael Brennan: "Unanimous Night",

     reviewed by David McCooey

== Julie Carr: "Equivocal", reviewed by Andy Frazee

== Reflections on a Paper Mirror: Joel Chace: "Cleaning

     The Mirror", reviewed by John
Olson

== Jack Collom and Lyn Hejinian: "Situations, Sings"

     (collaborative poems), reviewed by
Robert Grenier

== Haunting: Brenda Coultas: "The Marvelous Bones of Time:

     Excavations and Explanations",
reviewed by Jesse Morse

== Our Best Failed Distinctions: Thomas Devaney: "A Series

     of Small Boxes", reviewed by John
Emil Vincent

== Stuart Dybek: "Streets in Their Own Ink", reviewed by

     Virginia Konchan

== Geoffrey Gatza: "Not So Fast Robespierre", reviewed by

     Jared Schickling

== "The Salt Companion to Lee Harwood " edited by Robert

     Sheppard (Salt, 2007) reviewed by
Patrick James Dunagan

== The voice of instinct: Christine Hume: "Lullaby", reviewed

     by Chris Glomski

== Brenda Iijima: "Animate, Inanimate Aims", reviewed by

     Thomas Fink

== Patrick Jones and Peter O'Mara: "How To Do Words With

     Things", reviewed by Astrid
Lorange

== Daniil Kharms: "Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings

     of Daniil Kharms" Edited and
translated by Matvei Yankelevich;

     reviewed by Larissa Shmailo

== Strange meetings: Kent Johnson: "I Once Met", reviewed

     by Cralan.

== Hank Lazer: Lyric & Spirit: Selected Essays 1996-2008,

     reviewed by Sue Walker

== Greg McLaren: "The Kurri-Kurri Book of the Dead"

     reviewed by Nick Riemer

== Escape from New York: Ange Mlinko: "Starred Wire" and

     "The Children's Museum",
reviewed by Dan Thomas-Glass

== 'Love boats of rainbow alien barf': Sharon Mesmer: "Annoying

     Diabetic Bitch" reviewed by
Stan Apps

== George Messo: Entrances, reviewed by Alistair Noon

== Three books, reviewed by Micaela Morrissette:

     "The Glimmer Palace" by
Beatrice Colin; "Tranquility", by

     Attila Bartis, translated by Imre
Goldstein; and

     "Train to Trieste" by
Domnica Radulescu

== Jennifer Moxley: "The Line", Reviewed by Matt Gagnon

== Bern Mulvey: "The Fat Sheep Everybody Wants", reviewed by

     Virginia Konchan

== "Intersection, Sidewalks and Public Space". ed. Marci Nelligan

     & Nicole Mauro, reviewed by jose
felipe alvergue

== Gavin Selerie: "Roxy" and "Le Fanu's Ghost", reviewed

     by Robert Hampson

== "To educate desire," "to repurpose kitsch": Robert
Sheppard:

     "Complete Twentieth Century
Blues", reviewed by Todd Nathan

     Thorpe

== My colonic is my confession: Eleni Stecopoulos:

     "Autoimmunity", reviewed
by Thom Donovan

== The tragic and the wacky: Gary Sullivan: "PPL in a Depot"

     reviewed by Stan Apps

== "As if you could open a jar of sugar forever": Cole Swensen:

     "Ours", reviewed by Donna
Stonecipher

== Flight from 'The Ten Thousand Things': Nathaniel Tarn:

     "Recollections of Being",
reviewed by Martin Anderson

== Carol Watts: "When blue light falls", reviewed by Robert

     Grenier

== "The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen", reviewed by Laurie

     Duggan

== The Lyricism of Sluts and Drunks: Meg Withers: "A Communion

     of Saints" reviewed by L.J.
Moore

== 'Each evening he would write/ what had happened to him':

     Formality and occasionality in the
poems of Mark Young:

     "Pelican Dreaming: Poems
1959-2008" Poems by Mark Young,

     reviewed by Nicholas Manning.





Poems



== Robert Adamson: Poem: At Rock River

== Adam Aitken: Three poems: Pol Pot in Paris / Letter

     to Marguerite Duras / Lines from
"The Lover"

== Iain Britton: Two poems: The Ornamental Room / Still Fall

     the Clear Steel Nibs of Night

== Janet Charman: Three poems: singer machine / debate /

     the forgetting option

== Maxine Chernoff: Three poems: Oracular / And words for /

     What it contains

== Tom Clark: Two poems: O Friend! / Fireside Chat

== Chris Edwards: So Not Orpheus: Rilke Renditions 1-11

== Phillip A Ellis: Emily Dickinson's Birds

== Stephen Emmerson: Two poems

== Michael Farrell: Two poems: structures p / bad diction

== Annie Finch: Three poems: She That / Resolution / Night Rain

== Norman Fischer: Felstentor

== Barry Gifford: Three poems and a play: Monk's Funeral /

     The Generalissimo Waves / Hey,
Ludwig, Grab Yourself

     a Pigfoot / The Farm Team (A story
in the form of a play)

== Noah Eli Gordon: Diminishing Returns

== Andrej Khadanovich: Three Poems. Translated by David Kennedy

     with the assistance of Valzhyna Mort

== Michele Leggott: Four poems: ascensore / passaggiata /

     primavera / redentore

== Rachel Loden: Two poems from "Dick of the Dead": Cheney

     Agonistes / Autumn Daze

== Nicolas Mansito III: Four poems from "On Third and Seventh"

== Andrew Mossin: Nocturne

== John Muckle: Two poems: I Should Be So Lucky / On Ebury

     Bridge Road

== Sheila E Murphy and Douglas Barbour: Continuations LVIII

== Stephen Vincent: Ocean Beach

 _______________

  John Tranter

  39 Short Street, Balmain 2041,
Australia



  http://johntranter.com/

  http://jacketmagazine.com/







-- 
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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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 12 14:45:51 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:45:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poem for Darwin's 200th (& Liincoln's too)
Message-ID: <8CB5B61A4FFC0D0-BEC-12D7@WEBMAIL-MA04.sysops.aol.com>


At The Smithville Methodist Church 
by Stephen Dunn



It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week, 
but when she came home 
with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art 
was up, what ancient craft. 


She liked her little friends. She liked the songs 
they sang when they weren't 
twisting and folding paper into dolls. 
What could be so bad? 


Jesus had been a good man, and putting faith 
in good men was what 
we had to do to stay this side of cynicism, 
that other sadness. 


OK, we said, One week. But when she came home 
singing "Jesus loves me, 
the Bible tells me so," it was time to talk. 
Could we say Jesus 


doesn't love you? Could I tell her the Bible 
is a great book certain people use 
to make you feel bad? We sent her back 
without a word. 


It had been so long since we believed, so long 
since we needed Jesus 
as our nemesis and friend, that we thought he was 
sufficiently dead, 


that our children would think of him like Lincoln 
or Thomas Jefferson. 
Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief 
to a child, 


only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story 
nearly as good. 
On parents' night there were the Arts & Crafts 
all spread out 


like appetizers. Then we took our seats 
in the church 
and the children sang a song about the Ark, 
and Hallelujah 


and one in which they had to jump up and down 
for Jesus. 
I can't remember ever feeling so uncertain 
about what's comic, what's serious. 


Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes. 
You can't say to your child 
"Evolution loves you." The story stinks 
of extinction and nothing 


exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have 
a wonderful story for my child 
and she was beaming. All the way home in the car 
she sang the songs, 


occasionally standing up for Jesus. 
There was nothing to do 
but drive, ride it out, sing along 
in silence. 

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From halvard at gmail.com  Thu Feb 12 14:59:11 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:59:11 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] RIP Keith Wilson (1927-2009)
Message-ID: <f160a1210902121159r17003f46gf49ce67969a9c135@mail.gmail.com>

Keith Wilson died the other day. He was a friend I've known since the
mid-60s,
when I spent some years living in El Paso while he was living in southern
New
Mexico: Anthony, right on the Texas-New Mexico border; then San Miguel,
farther
north, up the Mesilla Valley of the Rio Grande; and then Las Cruces. Any
house
of Keith and Heloise Wilson was full of music and wine and poetry, a
caravanserai
for poets traveling north or south, east or west.

Keith, at one stage of his life, often wrote of the sea, and his sea poems
were
among the best poems to come out of the Korean War. Here's one that's not
overtly war related:

The Sea

"On the beach
the ocean ends in water.
     --George Oppen
     *The Materials*

The crisp line, taut, in all
intimations, thrown out, cork circling
the water, spash, my hand

reaching out

--the call, rightly named, these
*Materials*, the call is there
simple, demanding

response and a certain
attention to pulse, the
movement of whatever the work

asks of man--is that what
I'm trying to say, a man,
and how, sometimes, he doesn't

drown. Coming up spitting
salt water, safely past the
screws, it *is* a man
intact who waves

from the calm wake; behind
him the sea clear, oceans
held in place by a line.


And he wrote of dusty New Mexico
towns:

The Politicians

                         come
come here with full bellies
& shined shoes to the one street
of San Miguel, talking, waving
hands, their harsh gringo Spanish
shouted in the hanging dust
of the square

     the men of the town
stand uneasy, aware of their hard
hands, the blue of the stranger's
eyes, their own mudcrusted boots
stiff with clay

they are ashamed these men
whose hands are strong with work & loving.
they listen. then go to the bar,
beer & red wine, juke box Infante songs,
his dead voice singing of a Mexico
which was sad, beautiful, but theirs
--riding free across a green land,
*gritos* on their lips & dead politicians
fall, one-by-one before their dreaming guns.

--both from *Graves Registry and Other Poems*
[New York: Grove Press, 1969]

Coincidentally, while 1969 did not mark the first publication of a
collection of
poems by Keith Wilson, it did mark the first publication of a collection of
poems
by me. And it was Keith Wilson who sat me down on his living room floor and
showed me how to put a collection of poems together. That first book that
bore
a epigraph by Keith Wilson: "a sunlit unity / desperately sought" and
contained
this poem written on the occasion of Keith's and Heloise's moving from
Anthony,
New Mexico, to a big new (well, not new new) house in San Miguel:

Moving Out

for Keith & Heloise Wilson

    saying goodbye
    is no trouble:

    a house is a skin
    to be shucked

    wriggled out of
    room by room

    closet by closet
    until what remains

    is piles of boxes,
    a few empty hangers,

    a heap of debris
    on the kitchen floor

    which never seemed so wide,
    a neighbor's dog

    who come to say goodbye
    from a respectable distance.

fr. *Transparencies and Projections*
[New York: New Rivers Press, 1969]

--HJ

-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb 12 14:59:36 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:59:36 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poem for Darwin's 200th (& Liincoln's too)
In-Reply-To: <8CB5B61A4FFC0D0-BEC-12D7@WEBMAIL-MA04.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB5B61A4FFC0D0-BEC-12D7@WEBMAIL-MA04.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902121159u35b19b98pc65fce1fb879b90c@mail.gmail.com>

I don't know if I believed more in Jesus, the Angel or Santa Claus, maybe in
Jesus the least.

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 8:45 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> At The Smithville Methodist Church
> by Stephen Dunn
>
>
> It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week,
> but when she came home
> with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art
> was up, what ancient craft.
>
> She liked her little friends. She liked the songs
> they sang when they weren't
> twisting and folding paper into dolls.
> What could be so bad?
>
> Jesus had been a good man, and putting faith
> in good men was what
> we had to do to stay this side of cynicism,
> that other sadness.
>
> OK, we said, One week. But when she came home
> singing "Jesus loves me,
> the Bible tells me so," it was time to talk.
> Could we say Jesus
>
> doesn't love you? Could I tell her the Bible
> is a great book certain people use
> to make you feel bad? We sent her back
> without a word.
>
> It had been so long since we believed, so long
> since we needed Jesus
> as our nemesis and friend, that we thought he was
> sufficiently dead,
>
> that our children would think of him like Lincoln
> or Thomas Jefferson.
> Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief
> to a child,
>
> only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story
> nearly as good.
> On parents' night there were the Arts & Crafts
> all spread out
>
> like appetizers. Then we took our seats
> in the church
> and the children sang a song about the Ark,
> and Hallelujah
>
> and one in which they had to jump up and down
> for Jesus.
> I can't remember ever feeling so uncertain
> about what's comic, what's serious.
>
> Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes.
> You can't say to your child
> "Evolution loves you." The story stinks
> of extinction and nothing
>
> exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have
> a wonderful story for my child
> and she was beaming. All the way home in the car
> she sang the songs,
>
> occasionally standing up for Jesus.
> There was nothing to do
> but drive, ride it out, sing along
> in silence.
>
> ------------------------------
> *A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps!<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1218694775x1201253752/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=febemailfooterNO62>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 12 19:17:54 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:17:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Michael Donaghy: poet, thinker and friend
Message-ID: <8CB5B87A646E781-AB4-1679@WEBMAIL-MY32.sysops.aol.com>


Michael Donaghy: poet, thinker and friend


http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/feb/12/adam-o-riordan-michael-donaghy


March sees the publication of The Shape of the Dance, the Selected Prose of the poet Michael Donaghy. It looks set to announce the arrival of a major critical voice in contemporary poetry; as Clive James suggests in his introduction, the book places Donaghy as the heir apparent to that other great critic Ian Hamilton. The catch is that Donaghy died almost five years ago.
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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 12 19:46:52 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:46:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] WorldPo: Don Maclennan, South Africa
Message-ID: <8CB5B8BB28B8949-AB4-17BC@WEBMAIL-MY32.sysops.aol.com>


http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=139&art_id=vn20090212115936332C833779


"He kept on putting out slim volumes year after year," said his son Ben.


A few years ago he won the national Sanlam Poetry Prize.


Friends described his work as raunchy, with some despair, full of love, lean, frank, unpretentious but richly compressed.


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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 12 19:47:54 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:47:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] International Poetry Forum announces its last season
Message-ID: <8CB5B8BD72E9F7F-AB4-17CE@WEBMAIL-MY32.sysops.aol.com>


http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09043/948620-85.stm

International Poetry Forum announces its last season
Thursday, February 12, 2009
By Bob Hoover, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Since 1966, the International Poetry Forum stayed true to its mission to bring the world's best poets to Pittsburgh, but its mission is now over.

Founder and director Samuel Hazo last night announced that this, the 43rd season, will be its last, a victim of the nation's financial downturn.

"It looks like it's our last year," Dr. Hazo said following his poetry reading in Oakland last night. "The reasons are financial."


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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Fri Feb 13 05:39:41 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 05:39:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902111311k3672240mf8519b2924f0ef45@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB59C8AC1748B8-16A0-97@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
	<499211D9.3080309@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB59FC564EFCB2-1904-D48@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902101717v1a581870m142cb9c062a2094e@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB59FFF25D41EA-1904-ED0@FWM-D04.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902101749q3cd7f075ibaf70f840d22a543@mail.gmail.com>
	<2C83FD0DAB454A1287661A30D005D93C@RobinPC>
	<8CB5A8F2D4F1B00-1580-FCD@FWM-M11.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902111311k3672240mf8519b2924f0ef45@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902130239t78131647rcbe2d8470ffecd58@mail.gmail.com>

Again to Finnegan and Robin,
Michael Alexander reports news of the latest edition of his The Earliest
English Poems:

"The EEP title is now called THE FIRST POEMS IN ENGLISH and was published by
Penguin last year.  All the prose and apparatus, and the running order, are
new, the translations very much the same."

Best,

Judy now to amazon.com!


2009/2/11 Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>

> Finnegan and Robin,
> Here, from his enticingly lucid The Earliest English Poems [Penguin, 3rd
> ed, 1991], is Michael Alexander's translation of that portion of 'The
> Seafarer', lines 10 thru 23:
>
>
> "                             Cold then
> nailed my feet, frost shrank on
> its chill clamps, cares sighed
> hot about heart, hunger fed
> on a mere-wearied mind.
>                                     No man blessed
> with a happy land-life is like to guess
> how I, aching-hearted, on ice-cold seas
> have wasted whole winters; the wanderer's beat,
> cut off from kind. . . .
> hung with hoar-frost.
>                                 Hail flew in showers,
> there was no sound there but the slam of waves
> along an icy sea."
>
> -------------------
>
> Best,
>
> Judy
>
> 2009/2/11 <jforjames at aol.com>
>
>  Robin,
>> I'm afraid I just did the ol' Google & clip, here...
>> http://faculty.uca.edu/jona/texts/seafarer.htm
>>
>> That section also appears as the epigraph to play of the same name by
>> Colin McPherson,
>> using Richard Hamer's translation from the Anglo-Saxon, rendered thus:
>>
>> He knows not
>> Who lives most easily on land, how I
>> Have spent my winter on the ice-cold sea
>> Wretched and anxious, in the paths of exile
>> Lacking dear friends, hung round by icicles
>> While hail flew past in showers?
>>
>> http://www.steppenwolf.org/watchlisten/backstage/detail.aspx?id=189
>>
>> Finnegan
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
>> Sent: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 8:54 pm
>> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
>>
>>  Ezra Pound's version.  In _Personae_?
>>
>> Michael Alexander probably does it better <g> (not to speak of Edwin
>> Morgan).
>>
>> Pound handles OE metrics more handily when he returns to it obliquely in
>> Canto I.
>>
>> R.
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
>> *To:* NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,Views<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 11, 2009 1:49 AM
>> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] Quote UnQuote: Walter Anderson
>>
>>  Lovely.  You've got me flying to my books now!
>>  Judy
>>
>> 2009/2/10 <jforjames at aol.com>
>>
>>>      That man knows not,
>>> to whom on earth fairest falls,
>>> how I, care-wretched, ice-cold sea
>>> dwelt on in winter along the exile-tracks,
>>> bereaved both of friend and of kin,
>>> behung with rime-crystals. Hail showers flew.
>>> I heard nothing there but the sea's sounding,
>>> ice-cold wave.
>>>
>>> (The Seafarer)
>>>
>>> -
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Fri Feb 13 13:30:24 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:30:24 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] NYTimes.com: So Typecast You Could Scream
In-Reply-To: <4995bbdb.150bca0a.330f.67f6SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com>
References: <4995bbdb.150bca0a.330f.67f6SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902131030j10545b39haa70836e1d32b8db@mail.gmail.com>

And with a slide and audio show: Edward Munch


        [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/> [image: E-mail
This]
<http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&page=www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/arts/design&pos=TopRight-EmailThis&sn2=6496f93c/710e5604&sn1=68cc2b31/374a01ff&camp=foxsearch2009_emailtools_1011070b_nyt5&ad=TW_88x31_articletools_a_win&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom%2Fthewrestler>
*This page was sent to you by: * anny.ballardini at tin.it

 * ARTS / ART & DESIGN *   | February 13, 2009
 * Art Review:  So Typecast You Could Scream
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/arts/design/13munc.html?emc=eta1> *
 By ROBERTA SMITH
 It is the ambition of "Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety and Myth,"
a thrilling exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, to upend or at least
balance Munch's famous persona.

       Copyright 2009
<http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html> The New York
Times Company <http://www.nytco.com/> | Privacy
Policy<http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/privacy.html>




-- 
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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb 14 03:10:32 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 09:10:32 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Now out from Otoliths: Anny Ballardini's Ghost Dance
	in 33 Movements
In-Reply-To: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com>

Happy Saint Valentine's to You all. I had the pleasant surprise this morning
to find the present announcement in my mailbox.

Mark Young, the Editor, told me that he has to sell 100 copies to cut down
his expenses, and I dearly recommend that at least 100 people buy it. But if
you cannot, please send me your address and as soon as I have several
addresses, I will buy a bunch and have them sent through lulu.



-------- Original Message --------  Subject: Now out from Otoliths: Anny
Ballardini's Ghost Dance in 33 Movements  Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:06:16
+1000  From: Otoliths Editor
<otolitheditor at gmail.com><otolitheditor at gmail.com>

*Ghost Dance in 33 Movements*

Anny Ballardini

80 pages

Otoliths 2009

ISBN: 978-0-9805096-8-7

$13.50 + p&h

URL: http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078





A schooling in experimental cinema happening before our eyes.  A screening.
Frame upon frame, the seeing I making her way.  In these remarkable poems,
Anny Ballardini creates an important new space, a new kind of poem?note,
notation, response, criticism, a philosophy of our lives as films responding
to films, poems made from & making our new dwelling place.  "The eye of the
camera centers on their hidden hearts."  Made of quotation, of citation, of
sight, of insight?always the moving site?a dance in many movements.  And a
fine, inviting, moving dance it is, Anny's *Ghost Dance in 33
Movements*! ?*Hank
Lazer*



Anny Ballardini is the unofficial poet laureate of UbuWeb; from her perch in
Italy she has watched the 20th century avant-garde stream through her
computer's screen and has taken copious notes on it. These notes?at once
literary criticism, poetry, oblique autobiography and amazing eavesdrop?come
to us as an idiosyncratic transcript of a cultural and personal archive.
This is 21st century ekphrasis written to an art that flickers and sings and
sometimes screams. ?*Susan M. Schultz*






-- 
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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb 14 06:45:01 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:45:01 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Silvia Levenson
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902140345x406635b7j943e7dcc8a14577e@mail.gmail.com>

Silvia Levenson is a good friend and a fantastic glass artist, she works
glass in all its forms. I remember her series of glass shoes, glass
underwear, glass...

for the Spring Anthology she forwarded the following:
http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=2879

a glass knife.

And here is the Spring anthology, already shaping itself superbly:
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=333



-- 
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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb 14 06:49:07 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:49:07 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] like attracts like
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902140349ie00c945o86fa52b025078744@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.livescience.com/culture/090213-men-want.html




-- 
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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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sat Feb 14 11:10:58 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:10:58 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Now out from Otoliths: Anny Ballardini's Ghost Dance
	in 33 Movements
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it>
	<4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4996ED12.90702@opus40.org>

I'll buy one as soon as I can -- very tight right now. But for sure I'll 
buy one.

Anny Ballardini wrote:
> Happy Saint Valentine's to You all. I had the pleasant surprise this 
> morning to find the present announcement in my mailbox.
>
> Mark Young, the Editor, told me that he has to sell 100 copies to cut 
> down his expenses, and I dearly recommend that at least 100 people buy 
> it. But if you cannot, please send me your address and as soon as I 
> have several addresses, I will buy a bunch and have them sent through 
> lulu.
>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: 	Now out from Otoliths: Anny Ballardini's Ghost Dance in 33 
> Movements
> Date: 	Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:06:16 +1000
> From: 	Otoliths Editor <otolitheditor at gmail.com> 
> <mailto:otolitheditor at gmail.com>
>
>
>
> *Ghost Dance in 33 Movements*
>
> Anny Ballardini
>
> 80 pages
>
> Otoliths 2009
>
> ISBN: 978-0-9805096-8-7
>
> $13.50 + p&h
>
> URL: http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
>
>  
>
>  
>
> A schooling in experimental cinema happening before our eyes.  A 
> screening.  Frame upon frame, the seeing I making her way.  In these 
> remarkable poems, Anny Ballardini creates an important new space, a 
> new kind of poem?note, notation, response, criticism, a philosophy of 
> our lives as films responding to films, poems made from & making our 
> new dwelling place.  "The eye of the camera centers on their hidden 
> hearts."  Made of quotation, of citation, of sight, of insight?always 
> the moving site?a dance in many movements.  And a fine, inviting, 
> moving dance it is, Anny's /Ghost Dance in 33 Movements/! ?*Hank Lazer*
>
>  
>
> Anny Ballardini is the unofficial poet laureate of UbuWeb; from her 
> perch in Italy she has watched the 20th century avant-garde stream 
> through her computer's screen and has taken copious notes on it. These 
> notes?at once literary criticism, poetry, oblique autobiography and 
> amazing eavesdrop?come to us as an idiosyncratic transcript of a 
> cultural and personal archive. This is 21st century ekphrasis written 
> to an art that flickers and sings and sometimes screams. ?*Susan M. 
> Schultz*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> 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

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From ciccariello at gmail.com  Sat Feb 14 11:16:05 2009
From: ciccariello at gmail.com (Peter Ciccariello)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:16:05 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Now out from Otoliths: Anny Ballardini's Ghost Dance
	in 33 Movements
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it>
	<4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8f3fdbad0902140816u2f845bema18b661605590711@mail.gmail.com>

I'm going to order one too...congratulations Anny, and what an outstanding
cover!

- Peter



On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 3:10 AM, Anny Ballardini
<anny.ballardini at gmail.com>wrote:

> Happy Saint Valentine's to You all. I had the pleasant surprise this
> morning to find the present announcement in my mailbox.
>
> Mark Young, the Editor, told me that he has to sell 100 copies to cut down
> his expenses, and I dearly recommend that at least 100 people buy it. But if
> you cannot, please send me your address and as soon as I have several
> addresses, I will buy a bunch and have them sent through lulu.
>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------  Subject: Now out from Otoliths: Anny
> Ballardini's Ghost Dance in 33 Movements  Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:06:16
> +1000  From: Otoliths Editor <otolitheditor at gmail.com><otolitheditor at gmail.com>
>
> *Ghost Dance in 33 Movements*
>
> Anny Ballardini
>
> 80 pages
>
> Otoliths 2009
>
> ISBN: 978-0-9805096-8-7
>
> $13.50 + p&h
>
> URL: http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
>
>
>
>
>
> A schooling in experimental cinema happening before our eyes.  A
> screening.  Frame upon frame, the seeing I making her way.  In these
> remarkable poems, Anny Ballardini creates an important new space, a new kind
> of poem?note, notation, response, criticism, a philosophy of our lives as
> films responding to films, poems made from & making our new dwelling place.
> "The eye of the camera centers on their hidden hearts."  Made of
> quotation, of citation, of sight, of insight?always the moving site?a dance
> in many movements.  And a fine, inviting, moving dance it is, Anny's *Ghost
> Dance in 33 Movements*! ?*Hank Lazer*
>
>
>
> Anny Ballardini is the unofficial poet laureate of UbuWeb; from her perch
> in Italy she has watched the 20th century avant-garde stream through her
> computer's screen and has taken copious notes on it. These notes?at once
> literary criticism, poetry, oblique autobiography and amazing eavesdrop?come
> to us as an idiosyncratic transcript of a cultural and personal archive.
> This is 21st century ekphrasis written to an art that flickers and sings and
> sometimes screams. ?*Susan M. Schultz*
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> 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
>
>
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb 14 12:48:10 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:48:10 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Now out from Otoliths: Anny Ballardini's Ghost Dance
	in 33 Movements
In-Reply-To: <8f3fdbad0902140816u2f845bema18b661605590711@mail.gmail.com>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it>
	<4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com>
	<8f3fdbad0902140816u2f845bema18b661605590711@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902140948m3c65d5d4o5fa22cac04362ce4@mail.gmail.com>

Thank You and Thank You!
The cover is by harry k. stammer with a picture by me.
Said by a professional artist and photographer, it is music to my ears,
flattered, indeed.

On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 5:16 PM, Peter Ciccariello <ciccariello at gmail.com>wrote:

> I'm going to order one too...congratulations Anny, and what an outstanding
> cover!
>
> - Peter
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 3:10 AM, Anny Ballardini <
> anny.ballardini at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Happy Saint Valentine's to You all. I had the pleasant surprise this
>> morning to find the present announcement in my mailbox.
>>
>> Mark Young, the Editor, told me that he has to sell 100 copies to cut down
>> his expenses, and I dearly recommend that at least 100 people buy it. But if
>> you cannot, please send me your address and as soon as I have several
>> addresses, I will buy a bunch and have them sent through lulu.
>>
>>
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------  Subject: Now out from Otoliths: Anny
>> Ballardini's Ghost Dance in 33 Movements  Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:06:16
>> +1000  From: Otoliths Editor <otolitheditor at gmail.com><otolitheditor at gmail.com>
>>
>> *Ghost Dance in 33 Movements*
>>
>> Anny Ballardini
>>
>> 80 pages
>>
>> Otoliths 2009
>>
>> ISBN: 978-0-9805096-8-7
>>
>> $13.50 + p&h
>>
>> URL: http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> A schooling in experimental cinema happening before our eyes.  A
>> screening.  Frame upon frame, the seeing I making her way.  In these
>> remarkable poems, Anny Ballardini creates an important new space, a new kind
>> of poem?note, notation, response, criticism, a philosophy of our lives as
>> films responding to films, poems made from & making our new dwelling place.
>> "The eye of the camera centers on their hidden hearts."  Made of
>> quotation, of citation, of sight, of insight?always the moving site?a dance
>> in many movements.  And a fine, inviting, moving dance it is, Anny's *Ghost
>> Dance in 33 Movements*! ?*Hank Lazer*
>>
>>
>>
>> Anny Ballardini is the unofficial poet laureate of UbuWeb; from her perch
>> in Italy she has watched the 20th century avant-garde stream through her
>> computer's screen and has taken copious notes on it. These notes?at once
>> literary criticism, poetry, oblique autobiography and amazing eavesdrop?come
>> to us as an idiosyncratic transcript of a cultural and personal archive.
>> This is 21st century ekphrasis written to an art that flickers and sings and
>> sometimes screams. ?*Susan M. Schultz*
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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!
-------------- next part --------------
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sat Feb 14 13:40:09 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:40:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Now out from Otoliths: Anny Ballardini's Ghost Dance
	in 33 Movements
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902140948m3c65d5d4o5fa22cac04362ce4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it>
	<4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com>
	<8f3fdbad0902140816u2f845bema18b661605590711@mail.gmail.com>
	<4b65c2d70902140948m3c65d5d4o5fa22cac04362ce4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902141040j340e5074t3682f18730330d07@mail.gmail.com>

YUP, awesome photo, Anny!  How about a sample poem from the book, maybe a
brief one, so that I know what I'm getting into when I order it?
Best,

Judy

2009/2/14 Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>

> Thank You and Thank You!
> The cover is by harry k. stammer with a picture by me.
> Said by a professional artist and photographer, it is music to my ears,
> flattered, indeed.
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 5:16 PM, Peter Ciccariello <ciccariello at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I'm going to order one too...congratulations Anny, and what an outstanding
>> cover!
>>
>> - Peter
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 3:10 AM, Anny Ballardini <
>> anny.ballardini at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Happy Saint Valentine's to You all. I had the pleasant surprise this
>>> morning to find the present announcement in my mailbox.
>>>
>>> Mark Young, the Editor, told me that he has to sell 100 copies to cut
>>> down his expenses, and I dearly recommend that at least 100 people buy it.
>>> But if you cannot, please send me your address and as soon as I have several
>>> addresses, I will buy a bunch and have them sent through lulu.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -------- Original Message --------  Subject: Now out from Otoliths: Anny
>>> Ballardini's Ghost Dance in 33 Movements  Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009
>>> 14:06:16 +1000  From: Otoliths Editor <otolitheditor at gmail.com><otolitheditor at gmail.com>
>>>
>>> *Ghost Dance in 33 Movements*
>>>
>>> Anny Ballardini
>>>
>>> 80 pages
>>>
>>> Otoliths 2009
>>>
>>> ISBN: 978-0-9805096-8-7
>>>
>>> $13.50 + p&h
>>>
>>> URL: http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> A schooling in experimental cinema happening before our eyes.  A
>>> screening.  Frame upon frame, the seeing I making her way.  In these
>>> remarkable poems, Anny Ballardini creates an important new space, a new kind
>>> of poem?note, notation, response, criticism, a philosophy of our lives as
>>> films responding to films, poems made from & making our new dwelling place.
>>> "The eye of the camera centers on their hidden hearts."  Made of
>>> quotation, of citation, of sight, of insight?always the moving site?a dance
>>> in many movements.  And a fine, inviting, moving dance it is, Anny's *Ghost
>>> Dance in 33 Movements*! ?*Hank Lazer*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Anny Ballardini is the unofficial poet laureate of UbuWeb; from her perch
>>> in Italy she has watched the 20th century avant-garde stream through her
>>> computer's screen and has taken copious notes on it. These notes?at once
>>> literary criticism, poetry, oblique autobiography and amazing eavesdrop?come
>>> to us as an idiosyncratic transcript of a cultural and personal archive.
>>> This is 21st century ekphrasis written to an art that flickers and sings and
>>> sometimes screams. ?*Susan M. Schultz*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> 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!
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb 14 17:16:27 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:16:27 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Now out from Otoliths: Anny Ballardini's Ghost Dance
	in 33 Movements
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902141040j340e5074t3682f18730330d07@mail.gmail.com>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it>
	<4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com>
	<8f3fdbad0902140816u2f845bema18b661605590711@mail.gmail.com>
	<4b65c2d70902140948m3c65d5d4o5fa22cac04362ce4@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902141040j340e5074t3682f18730330d07@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902141416q179785fbydd3e7895c357ca1f@mail.gmail.com>

Thank you for your interest, Judy.

10. Nam June Paik, 11. Joseph Beuys, & 12. Terry Fox appeared in *Exquisite
Corpse*
19. Jorge Luis Borges appeared in *The Salt River Review*
27. David Byrne will be in *Fulcrum*.

I will lead you to The Salt River Review of our James Cervantes, also for
its impeccable layout (thank you James!):
http://www.poetserv.org/SRR32/ballardini.html

*


On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Judy Prince
<jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>wrote:

> YUP, awesome photo, Anny!  How about a sample poem from the book, maybe a
> brief one, so that I know what I'm getting into when I order it?
> Best,
>
> Judy
>
> 2009/2/14 Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
>
> Thank You and Thank You!
>> The cover is by harry k. stammer with a picture by me.
>> Said by a professional artist and photographer, it is music to my ears,
>> flattered, indeed.
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 5:16 PM, Peter Ciccariello <ciccariello at gmail.com
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> I'm going to order one too...congratulations Anny, and what an
>>> outstanding cover!
>>>
>>> - Peter
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 3:10 AM, Anny Ballardini <
>>> anny.ballardini at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Happy Saint Valentine's to You all. I had the pleasant surprise this
>>>> morning to find the present announcement in my mailbox.
>>>>
>>>> Mark Young, the Editor, told me that he has to sell 100 copies to cut
>>>> down his expenses, and I dearly recommend that at least 100 people buy it.
>>>> But if you cannot, please send me your address and as soon as I have several
>>>> addresses, I will buy a bunch and have them sent through lulu.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -------- Original Message --------  Subject: Now out from Otoliths:
>>>> Anny Ballardini's Ghost Dance in 33 Movements  Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009
>>>> 14:06:16 +1000  From: Otoliths Editor <otolitheditor at gmail.com><otolitheditor at gmail.com>
>>>>
>>>> *Ghost Dance in 33 Movements*
>>>>
>>>> Anny Ballardini
>>>>
>>>> 80 pages
>>>>
>>>> Otoliths 2009
>>>>
>>>> ISBN: 978-0-9805096-8-7
>>>>
>>>> $13.50 + p&h
>>>>
>>>> URL: http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> A schooling in experimental cinema happening before our eyes.  A
>>>> screening.  Frame upon frame, the seeing I making her way.  In these
>>>> remarkable poems, Anny Ballardini creates an important new space, a new kind
>>>> of poem?note, notation, response, criticism, a philosophy of our lives as
>>>> films responding to films, poems made from & making our new dwelling place.
>>>> "The eye of the camera centers on their hidden hearts."  Made of
>>>> quotation, of citation, of sight, of insight?always the moving site?a dance
>>>> in many movements.  And a fine, inviting, moving dance it is, Anny's *Ghost
>>>> Dance in 33 Movements*! ?*Hank Lazer*
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Anny Ballardini is the unofficial poet laureate of UbuWeb; from her
>>>> perch in Italy she has watched the 20th century avant-garde stream through
>>>> her computer's screen and has taken copious notes on it. These notes?at once
>>>> literary criticism, poetry, oblique autobiography and amazing eavesdrop?come
>>>> to us as an idiosyncratic transcript of a cultural and personal archive.
>>>> This is 21st century ekphrasis written to an art that flickers and sings and
>>>> sometimes screams. ?*Susan M. Schultz*
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> 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!
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 14 18:40:26 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:40:26 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Bruce Andrews Poem
In-Reply-To: <4996ED12.90702@opus40.org>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it><4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com>
	<4996ED12.90702@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <4997566A.5010206@nut-n-but.net>

I was sure I saved the post that introduced it, but now I can't find 
it.  Can anyone post the Andrews poem again exactly as written?  (One 
thing I'm not sure of is whether it was punctuated or not.)

--Bob G.



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sat Feb 14 19:58:21 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:58:21 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Bruce Andrews Poem
In-Reply-To: <4997566A.5010206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it>
	<4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com>
	<4996ED12.90702@opus40.org> <4997566A.5010206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902141658t2d06b90s619e022b25e49648@mail.gmail.com>

Hey, Happy Valentine's Day, Bob!  You have  4 hours to send me flowers,
chocolates, and little red heart candies----though I druther be taken out to
dinner, to be perfectly honest.
Here's a near-unassailable source, Robert Pinsky, in The Situation Of Poetry
[published in Princeton UP, 1978], as to the way the banana poem was printed
in The Paris Review in 1972, and it differs from the version that Barry
Spacks gave. Pinsky states that it was published in the center of a page,
headed by the author's name, and it was untitled:
        http://books.google.com/books?<http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>
id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%<http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>
22paris+review%22+%22bruce+<http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>
andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&<http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>
ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg<http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>
It was printed like a full sentence, i.e., with the first word first-letter
capitalised, and the phrase ending with a full stop.  I think that the
number 87 underneath it is especially significant.

Best,

Judy

2009/2/14 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> I was sure I saved the post that introduced it, but now I can't find it.
>  Can anyone post the Andrews poem again exactly as written?  (One thing I'm
> not sure of is whether it was punctuated or not.)
>
> --Bob G.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sat Feb 14 20:30:27 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:30:27 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Bruce Andrews Poem
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902141658t2d06b90s619e022b25e49648@mail.gmail.com>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it><4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com><4996ED12.90702@opus40.org>
	<4997566A.5010206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902141658t2d06b90s619e022b25e49648@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <337DD6722A6A42469AA47CDDF9AF328E@RobinPC>

From: Judy Prince

<<
...  it differs from the version that Barry Spacks gave. Pinsky states that 
it was published in the center of a page, headed by the author's name, and 
it was untitled ...
It was printed like a full sentence, i.e., with the first word first-letter 
capitalised, and the phrase ending with a full stop.
>>

This gives us two quite distinct poems.  The full-sentence Pinsky version:

                            Bananas are an example.

... and the "incomplete" version originally posted by Barry:

                            bananas are an example.

Anyone have access to the issue of the Paris Review where it originally 
appeared, to confirm how Bruce Andrews had it printed?

Robin





From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sat Feb 14 20:33:25 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:33:25 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Bruce Andrews Poem
In-Reply-To: <337DD6722A6A42469AA47CDDF9AF328E@RobinPC>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it><4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com><4996ED12.90702@opus40.org><4997566A.5010206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902141658t2d06b90s619e022b25e49648@mail.gmail.com>
	<337DD6722A6A42469AA47CDDF9AF328E@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <DFE350F742424E26B7C099B809C57C5E@RobinPC>

Ooops!!!

That should have been (no final full stop):
 
                    bananas are an example

R.



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sat Feb 14 21:32:39 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:32:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Way of all Flesh
Message-ID: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>

Classic poems are in danger of disappearing from English lessons because 
teachers with little knowledge of literature are resorting to 
"lightweight" verse, school inspectors have warned.

Only very few primary schools are tackling works such as Wordworth's 
Daffodils or Coleridge's the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Too many primary teachers do not know enough about poetry to cover the 
subject properly and concentrate instead on a narrow range of easier 
works, often by modern writers.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-500174/Schools-scrapping-classic-poetry-lightweight-verse.html

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 14 21:37:04 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:37:04 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Bruce Andrews Poem
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902141658t2d06b90s619e022b25e49648@mail.gmail.com>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it><4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com><4996ED12.90702@opus40.org>
	<4997566A.5010206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902141658t2d06b90s619e022b25e49648@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49977FD0.4030601@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Hey, Happy Valentine's Day, Bob!  You have  4 hours to send me 
> flowers, chocolates, and little red heart candies----though I druther 
> be taken out to dinner, to be perfectly honest. 
No, Judy, it's a new world, genderwise: I'm the one supposed to get all 
that stuff.

>
> Here's a near-unassailable source, Robert Pinsky, in The Situation Of 
> Poetry [published in Princeton UP, 1978], as to the way the banana 
> poem was printed in The Paris Review in 1972, and it differs from the 
> version that Barry Spacks gave. Pinsky states that it was published in 
> the center of a page, headed by the author's name, and it was untitled:
>         http://books.google.com/books? 
> <http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=% 
> <http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>22paris+review%22+%22bruce+ 
> <http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3& 
> <http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg 
> <http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg> 
>
>
> It was printed like a full sentence, i.e., with the first word 
> first-letter capitalised, and the phrase ending with a full stop.  I 
> think that the number 87 underneath it is especially significant.
Interesting.  I remembered it as "Take bananas for instance."  Which 
proves it's not memorable, so not excellent, right?  (I also remembered 
it as being in the Partisan Review rather than the Paris Review.

I was surprised to see that Pinsky pretty much said all that can be said 
about the piece.  But I'll try tomorrow to do my analysis.

Thanks for the help.

--Bob
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sat Feb 14 22:59:17 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 22:59:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Bruce Andrews Poem
In-Reply-To: <49977FD0.4030601@nut-n-but.net>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it>
	<4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com>
	<4996ED12.90702@opus40.org> <4997566A.5010206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902141658t2d06b90s619e022b25e49648@mail.gmail.com>
	<49977FD0.4030601@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902141959s70b145ke3eb4afeb392da75@mail.gmail.com>

Me munching the flowers and loving the look of chocolates and heart candies.
 He who waits, after all, loses out, you see, genderwise new world or no.
I do hope, Bob, that you'll ignore Pinsky who's easy to ignore because he's
impossible to understand.  I find his prose crepuscular, to say the least,
but that might be the flowers talking [petals soaked in David Bruce petite
sirrah].

And, Bob, it's imperative that you abandon the dissertation format,
especially for this banana poem.  Try to lighten up and tighten up because
we next tackle Sonnet 18, as I recall, and we'll want to swim like Navy
Seals rather than get stuck like the Armada in shallow harbors.

The banana poem deserves, as well, humour that exposes its humour, not that
dull academeeeze that Pinsky [and others] employ to describe 'humor'.  You
can do it, Bob, oh yes, you can!

Judy



2009/2/14 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

>  Judy Prince wrote:
>
> Hey, Happy Valentine's Day, Bob!  You have  4 hours to send me flowers,
> chocolates, and little red heart candies----though I druther be taken out to
> dinner, to be perfectly honest.
>
> No, Judy, it's a new world, genderwise: I'm the one supposed to get all
> that stuff.
>
>
>  Here's a near-unassailable source, Robert Pinsky, in The Situation Of
> Poetry [published in Princeton UP, 1978], as to the way the banana poem was
> printed in The Paris Review in 1972, and it differs from the version that
> Barry Spacks gave. Pinsky states that it was published in the center of a
> page, headed by the author's name, and it was untitled:
>         http://books.google.com/books?<http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>
> id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%<http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>
> 22paris+review%22+%22bruce+<http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>
> andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&<http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>
> ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg<http://books.google.com/books?id=O3fxPKO08PAC&pg=PA87&dq=%22paris+review%22+%22bruce+andrews%22+1972&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=S2OXSdShFYroyATow7XCAg>
>  It was printed like a full sentence, i.e., with the first word
> first-letter capitalised, and the phrase ending with a full stop.  I think
> that the number 87 underneath it is especially significant.
>
> Interesting.  I remembered it as "Take bananas for instance."  Which proves
> it's not memorable, so not excellent, right?  (I also remembered it as being
> in the Partisan Review rather than the Paris Review.
>
> I was surprised to see that Pinsky pretty much said all that can be said
> about the piece.  But I'll try tomorrow to do my analysis.
>
> Thanks for the help.
>
> --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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 15 06:28:59 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:28:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Bruce Andrews Poem
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902141959s70b145ke3eb4afeb392da75@mail.gmail.com>
References: <499672D5.3070504@tin.it><4b65c2d70902140010s1aa1f712l8903f714d8531aee@mail.gmail.com><4996ED12.90702@opus40.org>
	<4997566A.5010206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902141658t2d06b90s619e022b25e49648@mail.gmail.com><49977FD0.4030601@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902141959s70b145ke3eb4afeb392da75@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4997FC7B.5030701@nut-n-but.net>


>
> And, Bob, it's imperative that you abandon the dissertation format, 
> especially for this banana poem.  Try to lighten up and tighten up 
> because we next tackle Sonnet 18, as I recall, and we'll want to swim 
> like Navy Seals rather than get stuck like the Armada in shallow harbors.
Sorry, Judy, but I'm serious about this stuff.  You tackle it your way, 
I'll tackle it mine. 

--Bob



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb 15 06:54:25 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:54:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Way of all Flesh
In-Reply-To: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902150354n226e33abp74cec9e92283b78d@mail.gmail.com>

'Dumbing down' is always a mistake, as you suggest, Mole.  Of course,
obviously, what some regard as dumb poems others would say are Excellent.

Nevertheless, I think that key to keeping Excellent poetry in the teaching
repertoire are  expanding and modernising poem choices.  As we keep seeing
with our evaluations on NP, now---as ALWAYS in the arts---most poems don't
have what it takes to be 'anthologised' for students.  Prob is figuring out
which contemporary poems DO have what it takes.  I think Bob Grumman's
always insistence on including what he calls poems [that I don't call poems,
but nevertheless enjoy as visual art], for example, shows us an operating
principle, that of expansion, for choosing 'Excellent' contemporary poems.
 Despite its obvious hazards, our willingness to expand 'classics' to
include the widest possible candidates seems essential for poem-reading
beginners'----both for appreciating others' works as well as for writing
their own.  'Rap' lyrics, for example, gets short shrift as poetry, but some
of it's inspired in the ways we've been rating as Excellent on Bob's WEPD
[What Excellent Poems Do....or What Excellent Poetry Does].
A grand learning opp for teachers as well as students, would be to use a
scale like Bob's WEPD in classes at some early point with 'classics' as well
as an array of what the teachers and students think are modern Excellents.
 A great class, that!  Could call it 'Exploring Excellent Poems' [EEP].

No reason why this oughtn't to open out into students commenting on one a
nother's poems.  If that's too fraught with terror and attacks, then their
poems could be passed out untitled or in groups that the students themselves
have decided to form, perhaps with a mentor or several mentors.  Robin
Hamilton could speak to that from his experience with Phillip Hobsbaum at
Glasgow and the immensely talented student poets gathered to 'attack' <g>
and immeasurably help one a nother.  Hobsbaum, no matter where he taught,
was a magnet for poets and their development, some now very well known
poets.  Robin could give details.

Your major point about teachers' lack of poem/poet knowledge might be
mitigated by what I describe above.

Best,

Judy



2009/2/14 TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>

> Classic poems are in danger of disappearing from English lessons because
> teachers with little knowledge of literature are resorting to "lightweight"
> verse, school inspectors have warned.
>
> Only very few primary schools are tackling works such as Wordworth's
> Daffodils or Coleridge's the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
>
> Too many primary teachers do not know enough about poetry to cover the
> subject properly and concentrate instead on a narrow range of easier works,
> often by modern writers.
>
>
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-500174/Schools-scrapping-classic-poetry-lightweight-verse.html
>
> --
> Tad Richards
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
> http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb 15 10:02:09 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 16:02:09 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Way of all Flesh
In-Reply-To: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>

I agree with the side of the article that tries to introduce more serious
poetry at primary schools. I cannot say how well teachers have done their
homework or not.

On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 3:32 AM, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:

> Classic poems are in danger of disappearing from English lessons because
> teachers with little knowledge of literature are resorting to "lightweight"
> verse, school inspectors have warned.
>
> Only very few primary schools are tackling works such as Wordworth's
> Daffodils or Coleridge's the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
>
> Too many primary teachers do not know enough about poetry to cover the
> subject properly and concentrate instead on a narrow range of easier works,
> often by modern writers.
>
>
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-500174/Schools-scrapping-classic-poetry-lightweight-verse.html
>
> --
> Tad Richards
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
> http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 15 10:22:04 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:22:04 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Way of all Flesh
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4998331C.1010001@nut-n-but.net>

You know what, as a poet I don't care what's taught in our 
indoctrination centers.  I think it would be nice if teachers made 
children aware that poetry exists, but I think teaching it a waste of 
time.  The few genetically capable of appreciating it will find it on 
their own, as I pretty much did--despite the mostly, to me, unappealing 
poetry forced on me in school.  N one will ever take my advice on the 
matter, but I would like to see kids given electives which motivated 
kids could take to find out about things like classical music, pure 
math, poetry, ancient history, abstract-expressionism, and the like.  No 
grades.  No students allowed in who are in any way disruptive.  No 
textbook but a list of books and websites having to do with poetry, with 
descriptions of what's in or at each.  Coverage of all kinds of 
poetry--and /poetry criticism/.  No teacher, just a trustworthy 
upperclassman with a phone he can call security with if necessary.

--Bob

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 15 10:26:15 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:26:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49983417.6010104@nut-n-but.net>

I've used my check-list on Bruce Andrews's text.  My analysis is 
stream-of-consciousness first-draft confusion.  I'm not up to anything 
more at the moment.  The gist of where I'm going should come through, 
though.


Bananas are an example.

This text gives me all kinds of trouble as a taxonomist.  It's too short 
for one to be able to
tell whether it's lineated or not.  Lineation is a form of what I call 
the flow-break; that, in
turn, is in my taxonomy the defining feature of poetry.  But it could be 
a saying, which is
another form of literature--or of what I call informrature, words used 
to convey
information.

It has made me expand the first requirement of An Excellent Poem 
according to my
check-list to:

(1) expresses something importantly true or represents something 
centrally beautiful--

or gets us to something importantly true or centrally beautiful

assuming it doesn't do two or more of these things.

On the surface, this text neither expresses anything importantly true 
nor represents any
sort of beauty.  However, one can infer from it something importantly 
true: that
meaningfulness is valuable.  It may even be said to celebrate 
rationality in reverse by
representing its opposite.  I guess I would call it a conceptual poem.  
Of course, it is a
joke, but a good joke needs to say something of value.  This one says an 
insufficiency of
data is troublesome.  We can't get any information from the text because 
of such an
insufficiency.  I now think I would not call it a poem but a specimen of 
informrature, or
words used to provide information.  Satire does this by revealing 
error.  This reveals,
exemplifies, error.  It is funny because in a prestigious magazine by 
itself on a page, so to
be taken as a poem or aphorism of sorts.  It is as the latter that I 
would now take it.

If we take it to be a poem, then it is a conceptual poem commenting on 
poetry.  But
perhaps also conveying an interesting sense of emptiness--loss, even.  
It cuts one loose
from one's moorings.  Adrift.  Out of context.  We're cut off from some 
accumulation of
information that the text contributes to.  We've gotten to the party too 
late.  So it's an
expression . . . no, a cause of perplexity, bewilderment.  One can give 
it a happy spin: it
frees its reader into intellectual irresponsiblilty, pure 
reasonlessness.  In that manner it may
be a poem.  As a synecdoche for the ultimate irrationality of life, it 
may give us pleasurable
relief from the anxiety of not knowing what's going on--why should we 
since nothing can
ultimately make sense.  Something importantly true for everyone in 
certain moods.
Something else importantly true when we're feeling better is that 
existence does make
sense.  As this text reminds us, allows us to re-realize.

(2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or 
something that makes
its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but 
eventually achieves Clarity;

This text is certainly complicated by Thematic Misdirection--it is a non 
sequitur, or a one-
element jump-cut poem, if we accept it as a poem.  We don't easily know 
what to make of
it, though we do quickly overcome our inital puzzlement to understand it 
as a joke.

(3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which 
pulls its elements
reasonably close together; 

It's too short not to be reasonably unified.

(4) contains few or no superfluous words;

I suppose a four-word sentence could have superfluous words, but this 
one doesn't.

(5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have 
such as
uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
art), and imagery;

Its mocking disconnection from the implicit law of discourse that 
require a text's
references to have referents is over the top.  Other texts exist that 
are like this but none, I
suspect do it exactly the same way or as well..

(6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or 
thought; too overt
Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;

It is all commonplace, but that is the point.  We take it as a 
matter-of-fact disclosure, then
find it subversive.

Conclusion: "Bananas are an example" is an excellent text which may be a 
poem.

Bob Grumman




From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb 15 11:15:00 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:15:00 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <49983417.6010104@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<49983417.6010104@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902150815r32b59176hd80965a36396167f@mail.gmail.com>

I agree on several points. I like the end, not because it is the end... :-)

On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> I've used my check-list on Bruce Andrews's text.  My analysis is
> stream-of-consciousness first-draft confusion.  I'm not up to anything more
> at the moment.  The gist of where I'm going should come through, though.
>
>
> Bananas are an example.
>
> This text gives me all kinds of trouble as a taxonomist.  It's too short
> for one to be able to
> tell whether it's lineated or not.  Lineation is a form of what I call the
> flow-break; that, in
> turn, is in my taxonomy the defining feature of poetry.  But it could be a
> saying, which is
> another form of literature--or of what I call informrature, words used to
> convey
> information.
>
> It has made me expand the first requirement of An Excellent Poem according
> to my
> check-list to:
>
> (1) expresses something importantly true or represents something centrally
> beautiful--
>
> or gets us to something importantly true or centrally beautiful
>
> assuming it doesn't do two or more of these things.
>
> On the surface, this text neither expresses anything importantly true nor
> represents any
> sort of beauty.  However, one can infer from it something importantly true:
> that
> meaningfulness is valuable.  It may even be said to celebrate rationality
> in reverse by
> representing its opposite.  I guess I would call it a conceptual poem.  Of
> course, it is a
> joke, but a good joke needs to say something of value.  This one says an
> insufficiency of
> data is troublesome.  We can't get any information from the text because of
> such an
> insufficiency.  I now think I would not call it a poem but a specimen of
> informrature, or
> words used to provide information.  Satire does this by revealing error.
>  This reveals,
> exemplifies, error.  It is funny because in a prestigious magazine by
> itself on a page, so to
> be taken as a poem or aphorism of sorts.  It is as the latter that I would
> now take it.
>
> If we take it to be a poem, then it is a conceptual poem commenting on
> poetry.  But
> perhaps also conveying an interesting sense of emptiness--loss, even.  It
> cuts one loose
> from one's moorings.  Adrift.  Out of context.  We're cut off from some
> accumulation of
> information that the text contributes to.  We've gotten to the party too
> late.  So it's an
> expression . . . no, a cause of perplexity, bewilderment.  One can give it
> a happy spin: it
> frees its reader into intellectual irresponsiblilty, pure reasonlessness.
>  In that manner it may
> be a poem.  As a synecdoche for the ultimate irrationality of life, it may
> give us pleasurable
> relief from the anxiety of not knowing what's going on--why should we since
> nothing can
> ultimately make sense.  Something importantly true for everyone in certain
> moods.
> Something else importantly true when we're feeling better is that existence
> does make
> sense.  As this text reminds us, allows us to re-realize.
>
> (2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or something
> that makes
> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
> eventually achieves Clarity;
>
> This text is certainly complicated by Thematic Misdirection--it is a non
> sequitur, or a one-
> element jump-cut poem, if we accept it as a poem.  We don't easily know
> what to make of
> it, though we do quickly overcome our inital puzzlement to understand it as
> a joke.
>
> (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which
> pulls its elements
> reasonably close together;
> It's too short not to be reasonably unified.
>
> (4) contains few or no superfluous words;
>
> I suppose a four-word sentence could have superfluous words, but this one
> doesn't.
>
> (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have
> such as
> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
> art), and imagery;
>
> Its mocking disconnection from the implicit law of discourse that require a
> text's
> references to have referents is over the top.  Other texts exist that are
> like this but none, I
> suspect do it exactly the same way or as well..
>
> (6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or
> thought; too overt
> Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
> It is all commonplace, but that is the point.  We take it as a
> matter-of-fact disclosure, then
> find it subversive.
>
> Conclusion: "Bananas are an example" is an excellent text which may be a
> poem.
>
> Bob Grumman
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb 15 11:23:38 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:23:38 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Way of all Flesh
In-Reply-To: <4998331C.1010001@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<4998331C.1010001@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902150823see8b07ci54866db15b53ae42@mail.gmail.com>

What you pose is thought-provoking, Bob.  I have a slightly different view
for the following reasons.
As a student, at all levels, I hadn't the knowledge of resources nor the
motivation, because of my ignorance, to take advantage of independent or
semi-independent study such as you suggest.  Further, and important to me,
most of my English Literature teachers at all levels were wise, informed,
enthusiastic, and personable.  These people were 'models' for me in many
significant ways which my parents and friends could not be.  There were
limitations, of course, as one might expect.  The pre-university instructors
[ie, K-12] showed and commented on, primarily, as they contractually were
obliged to do, those works that had been chosen by all the higher
authorities and sanctioned at city and state government levels.  Those
teachers also augmented the anthologies with their own preferences, and I
surmise that as long as these preferences did not alarm students and their
parents, all was fine.  Obviously, at the uni level, professors selected
their own preferences amongst the accepted classics for the course, and
they, too, added those that were not amongst the accepted ones.
Again, from my own experience and obviously my own temperament and
motivations, I was educated in literature as much as I allowed myself to be
educated.  Believe me, I had many more important things on my mind than
poetry or literature; I worked throughout high school and university which
left less time for extracurriculars, and I tried to have as much of a social
life as I could.

It would've been fantastic to find, on my own, all the resources you've
suggested, but that didn't happen, for reasons I've just explained.  Others'
backgrounds and experiences may differ drastically from mine, much to their
great good fortune.

As I wrote in the previous email, I believe that students would benefit
wonderfully if they were exposed to a more comprehensive group of
poets----and they'd be more fully engaged with poetry if they did such
analysing as we're doing with your WEPD.  Our WEPD heated debates strike me
as proof that many of us count poetry as important enough to debate heatedly
about; that consensus is rather beside the point and silly; that minority
opinions can be blessings as well as pains in the ass; and that more
information is ALWAYS better.

Best,

Judy



2009/2/15 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

>  You know what, as a poet I don't care what's taught in our indoctrination
> centers.  I think it would be nice if teachers made children aware that
> poetry exists, but I think teaching it a waste of time.  The few genetically
> capable of appreciating it will find it on their own, as I pretty much
> did--despite the mostly, to me, unappealing poetry forced on me in school.
> N one will ever take my advice on the matter, but I would like to see kids
> given electives which motivated kids could take to find out about things
> like classical music, pure math, poetry, ancient history,
> abstract-expressionism, and the like.  No grades.  No students allowed in
> who are in any way disruptive.  No textbook but a list of books and websites
> having to do with poetry, with descriptions of what's in or at each.
> Coverage of all kinds of poetry--and *poetry criticism*.  No teacher, just
> a trustworthy upperclassman with a phone he can call security with if
> necessary.
>
> --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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 15 11:43:27 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:43:27 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Way of all Flesh
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902150823see8b07ci54866db15b53ae42@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><4998331C.1010001@nut-n-but
	.net> <7db1d01b0902150823see8b07ci54866db15b53ae42@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4998462F.7070006@nut-n-but.net>

I just dipped in with my viewpoint.  No time for amplification.  But I 
would add that my scheme would certainly allow dedicated teachers to 
drop in on elective courses and add input.  Remember, too, that I would 
want a good list of resources available--both hard copy and CD would be 
good. 

--Bob



From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Sun Feb 15 12:46:45 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 09:46:45 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: second babana
In-Reply-To: <200902151332.n1FDWWmK028013@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902151332.n1FDWWmK028013@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <19D0F679-D1AE-412E-A5F2-4C5D085ACE03@verizon.net>


On Feb 15, 2009, at 5:32 AM, Judy wrote:

> It was printed like a full sentence, i.e., with the first word first- 
> letter
> capitalised, and the phrase ending with a full stop.  I think that the
> number 87 underneath it is especially significant.

My bad, I quoted from memory. Can't find it in the Pinsky (not indexed)
and will be broken hearted if the first "b" must indeed come  
capitalized. Certain,
however, that there's no period at the end of the poem. Certain!
And this number "87"? What, the poet's taking recourse in some kinda  
mystery?

hopefully,

Barry

>


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 15 13:10:09 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 13:10:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: second babana
In-Reply-To: <19D0F679-D1AE-412E-A5F2-4C5D085ACE03@verizon.net>
References: <200902151332.n1FDWWmK028013@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<19D0F679-D1AE-412E-A5F2-4C5D085ACE03@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <49985A81.3030303@nut-n-but.net>

Barry Spacks wrote:
>
> On Feb 15, 2009, at 5:32 AM, Judy wrote:
>
>> It was printed like a full sentence, i.e., with the first word 
>> first-letter
>> capitalised, and the phrase ending with a full stop.  I think that the
>> number 87 underneath it is especially significant.
>
> My bad, I quoted from memory. Can't find it in the Pinsky (not indexed)
> and will be broken hearted if the first "b" must indeed come 
> capitalized. Certain,
> however, that there's no period at the end of the poem. Certain!
> And this number "87"? What, the poet's taking recourse in some kinda 
> mystery?
>
> hopefully,
>
> Barry
I await data on exact appearance of the poem.  As for the "87," it's 
only the page number of Pinsky's book, or whatever his text is in--if 
you continue with what he wrote, you'll soon see an "88" at the bottom.



From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Sun Feb 15 13:32:08 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:32:08 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: second babana REVISTED
In-Reply-To: <200902151332.n1FDWWmK028013@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902151332.n1FDWWmK028013@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <AA7ACC1F-DD13-4C42-A1B2-B343EC7A4934@verizon.net>


On Feb 15, 2009, at 5:32 AM, I wrote:

>  Can't find it in the Pinsky (not indexed)

Shucks, dumb again! I was searching in the similar-looking Pinsky book
THE SOUNDS OF POETRY and now can't find THE SITUATION of the
same -- what's with this mysterious "87," Judy? Could be the poem
comes out of a larger context? Enquiring minds want to know.

cheers and apologies,

Barry
>


From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb 15 13:53:54 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 13:53:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: second babana
In-Reply-To: <49985A81.3030303@nut-n-but.net>
References: <200902151332.n1FDWWmK028013@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<19D0F679-D1AE-412E-A5F2-4C5D085ACE03@verizon.net>
	<49985A81.3030303@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902151053g2c71d3fbg5f68e6032f198fb8@mail.gmail.com>

I was pulling your leg, Bob.
Judy

2009/2/15 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> Barry Spacks wrote:
>
>>
>> On Feb 15, 2009, at 5:32 AM, Judy wrote:
>>
>>  It was printed like a full sentence, i.e., with the first word
>>> first-letter
>>> capitalised, and the phrase ending with a full stop.  I think that the
>>> number 87 underneath it is especially significant.
>>>
>>
>> My bad, I quoted from memory. Can't find it in the Pinsky (not indexed)
>> and will be broken hearted if the first "b" must indeed come capitalized.
>> Certain,
>> however, that there's no period at the end of the poem. Certain!
>> And this number "87"? What, the poet's taking recourse in some kinda
>> mystery?
>>
>> hopefully,
>>
>> Barry
>>
> I await data on exact appearance of the poem.  As for the "87," it's only
> the page number of Pinsky's book, or whatever his text is in--if you
> continue with what he wrote, you'll soon see an "88" at the bottom.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb 15 13:56:17 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 13:56:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: second babana REVISTED
In-Reply-To: <AA7ACC1F-DD13-4C42-A1B2-B343EC7A4934@verizon.net>
References: <200902151332.n1FDWWmK028013@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<AA7ACC1F-DD13-4C42-A1B2-B343EC7A4934@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902151056o612d818ch5d31b06e736394ae@mail.gmail.com>

I guess I should've used a little smiley emoticon, Barry;  alas, the
unsubtleties of email.  Here're a coupla smilies for you and Bob:  ;-)  ;-)
 and a grin for good measure <g>
Judy

2009/2/15 Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>

>
> On Feb 15, 2009, at 5:32 AM, I wrote:
>
>   Can't find it in the Pinsky (not indexed)
>>
>
> Shucks, dumb again! I was searching in the similar-looking Pinsky book
> THE SOUNDS OF POETRY and now can't find THE SITUATION of the
> same -- what's with this mysterious "87," Judy? Could be the poem
> comes out of a larger context? Enquiring minds want to know.
>
> cheers and apologies,
>
> Barry
>
>>
>>  _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Sun Feb 15 14:36:49 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:36:49 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: fourth banana
In-Reply-To: <200902151332.n1FDWWmK028013@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902151332.n1FDWWmK028013@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <B3C17CA1-705A-40F0-B06F-E69BE04CCC42@verizon.net>


> I have the following from Pinsky, which still leaves me desiring
    (for the purity of the look of it if nothing else):
		
			banana are an example

"Well, in The Situation of Poetry, I see, I have the capital B and a  
period.

"And I can remember getting an earnest, on the whole appreciative  
letter from Bruce Andrews, and since he did not as I recall note any  
inaccuracy let's assume I have it right.

"Such as its minimal charms are, I think it's perhaps more droll with  
the conventional capitalization and period."

ever onward,

Barry


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From halvard at gmail.com  Sun Feb 15 14:53:07 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 13:53:07 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Hamilton Stone Review, Issue 17, Winter 2009,
	Now Online!
Message-ID: <f160a1210902151153rbb9dcfk193297529fb39ef1@mail.gmail.com>

*Hamilton Stone Review*, Issue 17, Winter 2009, Now Online!

Featuring poetry by P?ters Br?veris, Alan Baker, Andrew Burke, Camille
Martin, Ashok Niyogi,
Dan Raphael, Karla Linn Merrifield, Dion Farquhar, Scott Hammer, Philip
Byron Oakes, and
Stephen Vincent; fiction by Jay Baruch, Summer Block, James Cervantes,
Andrew J. Madigan,
Michael Shannon, Dot DeLuitzo, Diane Simmons, and Robert Wexelblatt.


     http://www.hamiltonstone.org/hsr17.html

Submissions to the *Hamilton Stone Review
*
We publish three times a year: in June, October, and February. Please send
1-7 poems
in the body of your message and in ONE attachment; one story or up to three
short
shorts per message and/or attachment, please. Send bios with submissions. No
snailmail
submissions will be read.

For the June 2009 issue poetry submissions should go directly to Halvard
Johnson
at halvard at gmail.com. Send fiction to Lynda Schor at lyndaschor at gmail.com.

PLEASE SEND THIS ALONG TO OTHERS


-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb 15 15:36:50 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:36:50 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: fourth banana
In-Reply-To: <B3C17CA1-705A-40F0-B06F-E69BE04CCC42@verizon.net>
References: <200902151332.n1FDWWmK028013@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<B3C17CA1-705A-40F0-B06F-E69BE04CCC42@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902151236p73437b65ha159b03f13108313@mail.gmail.com>

barry are a nother example
judy

2009/2/15 Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>

>
> I have the following from Pinsky, which still leaves me desiring
>
>    (for the purity of the look of it if nothing else):
> banana are an example
>
> "Well, in *The Situation of Poetry*, I see, I have the capital B and a
> period.
> "And I can remember getting an earnest, on the whole appreciative letter
> from Bruce Andrews, and since he did not as I recall note any inaccuracy
> let's assume I have it right.
>
> "Such as its minimal charms are, I think it's perhaps more droll with the
> conventional capitalization and period."
>
> ever onward,
>
> Barry
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb 15 17:30:40 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:30:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Way of all Flesh
In-Reply-To: <4998462F.7070006@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902150823see8b07ci54866db15b53ae42@mail.gmail.com>
	<4998462F.7070006@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902151430h3ad28626wa0a84165aa649883@mail.gmail.com>

I second your idea of elective courses and the ways you've described them,
as well as what you add here, Bob.
Time to propose it to your schoolboard, nah?

Good luck,

Judy the top babana

2009/2/15 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> I just dipped in with my viewpoint.  No time for amplification.  But I
> would add that my scheme would certainly allow dedicated teachers to drop in
> on elective courses and add input.  Remember, too, that I would want a good
> list of resources available--both hard copy and CD would be good.
> --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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 15 18:13:13 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:13:13 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: second babana
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902151053g2c71d3fbg5f68e6032f198fb8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902151332.n1FDWWmK028013@wiz.cath.vt.edu><19D0F679-D1AE-412E-A5F2-4C5D085ACE03@verizon.net><49985A81.3030303@nut-
	n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902151053g2c71d3fbg5f68e6032f198fb8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4998A189.6050901@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> I was pulling your leg, Bob.  
>
> Judy
I know YOU were joking about it, Judy, but from my experience with these 
kinds of poems, I needed to see where the "87" fit in. 

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 15 18:18:45 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:18:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Way of all Flesh
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902151430h3ad28626wa0a84165aa649883@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902150823see8b07c
	i54866db15b53ae42@mail.gmail.com><4998462F.7070006@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902151430h3ad28626wa0a84165aa649883@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4998A2D5.9030202@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> I second your idea of elective courses and the ways you've described 
> them, as well as what you add here, Bob.
>
> Time to propose it to your schoolboard, nah?
>
Haw, maybe I should RUN for the school board using them as my platform 
(and leaving out my ideas about shooting certain students).

--Bob



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb 15 19:46:54 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:46:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Way of all Flesh
In-Reply-To: <4998A2D5.9030202@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<4998462F.7070006@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902151430h3ad28626wa0a84165aa649883@mail.gmail.com>
	<4998A2D5.9030202@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902151646p76cdf87esd9fdc4a6cf005c1a@mail.gmail.com>

Well, of course you should run for the school board!  And save your
ammunition for the board members.  [a smiley so that I'm not implicated in
your scheme]  ;-)
Did you evaluate the nabana poem, and I missed it?

Judy

2009/2/15 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> Judy Prince wrote:
>
>> I second your idea of elective courses and the ways you've described them,
>> as well as what you add here, Bob.
>>
>> Time to propose it to your schoolboard, nah?
>>
>>  Haw, maybe I should RUN for the school board using them as my platform
> (and leaving out my ideas about shooting certain students).
>
>
> --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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From jforjames at aol.com  Sun Feb 15 20:19:23 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:19:23 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] 'The Irish Times' Poetry Now shortlist announced
Message-ID: <8CB5DEBBC2D01D2-FA4-58B5@WEBMAIL-DZ40.sysops.aol.com>

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/0214/1233867936210.html?via=mr
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From jforjames at aol.com  Sun Feb 15 20:24:25 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:24:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Remembering Michael Hartnett
Message-ID: <8CB5DEC70161E62-FA4-58DC@WEBMAIL-DZ40.sysops.aol.com>


http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2009/0216/1233867938004.html
Monday, February 16, 2009
Remembering Michael Hartnett

Michael Hartnett: no other ambition than to be a poet.


Michael Hartnett was an esteemed poet from a young age, but his assurance about his creative destiny had its dangers.? 

MICHAEL SMITH? recalls a significant artist whose early death 10 years ago can be viewed as an accident of time and place


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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sun Feb 15 22:45:21 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:45:21 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference
Message-ID: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>

I am just back from Chicago, where I ingested millions of new words  
by many poets at the AWP annual conference.

Thought I would report on the most interesting panel I've ever  
attended.  It was billed as Chicago Poetry Slam, and was to have  
featured the inventor of the slam, Marc Smith, along with several  
others.

None of the promised panelists showed up.  I don't know why, though I  
heard a number of rumors later.

The room was packed, and everyone stayed for 10, 15, 20 minutes into  
the nonexistent event.  Finally a gentleman named C. J. Laity stood  
up and asked if anyone wanted to read a poem.  As it happens, several  
did.  Pretty soon there was an absolutely unplanned poetry slam  
occurring.  Mr. Laity performed as M.C., ushered readers up and led  
the applause after they read, etc.  He began calling it the Illegal  
Panel, the Anti-Slam, etc.  Things got more and more riotous.  Almost  
nobody left the room, and there were many readers, in a wide range of  
styles.

At one point someone from the next room came over and complained that  
our room was too raucous, which it was.

As at any open mic, the quality of the offerings and performances  
varied, but I can't say it was any more uneven than the average  
sponsored event I've attended over many years.

It was easily the most interesting AWP event I've ever seen, and I  
walked out feeling just great.

No, I did not read anything myself--which is what everyone asks me  
when I tell the story.  I just relished it.

  Read more about this event and see some photos here:

http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php? 
op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221





========================================
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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Mon Feb 16 04:01:57 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:01:57 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference
In-Reply-To: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
References: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902160101q56d85f00u69c561dd3340a1b8@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks for this. And send over more news if you have some time!

On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 4:45 AM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> I am just back from Chicago, where I ingested millions of new words by many
> poets at the AWP annual conference.
> Thought I would report on the most interesting panel I've ever attended.
>  It was billed as Chicago Poetry Slam, and was to have featured the inventor
> of the slam, Marc Smith, along with several others.
>
> None of the promised panelists showed up.  I don't know why, though I heard
> a number of rumors later.
>
> The room was packed, and everyone stayed for 10, 15, 20 minutes into the
> nonexistent event.  Finally a gentleman named C. J. Laity stood up and asked
> if anyone wanted to read a poem.  As it happens, several did.  Pretty soon
> there was an absolutely unplanned poetry slam occurring.  Mr. Laity
> performed as M.C., ushered readers up and led the applause after they read,
> etc.  He began calling it the Illegal Panel, the Anti-Slam, etc.  Things got
> more and more riotous.  Almost nobody left the room, and there were many
> readers, in a wide range of styles.
>
> At one point someone from the next room came over and complained that our
> room was too raucous, which it was.
>
> As at any open mic, the quality of the offerings and performances varied,
> but I can't say it was any more uneven than the average sponsored event I've
> attended over many years.
>
> It was easily the most interesting AWP event I've ever seen, and I walked
> out feeling just great.
>
> No, I did not read anything myself--which is what everyone asks me when I
> tell the story.  I just relished it.
>
>  Read more about this event and see some photos here:
>
>
> http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221
>
>
>
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb 16 06:32:45 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:32:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Way of all Flesh
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902151646p76cdf87esd9fdc4a6cf005c1a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><4998462F.7070006@nut-n-but
	.net><7db1d01b0902151430h3ad28626wa0a84165aa649883@mail.gmail.com><4998A2D5.9030202@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902151646p76cdf87esd9fdc4a6cf005c1a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49994EDD.9090606@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Well, of course you should run for the school board!  And save your 
> ammunition for the board members.  [a smiley so that I'm not 
> implicated in your scheme]  ;-)
>
> Did you evaluate the nabana poem, and I missed it?  
>
> Judy
Yes, I posted on it.  Will re-post if you can't find a copy.  And I can.

--Bob





From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Mon Feb 16 08:17:34 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:17:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference
In-Reply-To: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
References: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902160517w7964b33exe1912021ad5c1b68@mail.gmail.com>

What fun, great news!  So when are you going back to read your poems?
Ah yes, David.  That's the Chicago I remember!  No wonder it's thought to
have the best theatre folk in the nation, the best Shaksper productions
[Chicago Shakespeare Theater], best improv [Second City], best and most
innovative small theatres, and sharp-eyed critics.
Further, despite its history of tearing down old landmark buildings [truly
maddening], Chicago's first in the nation for the scope, importance, and
variety of its modern architecture.  It is also easily the most beautiful
major urban city in the USA, its Loop [downtown] a stunning flower and
sculpture/architecture garden along the 10-mile lakefront.

Reason I'm here in Norfolk [VA] instead of still in Chicago:  it's buried in
snow and below-freezing temps for 5 months every year.  P'raps that's what
forces such zesty creativity from its residents.

Thanks, David, for this and for the memories,

Judy

2009/2/15 David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>

> I am just back from Chicago, where I ingested millions of new words by many
> poets at the AWP annual conference.
> Thought I would report on the most interesting panel I've ever attended.
>  It was billed as Chicago Poetry Slam, and was to have featured the inventor
> of the slam, Marc Smith, along with several others.
>
> None of the promised panelists showed up.  I don't know why, though I heard
> a number of rumors later.
>
> The room was packed, and everyone stayed for 10, 15, 20 minutes into the
> nonexistent event.  Finally a gentleman named C. J. Laity stood up and asked
> if anyone wanted to read a poem.  As it happens, several did.  Pretty soon
> there was an absolutely unplanned poetry slam occurring.  Mr. Laity
> performed as M.C., ushered readers up and led the applause after they read,
> etc.  He began calling it the Illegal Panel, the Anti-Slam, etc.  Things got
> more and more riotous.  Almost nobody left the room, and there were many
> readers, in a wide range of styles.
>
> At one point someone from the next room came over and complained that our
> room was too raucous, which it was.
>
> As at any open mic, the quality of the offerings and performances varied,
> but I can't say it was any more uneven than the average sponsored event I've
> attended over many years.
>
> It was easily the most interesting AWP event I've ever seen, and I walked
> out feeling just great.
>
> No, I did not read anything myself--which is what everyone asks me when I
> tell the story.  I just relished it.
>
>  Read more about this event and see some photos here:
>
>
> http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221
>
>
>
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Mon Feb 16 09:56:26 2009
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:56:26 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] What did Albert do?
Message-ID: <B5F9941E-7B51-4D6D-B12E-5A10C7531EF8@ripon.edu>


A query for anyone who attended the Albert Goldbarth tribute at the  
Chicago AWP this past weekend: what was the title of the poem he read?




David Graham
Grahamd at Ripon.edu



From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Mon Feb 16 09:58:02 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:58:02 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] What did Albert do?
Message-ID: <cec.4f95ba27.36cad8fa@aol.com>

Can't recall. But it was a wonderful poem I thought. And rather short (for  
him). 
**************Need a job? Find an employment agency near you. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000003)
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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb 16 11:51:14 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:51:14 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference
In-Reply-To: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
References: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <8CB5E6DE9BFEC3C-A58-1447@WEBMAIL-DC10.sysops.aol.com>

Spontaneous acts of poetry save the day. Great story, David. 

I've never been to an?AWP Conference. Sometime I'll get to one...
maybe when they have it it warmer place. Don't get me wrong...
Chicago's a great place...I like to?browse?Myopic Books on N Milwaukee Ave. when 
I blow through town (and it's easy to blow through town in the Windy City).
Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu &amp; Views <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:45 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference


I am just back from Chicago, where I ingested millions of new words by many poets at the AWP annual conference. ?



Thought I would report on the most interesting panel I've ever attended. ?It was billed as Chicago Poetry Slam, and was to have featured the inventor of the slam, Marc Smith, along with several others. ?




None of the promised panelists showed up. ?I don't know why, though I heard a number of rumors later.




The room was packed, and everyone stayed for 10, 15, 20 minutes into the nonexistent event. ?Finally a gentleman named C. J. Laity stood up and asked if anyone wanted to read a poem. ?As it happens, several did. ?Pretty soon there was an absolutely unplanned poetry slam occurring. ?Mr. Laity performed as M.C., ushered readers up and led the applause after they read, etc. ?He began calling it the Illegal Panel, the Anti-Slam, etc. ?Things got more and more riotous. ?Almost nobody left the room, and there were many readers, in a wide range of styles. ??




At one point someone from the next room came over and complained that our room was too raucous, which it was.




As at any open mic, the quality of the offerings and performances varied, but I can't say it was any more uneven than the average sponsored event I've attended over many years. ?




It was easily the most interesting AWP event I've ever seen, and I walked out feeling just great.




No, I did not read anything myself--which is what everyone asks me when I tell the story. ?I just relished it. ?




?Read more about this event and see some photos here:





http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221













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

David Graham

grahamd at ripon.edu




Home Page:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz




Poetry Library:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html

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








= 


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb 16 11:59:24 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:59:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] WorldPo: Viet Nam, Nat'l Poetry Day
Message-ID: <8CB5E6F0DE21AFC-A58-14C4@WEBMAIL-DC10.sysops.aol.com>


http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=03SUN150209

National Poetry Day unites lovers of verse

(15-02-2009)

Poetry has been an integral part of Vietnamese culture for thousands of years and now the art form is moving back into the spotlight thanks to National Poetry Day. Minh Thu and Ngoc Le report.


Poetry lovers gather for their greatest festival of the year: National Poetry Day, held at Van Mieu (Temple of Literature). I still remember the first time I attended the festival two years ago.


That first morning, I was impressed most by the tha tho ceremony. Fifty of the most interesting verses in the history of Vietnamese poetry, chosen by the organising board, were attached to red balloons and released into the sky from the hands of 50 beautiful girls. 


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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Mon Feb 16 12:09:05 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:09:05 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference
Message-ID: <d37.3e0ad9ee.36caf7b1@aol.com>

David, you are one of the many I saw from afar at AWP and kept trying to  get 
over and introduce myself to. But it was hard to move very far without  
getting pulled into yet another conversation with yet another person I hadn't  seen 
in years.
**************Need a job? Find an employment agency near you. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000003)
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From millb at aol.com  Mon Feb 16 12:12:27 2009
From: millb at aol.com (Millicent Accardi)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:12:27 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference
In-Reply-To: <8CB5E6DE9BFEC3C-A58-1447@WEBMAIL-DC10.sysops.aol.com>
References: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
	<8CB5E6DE9BFEC3C-A58-1447@WEBMAIL-DC10.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <8CB5E70E0A71696-1474-397@WEBMAIL-MY10.sysops.aol.com>

It's been a long time, but AWP WAS in Miami once. . .and a few years ago it was in Palm Springs (maybe 2001?)


Cheers,

Millicent 

-----Original Message-----
From: jforjames at aol.com
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 8:51 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference



Spontaneous acts of poetry save the day. Great story, David. 

I've never been to an?AWP Conference. Sometime I'll get to one...
maybe when they have it it warmer place. Don't get me wrong...
Chicago's a great place...I like to?browse?Myopic Books on N Milwaukee Ave. when 
I blow through town (and it's easy to blow through town in the Windy City).
Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu &amp; Views <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:45 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference


I am just back from Chicago, where I ingested millions of new words by many poets at the AWP annual conference. ? 



Thought I would report on the most interesting panel I've ever attended. ?It was billed as Chicago Poetry Slam, and was to have featured the inventor of the slam, Marc Smith, along with several others. ?




None of the promised panelists showed up. ?I don't know why, though I heard a number of rumors later.




The room was packed, and everyone stayed for 10, 15, 20 minutes into the nonexistent event. ?Finally a gentleman named C. J. Laity stood up and asked if anyone wanted to read a poem. ?As it happens, several did. ?Pretty soon there was an absolutely unplanned poetry slam occurring. ?Mr. Laity performed as M.C., ushered readers up and led the applause after they read, etc. ?He began calling it the Illegal Panel, the Anti-Slam, etc. ?Things got more and more riotous. ?Almost nobody left the room, and there were many readers, in a wide range of styles. ??




At one point someone from the next room came over and complained that our room was too raucous, which it was.




As at any open mic, the quality of the offerings and performances varied, but I can't say it was any more uneven than the average sponsored event I've attended over many years. ?




It was easily the most interesting AWP event I've ever seen, and I walked out feeling just great.




No, I did not read anything myself--which is what everyone asks me when I tell the story. ?I just relished it. ?




?Read more about this event and see some photos here:





http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221













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

David Graham

grahamd at ripon.edu




Home Page:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz




Poetry Library:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html

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








= 


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job. 



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From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Mon Feb 16 12:28:03 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:28:03 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference
In-Reply-To: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
References: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <648208b60902160928p141e25b8j12e5fdf7e576efbf@mail.gmail.com>

There's an article concerning this at
http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221<http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.phpop=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221>

Several years ago at the AWP conference in Palm Springs, I was the only
panelist to show up for a panel on poetry & dreams.  The others had
legitimate reasons or mishaps that prevented them from coming, though I had
not been notified until the last minute.  I went to the appointed room at
the appointed time and discovered, to my horror, that the room was packed.
 Luckily, an official AWP person showed up at the same time and did the
dirty work of informing the audience that the panel had been cancelled.
 Friends and wags commented that the whole thing had been a dream.

- Jim


On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 8:45 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> I am just back from Chicago, where I ingested millions of new words by many
> poets at the AWP annual conference.
> Thought I would report on the most interesting panel I've ever attended.
>  It was billed as Chicago Poetry Slam, and was to have featured the inventor
> of the slam, Marc Smith, along with several others.
>
> None of the promised panelists showed up.  I don't know why, though I heard
> a number of rumors later.
>
> The room was packed, and everyone stayed for 10, 15, 20 minutes into the
> nonexistent event.  Finally a gentleman named C. J. Laity stood up and asked
> if anyone wanted to read a poem.  As it happens, several did.  Pretty soon
> there was an absolutely unplanned poetry slam occurring.  Mr. Laity
> performed as M.C., ushered readers up and led the applause after they read,
> etc.  He began calling it the Illegal Panel, the Anti-Slam, etc.  Things got
> more and more riotous.  Almost nobody left the room, and there were many
> readers, in a wide range of styles.
>
> At one point someone from the next room came over and complained that our
> room was too raucous, which it was.
>
> As at any open mic, the quality of the offerings and performances varied,
> but I can't say it was any more uneven than the average sponsored event I've
> attended over many years.
>
> It was easily the most interesting AWP event I've ever seen, and I walked
> out feeling just great.
>
> No, I did not read anything myself--which is what everyone asks me when I
> tell the story.  I just relished it.
>
>  Read more about this event and see some photos here:
>
>
> http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221
>
>
>
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From millb at aol.com  Mon Feb 16 12:29:55 2009
From: millb at aol.com (Millicent Accardi)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:29:55 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference
In-Reply-To: <648208b60902160928p141e25b8j12e5fdf7e576efbf@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
	<648208b60902160928p141e25b8j12e5fdf7e576efbf@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB5E73515553A1-1474-4B7@WEBMAIL-MY10.sysops.aol.com>

I remember that! I?was in the audience. The panel looked good--


Cheers,

Millicent 

-----Original Message-----
From: James Cervantes <cervantes.james at gmail.com>
Sent: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 9:28 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference



There's an article concerning this at 


http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221



Several years ago at the AWP conference in Palm Springs, I was the only panelist to show up for a panel on poetry & dreams. ?The others had legitimate reasons or mishaps that prevented them from coming, though I had not been notified until the last minute. ?I went to the appointed room at the appointed time and discovered, to my horror, that the room was packed. ?Luckily, an official AWP person showed up at the same time and did the dirty work of informing the audience that the panel had been cancelled. ?Friends and wags commented that the whole thing had been a dream.




- Jim






On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 8:45 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:


I am just back from Chicago, where I ingested millions of new words by many poets at the AWP annual conference. ? 



Thought I would report on the most interesting panel I've ever attended. ?It was billed as Chicago Poetry Slam, and was to have featured the inventor of the slam, Marc Smith, along with several others. ?




None of the promised panelists showed up. ?I don't know why, though I heard a number of rumors later.




The room was packed, and everyone stayed for 10, 15, 20 minutes into the nonexistent event. ?Finally a gentleman named C. J. Laity stood up and asked if anyone wanted to read a poem. ?As it happens, several did. ?Pretty soon there was an absolutely unplanned poetry slam occurring. ?Mr. Laity performed as M.C., ushered readers up and led the applause after they read, etc. ?He began calling it the Illegal Panel, the Anti-Slam, etc. ?Things got more and more riotous. ?Almost nobody left the room, and there were many readers, in a wide range of styles. ??




At one point someone from the next room came over and complained that our room was too raucous, which it was.




As at any open mic, the quality of the offerings and performances varied, but I can't say it was any more uneven than the average sponsored event I've attended over many years. ?




It was easily the most interesting AWP event I've ever seen, and I walked out feeling just great.




No, I did not read anything myself--which is what everyone asks me when I tell the story. ?I just relished it. ?




?Read more about this event and see some photos here:





http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221













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

David Graham

grahamd at ripon.edu




Home Page:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz




Poetry Library:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html

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










_______________________________________________
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

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From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Mon Feb 16 12:50:50 2009
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:50:50 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference
In-Reply-To: <648208b60902160928p141e25b8j12e5fdf7e576efbf@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
	<648208b60902160928p141e25b8j12e5fdf7e576efbf@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <60E54F53-CFEE-466A-A686-46D3B31AD419@ripon.edu>

Always a mistake not to read ALL of my posts, Jim!

David Graham
Grahamd at Ripon.edu


On Feb 16, 2009, at 11:28 AM, "James Cervantes" <cervantes.james at gmail.com 
 > wrote:

> There's an article concerning this at
>
> http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221
>
> Several years ago at the AWP conference in Palm Springs, I was the  
> only panelist to show up for a panel on poetry & dreams.  The others  
> had legitimate reasons or mishaps that prevented them from coming,  
> though I had not been notified until the last minute.  I went to the  
> appointed room at the appointed time and discovered, to my horror,  
> that the room was packed.  Luckily, an official AWP person showed up  
> at the same time and did the dirty work of informing the audience  
> that the panel had been cancelled.  Friends and wags commented that  
> the whole thing had been a dream.
>
> - Jim
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 8:45 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>  
> wrote:
> I am just back from Chicago, where I ingested millions of new words  
> by many poets at the AWP annual conference.
>
> Thought I would report on the most interesting panel I've ever  
> attended.  It was billed as Chicago Poetry Slam, and was to have  
> featured the inventor of the slam, Marc Smith, along with several  
> others.
>
> None of the promised panelists showed up.  I don't know why, though  
> I heard a number of rumors later.
>
> The room was packed, and everyone stayed for 10, 15, 20 minutes into  
> the nonexistent event.  Finally a gentleman named C. J. Laity stood  
> up and asked if anyone wanted to read a poem.  As it happens,  
> several did.  Pretty soon there was an absolutely unplanned poetry  
> slam occurring.  Mr. Laity performed as M.C., ushered readers up and  
> led the applause after they read, etc.  He began calling it the  
> Illegal Panel, the Anti-Slam, etc.  Things got more and more  
> riotous.  Almost nobody left the room, and there were many readers,  
> in a wide range of styles.
>
> At one point someone from the next room came over and complained  
> that our room was too raucous, which it was.
>
> As at any open mic, the quality of the offerings and performances  
> varied, but I can't say it was any more uneven than the average  
> sponsored event I've attended over many years.
>
> It was easily the most interesting AWP event I've ever seen, and I  
> walked out feeling just great.
>
> No, I did not read anything myself--which is what everyone asks me  
> when I tell the story.  I just relished it.
>
>  Read more about this event and see some photos here:
>
> http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221
>
>
>
>
>
> ========================
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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb 16 12:50:48 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:50:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Annie Finch on love poetry
Message-ID: <8CB5E763BF4E2F2-88C-B70@WEBMAIL-DY15.sysops.aol.com>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/feb/13/annie-michaels-poetry-workshop-love
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Mon Feb 16 15:51:29 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:51:29 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Remembering Michael Hartnett
In-Reply-To: <8CB5DEC70161E62-FA4-58DC@WEBMAIL-DZ40.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB5DEC70161E62-FA4-58DC@WEBMAIL-DZ40.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902161251h54026e93u72acaf6f297d1573@mail.gmail.com>

Thank you, Finnegan, for the Irish Times article in which Michael Smith
reminiscences about his friend Michael Hartnett.  I do so love Hartnett's
poem about his father, "That Actor Kiss", which is given below the article.
Here, from 'Irish Culture and Customs' are three more of his poems,
beginning with "The Death of An Irishwoman":

http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/Poetry/Hartnett.html

Best,

Judy

2009/2/15 <jforjames at aol.com>

> http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2009/0216/1233867938004.html
> Monday, February 16, 2009
> Remembering Michael Hartnett
> Michael Hartnett: no other ambition than to be a poet.
>
> Michael Hartnett was an esteemed poet from a young age, but his assurance
> about his creative destiny had its dangers.
>
> MICHAEL SMITH  recalls a significant artist whose early death 10 years ago
> can be viewed as an accident of time and place
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice
> and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job<http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb 16 16:08:20 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:08:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] sign o' the times: apostrophe banned in Birmin'ham
Message-ID: <8CB5E91D4488119-E70-801@WEBMAIL-DZ40.sysops.aol.com>

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090131/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_no_apostrophe
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From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Mon Feb 16 16:34:00 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:34:00 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference
In-Reply-To: <60E54F53-CFEE-466A-A686-46D3B31AD419@ripon.edu>
References: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
	<648208b60902160928p141e25b8j12e5fdf7e576efbf@mail.gmail.com>
	<60E54F53-CFEE-466A-A686-46D3B31AD419@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <648208b60902161334o2e1374bdr52ed92db3f7563f0@mail.gmail.com>

Ah, David.  I KNEW it looked familiar!
- Jim

On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 10:50 AM, Graham, David <GrahamD at ripon.edu> wrote:

> Always a mistake not to read ALL of my posts, Jim!
>
> David GrahamGrahamd at Ripon.edu
>
>
> On Feb 16, 2009, at 11:28 AM, "James Cervantes" <cervantes.james at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> There's an article concerning this at
>
> <http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.phpop=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221>
> http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221
>
> Several years ago at the AWP conference in Palm Springs, I was the only
> panelist to show up for a panel on poetry & dreams.  The others had
> legitimate reasons or mishaps that prevented them from coming, though I had
> not been notified until the last minute.  I went to the appointed room at
> the appointed time and discovered, to my horror, that the room was packed.
>  Luckily, an official AWP person showed up at the same time and did the
> dirty work of informing the audience that the panel had been cancelled.
>  Friends and wags commented that the whole thing had been a dream.
>
> - Jim
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 8:45 PM, David Graham < <grahamd at ripon.edu>
> grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:
>
>> I am just back from Chicago, where I ingested millions of new words by
>> many poets at the AWP annual conference.
>> Thought I would report on the most interesting panel I've ever attended.
>>  It was billed as Chicago Poetry Slam, and was to have featured the inventor
>> of the slam, Marc Smith, along with several others.
>>
>> None of the promised panelists showed up.  I don't know why, though I
>> heard a number of rumors later.
>>
>> The room was packed, and everyone stayed for 10, 15, 20 minutes into the
>> nonexistent event.  Finally a gentleman named C. J. Laity stood up and asked
>> if anyone wanted to read a poem.  As it happens, several did.  Pretty soon
>> there was an absolutely unplanned poetry slam occurring.  Mr. Laity
>> performed as M.C., ushered readers up and led the applause after they read,
>> etc.  He began calling it the Illegal Panel, the Anti-Slam, etc.  Things got
>> more and more riotous.  Almost nobody left the room, and there were many
>> readers, in a wide range of styles.
>>
>> At one point someone from the next room came over and complained that our
>> room was too raucous, which it was.
>>
>> As at any open mic, the quality of the offerings and performances varied,
>> but I can't say it was any more uneven than the average sponsored event I've
>> attended over many years.
>>
>> It was easily the most interesting AWP event I've ever seen, and I walked
>> out feeling just great.
>>
>> No, I did not read anything myself--which is what everyone asks me when I
>> tell the story.  I just relished it.
>>
>>  Read more about this event and see some photos here:
>>
>>
>> <http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221>
>> http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ========================
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
"Polish doesn't change quartz into a diamond."
                               -Wilma Askinas

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org
http://www.hamiltonstone.org/catalog.html#temporarymeaning
http://www.fieralingue.it/documenti/mr_bondo.pdf
http://www.poetserv.org/jvc/home/index.html
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From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Mon Feb 16 16:36:11 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:36:11 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference
In-Reply-To: <8CB5E73515553A1-1474-4B7@WEBMAIL-MY10.sysops.aol.com>
References: <9295F8D3-8DB2-43CE-9035-EDA343C010AF@ripon.edu>
	<648208b60902160928p141e25b8j12e5fdf7e576efbf@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB5E73515553A1-1474-4B7@WEBMAIL-MY10.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <648208b60902161336j6abeae63leb2aa454cccd53f4@mail.gmail.com>

Yeah, and we tried a couple of times afterward to get the same panel
accepted at other AWPs.  No go.  I guess they keep a scorecard.
- Jim

On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Millicent Accardi <millb at aol.com> wrote:

> I remember that! I was in the audience. The panel looked good--
>
> Cheers,
>
> Millicent
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Cervantes <cervantes.james at gmail.com>
> Sent: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 9:28 am
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Rogue panel at AWP conference
>
>  There's an article concerning this at
>
> http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221<http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.phpop=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221>
>
>  Several years ago at the AWP conference in Palm Springs, I was the only
> panelist to show up for a panel on poetry & dreams.  The others had
> legitimate reasons or mishaps that prevented them from coming, though I had
> not been notified until the last minute.  I went to the appointed room at
> the appointed time and discovered, to my horror, that the room was packed.
>  Luckily, an official AWP person showed up at the same time and did the
> dirty work of informing the audience that the panel had been cancelled.
>  Friends and wags commented that the whole thing had been a dream.
>
> - Jim
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 8:45 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:
>
>> I am just back from Chicago, where I ingested millions of new words by
>> many poets at the AWP annual conference.
>>  Thought I would report on the most interesting panel I've ever attended.
>>  It was billed as Chicago Poetry Slam, and was to have featured the inventor
>> of the slam, Marc Smith, along with several others.
>>
>>  None of the promised panelists showed up.  I don't know why, though I
>> heard a number of rumors later.
>>
>>  The room was packed, and everyone stayed for 10, 15, 20 minutes into the
>> nonexistent event.  Finally a gentleman named C. J. Laity stood up and asked
>> if anyone wanted to read a poem.  As it happens, several did.  Pretty soon
>> there was an absolutely unplanned poetry slam occurring.  Mr. Laity
>> performed as M.C., ushered readers up and led the applause after they read,
>> etc.  He began calling it the Illegal Panel, the Anti-Slam, etc.  Things got
>> more and more riotous.  Almost nobody left the room, and there were many
>> readers, in a wide range of styles.
>>
>>  At one point someone from the next room came over and complained that
>> our room was too raucous, which it was.
>>
>>  As at any open mic, the quality of the offerings and performances
>> varied, but I can't say it was any more uneven than the average sponsored
>> event I've attended over many years.
>>
>>  It was easily the most interesting AWP event I've ever seen, and I
>> walked out feeling just great.
>>
>>  No, I did not read anything myself--which is what everyone asks me when
>> I tell the story.  I just relished it.
>>
>>   Read more about this event and see some photos here:
>>
>>
>> http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1221
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ========================================
>> David Graham
>> grahamd at ripon.edu
>>
>>  Home Page:
>> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>>
>>  Poetry Library:
>> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
>> ==========================================
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
>
>
>
>   _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Access 350+ FREE radio stations anytime from anywhere on the web. Get the
> Radio Toolbar<http://toolbar.aol.com/aolradio/download.html?ncid=emlweusdown00000035>
> !
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Mon Feb 16 18:27:02 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:27:02 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <49983417.6010104@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<49983417.6010104@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902161527l5f2fe4b0kbe087fa225e54822@mail.gmail.com>

Beginning with "If we take it to be a poem, . . ." [longest paragraph] and
the rest except for these words in your last sentence:  "text which may be
a", your evaluation analysis is well reasoned and well written, and I agree
with your points.

I disagree with your reasoning in one small part of the evaluation that has
the banana poem not being a poem because you say it's not lineated.  My
thought is that since the poem consists of one line, that means it's
lineated.

Best,

Judy



2009/2/15 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> I've used my check-list on Bruce Andrews's text.  My analysis is
> stream-of-consciousness first-draft confusion.  I'm not up to anything more
> at the moment.  The gist of where I'm going should come through, though.
>
>
> Bananas are an example.
>
> This text gives me all kinds of trouble as a taxonomist.  It's too short
> for one to be able to
> tell whether it's lineated or not.  Lineation is a form of what I call the
> flow-break; that, in
> turn, is in my taxonomy the defining feature of poetry.  But it could be a
> saying, which is
> another form of literature--or of what I call informrature, words used to
> convey
> information.
>
> It has made me expand the first requirement of An Excellent Poem according
> to my
> check-list to:
>
> (1) expresses something importantly true or represents something centrally
> beautiful--
>
> or gets us to something importantly true or centrally beautiful
>
> assuming it doesn't do two or more of these things.
>
> On the surface, this text neither expresses anything importantly true nor
> represents any
> sort of beauty.  However, one can infer from it something importantly true:
> that
> meaningfulness is valuable.  It may even be said to celebrate rationality
> in reverse by
> representing its opposite.  I guess I would call it a conceptual poem.  Of
> course, it is a
> joke, but a good joke needs to say something of value.  This one says an
> insufficiency of
> data is troublesome.  We can't get any information from the text because of
> such an
> insufficiency.  I now think I would not call it a poem but a specimen of
> informrature, or
> words used to provide information.  Satire does this by revealing error.
>  This reveals,
> exemplifies, error.  It is funny because in a prestigious magazine by
> itself on a page, so to
> be taken as a poem or aphorism of sorts.  It is as the latter that I would
> now take it.
>
> If we take it to be a poem, then it is a conceptual poem commenting on
> poetry.  But
> perhaps also conveying an interesting sense of emptiness--loss, even.  It
> cuts one loose
> from one's moorings.  Adrift.  Out of context.  We're cut off from some
> accumulation of
> information that the text contributes to.  We've gotten to the party too
> late.  So it's an
> expression . . . no, a cause of perplexity, bewilderment.  One can give it
> a happy spin: it
> frees its reader into intellectual irresponsiblilty, pure reasonlessness.
>  In that manner it may
> be a poem.  As a synecdoche for the ultimate irrationality of life, it may
> give us pleasurable
> relief from the anxiety of not knowing what's going on--why should we since
> nothing can
> ultimately make sense.  Something importantly true for everyone in certain
> moods.
> Something else importantly true when we're feeling better is that existence
> does make
> sense.  As this text reminds us, allows us to re-realize.
>
> (2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or something
> that makes
> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
> eventually achieves Clarity;
>
> This text is certainly complicated by Thematic Misdirection--it is a non
> sequitur, or a one-
> element jump-cut poem, if we accept it as a poem.  We don't easily know
> what to make of
> it, though we do quickly overcome our inital puzzlement to understand it as
> a joke.
>
> (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which
> pulls its elements
> reasonably close together;
> It's too short not to be reasonably unified.
>
> (4) contains few or no superfluous words;
>
> I suppose a four-word sentence could have superfluous words, but this one
> doesn't.
>
> (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have
> such as
> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
> art), and imagery;
>
> Its mocking disconnection from the implicit law of discourse that require a
> text's
> references to have referents is over the top.  Other texts exist that are
> like this but none, I
> suspect do it exactly the same way or as well..
>
> (6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or
> thought; too overt
> Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
> It is all commonplace, but that is the point.  We take it as a
> matter-of-fact disclosure, then
> find it subversive.
>
> Conclusion: "Bananas are an example" is an excellent text which may be a
> poem.
>
> Bob Grumman
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb 16 18:40:19 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:40:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902161527l5f2fe4b0kbe087fa225e54822@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><49983417.6010104@nut-n-but
	.net> <7db1d01b0902161527l5f2fe4b0kbe087fa225e54822@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Beginning with "If we take it to be a poem, . . ." [longest paragraph] 
> and the rest except for these words in your last sentence:  "text 
> which may be a", your evaluation analysis is well reasoned and well 
> written, and I agree with your points.
Phooey.

>
> I disagree with your reasoning in one small part of the evaluation 
> that has the banana poem not being a poem because you say it's not 
> lineated.  My thought is that since the poem consists of one line, 
> that means it's lineated.   
>


Well, I'm being very fussy.  But, surely, this is lineated but not poetry?




If the Andrews text started with a small letter and had no period, I'd 
call it a poem.  If presented in a book of poems (called a book of 
poems), I'd accept it as a poem.  If labeled in a table of contents a 
poem, I'd accept it as a poem.  But just quoted from a page of a 
magazine, I can't call it a poem--though I would not say it was 
definitely prose, either.  Could be an aphorism, as I said.

Glad we could disagree on SOMEthing.  Thanks for responding.

--Bob






From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Wed Feb 18 15:29:21 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:29:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] If you're this way ...
Message-ID: <475833.65554.qm@web83305.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>





The Stain of Poetry:?
A Reading
Series presents


?

February 27th @ 7 p.m. - Stain Bar - Williamsburg,
Brooklyn

?

*Jason Gray, Tony Mancus, Deborah Poe, Ric Royer, Mario
Susko and Jessica Reed*

?

~~~

?

Jason Gray is the author of Photographing Eden (Ohio Univ.
Press, 2008), winner of the Hollis Summers Prize, and two chapbooks, How to
Paint the Savior Dead (Kent State Univ. Press, 2007) and Adam & Eve Go to
the Zoo (Dream Horse, 2003). His poems and reviews have appeared in Poetry, The
American Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. He
coedits the online magazine, Unsplendid (www.unsplendid.com). Web site:
jason-gray.net.

?

~~~

?

Tony Mancus? poems have appeared or will be appearing in
cream city review, Handsome, Forklift, Ohio,
Memorious and elsewhere. He teaches writing at Montclair
State University
and Hunter College. He co-founded Flying Guillotine
Press (flyingguillotinepress.blogspot.com) and makes books in Brooklyn and Queens.

?

~~~

?

Deborah Poe is the author of the poetry collection Our
Parenthetical Ontology (CustomWords 2008) as well as chapbooks from
Furniture_Press and Stockport Flats Press. Poe has received several literary
awards including the Thayer Fellowship of the Arts (2008) and three Pushcart
Prize nominations. Her writing is forthcoming or has appeared in journals such
as Coconut, Diode, Ploughshares, Filter Literary Magazine, Denver Quarterly,
Copper Nickel, and FOURSQUARE Editions as well as in the anthologies In Our Own
Words (MW Enterprises 2009), Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry and
Prose on HIV/AIDS From the Black Diaspora (Third World Press 2007) and A Sing
Economy (Flim Forum 2008). Her current projects include ?Elements? (her poetry
collection based on the periodic table), a short fiction collection entitled
?Event Landmarks,? and an anthology of short fiction. Assistant Professor of
English at Pace University, Pleasantville, Poe teaches
creative writing, contemporary fiction and theory. Visit her Web site,
www.deborahpoe.com, for more.

?

~~~

?

Ric Royer is a writer, performer, writer of performances and
performer of writings. Other works of literature include Hystery of Heat
(Publishing Genius), There Were One and It Was Two (Narrow House Records), and
Anthesteria (Bark Art Press). The Weather Not The Weather is forthcoming from
Outside Voices Press. He is also a founding editor of Ferrum Wheel.

?

An imprint of Bootstrap Productions (Cambridge, Mass.),
Buffalo N.Y.-based Outside Voices publishes poetry & experimental
text-based art.

?

http://www.ricroyer.com

http://www.looktouch.com/press

?

~~~

?

A witness and survivor of the war in Bosnia, Mario Susko moved to the US in 1993
where he lived in the 70s and got his M.A. and Ph.D. from SUNY Stony Brook. He
has published 77 books, 28 of which are his poetry collections. His most recent
work includes an integral edition/translation of Walt Whitman?s Leaves of
Grass, as well as an anthology of modern Jewish-American short stories A
Declaration of Being which he co-edited with M. Schwartzman and translated into
Croatian. His 6th poetry collection in English, Closing Time, was released in
2008 by Harbor Mountain Press. This January his Croatian publisher Meandarmedia
put out a Croatian edition of Closing Time and the erbacce-press from Liverpool, UK,
released his chapbook Rules of Engagement.

?

~~~

?

Jessica Reed?s poetry has appeared in The Paris Review, Tin
House, LIT, The Huffington Post, Zeek: A Journal of Jewish Thought and Culture,
as well as various online journals, and has been anthologized in Satellite
Convulsions: Poems from Tin House. She is the 2007 recipient of the Marie
Ponsot Poetry Prize and the Jerome Lowell Dejur Award. Originally from
Asheville, North Carolina, she lives in New York City, where she works as a
technical editor and where she received her MFA from the the City College of
the City University of New York.

?

~~~

?

?

Hosted by Amy King and Ana Bo?i?evi?

?

stain bar

766 grand street

brooklyn, ny 11211

(L train to Grand
  Street,

1 block west)

?

SITE:? http://www.stainofpoetry.com/

?

VIDEO:? http://stainofpoetry.wordpress.com/video/

?



_______



Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb 18 17:00:35 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:00:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] maths and poetry have a special relationship
Message-ID: <8CB602B75D9D026-14C4-1042@WEBMAIL-MZ27.sysops.aol.com>


http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/feb/04/maths-poetry-pi-fibonacci


Final proof that maths and poetry have a special relationship

>From pi to the Fibonacci sequence, poets' imaginations have been fired by the elegance of numbers ? and mathematicians have returned the compliment

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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Wed Feb 18 19:09:40 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:09:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Another Poetry Editor Done Gone
Message-ID: <499CA344.4050709@opus40.org>

http://www.pw.org/content/editor_remembered_postcard_new_york_city

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb 18 21:58:43 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:58:43 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] another AWP report
Message-ID: <8CB60551BECDF6C-364-13CE@WEBMAIL-MC04.sysops.aol.com>

http://writetoright.blogspot.com/2009/02/awp-or-zombie-fest.html
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From chris.lott at gmail.com  Thu Feb 19 11:55:28 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:55:28 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] Another Poetry Editor Done Gone
In-Reply-To: <499CA344.4050709@opus40.org>
References: <499CA344.4050709@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0902190855q7539820aj10300588a144e5ad@mail.gmail.com>

Sad-- I didn't realize Carol Houck-Smith had died. I had a painfully
funny incident years as as a college frosh, attending a dinner party
and lecturing Carol about regional poetry with no idea who she was
much less that she was the guest of honor.

Typically, I still think I was right...

c


From chris.lott at gmail.com  Thu Feb 19 11:58:01 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:58:01 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Way of all Flesh
In-Reply-To: <4998462F.7070006@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902150823see8b07ci54866db15b53ae42@mail.gmail.com>
	<4998462F.7070006@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0902190858j6eafca2dpb7d970a324dd0cbd@mail.gmail.com>

There are a lot of us in education who dream of an environment much
like what you propose, Bob!

c

On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 7:43 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
> I just dipped in with my viewpoint.  No time for amplification.  But I would
> add that my scheme would certainly allow dedicated teachers to drop in on
> elective courses and add input.  Remember, too, that I would want a good
> list of resources available--both hard copy and CD would be good.
> --Bob


From chris.lott at gmail.com  Thu Feb 19 12:02:10 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:02:10 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902161527l5f2fe4b0kbe087fa225e54822@mail.gmail.com>
	<4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com>

What the banana poem really is? "Ridicurous." Perhaps it has some
value as a historical artifact. Otherwise it's a joke which,
evidently, continues to exact its feeble punchline on those who should
know better.

c

On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 2:40 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
> Judy Prince wrote:
>>
>> Beginning with "If we take it to be a poem, . . ." [longest paragraph] and
>> the rest except for these words in your last sentence:  "text which may be
>> a", your evaluation analysis is well reasoned and well written, and I agree
>> with your points.
>
> Phooey.
>
>>
>> I disagree with your reasoning in one small part of the evaluation that
>> has the banana poem not being a poem because you say it's not lineated.  My
>> thought is that since the poem consists of one line, that means it's
>> lineated.
>
>
> Well, I'm being very fussy.  But, surely, this is lineated but not poetry?
>
>
>
>
> If the Andrews text started with a small letter and had no period, I'd call
> it a poem.  If presented in a book of poems (called a book of poems), I'd
> accept it as a poem.  If labeled in a table of contents a poem, I'd accept
> it as a poem.  But just quoted from a page of a magazine, I can't call it a
> poem--though I would not say it was definitely prose, either.  Could be an
> aphorism, as I said.
>
> Glad we could disagree on SOMEthing.  Thanks for responding.
>
> --Bob
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 
Chris Lott


From chris.lott at gmail.com  Thu Feb 19 12:06:59 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:06:59 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Poem of the Week- B. H. Fairchild
In-Reply-To: <49900EDB.7050003@nut-n-but.net>
References: <c6e.363904e1.36c0f851@cs.com> <49900EDB.7050003@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0902190906u318a9cp7c826ce5fdc72dd6@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 2:09 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
> Hey, surprise--I approve this poem.
>

You should have a logotype made into a stamp or seal that lucky
recipients could affix to their work. Ideally the stamp of approval
itself would be a piece of visual poetry. Think about it.

c


From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Thu Feb 19 12:42:00 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:42:00 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Poem of the Week- B. H. Fairchild
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0902190906u318a9cp7c826ce5fdc72dd6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <c6e.363904e1.36c0f851@cs.com> <49900EDB.7050003@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0902190906u318a9cp7c826ce5fdc72dd6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <648208b60902190942x7dd07507ybb54efff507ebfe3@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 10:06 AM, Chris Lott <chris.lott at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 2:09 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> wrote:
> > Hey, surprise--I approve this poem.
> >
>
> You should have a logotype made into a stamp or seal that lucky
> recipients could affix to their work. Ideally the stamp of approval
> itself would be a piece of visual poetry. Think about it.
>
> c



Chris, I approve your approval of  Bob's approval.

-- Jim
"Polish doesn't change quartz into a diamond."
                               -Wilma Askinas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org
http://www.hamiltonstone.org/catalog.html#temporarymeaning
http://www.fieralingue.it/documenti/mr_bondo.pdf
http://www.poetserv.org/jvc/home/index.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescervantes/
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb 19 12:44:20 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:44:20 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] maths and poetry have a special relationship
In-Reply-To: <8CB602B75D9D026-14C4-1042@WEBMAIL-MZ27.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB602B75D9D026-14C4-1042@WEBMAIL-MZ27.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902190944y568f117eua942d3a3ec1b1c17@mail.gmail.com>

Patricia Valdata sent a Fib poem for the SPRING Anthology:
http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=2900

the anthology:
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=333



On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:00 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/feb/04/maths-poetry-pi-fibonacci
>
> Final proof that maths and poetry have a special relationship
>
> >From pi to the Fibonacci sequence, poets' imaginations have been fired by
> the elegance of numbers ? and mathematicians have returned the compliment
>
> ------------------------------
> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice
> and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job<http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb 19 12:48:18 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:48:18 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Way of all Flesh
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0902190858j6eafca2dpb7d970a324dd0cbd@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902150823see8b07ci54866db15b53ae42@mail.gmail.com>
	<4998462F.7070006@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0902190858j6eafca2dpb7d970a324dd0cbd@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902190948i7c261eb4rde671c945021e20b@mail.gmail.com>

I agree, since when I was way back behind the tiny desk, not only from
behind the big one.


On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Chris Lott <chris.lott at gmail.com> wrote:

> There are a lot of us in education who dream of an environment much
> like what you propose, Bob!
>
> c
>
> On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 7:43 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> wrote:
> > I just dipped in with my viewpoint.  No time for amplification.  But I
> would
> > add that my scheme would certainly allow dedicated teachers to drop in on
> > elective courses and add input.  Remember, too, that I would want a good
> > list of resources available--both hard copy and CD would be good.
> > --Bob
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From david.weinstock at gmail.com  Thu Feb 19 12:55:21 2009
From: david.weinstock at gmail.com (David Weinstock)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:55:21 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] maths and poetry have a special relationship
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902190944y568f117eua942d3a3ec1b1c17@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB602B75D9D026-14C4-1042@WEBMAIL-MZ27.sysops.aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902190944y568f117eua942d3a3ec1b1c17@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <437b1e3a0902190955r7b632c83w4702bd3275d18e53@mail.gmail.com>

I have played with the Fib form as it was explained to me and generally had
no luck with it, but I very much like that one by Patricia Valdata, and the
symmetrical shape of it.


On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 12:44 PM, Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Patricia Valdata sent a Fib poem for the SPRING Anthology:
> http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=2900
>
> the anthology:
>
> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=333
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:00 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/feb/04/maths-poetry-pi-fibonacci
>>
>> Final proof that maths and poetry have a special relationship
>>
>> >From pi to the Fibonacci sequence, poets' imaginations have been fired by
>> the elegance of numbers ? and mathematicians have returned the compliment
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice
>> and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job<http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>
>> .
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>
>


-- 
..........................................................

DAVID WEINSTOCK
240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753

Home: 802-388-6939
Cell:    802-989-4314
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb 19 13:20:40 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:20:40 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] maths and poetry have a special relationship
In-Reply-To: <437b1e3a0902190955r7b632c83w4702bd3275d18e53@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB602B75D9D026-14C4-1042@WEBMAIL-MZ27.sysops.aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902190944y568f117eua942d3a3ec1b1c17@mail.gmail.com>
	<437b1e3a0902190955r7b632c83w4702bd3275d18e53@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902191020p5ac7e71dja910249d00137e86@mail.gmail.com>

Thank you, I do agree. And Spring is just it with her, crystalline!


On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 6:55 PM, David Weinstock
<david.weinstock at gmail.com>wrote:

> I have played with the Fib form as it was explained to me and generally had
> no luck with it, but I very much like that one by Patricia Valdata, and the
> symmetrical shape of it.
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 12:44 PM, Anny Ballardini <
> anny.ballardini at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Patricia Valdata sent a Fib poem for the SPRING Anthology:
>> http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=2900
>>
>> the anthology:
>>
>> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=333
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:00 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/feb/04/maths-poetry-pi-fibonacci
>>>
>>> Final proof that maths and poetry have a special relationship
>>>
>>> >From pi to the Fibonacci sequence, poets' imaginations have been fired
>>> by the elegance of numbers ? and mathematicians have returned the compliment
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice
>>> and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job<http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>
>>> .
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> ..........................................................
>
> DAVID WEINSTOCK
> 240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753
>
> Home: 802-388-6939
> Cell:    802-989-4314
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb 19 14:31:27 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:31:27 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902161527l5f2fe4b
	0kbe087fa225e54822@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net>

Chris Lott wrote:
> What the banana poem really is? "Ridicurous." Perhaps it has some
> value as a historical artifact. Otherwise it's a joke which,
> evidently, continues to exact its feeble punchline on those who should
> know better.
>
> c
Glad to get opposition from you so quickly after getting (ugh) agreement 
from you on another matter, Chris!   I think you do have a problem with 
minimalism.  Here, you don't connect the same way you don't connect to 
the van den Heuvel poem, tundra.  We who like this kind of stuff find 
the nothingness it jumps out of important; you don't.  I can't say who's 
"right," but I do think we come out ahead, because it gives us one thing 
to enjoy you can't enjoy.  So there!

I can't remember: what's your opinion of haiku?

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb 19 14:40:26 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:40:26 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Poem of the Week- B. H. Fairchild
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0902190906u318a9cp7c826ce5fdc72dd6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <c6e.363904e1.36c0f851@cs.com> <49900EDB.7050003@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0902190906u318a9cp7c826ce5fdc72dd6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <499DB5AA.1080108@nut-n-but.net>

Chris Lott wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 2:09 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>   
>> Hey, surprise--I approve this poem.
>>
>>     
>
> You should have a logotype made into a stamp or seal that lucky
> recipients could affix to their work. Ideally the stamp of approval
> itself would be a piece of visual poetry. Think about it.
>
> c
> __
I dunno, Chris.  I'm afraid poets sent the seal might sue me for 
committing a hate crime against them.  Even visual poets, most of whom 
deplore my insistence that visual poetry have words.

On the other hand, the idea of an actual seal expressing approval for a 
poem strikes me as . . . well let me say, I approve it!  I will let the 
idea soak through my Creative Under-Consciousness for a while.  Will let 
you know if anything comes of it.  (All I've thought of so far is a a 
text: "This poem/ will show 'em."
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb 19 14:48:33 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:48:33 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] maths and poetry have a special relationship
In-Reply-To: <437b1e3a0902190955r7b632c83w4702bd3275d18e53@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB602B75D9D026-14C4-1042@WEBMAIL-MZ27.sysops.aol.com><4b65c2d70902190944y568f117eua942d3a3ec1b1c17@mail.gmail.com>
	<437b1e3a0902190955r7b632c83w4702bd3275d18e53@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <499DB791.8010701@nut-n-but.net>

David Weinstock wrote:
> I have played with the Fib form as it was explained to me and 
> generally had no luck with it, but I very much like that one by 
> Patricia Valdata, and the symmetrical shape of it.
I like the form, but it has no more to do with mathematics than making a 
poem whose lines are, say, one syllable, two, three, five, seven, eleven 
syllables and so on in length.  Or, for that matter, 14 lines each ten 
syllables in length.

--Bob G.



From david.weinstock at gmail.com  Thu Feb 19 17:56:23 2009
From: david.weinstock at gmail.com (David Weinstock)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:56:23 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] maths and poetry have a special relationship
In-Reply-To: <499DB791.8010701@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB602B75D9D026-14C4-1042@WEBMAIL-MZ27.sysops.aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902190944y568f117eua942d3a3ec1b1c17@mail.gmail.com>
	<437b1e3a0902190955r7b632c83w4702bd3275d18e53@mail.gmail.com>
	<499DB791.8010701@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <437b1e3a0902191456x17011f24nf60c8e849e85ae85@mail.gmail.com>

You're right of course, Bob. But the conviction that the Fibonacci sequence
confers some sort of naturally occurring aesthetically pleasing proportions
to a poem is what has made the form a fad. Haiku were a fad once, and
sonnets before them, and have survived that to become useful.

The Fib discussion reminds me (abstractly) of GM Hopkins' "curtal sonnet"
Pied Beauty, which is shorter than a sonnet but, as he explained, retains
the same 8:6 proportions of a full 14-line sonnet.





On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> David Weinstock wrote:
>
>> I have played with the Fib form as it was explained to me and generally
>> had no luck with it, but I very much like that one by Patricia Valdata, and
>> the symmetrical shape of it.
>>
> I like the form, but it has no more to do with mathematics than making a
> poem whose lines are, say, one syllable, two, three, five, seven, eleven
> syllables and so on in length.  Or, for that matter, 14 lines each ten
> syllables in length.
>
> --Bob G.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 
..........................................................

DAVID WEINSTOCK
240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753

Home: 802-388-6939
Cell:    802-989-4314
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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 19 19:54:16 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:54:16 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902161527l5f2fe4b0kbe087fa225e54822@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com>
	<499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEBMAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com>

When the Andrews 'poem' was first suggested I said there was no point in trying to explain/justify it. 
It's an endpoint. As a?kind of poetic fillip,?there's no where to go from there. Thus it becomes an oddity,
something for museum of poetry to?display behind glass. "Look, kids, some poet made this...and said
it was a poem. Isn't that cool."? 

The haiku (or the epigram, for that matter) is an inexhaustable poetic model. 

Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Sent: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 2:31 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text


Chris Lott wrote:?
> What the banana poem really is? "Ridicurous." Perhaps it has some?
> value as a historical artifact. Otherwise it's a joke which,?
> evidently, continues to exact its feeble punchline on those who should?
> know better.?
>?
> c?
Glad to get opposition from you so quickly after getting (ugh) agreement from you on another matter, Chris! I think you do have a problem with minimalism. Here, you don't connect the same way you don't connect to the van den Heuvel poem, tundra. We who like this kind of stuff find the nothingness it jumps out of important; you don't. I can't say who's "right," but I do think we come out ahead, because it gives us one thing to enjoy you can't enjoy. So there!?
?
I can't remember: what's your opinion of haiku??
?
--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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb 19 20:12:20 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:12:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] maths and poetry have a special relationship
In-Reply-To: <437b1e3a0902191456x17011f24nf60c8e849e85ae85@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB602B75D9D026-14C4-1042@WEBMAIL-MZ27.sysops.aol.com><4b65c2d70902190944y568f117eua942d3a3ec1b1c17@mail.gmail.com><
	437b1e3a0902190955r7b632c83w4702bd3275d18e53@mail.gmail.com><499DB791.8010701@nut-n-but.net>
	<437b1e3a0902191456x17011f24nf60c8e849e85ae85@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <499E0374.7000508@nut-n-but.net>

David Weinstock wrote:
> You're right of course, Bob. But the conviction that the Fibonacci 
> sequence confers some sort of naturally occurring aesthetically 
> pleasing proportions to a poem is what has made the form a fad.  Haiku 
> were a fad once, and sonnets before them, and have survived that to 
> become useful.
Yes, and I think this one will, too.  I just get irritated at the silly 
"healing" of the 2 Cultures by people finding mathematics integral to 
some art.
>
> The Fib discussion reminds me (abstractly) of GM Hopkins' "curtal 
> sonnet" Pied Beauty, which is shorter than a sonnet but, as he 
> explained, retains the same 8:6 proportions of a full 14-line sonnet.
>
Haw, yes, Hopkins was another mathematician. 

--Bob
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>> wrote:
>
>     David Weinstock wrote:
>
>         I have played with the Fib form as it was explained to me and
>         generally had no luck with it, but I very much like that one
>         by Patricia Valdata, and the symmetrical shape of it.
>
>     I like the form, but it has no more to do with mathematics than
>     making a poem whose lines are, say, one syllable, two, three,
>     five, seven, eleven syllables and so on in length.  Or, for that
>     matter, 14 lines each ten syllables in length.
>
>     --Bob G.
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     New-Poetry mailing list
>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> ..........................................................
>
> DAVID WEINSTOCK
> 240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753
>
> Home: 802-388-6939
> Cell:    802-989-4314
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 19 21:14:32 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:14:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Another view of the AWP Conference
Message-ID: <8CB61181A473CAF-14E0-78C@WEBMAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com>

http://irasciblepoet.blogspot.com/
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb 19 22:41:36 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:41:36 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEBMAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902161527l5f2fe4b
	0kbe087fa225e54822@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com>
	<499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEBMAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>

jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> When the Andrews 'poem' was first suggested I said there was no point 
> in trying to explain/justify it.
> It's an endpoint. As a kind of poetic fillip, there's no where to go 
> from there. Thus it becomes an oddity,
> something for museum of poetry to display behind glass. "Look, kids, 
> some poet made this...and said
> it was a poem. Isn't that cool." 
>
> The haiku (or the epigram, for that matter) is an inexhaustable poetic 
> model.
>
> Finnegan
Cabbages aren't.

--Bob



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Fri Feb 20 00:56:12 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:56:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com>
	<499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEBMAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com>
	<499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>

It seems to me at once an anti-poem and a most fundamental or pure poem.  I
tend to agree and disagree with all the opinions offered so far.  But my
latest thought is that it's not a one-timer oddity, rather that it sets a
different mark for poems than has been set.  As with other well known poems
and poem-forms, it can be imitated with varying effects.
Judy

2009/2/19 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> jforjames at aol.com wrote:
>
>> When the Andrews 'poem' was first suggested I said there was no point in
>> trying to explain/justify it.
>> It's an endpoint. As a kind of poetic fillip, there's no where to go from
>> there. Thus it becomes an oddity,
>> something for museum of poetry to display behind glass. "Look, kids, some
>> poet made this...and said
>> it was a poem. Isn't that cool."
>> The haiku (or the epigram, for that matter) is an inexhaustable poetic
>> model.
>>
>> Finnegan
>>
> Cabbages aren't.
>
>
> --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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 20 06:11:15 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:11:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but
	.net><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com><499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net><8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEB
	MAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com><499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <499E8FD3.3000306@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> It seems to me at once an anti-poem and a most fundamental or pure 
> poem.  I tend to agree and disagree with all the opinions offered so 
> far.  But my latest thought is that it's not a one-timer oddity, 
> rather that it sets a different mark for poems than has been set.  As 
> with other well known poems and poem-forms, it can be imitated with 
> varying effects.  
>
> Judy
I agree.  As an expression of one very specific point of view, sure, 
it's sui generis.  But I think there are other texts similar to it, and 
will be. I also wonder why it could not be considered simply a 
particularly wry epigram.  Aside from all that, I have to say (as I 
often have) that I don't mind anyone else's not caring about 
understanding poetry, but am annoyed by the idea that because one person 
doesn't care about it, I ought to consider it a waste of time, too.

--Bob



From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb 20 09:38:24 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:38:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com><499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net><8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEBMAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com><499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB61800421147E-E44-23F2@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>

Judy, 
since Andrews' poem has been around for while, wouldn't we have a?good number of poems based on its model that we could admire. Maybe?they're out there and I don't know about them. By my guess is most attempts to?use the Andrews?poem as a model would be too derivative and thus critically dismissed. (Been there, done that.) How often has Andrews repeated himself with poems like "Bananas..."? If even the ur-poet of this novelty hasn't seen fit to revisit the form, it makes me wonder about any claims for it as a watershed poem.

In a certain way, I think one?Bob's other favorite poems, 'lighght', as an ultra-minimal neologistic?one-word poem, has more claim?to being a watershed poem, something that could be a model for other successful?poems along?its lines.?Even?so, there are limits to how many 
lighght-like poems could be made before they began to seem like ersatz knock-offs.??
Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
Sent: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:56 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text


It seems to me at once an anti-poem and a most fundamental or pure poem. ?I tend to agree and disagree with all the opinions offered so far. ?But my latest thought is that it's not a one-timer oddity, rather that it sets a different mark for poems than has been set. ?As with other well known poems and poem-forms, it can be imitated with varying effects. ? 



Judy


2009/2/19 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>


jforjames at aol.com wrote:

When the Andrews 'poem' was first suggested I said there was no point in trying to explain/justify it.
It's an endpoint. As a kind of poetic fillip, there's no where to go from there. Thus it becomes an oddity,
something for museum of poetry to display behind glass. "Look, kids, some poet made this...and said
it was a poem. Isn't that cool." 
The haiku (or the epigram, for that matter) is an inexhaustable poetic model.

Finnegan


Cabbages aren't. 





--Bob

_______________________________________________
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

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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb 20 09:43:57 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:43:57 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902161527l5f2fe4b0kbe087fa225e54822@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com><499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net><8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEBMAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com>
	<499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8CB6180CB862BD0-E44-2446@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>

Bob,
I think you neatly proved that most attempts would too derivative to take seriously.
Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Sent: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:41 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text


jforjames at aol.com wrote:?
> When the Andrews 'poem' was first suggested I said there was no point > in trying to explain/justify it.?
> It's an endpoint. As a kind of poetic fillip, there's no where to go > from there. Thus it becomes an oddity,?
> something for museum of poetry to display behind glass. "Look, kids, > some poet made this...and said?
> it was a poem. Isn't that cool." >?
> The haiku (or the epigram, for that matter) is an inexhaustable poetic > model.?
>?
> Finnegan?
Cabbages aren't.?
?
--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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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb 20 09:46:00 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:46:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] New Laureate comes from the other university in Iowa 
Message-ID: <8CB6181150146D2-E44-2462@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>


http://www.esthervilledailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/502784.html?nav=5003

Iowa?s poet laureate lauds Iowa?s land and people
ISU professor to serve term as state?s symbolic leader of poetry

By Michael Tidemann - Staff Writer POSTED: February 20, 2009 

"Iowa is a good place to write. We actually, in our weird way, support writers. We've always had a writing tradition here. Lots of times, it's turned into writers in exile, and that's the tradition in the Midwest: that you start out here and then you move away, and you write about thinking back. But I saw that as an early writer, and wanted to make a different kind of commitment to staying here and seeing what the issues were. You never know what's going to happen to your life, but it's only when you're in a place long enough that you can do anything in terms of the folklore, knowing the character of the people, improving the environment. There are certain issues you can't address if you only live in a place a year and then you move, or five years, and that's basically what we do in our culture these days. I actually have a unique perspective having been here probably 40 of my 50 years."

-Mary Swander on writing in Iowa

It should come as no surprise that Gov. Chet Culver asked Mary Sander Tuesday night to become the state's new poet laureate.

Swander, a professor in creating writing at Iowa State University, will serve a two-year term as the state's symbolic leader of poetry.

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 20 09:54:10 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:54:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <499E8FD3.3000306@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but
	.net><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com><499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net><8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEB
	MAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com><499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
	<499E8FD3.3000306@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net>

Bob Grumman wrote:
> Judy Prince wrote:
>> It seems to me at once an anti-poem and a most fundamental or pure 
>> poem.  I tend to agree and disagree with all the opinions offered so 
>> far.  But my latest thought is that it's not a one-timer oddity, 
>> rather that it sets a different mark for poems than has been set.  As 
>> with other well known poems and poem-forms, it can be imitated with 
>> varying effects. 
>> Judy
I would claim that it is a specimen of meaningfully meaningless text, a 
category that's been around since Dada and continues.  Or Zen?

Automobiles continue the process.

--Bob



From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb 20 10:01:35 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:01:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] minimals and the minimus as limit
Message-ID: <8CB61834271CDC9-E44-256A@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>


Since we're on the topic of minimal poetry, here's one by Kit Robinson from a sequence called "Thoughts." Discussed by Curt Faville on his blog:
http://compassrosebooks.blogspot.com/2009/02/kit-robinson-in-news.html

-
wind
knocks
paper
cup


off
edge
of
ledge


it
bounces
and
rolls


in
a
wide
arc


scudding
against
the 
concrete

-
It's got WC Williams written all over it. But it's a?well-seen image and unfolding word by word as it does the poem certainly mimics the motion of the cup in a way that gives?the poem some extra dynamism.

Finnegan
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 20 10:17:44 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:17:44 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <8CB61800421147E-E44-23F2@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but
	.net><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com><499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net><8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEB
	MAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com><499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB61800421147E-E44-23F2@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <499EC998.80505@nut-n-but.net>

jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> Judy,
> since Andrews' poem has been around for while, wouldn't we have a good 
> number of poems based on its model that we could admire. Maybe they're 
> out there and I don't know about them. By my guess is most attempts 
> to use the Andrews poem as a model would be too derivative and thus 
> critically dismissed. (Been there, done that.) How often has Andrews 
> repeated himself with poems like "Bananas..."? If even the ur-poet of 
> this novelty hasn't seen fit to revisit the form, it makes me wonder 
> about any claims for it as a watershed poem.
>
> In a certain way, I think one Bob's other favorite poems, 'lighght', 
> as an ultra-minimal neologistic one-word poem, has more claim to being 
> a watershed poem, something that could be a model for other 
> successful poems along its lines. Even so, there are limits to how many
> lighght-like poems could be made before they began to seem like ersatz 
> knock-offs.  
> Finnegan
I'm not claiming the Andrews as a watershed poem (necessarily).  But who 
imitated Cummings's typographical poems while he was alive? Very few.  
But his devices are now in wide use.  It takes a while for something 
truly new in the arts to be widely assimilated, and imitated, then used 
maturely (i.e., not just copied).  I would agree with James that the 
"ultra-minimalist" school of poetry can never attain the size of, say, 
the Iowa Plaintext Lyric school, but that's an unfair criticism because 
the ultra minimalists are a single small specialty of a much larger 
school, minimalist poetry, which would include the haiku; the Iowa poem 
is not so small a specialty, though you could call it a sub-species of 
conventional free verse.

In any case, we can't tell what place in literary history to assign the 
Andrews text without figuring out what and how it is and does. 

Another passing thought about the Andrews text: that it is an imagist 
poem, but about a conceptual, rather than a sensual, image 
(non-sequiturity).  Maybe it's more like "lighght" than is readily 
apparent. 

--Bob


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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb 20 10:15:39 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:15:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com><499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net><8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEBMAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com><499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com><499E8FD3.3000306@nut-n-but.net>
	<499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8CB618533900EFB-CFC-50@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>

Bob, I know you know that?the?most famous example of a meaningfully meaningless text, was brought forth by a linguist cum political philosopher, Noam Chomsky:
"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" 
He beat the poets to it.
Finnegan
--

> Judy Prince wrote:?
>> It seems to me at once an anti-poem and a most fundamental or pure >> poem. I tend to agree and disagree with all the opinions offered so >> far. But my latest thought is that it's not a one-timer oddity, >> rather that it sets a different mark for poems than has been set. As >> with other well known poems and poem-forms, it can be imitated with >> varying effects. >> Judy?
I would claim that it is a specimen of meaningfully meaningless text, a category that's been around since Dada and continues. Or Zen??
?
Automobiles continue the process.?
?
--Bob?




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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Fri Feb 20 10:41:53 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:41:53 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com>
	<499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net> <499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
	<499E8FD3.3000306@nut-n-but.net> <499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902200741j281cb0a6qadcf05bf06f5de45@mail.gmail.com>

I'm with Chris and Finnegan. If that's a poem, so is this: "so is my nose"
 And putting either in a poetry magazine helps neither.

Minimalism isn't the problem (and haiku is minimalist only in syllable
count). Rather than nothingness, this text jumps out its author's sense of
entitlement: he's stuck his thumb up his butt and and expects us to lick it
clean ? or at least not ignore him. I will ignore him from now on.


On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> Bob Grumman wrote:
>
>> Judy Prince wrote:
>>
>>> It seems to me at once an anti-poem and a most fundamental or pure poem.
>>>  I tend to agree and disagree with all the opinions offered so far.  But my
>>> latest thought is that it's not a one-timer oddity, rather that it sets a
>>> different mark for poems than has been set.  As with other well known poems
>>> and poem-forms, it can be imitated with varying effects. Judy
>>>
>> I would claim that it is a specimen of meaningfully meaningless text, a
> category that's been around since Dada and continues.  Or Zen?
>
> Automobiles continue the process.
>
>
> --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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Fri Feb 20 10:45:43 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:45:43 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <8CB61800421147E-E44-23F2@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com>
	<499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEBMAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com>
	<499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB61800421147E-E44-23F2@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902200745o8b9a29dtefec4f4e4e053e7a@mail.gmail.com>

Hi, Finnegan,
Bob and I are inveterate gauntlet-thrown-down-challengers who gnaw folk like
big dogs worrying big bones.  He can defend himself against my
characterisation [what fun!], if he likes.

I love these WEPD-induced discussions about what makes an Excellent
poem---and especially now---what makes a poem.  Reminds me of a frosh
course, "What Is Art?" that led to the answer:  "Probably anything".  Yes,
as you might guess, the final examination was a regurge of the texts.
 <sigh>    But that didnae mean the issue had resolved in my brain----oh no,
it's re-ignited here at NP [frightening thought that Bob's responsible for
the flame-lighting].

As you suggest, we don't know whether Andrews' poem has bred his own or
other poets' children---nor do we know if the children would be too much
like his and thus critically ignored.  We also seem not to know whether he
has decided to conceive others like his ahem banana original.  We don't know
much, do we?

Here's the real deal:  whenever I hear 'been there, done that', my eyes
narrow.  A family member of mine typically says she's been there and done
that----and she has.  Her 'been there, done thats', as with most of ours,
yield some fascinatingly unique, but mostly forgettable, offspring.  Her
saying 'been there, done that' has always struck me as an off-putting
negative.  It implies her having perfected the art form, so why would anyone
else even try it?  Imagine a teacher saying that to her students.

I did an Andrews knockoff in the last line of my evaluation of his banana
poem and rather think that it rivals his poem.

Judy

2009/2/20 <jforjames at aol.com>

> Judy,
> since Andrews' poem has been around for while, wouldn't we have a good
> number of poems based on its model that we could admire. Maybe they're out
> there and I don't know about them. By my guess is most attempts to use the
> Andrews poem as a model would be too derivative and thus critically
> dismissed. (Been there, done that.) How often has Andrews repeated himself
> with poems like "Bananas..."? If even the ur-poet of this novelty hasn't
> seen fit to revisit the form, it makes me wonder about any claims for it as
> a watershed poem.
>
> In a certain way, I think one Bob's other favorite poems, 'lighght', as an
> ultra-minimal neologistic one-word poem, has more claim to being a watershed
> poem, something that could be a model for other successful poems along its
> lines. Even so, there are limits to how many
> lighght-like poems could be made before they began to seem like ersatz
> knock-offs.
> Finnegan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> Sent: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:56 am
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
>
> It seems to me at once an anti-poem and a most fundamental or pure poem.  I
> tend to agree and disagree with all the opinions offered so far.  But my
> latest thought is that it's not a one-timer oddity, rather that it sets a
> different mark for poems than has been set.  As with other well known poems
> and poem-forms, it can be imitated with varying effects.
>  Judy
>
> 2009/2/19 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
>
>> jforjames at aol.com wrote:
>>
>>> When the Andrews 'poem' was first suggested I said there was no point in
>>> trying to explain/justify it.
>>> It's an endpoint. As a kind of poetic fillip, there's no where to go from
>>> there. Thus it becomes an oddity,
>>> something for museum of poetry to display behind glass. "Look, kids, some
>>> poet made this...and said
>>> it was a poem. Isn't that cool."
>>> The haiku (or the epigram, for that matter) is an inexhaustable poetic
>>> model.
>>>
>>> Finnegan
>>>
>> Cabbages aren't.
>>
>>
>> --Bob
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>  _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Fri Feb 20 10:58:20 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:58:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902200745o8b9a29dtefec4f4e4e053e7a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>	<4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net>	<9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com>	<499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net>	<8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEBMAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com>	<499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>	<7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>	<8CB61800421147E-E44-23F2@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902200745o8b9a29dtefec4f4e4e053e7a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <499ED31C.6040509@opus40.org>

I missed the beginning of this thread. Could someone repost the banana poem?

Judy Prince wrote:
> Hi, Finnegan,
>
> Bob and I are inveterate gauntlet-thrown-down-challengers who gnaw 
> folk like big dogs worrying big bones.  He can defend himself against 
> my characterisation [what fun!], if he likes.  
>
> I love these WEPD-induced discussions about what makes an Excellent 
> poem---and especially now---what makes a poem.  Reminds me of a frosh 
> course, "What Is Art?" that led to the answer:  "Probably anything". 
>  Yes, as you might guess, the final examination was a regurge of the 
> texts.  <sigh>    But that didnae mean the issue had resolved in my 
> brain----oh no, it's re-ignited here at NP [frightening thought that 
> Bob's responsible for the flame-lighting].
>
> As you suggest, we don't know whether Andrews' poem has bred his own 
> or other poets' children---nor do we know if the children would be too 
> much like his and thus critically ignored.  We also seem not to know 
> whether he has decided to conceive others like his ahem banana 
> original.  We don't know much, do we?  
>
> Here's the real deal:  whenever I hear 'been there, done that', my 
> eyes narrow.  A family member of mine typically says she's been there 
> and done that----and she has.  Her 'been there, done thats', as with 
> most of ours, yield some fascinatingly unique, but mostly forgettable, 
> offspring.  Her saying 'been there, done that' has always struck me as 
> an off-putting negative.  It implies her having perfected the art 
> form, so why would anyone else even try it?  Imagine a teacher saying 
> that to her students.  
>
> I did an Andrews knockoff in the last line of my evaluation of his 
> banana poem and rather think that it rivals his poem.  
>
> Judy
>
> 2009/2/20 <jforjames at aol.com <mailto:jforjames at aol.com>>
>
>     Judy,
>     since Andrews' poem has been around for while, wouldn't we have
>     a good number of poems based on its model that we could admire.
>     Maybe they're out there and I don't know about them. By my guess
>     is most attempts to use the Andrews poem as a model would be too
>     derivative and thus critically dismissed. (Been there, done that.)
>     How often has Andrews repeated himself with poems like
>     "Bananas..."? If even the ur-poet of this novelty hasn't seen fit
>     to revisit the form, it makes me wonder about any claims for it as
>     a watershed poem.
>
>     In a certain way, I think one Bob's other favorite poems,
>     'lighght', as an ultra-minimal neologistic one-word poem, has more
>     claim to being a watershed poem, something that could be a model
>     for other successful poems along its lines. Even so, there are
>     limits to how many
>     lighght-like poems could be made before they began to seem like
>     ersatz knock-offs.  
>     Finnegan
>
>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com
>     <mailto:jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>>
>     Sent: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:56 am
>     Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
>
>     It seems to me at once an anti-poem and a most fundamental or pure
>     poem.  I tend to agree and disagree with all the opinions offered
>     so far.  But my latest thought is that it's not a one-timer
>     oddity, rather that it sets a different mark for poems than has
>     been set.  As with other well known poems and poem-forms, it can
>     be imitated with varying effects.  
>
>     Judy
>
>     2009/2/19 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net
>     <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>>
>
>         jforjames at aol.com <mailto:jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>             When the Andrews 'poem' was first suggested I said there
>             was no point in trying to explain/justify it.
>             It's an endpoint. As a kind of poetic fillip, there's no
>             where to go from there. Thus it becomes an oddity,
>             something for museum of poetry to display behind glass.
>             "Look, kids, some poet made this...and said
>             it was a poem. Isn't that cool."
>             The haiku (or the epigram, for that matter) is an
>             inexhaustable poetic model.
>
>             Finnegan
>
>         Cabbages aren't.
>
>
>         --Bob
>
>         _______________________________________________
>         New-Poetry mailing list
>         New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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 <mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career
>     advice and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job
>     <http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>.
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     New-Poetry mailing list
>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb 20 11:07:00 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:07:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <499EC998.80505@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com><499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net><8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEBMAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com><499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com><8CB61800421147E-E44-23F2@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
	<499EC998.80505@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8CB618C656EA0D3-13F4-7AE@WEBMAIL-DZ12.sysops.aol.com>

Bob, I'm not sure you can say?Andrews' poem?has an aspect of 'non sequitur', because it follows nothing. Unless you mean non sequitur to the poems in book/journal,?his corpus, and the canon of poetry itself...but that's a stretch, I think.

I said I wasn't going to parse or to explicate the poem, but I'll relent and say?a few things about it:

1) It's a fragment, of course.?The fragment being a literary form, in a certain sense, because?of all the texts that we have perserved and studied?from the?ancients (Heraklitas, Sappho, etc.) that are only fragments. And from these stray snippets of lit naturally?we infer much. It is in the?nature of language that the?mind tries to?fill out?a story/narrative around them. The fragment becomes a 'seed element' whose flowering is speculative thought.

2) It has that?aspect of nonsense verse; a childish quality, Bananas, of all the fruits & vegetables, are often used in humor. There's?a?phallic joke imbedded there perhaps.?And
the implication of? 'monkey business'. Maybe?even the play of the pratfall of 'slipped on a banana?peel', though that's a step too far, since our exemplar Bananas appear to
be fully dressed.

3)?Most important is the rhetorical piece of 'are an example'.?I see that phrase?as being a direct nod to William Carlos Williams' "So much depends...'??An inverse, ending on, instead of starting with?a rhetorical locution:

So much / depends upon // a red wheel /?barrow

Bananas are an example.

--
For now, that is all I shall on the curious matter of "Bananas...".
Finnegan

From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Sent: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:17 am

In any case, we can't tell what place in literary history to assign the Andrews text without figuring out what and how it is and does.? 

Another passing thought about the Andrews text: that it is an imagist poem, but about a conceptual, rather than a sensual, image (non-sequiturity).? Maybe it's more like "lighght" than is readily apparent.? 







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From david.weinstock at gmail.com  Fri Feb 20 11:13:47 2009
From: david.weinstock at gmail.com (David Weinstock)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:13:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] minimals and the minimus as limit
In-Reply-To: <8CB61834271CDC9-E44-256A@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB61834271CDC9-E44-256A@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <437b1e3a0902200813n2c1070f5xcbda866ccf6b41be@mail.gmail.com>

A short story writer or a novelist who had just written "Wind knocks paper
cup off edge of ledge. It bounces and rolls in a wide arc, scudding against
the concrete." would know he had composed a good, scene-setting first
sentence of a larger work, which if followed by hundreds or thousands of
sentences of the same quality would really be something.


A poet -- I include myself in this belief-- would think he was done for the
day and go check his email.


Is there a minimum below which we must not go? Aren't we starving our
readers, or kidding ourselves, when we offer so vanishingly little at a
time?
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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb 20 11:24:05 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:24:05 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902200745o8b9a29dtefec4f4e4e053e7a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but.net><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com><499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net><8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEBMAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com><499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com><8CB61800421147E-E44-23F2@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902200745o8b9a29dtefec4f4e4e053e7a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB618EC8D90445-13F4-913@WEBMAIL-DZ12.sysops.aol.com>

That's what I was saying, Judy: Your poem?may in fact rival?or exceed?Andrews' poem. But you'll not get any credit for getting to the minimus point in second place.
It's done; a?fait accompli, so to speak. 
Finnegan





Here's the real deal: ?whenever I hear 'been there, done that', my eyes narrow. ?A family member of mine typically says she's been there and done that----and she has. ?Her 'been there, done thats', as with most of ours, yield some fascinatingly unique, but mostly forgettable, offspring. ?Her saying 'been there, done that' has always struck me as an off-putting negative. ?It implies her having perfected the art form, so why would anyone else even try it? ?Imagine a teacher saying that to her students. ?




I did an Andrews knockoff in the last line of my evaluation of his banana poem and rather think that it rivals his poem. ?




Judy





-----
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 20 11:38:29 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:38:29 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <8CB618533900EFB-CFC-50@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but
	.net><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com><499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net><8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEB
	MAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com><499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com><499E8FD3
	.3000306@nut-n-but.net><499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB618533900EFB-CFC-50@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <499EDC85.9070207@nut-n-but.net>

jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> Bob, I know you know that the most famous example of a meaningfully 
> meaningless text, was brought forth by a linguist cum political 
> philosopher, Noam Chomsky:
> "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"
> He beat the poets to it.
> Finnegan
I'm too tired right now to say why, but the Andrews text seems to me 
MUCH different.  Well, maybe I'll try.  The Chomsky won't be taken as 
anything but cleverly meaningless.  It's surrealistic.  The Andrews is 
completely meaningful made meaningless by being wrenched out of 
context.  The Andrews is also intended as some kind of literary text.  I 
think the effect on you of the Andrews is exactly the effect on me of 
the Chomsky whereas the Andrews acts like a haiku on me.

Oh, and Chomsky is a political crank, not a political philosopher.  But 
I'm with him all the way in linguistics.  (Is he still a linguist?  He 
may be the Ezra Pound of linguistics.)

--Bob G.
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Fri Feb 20 11:45:32 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:45:32 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] minimals and the minimus as limit
In-Reply-To: <437b1e3a0902200813n2c1070f5xcbda866ccf6b41be@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB61834271CDC9-E44-256A@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
	<437b1e3a0902200813n2c1070f5xcbda866ccf6b41be@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <D2C942FE-856A-4F4E-98A5-E0550C8DCF4E@ripon.edu>


>
>
> On Feb 20, 2009, at 10:13 AM, David Weinstock wrote:
>> Is there a minimum below which we must not go? Aren't we starving  
>> our readers, or kidding ourselves, when we offer so vanishingly  
>> little at a time?
>>
=======================================


My answer would be yes, even for "The Red Wheelbarrow," which is not  
a very satisfying poem to my mind precisely because he doesn't  
exemplify or otherwise explore exactly what that "so much" is.  He  
simply makes a vague and wispy claim that "so much depends," to which  
the proper American response is, So What?

Of course, we often forget that "The Red Wheelbarrow" originally  
appeared in the book *Spring and All*, which supplies much of the  
context which I miss in its anthologizing as a separate piece.

About most minimal pieces I feel as I do when I encounter an entirely  
white canvas hanging on the museum wall, or a pile of dirt presented  
as an "installation."  Yes, I understand how the artists are  
"challenging" the accepted definitions, posing tricky questions about  
aesthetics & the social parameters of art, and so forth.  But  
ultimately my response is So What?  If the work is recent I also  
reflect on how many decades' worth of such deliberately boring work  
I've already taken in.

The problem, for me, is that intellectualizing about the minimal  
thang--however interesting--is in a fundamental way extrinsic to the  
artwork itself, which is not interesting in any way except as a  
springboard for such philosophizing.  The difference between that and  
a canvas by Rembrandt or Richard Diebenkorn is that such works  
satisfy in themselves *as well* as allowing all the aesthetic  
contemplation one wishes to apply.

Way back in college I coined my personal definition of conceptual  
art:  that which is more interesting to talk about than view.

We can have quite a lively and stimulating discussion of the bananas  
poem without much need to examine the text, in fact.  The same is not  
true of Ashbery or Frost.



========================================
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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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb 20 11:46:40 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:46:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] minimals and the minimus as limit
In-Reply-To: <437b1e3a0902200813n2c1070f5xcbda866ccf6b41be@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB61834271CDC9-E44-256A@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
	<437b1e3a0902200813n2c1070f5xcbda866ccf6b41be@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB6191EB4BEED1-6E8-B1@WEBMAIL-DZ12.sysops.aol.com>

David, that Kit Robinson?poem was part part of larger sequence.?So it might not be right foil for your question. 

Since you bring up novels remember Hemingway's novel in 6 words, given as an answer to a challenge:
"For sale: baby shoes, never used."

Poignant want ad that it is, it's spawned a recent anthology, I believe, where other contemporary authors tried their hand at the 
collapsed roman ? clef. But it's ultimately the playing out of joke.

Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: David Weinstock <david.weinstock at gmail.com>
Sent: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:13 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] minimals and the minimus as limit



A short story writer or a novelist who had just written "Wind knocks paper cup off edge of ledge. It bounces and rolls in a wide arc, scudding against the concrete." would know he had composed a good, scene-setting first sentence of a larger work, which if followed by hundreds or thousands of sentences of the same quality would really be something.




A poet -- I include myself in this belief-- would think he was done for the day and go check his email.




Is there a minimum below which we must not go? Aren't we starving our readers, or kidding ourselves, when we offer so vanishingly little at a time? 













_______________________________________________
ew-Poetry mailing list
ew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
ttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 20 11:51:55 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:51:55 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <8CB618C656EA0D3-13F4-7AE@WEBMAIL-DZ12.sysops.aol.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><4999F963.5070401@nut-n-but
	.net><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb762h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com><499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net><8CB610CE3B0921D-14E0-3C2@WEB
	MAIL-MA11.sysops.aol.com><499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com><8CB61800
	421147E-E44-23F2@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com><499EC998.80505@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB618C656EA0D3-13F4-7AE@WEBMAIL-DZ12.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <499EDFAB.50404@nut-n-but.net>

jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> Bob, I'm not sure you can say Andrews' poem has an aspect of 'non 
> sequitur', because it follows nothing. Unless you mean non sequitur to 
> the poems in book/journal, his corpus, and the canon of poetry 
> itself...but that's a stretch, I think.
Call it, as you do, a "fragment," then.  But the text strongly implies 
that it continues a discussion about something that bananas are an 
example of.   And I now remember that quite a bit of whatevers are 
currently being made that collage just these kinds of fragments.  I 
think, too, of Bern Porter's work: often some cut-out from a magazine 
advertisement as short and non sequitured as the Andrews.

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 20 11:56:17 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:56:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902200741j281cb0a6qadcf05bf06f5de45@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><9b1b9dab0902190902i1feeb76
	2h58bea04c4e8eb930@mail.gmail.com><499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net>
	<499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com><499E8FD3.3000306@nut-n-but.net>
	<499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902200741j281cb0a6qadcf05bf06f5de45@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <499EE0B1.8090903@nut-n-but.net>

Michael Snider wrote:
> I'm with Chris and Finnegan. If that's a poem, so is this: "so is my 
> nose"  And putting either in a poetry magazine helps neither.
>
> Minimalism isn't the problem (and haiku is minimalist only in syllable 
> count). Rather than nothingness, this text jumps out its author's 
> sense of entitlement: he's stuck his thumb up his butt and and expects 
> us to lick it clean ? or at least not ignore him. I will ignore him 
> from now on.
Yikes, Michael, why so hostile?  And what in the world does this text 
have to do with a sense of entitlement?

--Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 20 12:14:12 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:14:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] minimals and the minimus as limit
In-Reply-To: <D2C942FE-856A-4F4E-98A5-E0550C8DCF4E@ripon.edu>
References: <8CB61834271CDC9-E44-256A@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com><437b1e3a0902200813n2c1070f5xcbda866ccf6b41be@mail.gmail.com>
	<D2C942FE-856A-4F4E-98A5-E0550C8DCF4E@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <499EE4E4.6010705@nut-n-but.net>

I'm reminded of one of my boilerplate observations about once thinking 
that the best artwork would have to be a Wagnerian combination of all 
the arts; eventually I realized that intensification is as valuable as 
broadness.  Similarly: ornamentation can valuably go two opposite ways: 
toward greater elaboration or toward elimination.

Another long-held belief of mine is that the much that depends on the 
farm scene in Williams's poem is the value of existence--because that's 
near-zero if not for the moments of final beauty ordinary objects in 
ordinary places like the ones he describes can yield.

--Bob G.



From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Fri Feb 20 12:27:20 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:27:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <499EE0B1.8090903@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but.net> <499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
	<499E8FD3.3000306@nut-n-but.net> <499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902200741j281cb0a6qadcf05bf06f5de45@mail.gmail.com>
	<499EE0B1.8090903@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902200927j36828f95n25ddae60faa5cea0@mail.gmail.com>

Not hostile to you, Bob, but to the kind of "artist" who thinks other people
must reach out to them ? who feel entitled to the time and money of other
people simply because they think themselves creative, or worse, think they
can successfully pose  as creative.

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> Michael Snider wrote:
>
>> I'm with Chris and Finnegan. If that's a poem, so is this: "so is my nose"
>>  And putting either in a poetry magazine helps neither.
>>
>> Minimalism isn't the problem (and haiku is minimalist only in syllable
>> count). Rather than nothingness, this text jumps out its author's sense of
>> entitlement: he's stuck his thumb up his butt and and expects us to lick it
>> clean ? or at least not ignore him. I will ignore him from now on.
>>
> Yikes, Michael, why so hostile?  And what in the world does this text have
> to do with a sense of entitlement?
>
> --Bob G.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From halvard at gmail.com  Fri Feb 20 12:34:12 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:34:12 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] minimals and the minimus as limit
In-Reply-To: <437b1e3a0902200813n2c1070f5xcbda866ccf6b41be@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB61834271CDC9-E44-256A@mblk-d43.sysops.aol.com>
	<437b1e3a0902200813n2c1070f5xcbda866ccf6b41be@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902200934g4acc2e1fh1642b08f056af86c@mail.gmail.com>

My dos centavos in answer to both questions: No.

No limits at either extreme.

Hal

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 10:13 AM, David Weinstock <david.weinstock at gmail.com
> wrote:

> A short story writer or a novelist who had just written "Wind knocks paper
> cup off edge of ledge. It bounces and rolls in a wide arc, scudding against
> the concrete." would know he had composed a good, scene-setting first
> sentence of a larger work, which if followed by hundreds or thousands of
> sentences of the same quality would really be something.
>
>
> A poet -- I include myself in this belief-- would think he was done for the
> day and go check his email.
>
>
> Is there a minimum below which we must not go? Aren't we starving our
> readers, or kidding ourselves, when we offer so vanishingly little at a
> time?
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 20 13:07:51 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:07:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902200927j36828f95n25ddae60faa5cea0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org><4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com><499DB38F.8070406@nut-n-but
	.net>
	<499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com><499E8FD3.3000306@nut-n-but.net>
	<499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net><6768ac830902200741j281cb0a6qadcf05bf06f5de45@mail.gmail.com><499EE0B1.8090903@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902200927j36828f95n25ddae60faa5cea0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <499EF177.5050503@nut-n-but.net>

Michael Snider wrote:
> Not hostile to you, Bob, but to the kind of "artist" who thinks other 
> people must reach out to them ? who feel entitled to the time and 
> money of other people simply because they think themselves creative, 
> or worse, think they can successfully pose  as creative.
Didn't take it personally, Michael, just wondering why you think Andrews 
is that sort of "artist?"  He's part of the language poetry crew that 
I've been antagonistic to, on and off, for years. because I think 
they've not helped their brother and sister otherstreamersperimentalists 
in visual poetry as much as I feel they ought to have (from positions of 
much greater influence than any of my crew have gotten).  But I like 
some of the things he's done, and met him a few years ago--attending one 
of my crew's exhibitions--and he seemed affable and supportive.  I 
didn't immediately take to this text of his--because it indeed doesn't 
seem like much, and because it appeared in the Paris Review, for me 
another Enemy of Poetry.  And I still have a bias against anything a 
language poet does.  But I have to say the thing now appeals to me quite 
a lot.


--Bob



From grahamd at ripon.edu  Fri Feb 20 13:16:48 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:16:48 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] "54 Poets Walk Into a Bar"
Message-ID: <E9983CDC-779F-4429-8D0E-F54AEEFF7CCD@ripon.edu>

Including yours truly.  The Humor Issue of Poemeleon, just appeared:

http://www.poemeleon.org/david-graham2

Also including Charles Harper Webb, Martha Silano, Roy Jacobstein,  
Marilyn Taylor, Jessy Randall, and Sherman Alexie, among the 54. . . .



========================================
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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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Fri Feb 20 13:33:34 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:33:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <499EF177.5050503@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
	<499E8FD3.3000306@nut-n-but.net> <499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902200741j281cb0a6qadcf05bf06f5de45@mail.gmail.com>
	<499EE0B1.8090903@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902200927j36828f95n25ddae60faa5cea0@mail.gmail.com>
	<499EF177.5050503@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902201033j976948ducd3483015dded1b5@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 1:07 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> Michael Snider wrote:
>
>> Not hostile to you, Bob, but to the kind of "artist" who thinks other
>> people must reach out to them ? who feel entitled to the time and money of
>> other people simply because they think themselves creative, or worse, think
>> they can successfully pose  as creative.
>>
> Didn't take it personally, Michael, just wondering why you think Andrews is
> that sort of "artist?"  He's part of the language poetry crew that I've been
> antagonistic to, on and off, for years. because I think they've not helped
> their brother and sister otherstreamersperimentalists in visual poetry as
> much as I feel they ought to have (from positions of much greater influence
> than any of my crew have gotten).  But I like some of the things he's done,
> and met him a few years ago--attending one of my crew's exhibitions--and he
> seemed affable and supportive.  I didn't immediately take to this text of
> his--because it indeed doesn't seem like much, and because it appeared in
> the Paris Review, for me another Enemy of Poetry.  And I still have a bias
> against anything a language poet does.  But I have to say the thing now
> appeals to me quite a lot.
>
>
> --Bob
>
>

I don't take it personally, Bob, not at all. But the langpo bunch may be
even worse than the creative posers ? they think other people should pay
attention  because they think they have an idea. Silliman uses the "School
of Quietude" as a club, and when I can be bothered with them I call them the
"School of Phlogiston": a lot of hot air about nothing.

Mike
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Fri Feb 20 13:54:57 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:54:57 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] "54 Poets Walk Into a Bar"
In-Reply-To: <E9983CDC-779F-4429-8D0E-F54AEEFF7CCD@ripon.edu>
References: <E9983CDC-779F-4429-8D0E-F54AEEFF7CCD@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902201054x31f91d25n35588d737d90641b@mail.gmail.com>

Congratulations, David, and nice work, especially your address to Uncle
Walt.

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 1:16 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> Including yours truly.  The Humor Issue of Poemeleon, just appeared:
> http://www.poemeleon.org/david-graham2
>
> Also including Charles Harper Webb, Martha Silano, Roy Jacobstein, Marilyn
> Taylor, Jessy Randall, and Sherman Alexie, among the 54. . . .
>
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From halvard at gmail.com  Fri Feb 20 14:15:25 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:15:25 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <499EF177.5050503@nut-n-but.net>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<4b65c2d70902150702l6e7b3d9aqd5b725d35b2dd61e@mail.gmail.com>
	<499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
	<499E8FD3.3000306@nut-n-but.net> <499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902200741j281cb0a6qadcf05bf06f5de45@mail.gmail.com>
	<499EE0B1.8090903@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902200927j36828f95n25ddae60faa5cea0@mail.gmail.com>
	<499EF177.5050503@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902201115m12cd185aj2c99dad45417897c@mail.gmail.com>

Lynda and I heard Andrews "read" at the Ear Inn in NYC a few years back, and
I must say
the "reading" was remarkable. He stood before a small group of listeners
"reading" from a sheaf
of papers he held in his hand. The language flow was strongly rhythmical
(though not
necessarily metrical) and it was really quite amazing to hear bits and
pieces of the chatter
in the bar behind him working their way into the reading.

Hal

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> Michael Snider wrote:
>
>> Not hostile to you, Bob, but to the kind of "artist" who thinks other
>> people must reach out to them ? who feel entitled to the time and money of
>> other people simply because they think themselves creative, or worse, think
>> they can successfully pose  as creative.
>>
> Didn't take it personally, Michael, just wondering why you think Andrews is
> that sort of "artist?"  He's part of the language poetry crew that I've been
> antagonistic to, on and off, for years. because I think they've not helped
> their brother and sister otherstreamersperimentalists in visual poetry as
> much as I feel they ought to have (from positions of much greater influence
> than any of my crew have gotten).  But I like some of the things he's done,
> and met him a few years ago--attending one of my crew's exhibitions--and he
> seemed affable and supportive.  I didn't immediately take to this text of
> his--because it indeed doesn't seem like much, and because it appeared in
> the Paris Review, for me another Enemy of Poetry.  And I still have a bias
> against anything a language poet does.  But I have to say the thing now
> appeals to me quite a lot.
>
>
> --Bob
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Fri Feb 20 16:30:27 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:30:27 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902201115m12cd185aj2c99dad45417897c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org> <499E2670.2040206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
	<499E8FD3.3000306@nut-n-but.net> <499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902200741j281cb0a6qadcf05bf06f5de45@mail.gmail.com>
	<499EE0B1.8090903@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902200927j36828f95n25ddae60faa5cea0@mail.gmail.com>
	<499EF177.5050503@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902201115m12cd185aj2c99dad45417897c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902201330p1085a830o5a1fe2b776006670@mail.gmail.com>

>From what you write, and from what we read, Andrews has to be considered an
artist rather than a poet, like Philip Corner of the Fluxus team. The
discussion on whether his (Andrew's) is a poem, also by Robert Pinsky, is
highly valuable. Many times at the Venice Biennale I had to face and
understand sets of words that were put there in a frame or without frame and
I was compelled to try to create philosophical, artistic, poetic
interpretations to justify the presence of such an 'object' at a Biennale.
They probably convey more than other poetic or philosophical or artistic
'objects' because they force the spectator to invent something intelligent.
See for example pages of a dictionary glued to the wall or on canvas, to
have an idea. Or like Andrew's, a simple, but not too logical, statement.


On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 8:15 PM, Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com> wrote:

> Lynda and I heard Andrews "read" at the Ear Inn in NYC a few years back,
> and I must say
> the "reading" was remarkable. He stood before a small group of listeners
> "reading" from a sheaf
> of papers he held in his hand. The language flow was strongly rhythmical
> (though not
> necessarily metrical) and it was really quite amazing to hear bits and
> pieces of the chatter
> in the bar behind him working their way into the reading.
>
> Hal
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:
>
>> Michael Snider wrote:
>>
>>> Not hostile to you, Bob, but to the kind of "artist" who thinks other
>>> people must reach out to them ? who feel entitled to the time and money of
>>> other people simply because they think themselves creative, or worse, think
>>> they can successfully pose  as creative.
>>>
>> Didn't take it personally, Michael, just wondering why you think Andrews
>> is that sort of "artist?"  He's part of the language poetry crew that I've
>> been antagonistic to, on and off, for years. because I think they've not
>> helped their brother and sister otherstreamersperimentalists in visual
>> poetry as much as I feel they ought to have (from positions of much greater
>> influence than any of my crew have gotten).  But I like some of the things
>> he's done, and met him a few years ago--attending one of my crew's
>> exhibitions--and he seemed affable and supportive.  I didn't immediately
>> take to this text of his--because it indeed doesn't seem like much, and
>> because it appeared in the Paris Review, for me another Enemy of Poetry.
>>  And I still have a bias against anything a language poet does.  But I have
>> to say the thing now appeals to me quite a lot.
>>
>>
>> --Bob
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> halvard at gmail.com
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/index.html>
> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/vidalocabooks.html>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From halvard at gmail.com  Fri Feb 20 20:21:04 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:21:04 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry, the Andrews Text
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902201330p1085a830o5a1fe2b776006670@mail.gmail.com>
References: <49977EC7.8050706@opus40.org>
	<7db1d01b0902192156s5ea60179o2beea22bbe74fce1@mail.gmail.com>
	<499E8FD3.3000306@nut-n-but.net> <499EC412.3070009@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902200741j281cb0a6qadcf05bf06f5de45@mail.gmail.com>
	<499EE0B1.8090903@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902200927j36828f95n25ddae60faa5cea0@mail.gmail.com>
	<499EF177.5050503@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902201115m12cd185aj2c99dad45417897c@mail.gmail.com>
	<4b65c2d70902201330p1085a830o5a1fe2b776006670@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902201721h2866c65aw7954be3106e359d@mail.gmail.com>

Well, while I'm not big on categories and nomenclature (Bob's known that for
some years now),
I wouldn't see artist and poet as being mutually exclusive categories (the
former, I'd say, includes
the latter). I also don't expend much effort on deciding whether or not
texts at the rather porous
border between poetry and prose fall into one category or the other. I can
live with both prosey
poetry and poetic prose without much difficult.

Btw, one of John Ashbery's many recent books included a whole raft of
one-line poems, but
I'm not finding it here, so it must still be in NYC. Maybe some of those
might be fun for the
hunters of excellence hereabouts to consider.

Hal

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 3:30 PM, Anny Ballardini
<anny.ballardini at gmail.com>wrote:

> From what you write, and from what we read, Andrews has to be considered an
> artist rather than a poet, like Philip Corner of the Fluxus team. The
> discussion on whether his (Andrew's) is a poem, also by Robert Pinsky, is
> highly valuable. Many times at the Venice Biennale I had to face and
> understand sets of words that were put there in a frame or without frame and
> I was compelled to try to create philosophical, artistic, poetic
> interpretations to justify the presence of such an 'object' at a Biennale.
> They probably convey more than other poetic or philosophical or artistic
> 'objects' because they force the spectator to invent something intelligent.
> See for example pages of a dictionary glued to the wall or on canvas, to
> have an idea. Or like Andrew's, a simple, but not too logical, statement.
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 8:15 PM, Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Lynda and I heard Andrews "read" at the Ear Inn in NYC a few years back,
>> and I must say
>> the "reading" was remarkable. He stood before a small group of listeners
>> "reading" from a sheaf
>> of papers he held in his hand. The language flow was strongly rhythmical
>> (though not
>> necessarily metrical) and it was really quite amazing to hear bits and
>> pieces of the chatter
>> in the bar behind him working their way into the reading.
>>
>> Hal
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:
>>
>>> Michael Snider wrote:
>>>
>>>> Not hostile to you, Bob, but to the kind of "artist" who thinks other
>>>> people must reach out to them ? who feel entitled to the time and money of
>>>> other people simply because they think themselves creative, or worse, think
>>>> they can successfully pose  as creative.
>>>>
>>> Didn't take it personally, Michael, just wondering why you think Andrews
>>> is that sort of "artist?"  He's part of the language poetry crew that I've
>>> been antagonistic to, on and off, for years. because I think they've not
>>> helped their brother and sister otherstreamersperimentalists in visual
>>> poetry as much as I feel they ought to have (from positions of much greater
>>> influence than any of my crew have gotten).  But I like some of the things
>>> he's done, and met him a few years ago--attending one of my crew's
>>> exhibitions--and he seemed affable and supportive.  I didn't immediately
>>> take to this text of his--because it indeed doesn't seem like much, and
>>> because it appeared in the Paris Review, for me another Enemy of Poetry.
>>>  And I still have a bias against anything a language poet does.  But I have
>>> to say the thing now appeals to me quite a lot.
>>>
>>>
>>> --Bob
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> New-Poetry mailing list
>>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Halvard Johnson
>> ================
>> halvard at gmail.com
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/index.html>
>> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
>> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
>> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/vidalocabooks.html>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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!
>
>


-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb 21 06:51:07 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:51:07 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Hal Sirowitz on the Writer's Almanac
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902210351x58ba50dcqa853e7dcfaa18dae@mail.gmail.com>

 Doesn't Matter What It Looks Like

by Hal Sirowitz<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,e5ip,dv,8nfl,bnl9,3hrs,fxvj>

"When you have blown your nose,
you should not open your handkerchief
and inspect it, as though pearls or rubies
had dropped out of your skull."
*The Book of Manners* (1958)

After you have blown your nose,
Father said, it's not polite to look inside
your handkerchief to see what it looks like.
You're not a doctor. What's more important
is getting the handkerchief back into your pocket
without staining your pants. There are some things
it's better not to look at. It should be left
to your imagination, but if you have
a strong desire to look you can always
find pictures of it in a medical book.

"Doesn't Matter What It Looks Like" by Hal Sirowitz, from *Father Said*. (c)
Soft Skull Press, 2004. Reprinted with permission. (buy
now<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,e5ip,dv,d1x7,c45n,3hrs,fxvj>)



-- 
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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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sat Feb 21 10:01:48 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 10:01:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] "54 Poets Walk Into a Bar"
In-Reply-To: <E9983CDC-779F-4429-8D0E-F54AEEFF7CCD@ripon.edu>
References: <E9983CDC-779F-4429-8D0E-F54AEEFF7CCD@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <49A0175C.202@opus40.org>

Funny stuff, David.

David Graham wrote:
> Including yours truly.  The Humor Issue of Poemeleon, just appeared:
>
> http://www.poemeleon.org/david-graham2
>
> Also including Charles Harper Webb, Martha Silano, Roy Jacobstein, 
> Marilyn Taylor, Jessy Randall, and Sherman Alexie, among the 54. . . .
>
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu <mailto:grahamd at ripon.edu>
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb 21 11:49:26 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:49:26 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] "54 Poets Walk Into a Bar"
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902201054x31f91d25n35588d737d90641b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <E9983CDC-779F-4429-8D0E-F54AEEFF7CCD@ripon.edu>
	<6768ac830902201054x31f91d25n35588d737d90641b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902210849y1571b9e5m2b22bcf4b6b21ffd@mail.gmail.com>

The same from here and Happy Birthday to Michael Snider!!!
Cheers,

Anny

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 7:54 PM, Michael Snider <mandolin at mikesnider.org>wrote:

> Congratulations, David, and nice work, especially your address to Uncle
> Walt.
>
> On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 1:16 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:
>
>> Including yours truly.  The Humor Issue of Poemeleon, just appeared:
>> http://www.poemeleon.org/david-graham2
>>
>> Also including Charles Harper Webb, Martha Silano, Roy Jacobstein, Marilyn
>> Taylor, Jessy Randall, and Sherman Alexie, among the 54. . . .
>>
>>
>>
>> ========================================
>> David Graham
>> grahamd at ripon.edu
>>
>> Home Page:
>> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>>
>> Poetry Library:
>> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
>> ==========================================
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Sat Feb 21 14:24:56 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:24:56 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] "54 Poets Walk Into a Bar"
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902210849y1571b9e5m2b22bcf4b6b21ffd@mail.gmail.com>
References: <E9983CDC-779F-4429-8D0E-F54AEEFF7CCD@ripon.edu>
	<6768ac830902201054x31f91d25n35588d737d90641b@mail.gmail.com>
	<4b65c2d70902210849y1571b9e5m2b22bcf4b6b21ffd@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902211124w32617017jc8afa8fef1265346@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com
> wrote:

> The same from here and Happy Birthday to Michael Snider!!!
> Cheers,
>
> Anny


Why, thank you, Any!
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From jforjames at aol.com  Sat Feb 21 16:46:22 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 16:46:22 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] very short poems
Message-ID: <8CB6284F8CE7379-1550-B0C@FWM-M30.sysops.aol.com>


Posted this short one to my blog today...because it's a humble ars poetica...

Winter View

?

If this were a rooftop

covered with snow,

these words

would be

bird tracks

instead

of a poem.

?

?

?William Michaelian, Winter Poems (Cosmopsis Books, 2007) 

Here's his blog...
http://recently-banned-literature.blogspot.com/
--

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From jforjames at aol.com  Sat Feb 21 18:54:44 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:54:44 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] O'Hara and the Mad Men
Message-ID: <8CB6296E7770091-FDC-6B9@WEBMAIL-MZ10.sysops.aol.com>


http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article5765938.ece


At the conclusion of the opening episode of Mad Men?s second season, the show?s protagonist, Don Draper, buys a book of poetry after being told by a hipster in a Greenwich Village bar that he is incapable of appreciating the writer?s work. The book is Meditations in an Emergency by Frank 
O?Hara. Draper reads it later that night in his suburban home, and he is captivated by a haunting stanza from the poem Mayakovsky: Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern. 


After inscribing the book with the simple message ?Made me think of you?, the ad man slips out of the house to post it to a mystery recipient, adding yet another layer to this most complicated of television heroes. 


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From jforjames at aol.com  Sat Feb 21 18:59:52 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:59:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Back When I Was Normal
Message-ID: <8CB62979F357B8B-FDC-6E3@WEBMAIL-MZ10.sysops.aol.com>


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/02/20/ST2009022003192.html
Back When I Was Normal

Mental illness robbed Roger Fogelman of a bright future as a poet. Was it too late to redeem his legacy?

By Marla Brown Fogelman
Sunday, February 22, 2009; Page W16 


In 1961, a University of Virginia graduate student named Roger Fogelman, who had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic, was awarded an Academy of American Poets University and College Poetry Prize. His work appeared in the Academy's 1960-1966 anthology along with that of Louise Gl?ck , who would go on to become the 2003-2004 U.S. poet laureate. 


Roger did not become a poet laureate, but he did become my brother-in-law. 

As his caregiver Maureen opens the apartment door on this late summer day in 2008, I see that my brother-in-law, Roger, former award-winning poet and current shut-in, is planted on a couch by a wall. Wearing a gray T-shirt and plaid pajama-like pants, he looks heavier than I've ever seen him, but his gray hair looks freshly washed and combed. 


"I'm doomed," he says in greeting. 

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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Feb 21 19:45:49 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:45:49 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
Message-ID: <C2E6BF8F-AF37-42D2-A007-CF969524CF2B@ripon.edu>

		Remember the inaugural poem? Few apparently do

By HILLEL ITALIE ? 1 day ago
NEW YORK (AP) ? Millions watched Elizabeth Alexander read a poem last  
month at President Barack Obama's inauguration. But few, so far, have  
wanted to buy it.
Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 75 percent of sales, says  
Alexander's "Praise Song for the Day: A Poem for Barack Obama's  
Presidential Inauguration" has sold just 6,000 copies so far.
The poem was published Feb. 6 as a paperback by Graywolf Press with  
an announced first printing of 100,000 copies.
The inaugural reading by Alexander, a highly regarded poet,  
apparently lacked the spark of predecessor Maya Angelou, whose "On  
the Pulse of the Morning" ? read at President Bill Clinton's 1993  
inaugural ? became a million seller.
Alexander was just the fourth inaugural poet, following Robert Frost,  
Angelou and Miller Williams.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jz4U- 
PUaFDsQcxNy_q8WmyujGrhgD96FCNI00



========================================
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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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Sat Feb 21 20:09:53 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:09:53 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
Message-ID: <c1d.5af2b0dd.36d1ffe1@aol.com>

Too bad. Alexander's poem was a hell of a lot better than Angelou's And  
Miller WIlliams' poem was better than either of  theirs.
**************Need a job? Find an employment agency near you. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000003)
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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Sat Feb 21 22:06:02 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:06:02 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
In-Reply-To: <c1d.5af2b0dd.36d1ffe1@aol.com>
References: <c1d.5af2b0dd.36d1ffe1@aol.com>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902211906q34536f1fr809e61bc8d14f731@mail.gmail.com>

Hear, hear!

(Or is that "Here, here?"  I never can remember. . . )

Whatever the case, I agree.

Best,
Jeff Newberry

On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 8:09 PM, <AlMaginnes at aol.com> wrote:

>  Too bad. Alexander's poem was a hell of a lot better than Angelou's And
> Miller WIlliams' poem was better than either of theirs.
>
> ------------------------------
> Need a job? Find an employment agency near you<http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000003>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that
is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and
experience, from which each according to his own immediate and peculiar
needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb 22 00:57:36 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:57:36 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
Message-ID: <c2c.52d3ca75.36d24350@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/21/2009 7:10:20 PM Central Standard Time, 
AlMaginnes at aol.com writes: 
> 
> 
> Too bad. Alexander's poem was a hell of a lot better than Angelou's And 
> Miller WIlliams' poem was better than either of theirs.
> 
I agree, but none of them was really very good.
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From locriansky at yahoo.com  Sun Feb 22 04:25:03 2009
From: locriansky at yahoo.com (locriansky at yahoo.com)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 01:25:03 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] maths and poetry have a special relationship
References: <8CB602B75D9D026-14C4-1042@WEBMAIL-MZ27.sysops.aol.com><4b65c2d70902190944y568f117eua942d3a3ec1b1c17@mail.gmail.com><
	437b1e3a0902190955r7b632c83w4702bd3275d18e53@mail.gmail.com><499DB791.8010701@nut-n-but.net>
	<437b1e3a0902191456x17011f24nf60c8e849e85ae85@mail.gmail.com>
	<499E0374.7000508@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <949462.89661.qm@web36208.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Fib Poems
Like Bob implied, ?Fib poems? are no more mathematical than
any poem with metric feet Alhough, I will have to say that from a mathematical
view the Fibonacci series is more interesting than metric feet.  In addition, this discussion points to a slightly
sticker issue of which I have focused much effort. This issue is concerns the
difference between the aesthetics of math and the aesthetics of art? There is
much confusion in this arena and the ?Fib poem? is a perfect example of such.
Many people cannot see the difference between these two aesthetics and feel if
something is beautiful then it must be Art and since math is beautiful, therefore
it must be art. The answer to the question is that art and math function
aesthetically on different levels for different purposes and for one to blend
the two aesthetics the math needs to have some relationship to the art or poetry
and vice versa. Math functions as a language, words function in the structure
of grammar and so the aesthetic solution to a combination piece is to make
synergy from what is said in both languages.  So the criteria necessary to judge fib poems ask
how well do the words relate to the applications and aesthetics of the Fibonacci
series and the golden ratio.  Many people
think that the golden ratio produces beautiful rectangles however, when I have
tested people with a series of rectangles that are similar but not golden they
cannot pick which one is golden and which is not. The bottom line is that the
golden ratio is an extremely beautiful mathematical concept. However, it is not
a beautiful artistic concept and if you want to create beautiful connections between
the ideas of art and the Fibonacci series then the relevance of the connection
is important.
Here are a few sentences that I have pondered on the Delineations
between the aesthetics of art and math. I am always interested in critical
discussion of these ideas.
Delineation #1:
Mathematical truths are discovered Artistic truths are mediated. 
.
Delineation#2:
Mathematicians generally agree on what is mathematically correct. Artists
generally have no idea what is artistically correct. 
.
Delineation#3
Math illuminates the supportive skeletal structure of thought whereas Art
illuminates the metaphoric wind, which blows through that structure. 
.
Delineation#4
Science reveals the body of God and Art reveals God's mind -- or is it the
converse? 
.
Delineation#5
Pure Mathematics has no expression for metaphor however; it does provide us a
structure that can be used for it. 
.
Delineation#6
In general, the mathematician is not interested in finding
truths through nonsense as opposed to the artist who is. 
.
Delineation#7
The goal of art is to go beyond language. Mathematics is a
language to describe what is beyond us.
.
Delineation#8.
Artists have an insouciant tendency to get lost in their imagination
Mathematicians have an attentive tendency to map their imagination 
. 
Delineation #9
A mathematical theory seems to come in a flash of intuition before the final
product is rigorously constructed.
An artistic theory seems to come much after the artwork that
has been constructed in a flash of intuition.

Delineation #10
Mathematical creations are not unique in the sense that they
could be discovered by anyone.
Artistic creations are uniquely invented by individuals.
Delineation #11
Mathematics, among other things, is a language.
Art, among other things, uses language.
. 
Delineation #12
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be
understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry,
it?s the exact opposite. ?Paul Dirac
Thanks,
Kaz Maslanka
http://www.kazmaslanka.com 
 



________________________________
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 5:12:20 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] maths and poetry have a special relationship

David Weinstock wrote: 
You're right of course, Bob. But the conviction that the
Fibonacci sequence confers some sort of naturally occurring
aesthetically pleasing proportions to a poem is what has made the form
a fad.  Haiku were a fad once, and sonnets before them, and have
survived that to become useful.

Yes, and I think this one will, too.  I just get irritated at the silly
"healing" of the 2 Cultures by people finding mathematics integral to
some art.


The Fib discussion reminds me (abstractly) of GM Hopkins' "curtal
sonnet" Pied Beauty, which is shorter than a sonnet but, as he
explained, retains the same 8:6 proportions of a full 14-line sonnet.


Haw, yes, Hopkins was another mathematician.  

--Bob






On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:

David Weinstock wrote:

I have played with the Fib form as it was explained to me and generally
had no luck with it, but I very much like that one by Patricia Valdata,
and the symmetrical shape of it.

I like the form, but it has no more to do with mathematics than making
a poem whose lines are, say, one syllable, two, three, five, seven,
eleven syllables and so on in length.  Or, for that matter, 14 lines
each ten syllables in length.

--Bob G. 


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



-- 
..........................................................

DAVID WEINSTOCK
240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753

Home: 802-388-6939
Cell:    802-989-4314




________________________________

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry 



      
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 22 06:40:34 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 06:40:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902211906q34536f1fr809e61bc8d14f731@mail.gmail.com>
References: <c1d.5af2b0dd.36d1ffe1@aol.com>
	<731bb17a0902211906q34536f1fr809e61bc8d14f731@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A139B2.6080706@nut-n-but.net>

I can't seem to feel sorry for someone who has sold 6,000 copies of a 
single short poem.  I've had a few poems published as broadsides.  I 
don't think any of them found more than a hundred buyers.

--Bob G.



From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Sun Feb 22 09:41:11 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 09:41:11 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
In-Reply-To: <49A139B2.6080706@nut-n-but.net>
References: <c1d.5af2b0dd.36d1ffe1@aol.com>
	<731bb17a0902211906q34536f1fr809e61bc8d14f731@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A139B2.6080706@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902220641t23c3fe41nda644236875e86a1@mail.gmail.com>

I feel sorry for the press, which lost its shirt on this one. Clearly the
Angelou sales numbers were from her celebrity, not from the occasion.
Certainly not from the poem.

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:40 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> I can't seem to feel sorry for someone who has sold 6,000 copies of a
> single short poem.  I've had a few poems published as broadsides.  I don't
> think any of them found more than a hundred buyers.
>
> --Bob G.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sun Feb 22 10:04:28 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 10:04:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
In-Reply-To: <c2c.52d3ca75.36d24350@cs.com>
References: <c2c.52d3ca75.36d24350@cs.com>
Message-ID: <49A1697C.60102@opus40.org>

That wasn't the point, anyway. Angelou -- and I'm not knocking this -- 
was a stronger TV personality. That's what sold the book.

Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote:
> In a message dated 2/21/2009 7:10:20 PM Central Standard Time, 
> AlMaginnes at aol.com writes:
>>
>>
>> Too bad. Alexander's poem was a hell of a lot better than Angelou's 
>> And Miller WIlliams' poem was better than either of theirs.
>
> I agree, but none of them was really very good.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Sun Feb 22 10:06:56 2009
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 09:06:56 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902220641t23c3fe41nda644236875e86a1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <c1d.5af2b0dd.36d1ffe1@aol.com>
	<731bb17a0902211906q34536f1fr809e61bc8d14f731@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A139B2.6080706@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902220641t23c3fe41nda644236875e86a1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <29A21701-1BBC-4B2C-AA83-D90F3804DC3E@ripon.edu>

Perhaps Graywolf was caught up in Obamamania, as so many have been. I  
certainly was, & bought a copy of the Graywolf edition of Alexander's  
poem as a keepsake. And as a gesture of support for one of the best  
presses we have.  Not because I think it's an epochal poem, surely. I  
may buy a few more as gifts for non-poet friends who are readers, as a  
matter of fact.


David Graham
Grahamd at Ripon.edu
------------------------
Home page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz

On Feb 22, 2009, at 8:41 AM, "Michael Snider"  
<mandolin at mikesnider.org> wrote:

> I feel sorry for the press, which lost its shirt on this one.  
> Clearly the Angelou sales numbers were from her celebrity, not from  
> the occasion. Certainly not from the poem.
>
> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:40 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n- 
> but.net> wrote:
> I can't seem to feel sorry for someone who has sold 6,000 copies of  
> a single short poem.  I've had a few poems published as broadsides.   
> I don't think any of them found more than a hundred buyers.
>
> --Bob G.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Sun Feb 22 12:24:07 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:24:07 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
Message-ID: <d10.452d1718.36d2e437@aol.com>

And Angelou had the benefit of the Oprah platform, which neither Miller nor  
Elizabeth Alexander had. 
**************Need a job? Find an employment agency near you. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000003)
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From millb at aol.com  Sun Feb 22 12:50:28 2009
From: millb at aol.com (Millicent Accardi)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:50:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
In-Reply-To: <d10.452d1718.36d2e437@aol.com>
References: <d10.452d1718.36d2e437@aol.com>
Message-ID: <8CB632D2E80CE31-1784-C34@MBLK-M29.sysops.aol.com>

Angelou also had major publishing credits, strong book sales (from previous publications)?and was well-known in her own right (not just through Oprah or the inaugural reading).


Cheers,

Millicent 

-----Original Message-----
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 9:24 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...




And Angelou had the benefit of the Oprah platform, which neither Miller nor Elizabeth Alexander had. 

Need a job? Find an employment agency near you.




_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb 22 12:52:29 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:52:29 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
In-Reply-To: <8CB632D2E80CE31-1784-C34@MBLK-M29.sysops.aol.com>
References: <d10.452d1718.36d2e437@aol.com>
	<8CB632D2E80CE31-1784-C34@MBLK-M29.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902220952t5e359561j18109ca0428e6479@mail.gmail.com>

I am still with the "Hear Here" by Jeff,
wow_
six thousand, several thousand, a million,
wow_

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Millicent Accardi <millb at aol.com> wrote:

> Angelou also had major publishing credits, strong book sales (from previous
> publications) and was well-known in her own right (not just through Oprah or
> the inaugural reading).
>
> Cheers,
>
> Millicent
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: AlMaginnes at aol.com
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Sent: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 9:24 am
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
>
>  And Angelou had the benefit of the Oprah platform, which neither Miller
> nor Elizabeth Alexander had.
>
>  ------------------------------
> Need a job? Find an employment agency near you<http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000003>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Access 350+ FREE radio stations anytime from anywhere on the web. Get the
> Radio Toolbar<http://toolbar.aol.com/aolradio/download.html?ncid=emlweusdown00000035>
> !
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 22 13:01:18 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:01:18 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902220641t23c3fe41nda644236875e86a1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <c1d.5af2b0dd.36d1ffe1@aol.com><731bb17a0902211906q34536f1fr809e61bc8d14f731@mail.gmail.com><49A139B2.6080706@nut-n-b
	ut.net>
	<6768ac830902220641t23c3fe41nda644236875e86a1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A192EE.1010000@nut-n-but.net>

Michael Snider wrote:
> I feel sorry for the press, which lost its shirt on this one. 
I never feel sorry for presses who choose to publish something they 
think will make money and guess wrong.  Even a press that I'm told 
publishes some poetry whose techniques only began to be widely used 
forty years ago.

> Clearly the Angelou sales numbers were from her celebrity, not from 
> the occasion. 
Also because a black woman's inauguration poem was a much bigger Whoopee 
for liberals then.

> Certainly not from the poem.
Worse poetry is making more money.  And I am certain Alexander has so 
far made a lot indirectly from her poem, and will make more in the 
future.  Anyone tracking her readings and how much she's paid to show up 
at one?  Did she get paid for that television appearance I read about?

--Bob G.





From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb 22 13:10:09 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:10:09 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] very short poems
In-Reply-To: <8CB6284F8CE7379-1550-B0C@FWM-M30.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB6284F8CE7379-1550-B0C@FWM-M30.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902221010i96e5d20r14af3bc8c5f990b1@mail.gmail.com>

it is sad and lovely


On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 10:46 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Posted this short one to my blog today...because it's a humble ars
> poetica...
>
> Winter View
>
> If this were a rooftop
> covered with snow,
> these words
> would be
> bird tracks
> instead
> of a poem.
>
>
> ?William Michaelian, Winter Poems (Cosmopsis Books, 2007)
>
> Here's his blog...
> http://recently-banned-literature.blogspot.com/
> --
>
> ------------------------------
> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice
> and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job<http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sun Feb 22 13:44:31 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:44:31 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
In-Reply-To: <49A192EE.1010000@nut-n-but.net>
References: <c1d.5af2b0dd.36d1ffe1@aol.com><731bb17a0902211906q34536f1fr809e61bc8d14f731@mail.gmail.com><49A139B2.6080706@nut-n-b	ut.net>	<6768ac830902220641t23c3fe41nda644236875e86a1@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A192EE.1010000@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <49A19D0F.6060709@opus40.org>



Bob Grumman wrote:
> I never feel sorry for presses who choose to publish something they 
> think will make money and guess wrong.  

I always do. For one thing, it means they'll take fewer chances.

>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sun Feb 22 13:45:52 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:45:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] very short poems
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902221010i96e5d20r14af3bc8c5f990b1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB6284F8CE7379-1550-B0C@FWM-M30.sysops.aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902221010i96e5d20r14af3bc8c5f990b1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A19D60.5090800@opus40.org>

Imagine a plot of land
with a woman on it--not
haphazardly, but as if planted, and not
by you.  This woman precedes your imagination.
 
Watch out.  She is leaving.







Anny Ballardini wrote:
> it is sad and lovely
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 10:46 PM, <jforjames at aol.com 
> <mailto:jforjames at aol.com>> wrote:
>
>     Posted this short one to my blog today...because it's a humble ars
>     poetica...
>
>     Winter View
>      
>     If this were a rooftop
>     covered with snow,
>     these words
>     would be
>     bird tracks
>     instead
>     of a poem.
>      
>      
>     ?William Michaelian, Winter Poems (Cosmopsis Books, 2007)
>
>     Here's his blog...
>     http://recently-banned-literature.blogspot.com/
>     --
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career
>     advice and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job
>     <http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>.
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     New-Poetry mailing list
>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 22 14:42:49 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:42:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
In-Reply-To: <49A19D0F.6060709@opus40.org>
References: <c1d.5af2b0dd.36d1ffe1@aol.com><731bb17a0902211906q34536f1fr809e61bc8d14f731@mail.gmail.com><49A139B2.6080706@nut-n-b
	ut.net>	<6768ac830902220641t23c3fe41nda644236875e86a1@mail.gmail.com><49A192EE.1010000@nut-n-but.net>
	<49A19D0F.6060709@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <49A1AAB9.2050004@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
>
>
> Bob Grumman wrote:
>> I never feel sorry for presses who choose to publish something they 
>> think will make money and guess wrong.  
>
> I always do. For one thing, it means they'll take fewer chances.
They'll stick to standard stuff they're sure will make money instead of 
"taking a chance" on standard stuff that may not make money.  Yeah, I 
guess that would be bad for poetry.

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 22 14:59:37 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:59:37 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] very short poems
In-Reply-To: <49A19D60.5090800@opus40.org>
References: <8CB6284F8CE7379-1550-B0C@FWM-M30.sysops.aol.com><4b65c2d70902221010i96e5d20r14af3bc8c5f990b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A19D60.5090800@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <49A1AEA9.6070808@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> Imagine a plot of land
> with a woman on it--not
> haphazardly, but as if planted, and not
> by you.  This woman precedes your imagination.
>
> Watch out.  She is leaving.
This is not a "very short poem," Mole--it's much longer than a haiku, 
and haiku are only short poems, not "very short" poems.  But it has my 
Approval.  An official seal will be on your way once my visual art 
department has worked up a proper design for it.  Fascinating twist on 
Wally.  In fact, it may do what I consider the best thing any poem can 
do for egocentric Me: inspire me to a spin off.

--Bob



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sun Feb 22 15:48:40 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:48:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
In-Reply-To: <49A1AAB9.2050004@nut-n-but.net>
References: <c1d.5af2b0dd.36d1ffe1@aol.com><731bb17a0902211906q34536f1fr809e61bc8d14f731@mail.gmail.com><49A139B2.6080706@nut-n-b	ut.net>	<6768ac830902220641t23c3fe41nda644236875e86a1@mail.gmail.com><49A192EE.1010000@nut-n-but.net>	<49A19D0F.6060709@opus40.org>
	<49A1AAB9.2050004@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <49A1BA28.9010901@opus40.org>

Poetry presses are all that well known for being in it for the big bucks?

Bob Grumman wrote:
> TheOldMole wrote:
>>
>>
>> Bob Grumman wrote:
>>> I never feel sorry for presses who choose to publish something they 
>>> think will make money and guess wrong.  
>>
>> I always do. For one thing, it means they'll take fewer chances.
> They'll stick to standard stuff they're sure will make money instead 
> of "taking a chance" on standard stuff that may not make money.  Yeah, 
> I guess that would be bad for poetry.
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 22 15:53:51 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:53:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] very short poems
In-Reply-To: <49A1AEA9.6070808@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB6284F8CE7379-1550-B0C@FWM-M30.sysops.aol.com><4b65c2d70902221010i96e5d20r14af3bc8c5f990b1@mail.gmail.com><49A19D6
	0.5090800@opus40.org> <49A1AEA9.6070808@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <49A1BB5F.1080402@nut-n-but.net>

The Old Mole's poem is responsible for this new adventure of my alter 
ego, Poem:

           Poem, Orange Juice and a Submarine

            Poem had stolen into
            another person's imagination
            where some real woman he couldn't identify
            was making orange juice
            out of real oranges.

            To her left, an Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit
            perched on a stool,
            reading a poem into
            misunderstandings beyond green
            with promise.
            Through a window in
            the poem, he could see a small dock
            jutting into the dying of a rainstorm.

            A wooden submarine was rocking gently against
            the dock.  Its hatch was open.  Handing him a glass
            of orange juice, a smile on her face, the woman
            took his hand and led him out
            of the imagination he'd been in
            to the submarine.

I have no idea whether this is much of a poem or not but have to say I 
really enjoyed making it.  It's nearly 100% a wish-fulfillment revery.

--Bob




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 22 16:09:09 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:09:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...
In-Reply-To: <49A1BA28.9010901@opus40.org>
References: <c1d.5af2b0dd.36d1ffe1@aol.com><731bb17a0902211906q34536f1fr809e61bc8d14f731@mail.gmail.com><49A139B2.6080706@nut-n-b
	ut.net>	<6768ac830902220641t23c3fe41nda644236875e86a1@mail.gmail.com><49A192EE.1010000@nut-n-but.net>
	<49A19D0F.6060709@opus40.org><49A1AAB9.2050004@nut-n-but.net>
	<49A1BA28.9010901@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <49A1BEF5.2080901@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> Poetry presses are all that well known for being in it for the big bucks?
Not big bucks but bucks.  My point is that they want to publish stuff 
that will sell.  You don't have a press run of 100,000 copies without 
expecting to make some money.  I believe in capitalism and in trying to 
make money.  I will also admit to unfairness.  A lot of these small 
presses publish mainly out of a belief in the value of what they 
publish, and only try for big bucks when they see a chance of publishing 
something they believe in AND making money from it.  Gray Wolf is 
probably one.  So I guess I'm only saying I don't mind if presses that 
"take a chance" on poetry I don't think much of (and NEVER on my 
favorite kinds of poetry) lose money on one of their ventures.

--Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb 22 16:11:19 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:11:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] very short poems
In-Reply-To: <49A1BB5F.1080402@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB6284F8CE7379-1550-B0C@FWM-M30.sysops.aol.com><4b65c2d70902221010i96e5d20r14af3bc8c5f990b1@mail.gmail.com><49A19D6
	0.5090800@opus40.org> <49A1AEA9.6070808@nut-n-but.net>
	<49A1BB5F.1080402@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <49A1BF77.8060803@nut-n-but.net>

I would add that anything good in my poem is entirely stolen from the 
idea behind the Mole's.

--Bob



From Sigauke at crc.losrios.edu  Sun Feb 22 18:41:26 2009
From: Sigauke at crc.losrios.edu (Sigauke, Emmanuel)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:41:26 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Munyori literary journal on Facebook
Message-ID: <8AB6AE105E0CE34EA7047DA0D6F0A9711B74646C0D@lrccd-exch08.LRCCD.ad.losrios.edu>

Here is a link to the new facebook page for Munyori: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Munyori-Literary-Journal/55764576035?ref=nf
________________________________
From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu [new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Rsgwynn1 at cs.com [Rsgwynn1 at cs.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2009 9:57 PM
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Few remember Elizabeth Alexander...

In a message dated 2/21/2009 7:10:20 PM Central Standard Time, AlMaginnes at aol.com writes:


Too bad. Alexander's poem was a hell of a lot better than Angelou's And Miller WIlliams' poem was better than either of theirs.

I agree, but none of them was really very good.
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sun Feb 22 20:24:18 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:24:18 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Gerald Stern
Message-ID: <54F878A1-BB13-4B78-8680-C887E1186578@ripon.edu>

Turns 84 years old today.

A lucky life, I guess. . . .


Lucky Life

Lucky life isn't one long string of horrors
and there are moments of peace, and pleasure, as I lie in between the  
blows.
Lucky I don't have to wake up in Phillipsburg, New Jersey,
on the hill overlooking Union Square or the hill overlooking
Kuebler Brewery or the hill overlooking SS. Philip and James
but have my own hills and my own vistas to come back to.

Each year I go down to the island I add
one more year to the darkness;
and though I sit up with my dear friends
trying to separate the one year from the other,
this one from the last, that one from the former,
another from another,
after a while they all get lumped together,
the year we walked to Holgate,
the year our shoes got washed away,
the year it rained,
the year my tooth brought misery to us all.

This year was a crisis. I knew it when we pulled
the car onto the sand and looked for the key.
I knew it when we walked up the outside steps
and opened the hot icebox and began the struggle
with swollen drawers and I knew it when we laid out
the sheets and separated the clothes into piles
and I knew it when we made our first rush onto
the beach and I knew it when we finally sat
on the porch with coffee cups shaking in our hands.

My dream is I'm walking through Phillipsburg, New Jersey,
and I'm lost on South Main Street. I am trying to tell,
by memory, which statue of Christopher Columbus
I have to look for, the one with him slumped over
and lost in weariness or the one with him
vaguely guiding the way with a cross and globe in
one hand and a compass in the other.
My dream is I'm in the Eagle Hotel on Chamber Street
sitting at the oak bar, listening to two
obese veterans discussing Hawaii in 1942,
and reading the funny signs over the bottles.
My dream is I sleep upstairs over the honey locust
and sit on the side porch overlooking the stone culvert
with a whole new set of friends, mostly old and humorless.

Dear waves, what will you do for me this year?
Will you drown out my scream?
Will you let me rise through the fog?
Will you fill me with that old salt feeling?
Will you let me take my long steps in the cold sand?
Will you let me lie on the white bedspread and study
the black clouds with the blue holes in them?
Will you let me see the rusty trees and the old monoplanes one more  
year?
Will you still let me draw my sacred figures
and move the kites and the birds around with my dark mind?

Lucky life is like this. Lucky there is an ocean to come to.
Lucky you can judge yourself in this water.
Lucky you can be purified over and over again.
Lucky there is the same cleanliness for everyone.
Lucky life is like that. Lucky life. Oh lucky life.
Oh lucky lucky life. Lucky life.


--Gerald Stern



========================================
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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From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Sun Feb 22 22:48:32 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:48:32 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Tata Nacho 2
In-Reply-To: <22593dbe0902221347x256fc0f3naa4341daa81edcfd@mail.gmail.com>
References: <22593dbe0902221347x256fc0f3naa4341daa81edcfd@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <648208b60902221948m6cb2164fm8aa6206a6ca97d6a@mail.gmail.com>

Tata Nacho Press <http://tatanacho.wordpress.com>

    is pleased to announce the second issue which includes the poetry of
Jake Berry, Jim Cervantes, Andrei Codrescu, CT Fritz, Valerie Harbolovic,
Bill Lavender, Shelley Puhak, Sarah A. Rae, Sarah D. Reith, and Tad
Richards; the non-fiction of Claire Martin Finley and Grace Fuller, and the
fiction of Sonja Livingston and Ann Elia Stewart.



*Please also visit the Tata Nacho Contributor's page for biographical
information.*



Jesse Loren and Mitchell Sommers editors?

http://tatanacho.wordpress.com/



-- 
Jesse Loren
http://www.jesseloren.blogspot.com
http://mourningsicknessbook.blogspot.com/
http://www.omniartsllc.com/bombshells.asp
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Mon Feb 23 08:41:24 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:41:24 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Gerald Stern
In-Reply-To: <54F878A1-BB13-4B78-8680-C887E1186578@ripon.edu>
References: <54F878A1-BB13-4B78-8680-C887E1186578@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902230541r478d0c06ufbe00f68fc77042a@mail.gmail.com>

Happy Birthday to Him and to his luck in seeing a lucky life!

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 2:24 AM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> Turns 84 years old today.
> A lucky life, I guess. . . .
>
>
> *Lucky Life*
>
> Lucky life isn't one long string of horrors
> and there are moments of peace, and pleasure, as I lie in between the
> blows.
> Lucky I don't have to wake up in Phillipsburg, New Jersey,
> on the hill overlooking Union Square or the hill overlooking
> Kuebler Brewery or the hill overlooking SS. Philip and James
> but have my own hills and my own vistas to come back to.
>
> Each year I go down to the island I add
> one more year to the darkness;
> and though I sit up with my dear friends
> trying to separate the one year from the other,
> this one from the last, that one from the former,
> another from another,
> after a while they all get lumped together,
> the year we walked to Holgate,
> the year our shoes got washed away,
> the year it rained,
> the year my tooth brought misery to us all.
>
> This year was a crisis. I knew it when we pulled
> the car onto the sand and looked for the key.
> I knew it when we walked up the outside steps
> and opened the hot icebox and began the struggle
> with swollen drawers and I knew it when we laid out
> the sheets and separated the clothes into piles
> and I knew it when we made our first rush onto
> the beach and I knew it when we finally sat
> on the porch with coffee cups shaking in our hands.
>
> My dream is I'm walking through Phillipsburg, New Jersey,
> and I'm lost on South Main Street. I am trying to tell,
> by memory, which statue of Christopher Columbus
> I have to look for, the one with him slumped over
> and lost in weariness or the one with him
> vaguely guiding the way with a cross and globe in
> one hand and a compass in the other.
> My dream is I'm in the Eagle Hotel on Chamber Street
> sitting at the oak bar, listening to two
> obese veterans discussing Hawaii in 1942,
> and reading the funny signs over the bottles.
> My dream is I sleep upstairs over the honey locust
> and sit on the side porch overlooking the stone culvert
> with a whole new set of friends, mostly old and humorless.
>
> Dear waves, what will you do for me this year?
> Will you drown out my scream?
> Will you let me rise through the fog?
> Will you fill me with that old salt feeling?
> Will you let me take my long steps in the cold sand?
> Will you let me lie on the white bedspread and study
> the black clouds with the blue holes in them?
> Will you let me see the rusty trees and the old monoplanes one more year?
> Will you still let me draw my sacred figures
> and move the kites and the birds around with my dark mind?
>
> Lucky life is like this. Lucky there is an ocean to come to.
> Lucky you can judge yourself in this water.
> Lucky you can be purified over and over again.
> Lucky there is the same cleanliness for everyone.
> Lucky life is like that. Lucky life. Oh lucky life.
> Oh lucky lucky life. Lucky life.
>
>
> --Gerald Stern
>
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Mon Feb 23 08:46:59 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:46:59 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Tata Nacho 2
In-Reply-To: <648208b60902221948m6cb2164fm8aa6206a6ca97d6a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <22593dbe0902221347x256fc0f3naa4341daa81edcfd@mail.gmail.com>
	<648208b60902221948m6cb2164fm8aa6206a6ca97d6a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902230546k1924f61ev593c566c9d44bbca@mail.gmail.com>

A nice company, indeed, and cheers to Jesse Loren!

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 4:48 AM, James Cervantes
<cervantes.james at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
>
> Tata Nacho Press <http://tatanacho.wordpress.com>
>
>     is pleased to announce the second issue which includes the poetry of
> Jake Berry, Jim Cervantes, Andrei Codrescu, CT Fritz, Valerie Harbolovic,
> Bill Lavender, Shelley Puhak, Sarah A. Rae, Sarah D. Reith, and Tad
> Richards; the non-fiction of Claire Martin Finley and Grace Fuller, and the
> fiction of Sonja Livingston and Ann Elia Stewart.
>
>
>
> *Please also visit the Tata Nacho Contributor's page for biographical
> information.*
>
>
>
> Jesse Loren and Mitchell Sommers editors?
>
> http://tatanacho.wordpress.com/
>
>
>
> --
> Jesse Loren
> http://www.jesseloren.blogspot.com
> http://mourningsicknessbook.blogspot.com/
> http://www.omniartsllc.com/bombshells.asp
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From ciccariello at gmail.com  Mon Feb 23 22:13:21 2009
From: ciccariello at gmail.com (Peter)
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:13:21 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] she gone 2
Message-ID: <8f3fdbad0902231913v2bb4fff2y18de2fa03dfbdc5c@mail.gmail.com>

she gone 2
http://ciccariello.viewbook.com/she




Peter Ciccariello
http://invisiblenotes.blogspot.com/
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Tue Feb 24 13:04:03 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:04:03 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] On Ron
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902241004r23520281h5ae3651435da642b@mail.gmail.com>

Silliman's Blog:
http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

Thank you.

-- 
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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From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb 24 17:26:48 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:26:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
Message-ID: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/books/review/Orr-t.html?ref=arts


In October, John Ashbery became the first poet to have an edition of his works released by the Library of America in his own lifetime. That honor says a number of things about the state of contemporary poetry ? some good, some not so good ? but perhaps the most important and disturbing question it raises is this: What will we do when Ashbery and his generation are gone? Because for the first time since the early 19th century, American poetry may be about to run out of greatness.
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From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb 24 17:35:42 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:35:42 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <8CB64E75C19CA20-498-4E7@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>

quote from article...
Adam Kirsch concluding, ?Good and enduring as they are, . . . there is something not quite right about calling them great, in the sense that Eliot and Whitman and Dickinson are great.? 
--
Based upon all of what we know and have seen in the criticism of Adam Kirsch, why would David Orr quote this?obtuse assertion. Would critic Adam Kirsch have recognized Eliot, Whitman or Dickinson (the latter whose work wasn't widely known during her own lifetime) as great in their own life?time? Not likely. Isn't wonderful how sharp Kirssh is with retrospective assessments of greatness.

Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: jforjames at aol.com
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 5:26 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/books/review/Orr-t.html?ref=arts


In October, John Ashbery became the first poet to have an edition of his works released by the Library of America in his own lifetime. That honor says a number of things about the state of contemporary poetry ? some good, some not so good ? but perhaps the most important and disturbing question it raises is this: What will we do when Ashbery and his generation are gone? Because for the first time since the early 19th century, American poetry may be about to run out of greatness.


Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job. 



______________________________________________
_
ew-Poetry mailing list
ew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
ttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Tue Feb 24 17:49:09 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:49:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <49A47965.2080607@opus40.org>

The key ingredient in greatness is time. There's no way we can know who, 
among our contemporaries, is going to last.

jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/books/review/Orr-t.html?ref=arts
> In October, John Ashbery became the first poet to have an edition of 
> his works released by the Library of America in his own lifetime. That 
> honor says a number of things about the state of contemporary poetry ? 
> some good, some not so good ? but perhaps the most important and 
> disturbing question it raises is this: What will we do when Ashbery 
> and his generation are gone? Because for the first time since the 
> early 19th century, American poetry may be about to run out of greatness.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career 
> advice and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job 
> <http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb 24 17:56:23 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:56:23 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>

Orr could've used a few runs around Bob's WEPD list and our debates.  He
comes off as a big waffle. I propose Bob Grumman as the NYTBR poetry wotsit,
after me, natch.  John Ashbery the best of his generation---YAWK!
Best,

Judy

2009/2/24 <jforjames at aol.com>

> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/books/review/Orr-t.html?ref=arts
>  In October, John Ashbery became the first poet to have an edition of his
> works released by the Library of America in his own lifetime. That honor
> says a number of things about the state of contemporary poetry ? some good,
> some not so good ? but perhaps the most important and disturbing question it
> raises is this: What will we do when Ashbery and his generation are gone?
> Because for the first time since the early 19th century, American poetry may
> be about to run out of greatness.
>
> ------------------------------
> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice
> and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job<http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Tue Feb 24 18:53:00 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:53:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A4885C.4040107@opus40.org>

See that's the thing. No one's going to agree. 19th century 
contemporaries would as like as not have given a YAWK to Walt Whitman's 
YAWP (not the 19th century equivalent of Judy, but many others). Time is 
the only separator of wheat from chaff.

Judy Prince wrote:
> Orr could've used a few runs around Bob's WEPD list and our debates. 
>  He comes off as a big waffle. I propose Bob Grumman as the NYTBR 
> poetry wotsit, after me, natch.  John Ashbery the best of his 
> generation---YAWK!
>
> Best,
>
> Judy
>
> 2009/2/24 <jforjames at aol.com <mailto:jforjames at aol.com>>
>
>     http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/books/review/Orr-t.html?ref=arts
>     In October, John Ashbery became the first poet to have an edition
>     of his works released by the Library of America in his own
>     lifetime. That honor says a number of things about the state of
>     contemporary poetry ? some good, some not so good ? but perhaps
>     the most important and disturbing question it raises is this: What
>     will we do when Ashbery and his generation are gone? Because for
>     the first time since the early 19th century, American poetry may
>     be about to run out of greatness.
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career
>     advice and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job
>     <http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>.
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     New-Poetry mailing list
>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From halvard at gmail.com  Tue Feb 24 18:56:05 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:56:05 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A4885C.4040107@opus40.org>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A4885C.4040107@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902241556q13e4cc08ie6c9e20ae7bfd7b3@mail.gmail.com>

Time and, to a large extent, chance or luck.

HJ

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 5:53 PM, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:

> See that's the thing. No one's going to agree. 19th century contemporaries
> would as like as not have given a YAWK to Walt Whitman's YAWP (not the 19th
> century equivalent of Judy, but many others). Time is the only separator of
> wheat from chaff.
>
> Judy Prince wrote:
>
>> Orr could've used a few runs around Bob's WEPD list and our debates.  He
>> comes off as a big waffle. I propose Bob Grumman as the NYTBR poetry wotsit,
>> after me, natch.  John Ashbery the best of his generation---YAWK!
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Judy
>>
>> 2009/2/24 <jforjames at aol.com <mailto:jforjames at aol.com>>
>>
>>    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/books/review/Orr-t.html?ref=arts
>>    In October, John Ashbery became the first poet to have an edition
>>    of his works released by the Library of America in his own
>>    lifetime. That honor says a number of things about the state of
>>    contemporary poetry ? some good, some not so good ? but perhaps
>>    the most important and disturbing question it raises is this: What
>>    will we do when Ashbery and his generation are gone? Because for
>>    the first time since the early 19th century, American poetry may
>>    be about to run out of greatness.
>>
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>    Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career
>>    advice and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job
>>    <http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>.
>>
>>    _______________________________________________
>>    New-Poetry mailing list
>>    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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
>>
>>
>
> --
> Tad Richards
> Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
> http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner
>
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb 24 19:00:23 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:00:23 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <8CB64E75C19CA20-498-4E7@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<8CB64E75C19CA20-498-4E7@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <49A48A17.2090006@nut-n-but.net>

jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> quote from article...
> Adam Kirsch concluding, ?Good and enduring as they are, . . . there is 
> something not quite right about calling them great, in the sense that 
> Eliot and Whitman and Dickinson are great.?
> --
> Based upon all of what we know and have seen in the criticism of Adam 
> Kirsch, why would David Orr quote this obtuse assertion. Would critic 
> Adam Kirsch have recognized Eliot, Whitman or Dickinson (the latter 
> whose work wasn't widely known during her own lifetime) as great in 
> their own life time? Not likely. Isn't wonderful how sharp Kirssh is 
> with retrospective assessments of greatness.
>
> Finnegan
Jeez, Finnegan, you're sounding like that guy at New-Poetry who is 
always belittling Our Critics.

--anonymous
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb 24 19:02:32 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:02:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902241556q13e4cc08ie6c9e20ae7bfd7b3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A4885C.4040107@opus40.org>
	<f160a1210902241556q13e4cc08ie6c9e20ae7bfd7b3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902241602y24276b17rc8e5bf693a795699@mail.gmail.com>

They did pretty much ignore Whitman. Longfellow was The Man. And earlier in
the century Sir Walter Scott was a Geat Poet: Has anyone here read Marmion
or The Lady of the Lake? Yet we quote him all the time: "Oh what a tangled
web we weave ..."
Great poetry is the poetry still read after 200 years, and as Hal said,
that's partly luck.

Auden said said no work or art is unjustly remembered -- but a corollary is
that a lot is unjustly forgotten.

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 6:56 PM, Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com> wrote:

> Time and, to a large extent, chance or luck.
>
> HJ
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 5:53 PM, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:
>
>> See that's the thing. No one's going to agree. 19th century contemporaries
>> would as like as not have given a YAWK to Walt Whitman's YAWP (not the 19th
>> century equivalent of Judy, but many others). Time is the only separator of
>> wheat from chaff.
>>
>> Judy Prince wrote:
>>
>>> Orr could've used a few runs around Bob's WEPD list and our debates.  He
>>> comes off as a big waffle. I propose Bob Grumman as the NYTBR poetry wotsit,
>>> after me, natch.  John Ashbery the best of his generation---YAWK!
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Judy
>>>
>>> 2009/2/24 <jforjames at aol.com <mailto:jforjames at aol.com>>
>>>
>>>    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/books/review/Orr-t.html?ref=arts
>>>    In October, John Ashbery became the first poet to have an edition
>>>    of his works released by the Library of America in his own
>>>    lifetime. That honor says a number of things about the state of
>>>    contemporary poetry ? some good, some not so good ? but perhaps
>>>    the most important and disturbing question it raises is this: What
>>>    will we do when Ashbery and his generation are gone? Because for
>>>    the first time since the early 19th century, American poetry may
>>>    be about to run out of greatness.
>>>
>>>
>>>  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>    Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career
>>>    advice and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job
>>>    <http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>.
>>>
>>>    _______________________________________________
>>>    New-Poetry mailing list
>>>    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Tad Richards
>> Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
>> http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner
>>
>> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
>> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> 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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb 24 19:17:53 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:17:53 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A4885C.4040107@opus40.org>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A4885C.4040107@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <49A48E31.3070709@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> See that's the thing. No one's going to agree. 19th century 
> contemporaries would as like as not have given a YAWK to Walt 
> Whitman's YAWP (not the 19th century equivalent of Judy, but many 
> others). Time is the only separator of wheat from chaff.
>
I'm not so sure.  Some chaff endures forever.  Most greatness is 
immediately recognized by superior critics.  Emerson recognized 
Whitman.  Emily shouldn't count because she was a recluse, but Higginson 
(was that his name?) was fairly prominent and recognized her poetry as 
valuable.  Without studying the matter, my impression is that most of 
the good critics during the first half of the twentieth century 
recognized the best poets of the time.  They also over-rated quite a 
few, and may have missed some.  Pound missed just about none, it seems 
to me.  (Question: has any American poet born before 1900 burst into 
prominence later than 1950?  I can't think of any.)

On the other hand, I can't think of a single American critic with any 
kind of audience who is half as good as Pound and Eliot were, or even as 
Jarrell. 

--Bob G.

Second thought: that the number of poets being published in our country 
now greatly slows down the evaluation procedure.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb 24 19:21:02 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:21:02 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A48EEE.4050403@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Orr could've used a few runs around Bob's WEPD list and our debates. 
>  He comes off as a big waffle. I propose Bob Grumman as the NYTBR 
> poetry wotsit, after me, natch.  John Ashbery the best of his 
> generation---YAWK!
>
> Best,
>
> Judy
Thanks, Judy.  Best would be someone like me or you (with me coaching 
you) AND a Wilshberian like Orr.

--Bob



From chris.lott at gmail.com  Tue Feb 24 20:14:47 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:14:47 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902241602y24276b17rc8e5bf693a795699@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A4885C.4040107@opus40.org>
	<f160a1210902241556q13e4cc08ie6c9e20ae7bfd7b3@mail.gmail.com>
	<6768ac830902241602y24276b17rc8e5bf693a795699@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0902241714x4cd3e374y519c0544442097cb@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 3:02 PM, Michael Snider <mandolin at mikesnider.org> wrote:
> They did pretty much ignore Whitman. Longfellow was The Man. And earlier in
> the century Sir Walter Scott was a Geat Poet: Has anyone here read Marmion
> or The Lady of the Lake? Yet we quote him all the time: "Oh what a tangled
> web we weave ..."

Always thought that was Shakespeare. Then learned better. And I
*still* never remember that it's Sir Walter Scott. Shakespeare should
have written it...

c


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb 24 20:23:46 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:23:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A49DA2.2020203@nut-n-but.net>

Well, now I've actually read the Orr piece.  I have just two comments: 
he's forgotten Roethke, and ought to realize that just because he 
apparently can't get out of Ashbery's shadow, it doesn't mean no 
contemporary poets can, either.

--Bob G.



From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb 24 20:33:31 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:33:31 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A49DA2.2020203@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A49DA2.2020203@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902241733j4a9b4121nf59b4f2f772d8375@mail.gmail.com>

And the real giant, it seems to me, is not Ashbery but Wilbur.



On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 8:23 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> Well, now I've actually read the Orr piece.  I have just two comments: he's
> forgotten Roethke, and ought to realize that just because he apparently
> can't get out of Ashbery's shadow, it doesn't mean no contemporary poets
> can, either.
>
> --Bob G.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Tue Feb 24 20:41:05 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:41:05 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A48E31.3070709@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>	<49A4885C.4040107@opus40.org>
	<49A48E31.3070709@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <49A4A1B1.5020301@opus40.org>

You are, hard as this may be to believe, completely irrelevant. Yes, 
some people recognized Whitman as the premier poet of his generation, 
and some recognized Mrs. Gaskell as the greatest novelist. Many people 
today think that Ashbery is the greatest poet of his time, and others 
don't. But I'd agree with you that it's very unlikely that someone 
completely unknown in his own time will later be considered the greatest 
poet of his generation. But perhaps not impossible. Which means there's 
still hope for me.

Bob Grumman wrote:
> TheOldMole wrote:
>> See that's the thing. No one's going to agree. 19th century 
>> contemporaries would as like as not have given a YAWK to Walt 
>> Whitman's YAWP (not the 19th century equivalent of Judy, but many 
>> others). Time is the only separator of wheat from chaff.
>>
> I'm not so sure.  Some chaff endures forever.  Most greatness is 
> immediately recognized by superior critics.  Emerson recognized 
> Whitman.  Emily shouldn't count because she was a recluse, but 
> Higginson (was that his name?) was fairly prominent and recognized her 
> poetry as valuable.  Without studying the matter, my impression is 
> that most of the good critics during the first half of the twentieth 
> century recognized the best poets of the time.  They also over-rated 
> quite a few, and may have missed some.  Pound missed just about none, 
> it seems to me.  (Question: has any American poet born before 1900 
> burst into prominence later than 1950?  I can't think of any.)
>
> On the other hand, I can't think of a single American critic with any 
> kind of audience who is half as good as Pound and Eliot were, or even 
> as Jarrell.
> --Bob G.
>
> Second thought: that the number of poets being published in our 
> country now greatly slows down the evaluation procedure.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb 24 21:20:06 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:20:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902241733j4a9b4121nf59b4f2f772d8375@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com><49
	A49DA2.2020203@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902241733j4a9b4121nf59b4f2f772d8375@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A4AAD6.7070206@nut-n-but.net>

One thing that seems almost always to get left out of discussions of 
greatness in poetry is whether a poet can be great without composing any 
great poems.  I can't think of any who were but in theory a poet could 
write terrible poems but in the process make extremely important, 
lasting contributions to the art.  Gertrude Stein may be an instance, if 
you count her short texts poetry.  Maybe Wyatt?  He was not a terrible 
poet, but I don't think he wrote any great poems, but he or the other 
guy (Robin?) . . . Surrey? established a key form in English Poetry.  
Horrible as it may be to say it, Whitman might be another.  I just got 
exposed again to his "When Lilacs Last in Dooryard Bloomed," which I 
remembered as pretty good or better.  This time I thought I must have 
read an edited version or it.  I found it really poor.  And I've not 
liked much of Whitman except "Song of Myself"--which I'm now afraid to 
return to.  Whitman was certainly a great poet in terms of importance 
versus effectiveness (something I've discussed here more than once 
before).  I can think of lots of great poets who were not important.  
Sacrilege, I know, but I'd count Shakespeare one (as lyric poet, not 
dramatist). 

--Bob G.



From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb 24 21:32:34 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:32:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A4AAD6.7070206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<6768ac830902241733j4a9b4121nf59b4f2f772d8375@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A4AAD6.7070206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902241832g4770ee21r3211ab6864120898@mail.gmail.com>

Bob, you're forgetting the influence of Shakespeare's sonnets.

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> One thing that seems almost always to get left out of discussions of
> greatness in poetry is whether a poet can be great without composing any
> great poems.  I can't think of any who were but in theory a poet could write
> terrible poems but in the process make extremely important, lasting
> contributions to the art.  Gertrude Stein may be an instance, if you count
> her short texts poetry.  Maybe Wyatt?  He was not a terrible poet, but I
> don't think he wrote any great poems, but he or the other guy (Robin?) . . .
> Surrey? established a key form in English Poetry.  Horrible as it may be to
> say it, Whitman might be another.  I just got exposed again to his "When
> Lilacs Last in Dooryard Bloomed," which I remembered as pretty good or
> better.  This time I thought I must have read an edited version or it.  I
> found it really poor.  And I've not liked much of Whitman except "Song of
> Myself"--which I'm now afraid to return to.  Whitman was certainly a great
> poet in terms of importance versus effectiveness (something I've discussed
> here more than once before).  I can think of lots of great poets who were
> not important.  Sacrilege, I know, but I'd count Shakespeare one (as lyric
> poet, not dramatist).
> --Bob G.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Tue Feb 24 21:57:30 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:57:30 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thinking about the human condition
Message-ID: <05476A1E-62BA-4079-AE51-863E382D6B7F@ripon.edu>

Weldon Kees is 95 years old today.  Perhaps. . . .  I wonder if he's  
still in Mexico?  Anyone seen him lately?


The Beach in August

The day the fat woman
In the bright blue bathing suit
Walked into the water and died,
I thought about the human
Condition. Pieces of old fruit
Came in and were left by the tide.

What I thought about the human
Condition was this: old fruit
Comes in and is left, and dries
In the sun. Another fat woman
In a dull green bathing suit
Dives into the water and dies.
The pulmotors glisten. It is noon.

We dry and die in the sun
While the seascape arranges old fruit,
Coming in with the tide glistening
At noon. A woman, moderately stout,
In a nondescript bathing suit,
Swims to a pier. A tall woman
Steps toward the sea. One thinks about the human
Condition. The tide goes in and goes out.

--Weldon Kees



========================================
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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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Feb 25 02:20:43 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:20:43 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A48E31.3070709@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com><49A4885C.4040107@opus40.org>
	<49A48E31.3070709@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <9B85BA2A6A1D42908357F27BFA47E442@RobinPC>

From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> (Question: has any American poet born before 1900 burst into 
> prominence later than 1950?  I can't think of any.)

Anne Bradstreet?

R.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Feb 25 06:07:26 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 06:07:26 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902241832g4770ee21r3211ab6864120898@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com><67
	68ac830902241733j4a9b4121nf59b4f2f772d8375@mail.gmail.com><49A4AAD6.7070206@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902241832g4770ee21r3211ab6864120898@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A5266E.8050503@nut-n-but.net>

Michael Snider wrote:
> Bob, you're forgetting the influence of Shakespeare's sonnets.
No, I'm claiming he merely passed on the influence of previous and 
contemporary sonneteers.  If he'd never written a sonnet, the sonnet 
would still be a key form of poetry in English.

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Feb 25 06:14:59 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 06:14:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <9B85BA2A6A1D42908357F27BFA47E442@RobinPC>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com><49A4885C.4040107@opus40.org>	<49A48E31.3070709@nut-n-but.net>
	<9B85BA2A6A1D42908357F27BFA47E442@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <49A52833.7040208@nut-n-but.net>

Robin Hamilton wrote:
> From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
>
>> (Question: has any American poet born before 1900 burst into 
>> prominence later than 1950?  I can't think of any.)
>
> Anne Bradstreet?
Well, prominence for a few scholars, yes--I'd say (sorry) for reasons 
other than her ability as a poet. 

--Bob G.



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Feb 25 06:45:19 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:45:19 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A52833.7040208@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com><49A4885C.4040107@opus40.org>	<49A48E31.3070709@nut-n-but.net><9B85BA2A6A1D42908357F27BFA47E442@RobinPC>
	<49A52833.7040208@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <670EF0AD41AD4581BFCF24996F986984@RobinPC>

> Well, prominence for a few scholars, yes--I'd say (sorry) for reasons 
> other than her ability as a poet.
> --Bob G.

Well, as a (Metaphysical) poet, I'd put her after Donne and Marvell, but 
before Herbert and Vaughan.

But there still isn't a decent edition of her poems ...

R.




From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Wed Feb 25 07:03:25 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:03:25 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902241556q13e4cc08ie6c9e20ae7bfd7b3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A4885C.4040107@opus40.org>
	<f160a1210902241556q13e4cc08ie6c9e20ae7bfd7b3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902250403k6eb898fcr254e8bdee4ca4f48@mail.gmail.com>

This diatribe came out several years ago in a most powerful way in France.
The book to be questioned was Lagarde et Michaux - their litterature
francaise of all centuries had set the path to many. I also studied on those
books.
In art it was l'Academie francaise that chose who was fit for immortality or
not.
Many were in history the factors that allowed one to be considered better
than the other, many are still today.


On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 12:56 AM, Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com> wrote:

> Time and, to a large extent, chance or luck.
>
> HJ
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 5:53 PM, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:
>
>> See that's the thing. No one's going to agree. 19th century contemporaries
>> would as like as not have given a YAWK to Walt Whitman's YAWP (not the 19th
>> century equivalent of Judy, but many others). Time is the only separator of
>> wheat from chaff.
>>
>> Judy Prince wrote:
>>
>>> Orr could've used a few runs around Bob's WEPD list and our debates.  He
>>> comes off as a big waffle. I propose Bob Grumman as the NYTBR poetry wotsit,
>>> after me, natch.  John Ashbery the best of his generation---YAWK!
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Judy
>>>
>>> 2009/2/24 <jforjames at aol.com <mailto:jforjames at aol.com>>
>>>
>>>    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/books/review/Orr-t.html?ref=arts
>>>    In October, John Ashbery became the first poet to have an edition
>>>    of his works released by the Library of America in his own
>>>    lifetime. That honor says a number of things about the state of
>>>    contemporary poetry ? some good, some not so good ? but perhaps
>>>    the most important and disturbing question it raises is this: What
>>>    will we do when Ashbery and his generation are gone? Because for
>>>    the first time since the early 19th century, American poetry may
>>>    be about to run out of greatness.
>>>
>>>
>>>  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>    Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career
>>>    advice and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job
>>>    <http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>.
>>>
>>>    _______________________________________________
>>>    New-Poetry mailing list
>>>    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Tad Richards
>> Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
>> http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner
>>
>> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
>> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> halvard at gmail.com
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/index.html>
> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/vidalocabooks.html>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Wed Feb 25 07:18:47 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:18:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A5266E.8050503@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A4AAD6.7070206@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902241832g4770ee21r3211ab6864120898@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5266E.8050503@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902250418p5f2b94e4l35536940719ea880@mail.gmail.com>

WHAT?!!!!

2009/2/25 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> Michael Snider wrote:
>
>> Bob, you're forgetting the influence of Shakespeare's sonnets.
>>
> No, I'm claiming he merely passed on the influence of previous and
> contemporary sonneteers.  If he'd never written a sonnet, the sonnet would
> still be a key form of poetry in English.
>
> --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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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Wed Feb 25 07:38:52 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:38:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A5266E.8050503@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A4AAD6.7070206@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902241832g4770ee21r3211ab6864120898@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5266E.8050503@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902250438r710da369o3147563c8a1120d5@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 6:07 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> Michael Snider wrote:
>
>> Bob, you're forgetting the influence of Shakespeare's sonnets.
>>
> No, I'm claiming he merely passed on the influence of previous and
> contemporary sonneteers.  If he'd never written a sonnet, the sonnet would
> still be a key form of poetry in English.
>
> --Bob
> Mebbe so, but they'd be very different. Shakespeare turned the conventions
> of the sonnet inside out and helped make wit an essential part of the form
> in English. There's good reason the 7 rhyme sonnet wih 3 quatrains and a
> couplet is called a Shakespearean sonnet.
>
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Wed Feb 25 07:47:36 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:47:36 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Visual Poetry Posters
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902250447h26a8bc62h9233a328228820b0@mail.gmail.com>

*A Six-Pack of Visual Poetry Posters*

"For poetry there exists neither large countries nor small. Its domain is in
the heart of all men."?Giorgos Seferis
http://wordpainting.com/shop-visposters.shtml




-- 
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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From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Wed Feb 25 08:09:17 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 06:09:17 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thinking about the human condition
In-Reply-To: <05476A1E-62BA-4079-AE51-863E382D6B7F@ripon.edu>
References: <05476A1E-62BA-4079-AE51-863E382D6B7F@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <648208b60902250509x16be3de7xe3aef9fb83cc2eb0@mail.gmail.com>

Well, it would be interesting to run a "last photo" of him through one of
those photo morphing things that show what he might look like around 95.
 Perhaps then we could keep an eye out.
Good to see this poem again.

- Jim

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 7:57 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> Weldon Kees is 95 years old today.  Perhaps. . . .  I wonder if he's still
> in Mexico?  Anyone seen him lately?
>
> *The Beach in August*
>
> The day the fat woman
> In the bright blue bathing suit
> Walked into the water and died,
> I thought about the human
> Condition. Pieces of old fruit
> Came in and were left by the tide.
>
> What I thought about the human
> Condition was this: old fruit
> Comes in and is left, and dries
> In the sun. Another fat woman
> In a dull green bathing suit
> Dives into the water and dies.
> The pulmotors glisten. It is noon.
>
> We dry and die in the sun
> While the seascape arranges old fruit,
> Coming in with the tide glistening
> At noon. A woman, moderately stout,
> In a nondescript bathing suit,
> Swims to a pier. A tall woman
> Steps toward the sea. One thinks about the human
> Condition. The tide goes in and goes out.
>
> --Weldon Kees
>
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org
http://www.hamiltonstone.org/catalog.html#temporarymeaning
http://www.fieralingue.it/documenti/mr_bondo.pdf
http://www.poetserv.org/jvc/home/index.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescervantes/
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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Wed Feb 25 08:29:11 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:29:11 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thinking about the human condition
In-Reply-To: <648208b60902250509x16be3de7xe3aef9fb83cc2eb0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <05476A1E-62BA-4079-AE51-863E382D6B7F@ripon.edu>
	<648208b60902250509x16be3de7xe3aef9fb83cc2eb0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902250529g1e75a32dq2c910e91b8238eac@mail.gmail.com>

I discovered Kees as an undergraduate.  I worked in the campus library, a
five-story building in the center of the campus at the University of West
Florida in Pensacola.  My job was pretty much limited to shelving books, so
when I came to work between classes and clocked in, I usually took a cart of
books up the third floor to reshelve.  I tried to make certain that the
books I had went in the PR-PS sections, British and American literature.

Since I was so very unread at the time, I spent a lot of time randomly
reading books.  I'd grab a book from the shelf (or my cart), hide out in a
study carrell, and read my shift away.  I knew that I wanted to write
poetry, and I knew that I'd not read enough poetry.  My knowledge was
limited to a few poets I liked from my survey courses:  Eliot, Yeats,
Keats.  I wanted to read everything.  I read a lot of different poets this
way:  Bishop, Merrill, Auden (who mystified me), Baudelaire, others.

So, anyway, one day I pick up Weldon Kees' Selected Poems, the one edited by
Donald Justice.  I remember reading the poem that begins "Purient tapirs
once gamboled on our lawns/but that was some time ago."  I didn't know what
a "tapir" was; I was only slightly aware of what the word "purient" meant.
Still, something about the poems struck me:  some sense of a broken world,
some sense of clausterphobia, a deft interplay of form and content.  I fell
in love with Kees that afternoon.  It was a sunny day, and I hid in a
third-floor study carrell, amazed at this poet not a single professor or
anthology had ever told me about.  He was my discovery, and I tried
throuhgout my undergradaute days to to work him into any conversation I had
about poetry.

Only later did I read Dana Gioia's essay about Kees. He describes a similiar
situation: discovering Kees on his own.

This has me thinking:  are there any poems about Kees?  He (and his
situation, the disappearance) seem ripe for exploration.  I have a poem in a
back issue of the Valparaiso Poetry Review that begins with a line from
Kees, but my poem is certainly not about him.

He was such an interesting character.  Has anyone read Reidel's biography?
You could make a movie about that cat's life (Kees, not Reidel).

Best,
Jeff Newberry

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 8:09 AM, James Cervantes
<cervantes.james at gmail.com>wrote:

> Well, it would be interesting to run a "last photo" of him through one of
> those photo morphing things that show what he might look like around 95.
>  Perhaps then we could keep an eye out.
> Good to see this poem again.
>
> - Jim
>
> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 7:57 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:
>
>> Weldon Kees is 95 years old today.  Perhaps. . . .  I wonder if he's still
>> in Mexico?  Anyone seen him lately?
>>
>> *The Beach in August*
>>
>> The day the fat woman
>> In the bright blue bathing suit
>> Walked into the water and died,
>> I thought about the human
>> Condition. Pieces of old fruit
>> Came in and were left by the tide.
>>
>> What I thought about the human
>> Condition was this: old fruit
>> Comes in and is left, and dries
>> In the sun. Another fat woman
>> In a dull green bathing suit
>> Dives into the water and dies.
>> The pulmotors glisten. It is noon.
>>
>> We dry and die in the sun
>> While the seascape arranges old fruit,
>> Coming in with the tide glistening
>> At noon. A woman, moderately stout,
>> In a nondescript bathing suit,
>> Swims to a pier. A tall woman
>> Steps toward the sea. One thinks about the human
>> Condition. The tide goes in and goes out.
>>
>> --Weldon Kees
>>
>>
>>
>> ========================================
>> David Graham
>> grahamd at ripon.edu
>>
>> Home Page:
>> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>>
>> Poetry Library:
>> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
>> ==========================================
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org
> http://www.hamiltonstone.org/catalog.html#temporarymeaning
> http://www.fieralingue.it/documenti/mr_bondo.pdf
> http://www.poetserv.org/jvc/home/index.html
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescervantes/
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that
is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and
experience, from which each according to his own immediate and peculiar
needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden
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From eposamentier at yahoo.com  Wed Feb 25 08:37:04 2009
From: eposamentier at yahoo.com (Evelyn Posamentier)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:37:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thinking about the human condition
Message-ID: <233059.28858.qm@web31808.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Yes.? Had coffee with him yesterday . . . .

--- On Tue, 2/24/09, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:


From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thinking about the human condition
To: "new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Date: Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 6:57 PM


Weldon Kees is 95 years old today. ?Perhaps. . . . ?I wonder if he's still in Mexico? ?Anyone seen him lately? ?





The Beach in August
?
The day the fat woman
In the bright blue bathing suit
Walked into the water and died,
I thought about the human
Condition. Pieces of old fruit
Came in and were left by the tide.
?
What I thought about the human
Condition was this: old fruit
Comes in and is left, and dries
In the sun. Another fat woman
In a dull green bathing suit
Dives into the water and dies.
The pulmotors glisten. It is noon.
?
We dry and die in the sun
While the seascape arranges old fruit,
Coming in with the tide glistening
At noon. A woman, moderately stout,
In a nondescript bathing suit,
Swims to a pier. A tall woman
Steps toward the sea. One thinks about the human
Condition. The tide goes in and goes out.
?
--Weldon Kees





========================================
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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_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Wed Feb 25 08:39:10 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:39:10 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thinking about the human condition
Message-ID: <cb5.4f88925c.36d6a3fe@aol.com>

I know that there is an anthology at least in the planning stages of poems  
about Kees and his life. I was solicited for a poem, so wrote one immediately,  
but they wanted stuff that had been written already, not drummed up for the  
occasion. Wojahn has an essay about his discovery of Kees as well. Funny how 
so  many disparate readers have had essentially the same experience of 
discovering  Kees.
**************Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your 
neighborhood today. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filing&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000004)
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Wed Feb 25 08:55:51 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:55:51 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thinking about the human condition
In-Reply-To: <cb5.4f88925c.36d6a3fe@aol.com>
References: <cb5.4f88925c.36d6a3fe@aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902250555h1cff8cc5m30c17382edcb9655@mail.gmail.com>

He must be a discoverer himself.

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 2:39 PM, <AlMaginnes at aol.com> wrote:

>  I know that there is an anthology at least in the planning stages of
> poems about Kees and his life. I was solicited for a poem, so wrote one
> immediately, but they wanted stuff that had been written already, not
> drummed up for the occasion. Wojahn has an essay about his discovery of Kees
> as well. Funny how so many disparate readers have had essentially the same
> experience of discovering Kees.
>
> ------------------------------
> Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your
> neighborhood today<http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filing&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000004>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From eposamentier at yahoo.com  Wed Feb 25 09:17:15 2009
From: eposamentier at yahoo.com (Evelyn Posamentier)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 06:17:15 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thinking about the human condition
Message-ID: <252823.47970.qm@web31809.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

"You could make a movie about that cat's life (Kees, not Reidel)." -- ironically, kees was a cat person!

--- On Wed, 2/25/09, Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Thinking about the human condition
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &, Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Date: Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 5:29 AM


I discovered Kees as an undergraduate.? I worked in the campus library, a five-story building in the center of the campus at the University of West Florida in Pensacola.? My job was pretty much limited to shelving books, so when I came to work between classes and clocked in, I usually took a cart of books up the third floor to reshelve.? I tried to make certain that the books I had went in the PR-PS sections, British and American literature.

Since I was so very unread at the time, I spent a lot of time randomly reading books.? I'd grab a book from the shelf (or my cart), hide out in a study carrell, and read my shift away.? I knew that I wanted to write poetry, and I knew that I'd not read enough poetry.? My knowledge was limited to a few poets I liked from my survey courses:? Eliot, Yeats, Keats.? I wanted to read everything.? I read a lot of different poets this way:? Bishop, Merrill, Auden (who mystified me), Baudelaire, others.

So, anyway, one day I pick up Weldon Kees' Selected Poems, the one edited by Donald Justice.? I remember reading the poem that begins "Purient tapirs once gamboled on our lawns/but that was some time ago."? I didn't know what a "tapir" was; I was only slightly aware of what the word "purient" meant.? Still, something about the poems struck me:? some sense of a broken world, some sense of clausterphobia, a deft interplay of form and content.? I fell in love with Kees that afternoon.? It was a sunny day, and I hid in a third-floor study carrell, amazed at this poet not a single professor or anthology had ever told me about.? He was my discovery, and I tried throuhgout my undergradaute days to to work him into any conversation I had about poetry.

Only later did I read Dana Gioia's essay about Kees. He describes a similiar situation: discovering Kees on his own.

This has me thinking:? are there any poems about Kees?? He (and his situation, the disappearance) seem ripe for exploration.? I have a poem in a back issue of the Valparaiso Poetry Review that begins with a line from Kees, but my poem is certainly not about him.

He was such an interesting character.? Has anyone read Reidel's biography?? You could make a movie about that cat's life (Kees, not Reidel).

Best,
Jeff Newberry


On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 8:09 AM, James Cervantes <cervantes.james at gmail.com> wrote:

Well, it would be interesting to run a "last photo" of him through one of those photo morphing things that show what he might look like around 95. ?Perhaps then we could keep an eye out.


Good to see this poem again.


- Jim





On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 7:57 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:





Weldon Kees is 95 years old today. ?Perhaps. . . . ?I wonder if he's still in Mexico? ?Anyone seen him lately? ?





The Beach in August
?
The day the fat woman
In the bright blue bathing suit
Walked into the water and died,
I thought about the human
Condition. Pieces of old fruit
Came in and were left by the tide.
?
What I thought about the human
Condition was this: old fruit
Comes in and is left, and dries
In the sun. Another fat woman
In a dull green bathing suit
Dives into the water and dies.
The pulmotors glisten. It is noon.
?
We dry and die in the sun
While the seascape arranges old fruit,
Coming in with the tide glistening
At noon. A woman, moderately stout,
In a nondescript bathing suit,
Swims to a pier. A tall woman
Steps toward the sea. One thinks about the human
Condition. The tide goes in and goes out.
?
--Weldon Kees





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


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


Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
==========================================





_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
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-- 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org
http://www.hamiltonstone.org/catalog.html#temporarymeaning
http://www.fieralingue.it/documenti/mr_bondo.pdf
http://www.poetserv.org/jvc/home/index.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescervantes/

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-- 
You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and experience, from which each according to his own immediate and peculiar needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden


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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Feb 25 09:21:21 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:21:21 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A4AAD6.7070206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com><49A49DA2.2020203@nut-n-but.net><6768ac830902241733j4a9b4121nf59b4f2f772d8375@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A4AAD6.7070206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <A8348B431C274684BD04C3833A2A1BCD@RobinPC>

From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> Maybe Wyatt?  He was not a terrible poet, but I don't think he wrote any 
> great poems,

Well, depends how high you erect the bar for "great" -- 'They flee from me 
...', 'Whoso list to hunt ...', 'Stand whoso list ...', "The pillar perished 
is ...' -- at least fifteen poems that still bear re-reading after 500 
years.

Surrey only wrote one, in my opinion, fully-successful poem, a sonnet as it 
happens -- 'When Windsor walls sustained my weary arms ...'.

> but he or the other guy (Robin?) . . . Surrey? established a key form in 
> English Poetry.

There's no certainty as to which of the two was first to use the form in 
English (though my money is on Wyatt, who was the older [and better] writer, 
and wrote more sonnets, both original and translated).  Surrey did introduce 
the English/Shakespearean <<abab cdcd efef gg>> form.

The publication of _Tottel's Miscellany_ in 1557 gave the sonnet form a 
boost, but the crucial text for popularising it was Sidney's Astrophel and 
Stella, written in the 1580s.

{For reasons less to do with art than political events, Tottel (or Grimald) 
entitled his collection: _Poems by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and 
Others_.   It came out when the memory of Wyatt junior's attempted rebellion 
against Mary Tudor was till recent.}

In this early period, Shakespeare wasn't as significant as Sidney, Spenser, 
and the rest of the crew of Daniel, Drayton, et alia.  Shakespeare's 
_Sonnets_ appeared in a single quarto edition in 1608, and weren't 
republished till 1640 (by Benson, in _Shakespeare's Poems_, with the 
pronouns frequently changed).

Another significant extension is with non-erotic sonnets by Donne and 
Milton.

In the eighteenth century, for whatever reasons, the sonnet form virtually 
fades for a century, to reappear with the Romantics -- Wordsworth, 
Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, etc., and it's at this point that Shakespeare 
becomes *the major influence.

After that it is, as they say, history.

Robin 




From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Feb 25 09:31:00 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:31:00 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
Message-ID: <c47.50fadd4a.36d6b024@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/25/2009 5:12:11 AM Central Standard Time, 
bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: 
> >
> >>(Question: has any American poet born before 1900 burst into 
> >>prominence later than 1950?  I can't think of any.)
> >
> >Anne Bradstreet?
> Well, prominence for a few scholars, yes--I'd say (sorry) for reasons 
> other than her ability as a poet. 
> 
> --Bob G.
Edward Taylor.
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Wed Feb 25 09:42:02 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:42:02 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thinking about the human condition
In-Reply-To: <cb5.4f88925c.36d6a3fe@aol.com>
References: <cb5.4f88925c.36d6a3fe@aol.com>
Message-ID: <718BDEC6-BED1-45D8-9240-FDF036845C22@ripon.edu>

I discovered Kees in the first *Naked Poetry* anthology edited by  
Berg & Mezey, which was pivotal in many ways for me as I was starting  
out.  Then, like many others, thought of Kees as my private discovery  
until eventually I realized how many others told similar stories.   
One of Gioia's points is really accurate:  Kees has always been a  
poet other poets loved deeply.  Critics and anthologists, not so  
much. . . .

I wasn't solicited for the Kees anthology, but here's my Kees poem  
anyway.

HOMAGE TO WELDON KEES

             --after his "Homage to Arthur Waley"


Wisconsin fall:  windows closed these three weeks,
midnight chill you can still smell through the glass.
I reach for your book naturally after midnight,

work done, listening to the furnace click and halt
in my walls, and I study your photo once more.
Gazing down on that blueblack ocean

you must have joined in 1955.  Thinking
?even the sound of the rain repeats:  The lease
is up, the time is near."


========================================
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 Feb 25, 2009, at 7:39 AM, AlMaginnes at aol.com wrote:

> I know that there is an anthology at least in the planning stages  
> of poems about Kees and his life. I was solicited for a poem, so  
> wrote one immediately, but they wanted stuff that had been written  
> already, not drummed up for the occasion. Wojahn has an essay about  
> his discovery of Kees as well. Funny how so many disparate readers  
> have had essentially the same experience of discovering Kees.
>
> Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your  
> neighborhood today.
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Feb 25 10:21:20 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:21:20 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thinking about the human condition
Message-ID: <c93.3fef6ea9.36d6bbf0@cs.com>

I discovered him in an anthology from Modern Library, edited (I think) by 
Untermeyer.  Quite a revelation, my first year in grad school.  When I told my 
friend Leon Stokesbury about Kees, he said that he'd discovered him in the 
library as an undergrad and had written and published a poem (in The New Yorker!) 
as a senior that was modeled on "Fugue."  Much later Gioia and I got to know 
each other--same story. One of the most interesting coincidences I came across 
was in the biography.  When I was in high school I was smitten with Pauline 
Kael, who made me want to write criticism (the film critic part never panned 
out).  She and Kees were close at Berkeley and did radio shows together.  Another 
pal was an unknown comic named Phyllis Diller!  What a tangled web.  He was in 
the first Norton Modern Poetry but was dropped.  However, he's now in a lot 
of other anthologies, including the Norton Anthology of Poetry.
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Wed Feb 25 11:23:16 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:23:16 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thinking about the human condition
In-Reply-To: <718BDEC6-BED1-45D8-9240-FDF036845C22@ripon.edu>
References: <cb5.4f88925c.36d6a3fe@aol.com>
	<718BDEC6-BED1-45D8-9240-FDF036845C22@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <49A57074.8040803@opus40.org>

David -- I love this.

David Graham wrote:
> I discovered Kees in the first *Naked Poetry* anthology edited by Berg 
> & Mezey, which was pivotal in many ways for me as I was starting out. 
>  Then, like many others, thought of Kees as my private discovery until 
> eventually I realized how many others told similar stories.  One of 
> Gioia's points is really accurate:  Kees has always been a poet other 
> poets loved deeply.  Critics and anthologists, not so much. . . .
>
> I wasn't solicited for the Kees anthology, but here's my Kees poem anyway.
>
> HOMAGE TO WELDON KEES
>  
>             --after his "Homage to Arthur Waley"
>  
>  
> Wisconsin fall:  windows closed these three weeks,
> midnight chill you can still smell through the glass.
> I reach for your book naturally after midnight,
>  
> work done, listening to the furnace click and halt
> in my walls, and I study your photo once more.
> Gazing down on that blueblack ocean
>  
> you must have joined in 1955.  Thinking
> ?even the sound of the rain repeats:  /The lease/
> /is up, the time is near/."
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu <mailto:grahamd at ripon.edu>
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 25, 2009, at 7:39 AM, AlMaginnes at aol.com 
> <mailto:AlMaginnes at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> I know that there is an anthology at least in the planning stages of 
>> poems about Kees and his life. I was solicited for a poem, so wrote 
>> one immediately, but they wanted stuff that had been written already, 
>> not drummed up for the occasion. Wojahn has an essay about his 
>> discovery of Kees as well. Funny how so many disparate readers have 
>> had essentially the same experience of discovering Kees.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your 
>> neighborhood today 
>> <http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filing&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000004>. 
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Wed Feb 25 11:27:32 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:27:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Criticism by others: Empson meets Sidney
Message-ID: <49A57174.4080204@opus40.org>

SEVEN   TYPES   OF   AMBIGUITY
as not to interfere with one another, in the prolonged and diffused 
energies of his mind.
Nowhere in English literature can this use of diffuseness as an 
alternative to, or peculiar branch of, ambiguity be seen more clearly 
than in those lovely sestines of Sidney, which are so curiously foreign 
to the normal modes or later developments of the language. This time I 
must do some serious quotation.
STREPHON.                                            KLAIUS.
strephon. You Gate-heard Gods, that love the grassie mountaines,
You nimphes that haunt the springs in pleasant vallies,
You Satyrs joyd with free and quiet forrests,
Vouchsafe your silent eares to playning musique,
Which to my woes gives still an early morning:
And draws the dolor on till wery evening.

klaius. O Mercuric, foregoer to the evening,
O heavenlie huntresse of the savage mountaines,
O lovelie starve, entitled of the morning,
While that my voice doth fill the woeful vallies
Vouchsafe your silent eares to playning musique,
Which oft hath Echo tir'd in secrete forrests.

strephon. I that was once free-burgess of the forrests
Where shade from Sunne, and sports I sought at evening,
1 that was once esteemed for pleasant musique,
Am banisht now amongst the monstrous mountaines
Of huge despaire, and foul afflictions vallies,
Am growne a shrich-owle to myself each morning.

klaius. I that was once delighted every morning,
Hunting the wild inhabiters of forrests,
 I that was once the musique of these vallies,
So darkened am, that all my day is evening,
Hart-broken so, that mole-hills seem high mountaines,
And fill the vales with cries in stead of musique.

sirephon. Long since alas, my deadly Swannish musique
Hath made itself a crier of the morning,
And hath with wailing strength climbed highest mountaines:
Long since my thoughts more desert be than forrests:
Long since I see my joyes come to their evening,
And state throwen down to over-troden vallies.

klaius. Long since the happie dwellers of these vallies,
Have praide me leave my strange exclaiming musique,
Which troubles their dayes worke, and joyes of evening:
Long since I hate the night, more hate the morning:
Long since my thoughts chase me like beasts in forrests,
And make me wish myself laid under mountaines.

strephon. Me seemes I see the high and stately mountaines,
Transforme themselves to lowe dejected vallies:
Me seemes I heare in these ill-changed forrests,
The nightingales doo learne of Owles their musique:
Me seemes I feele the comfort of the morning
Turnde to the mortal serene of an evening.

klaius. Me seemes I see a filthie cloudie evening,
As soone as Sunne begins to climbe the mountaines:
Me seemes I feel a noisome scent, the morning
When I do smell the flowers of these vallies:
Me seemes I heare, when I doo heare sweet musique,
The dreadful cries of murdered men in forrests.

strephon. I wish to fire the trees of all these forrests;
I give the Sunne a last farewell each evening;
I curse the fiddling finders out of musique:
With envy doo I hate the lofty mountaines;
And with despite despise the humble vallies:
I doo detest night evening, day, and morning.

k.laius. Curse to myself my prayer is, the morning:
My fire is more, than can be made with forrests;
My state more base, than are the basest vallies:
I wish no evenings more to see, each evening;
 Shamed I have myself in sight of mountaines,
And stoppe mine eares, lest I go mad with musique.
 
strephon. For she, whose parts maintained a perfect musique
Whose beauty shin'de more than the blushing morning,
Who much did pass in state the stately mountaines,   
 In straightness past the Cedars of the forrests,
Hath cast me wretch into eternal evening,
By taking her two Sunnes from these dark vallies.
 
klaius. For she, to whom compared, the Alps are vallies,
 She, whose lest word brings from the spheares their musique
At whose approach the Sunne rose in the evening,
Who, where she went, bare in her forehead morning,
 Is gone, is gone from these our spoiled forrests,
Turning to deserts our best pastur'de mountaines.
 
strephon.   These mountaines witness shall, so shall these vallies,
 
klaius. These forrests eke, made wretched by our mustque,
 
strephon. Our morning hymn is this,
 
klaius.                                               and song at evening.
 
                     sidney, Arcadia.

The poem beats, however rich its orchestration, with a wailing and 
immovable monotony, for ever upon the same doors in vain. Mountaines, 
vallies, forrests; musique, eve?ning, morning; it is at these words only 
that Klaius and Strephon pause in their cries; these words circumscribe 
their world; these are the bones of their situation; and in tracing 
their lovelorn pastoral tedium through thirteen repetitions, with 
something of the aimless multitudinousness of the sea on a rock, we seem 
to extract all the meaning possible from these notions; we are at last, 
therefore, in possession of all that might have been implied by them (if 
we had under?stood them) in a single sentence; of all, in fact, that is 
im?plied by them, in the last sentence of the poem. I must glance, to 
show this, at the twelve other occasions on which each word is used.
Mountaines are haunts of Pan for lust and Diana for chastity, to both of 
these the lovers appeal; they suggest being shut in, or banishment; 
impossibility and impotence, or difficulty and achievement; greatness 
that may be en?vied or may be felt as your own (so as to make you feel 
helpless, or feel powerful); they give you the peace, or the despair, of 
the grave; they are the distant things behind which the sun rises and 
sets, the too near things which shut in your valley; deserted wastes, 
and the ample pastures to which you drive up the cattle for the summer. 
Vallies hold nymphs to which you may appeal, and yet are the normal 
places where you live; are your whole world, and yet limited so that 
your voice can affect the whole of them; are opposed to mountaines, 
either as places of shelter and comfort, or as places of humility and 
affliction; are rich with flowers and warmth, or are dark hollows 
between the hills.
 
Forrests, though valuable and accustomed, are desolate and hold danger; 
there are both nightingales and owls in them; their beasts, though 
savage, give the strong pleasures of hunting; their burning is either 
useful or destructive; though wild and sterile they give freedom for 
contempla?tion, and their trunks are symbols of pride.
 
Musique may express joy or sorrow; is at once more and less direct than 
talking, and so is connected with one's perma?nent feeling about the 
characters of pastoral that they are at once very rustic and rather 
over-civilised; it may please or distress the bystanders; and while 
belonging to despair and to the deaths of swans, it may share the living 
beauty of the lady, and be an inmate of the celestial spheres.
 
Morning brings hope, light and labour, evening rest, play and despair; 
they are the variety of Nature, or the tedious repetition of a day; 
their patrons Venus, whom one dare not name, and Mercury, who will bring 
no news of her. Morning, too, has often attached to it a meaning which, 
by an intelligent and illuminating misprint, is insisted upon in the 
eleventh (and subsequent) editions:

At whose approach the sun rose in the evening,
Who where she went bore in her forehead mourning,
Is gone, is gone, from these our spoiled forrests,
Turning to deserts our best pastor'd mountaines.

The form takes its effect by concentrating on these words and slowly 
building up our interest in them; all their latent implications are 
brought out by the repetitions; and each in turn is used to build up 
some simple conceit. So that when the static conception of the complaint 
has been finally brought into light (I do not mean by this to 
depre?ciate the sustained magnificence of its crescendo, but to praise 
the singleness of its idea), a whole succession of feel?ings about the 
local scenery, the whole way in which it is taken for granted, has been 
enlisted into sorrow and beats as a single passion of the mind.
 
 
-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/


From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Wed Feb 25 12:46:22 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:46:22 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] VizPo by a friend
Message-ID: <49A583EE.7010209@opus40.org>

In the current Rattle --  
http://www.rattle.com/blog/2009/01/i-am-anything-by-ruth-bavetta/

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb 25 13:32:21 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:32:21 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] site of interest: lyrikline,
	audio poetry in many languages 
Message-ID: <8CB658E87B8FECE-11AC-93C@WEBMAIL-DY01.sysops.aol.com>

http://lyrikline.org/

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From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb 25 14:05:31 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:05:31 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Kees, Pavese, cats
Message-ID: <8CB65932A3C773F-16B0-BE@WEBMAIL-DY01.sysops.aol.com>


Thinking of Kees reminded me of Pavese. Some similarities in their poetry and their lives cut short.
(And cats, too, I guess).
Finnegan

Affairs 
by Cesare Pavese 


Dawn on the black hill, and up on the roof 
cats drowsing. Last night, there was a boy 
who fell off this roof, breaking his back. 
The wind riffles the cool leaves of the trees. 
The red clouds above are warm and move slowly. 
A stray dog appears in the alley below, sniffing 
the boy on the cobblestones, and a raw wail 
rises up among chimneys: someone?s unhappy. 


The crickets were singing all night, and the stars 
were blown out by the wind. In dawn?s glow, 
even the eyes of the cats in love were extinguished, 
the cats the boy watched. The female is crying, 
no toms are around and nothing can soothe her: 
not the tops of the trees, not the red clouds. 
She cries to the wide sky, as if it were still night. 


The boy was spying on cats making love. 
The stray dog sniffs the boy?s body and growls; 
he got here at dawn, fleeing the glow 
that crept down the far hill. Swimming the river 
that drenched him as dew drenches fields, 
he was finally caught by the light. The bitches 
were still howling. 
?????????????????????????? The river runs smoothly, 
skimmed by birds that drop from red clouds, 
elated to find their river deserted.



(Translated by Geoffrey=2
0Brock)


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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Wed Feb 25 16:26:22 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:26:22 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] site of interest: lyrikline, audio poetry in many 
	languages
In-Reply-To: <8CB658E87B8FECE-11AC-93C@WEBMAIL-DY01.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB658E87B8FECE-11AC-93C@WEBMAIL-DY01.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902251326k670aa128jee5ed062aade1af@mail.gmail.com>

That's Christmas!

2009/2/25 <jforjames at aol.com>

> http://lyrikline.org/
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice
> and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job<http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Feb 25 17:57:15 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:57:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902250438r710da369o3147563c8a1120d5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com><49
	A4AAD6.7070206@nut-n-but.net><6768ac830902241832g4770ee21r3211ab6864120898@mail.gmail.com><49A5266E.8050503@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902250438r710da369o3147563c8a1120d5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A5CCCB.3010407@nut-n-but.net>

Michael Snider wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 6:07 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>> wrote:
>
>     Michael Snider wrote:
>
>         Bob, you're forgetting the influence of Shakespeare's sonnets.
>
>     No, I'm claiming he merely passed on the influence of previous and
>     contemporary sonneteers.  If he'd never written a sonnet, the
>     sonnet would still be a key form of poetry in English.
>
>     --Bob
>     Mebbe so, but they'd be very different. Shakespeare turned the
>     conventions of the sonnet inside out and helped make wit an
>     essential part of the form in English. There's good reason the 7
>     rhyme sonnet wih 3 quatrains and a couplet is called a
>     Shakespearean sonnet.
>
Exactly: his were the best in a form developed by others.  Wit is not an 
essential part of the form, for me--and none of Shakespeare's best use 
it (again, in my opinion).  I don't see that he turned the conventions 
inside out, but I'm no Sidney, Daniel, Spenser, etc., scholar.  I also 
think the sonnets of Milton would have been at the same level without 
Shakespeare before him.  Of course, Shakespeare influenced everyone 
after him, but so did many other poets, some forgotten.  I think a 
pertinent question would be whether Wyatt or Shakespeare was more 
important for the evolution and triumph of the sonnet.  Without Wyatt 
and/or Surrey(?), would Shakespeare ever have written sonnets? 

Question: what's a good book on the history of the sonnet in English?  I 
ought to read one but am too lazy to do a proper search for one.

--Bob
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Feb 25 18:13:07 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:13:07 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <A8348B431C274684BD04C3833A2A1BCD@RobinPC>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com><49A49DA2.2020203@nut-n-but.net><6768ac830902241733j4a9b4121nf59b4f2f772d8375@mail.gmail.com>	<49A4AAD6.7070206@nut-n-but.net>
	<A8348B431C274684BD04C3833A2A1BCD@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <49A5D083.8010005@nut-n-but.net>

Robin Hamilton wrote:
> From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
>
>> Maybe Wyatt?  He was not a terrible poet, but I don't think he wrote 
>> any great poems,
>
> Well, depends how high you erect the bar for "great" -- 'They flee 
> from me ...', 'Whoso list to hunt ...', 'Stand whoso list ...', "The 
> pillar perished is ...' -- at least fifteen poems that still bear 
> re-reading after 500 years.
>
> Surrey only wrote one, in my opinion, fully-successful poem, a sonnet 
> as it happens -- 'When Windsor walls sustained my weary arms ...'.
>
>> but he or the other guy (Robin?) . . . Surrey? established a key form 
>> in English Poetry.
>
> There's no certainty as to which of the two was first to use the form 
> in English (though my money is on Wyatt, who was the older [and 
> better] writer, and wrote more sonnets, both original and 
> translated).  Surrey did introduce the English/Shakespearean <<abab 
> cdcd efef gg>> form.
>
> The publication of _Tottel's Miscellany_ in 1557 gave the sonnet form 
> a boost, but the crucial text for popularising it was Sidney's 
> Astrophel and Stella, written in the 1580s.
>
> {For reasons less to do with art than political events, Tottel (or 
> Grimald) entitled his collection: _Poems by Henry Howard, Earl of 
> Surrey, and Others_.   It came out when the memory of Wyatt junior's 
> attempted rebellion against Mary Tudor was till recent.}
>
> In this early period, Shakespeare wasn't as significant as Sidney, 
> Spenser, and the rest of the crew of Daniel, Drayton, et alia.  
> Shakespeare's _Sonnets_ appeared in a single quarto edition in 1608, 
> and weren't republished till 1640 (by Benson, in _Shakespeare's 
> Poems_, with the pronouns frequently changed).
>
> Another significant extension is with non-erotic sonnets by Donne and 
> Milton.
>
> In the eighteenth century, for whatever reasons, the sonnet form 
> virtually fades for a century, to reappear with the Romantics -- 
> Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, etc., and it's at this point 
> that Shakespeare becomes *the major influence.
>
> After that it is, as they say, history.
>
> Robin
>
Thanks for the replay of what you told me (and others) here that didn't 
fully lodge in my brain, Robin.  We were discussing who introduced the 
sonnet to England.  Wyatt and Surrey.  This time I'll remember it.

--Bob



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Wed Feb 25 18:26:56 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:26:56 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A48EEE.4050403@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A48EEE.4050403@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>

Aside from your having, unconsciously, I'm sure, flipped the parenthetical
pronouns, Bob, AND proposed a triumvirate with 'a Wilshberian like
Orr'....you've got it right.  <g>
I'm not a good candidate, tho, for appreciating USAmericans' poetry.  So far
the list has Sam Gwynn, Susan Holahan, me, and two men from Chicago,
Tyehimba Jess and [forgive me, forgot his name!] a man who poem'ed that he'd
like a 'twelve-night stand' with the woman he'd just invited to dinner.  If
I classified your beautiful visual works as poems, Bob, then you'd be on the
list, too.

Best,

Judy who wonders when you'll post a nother poem for our WEPD analysis

2009/2/24 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> Judy Prince wrote:
>
>> Orr could've used a few runs around Bob's WEPD list and our debates.  He
>> comes off as a big waffle. I propose Bob Grumman as the NYTBR poetry wotsit,
>> after me, natch.  John Ashbery the best of his generation---YAWK!
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Judy
>>
> Thanks, Judy.  Best would be someone like me or you (with me coaching you)
> AND a Wilshberian like Orr.
>
> --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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Feb 25 20:07:51 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:07:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com><49
	A48EEE.4050403@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Aside from your having, unconsciously, I'm sure, flipped the 
> parenthetical pronouns, Bob, AND proposed a triumvirate with 'a 
> Wilshberian like Orr'....you've got it right.  <g>
>
> I'm not a good candidate, tho, for appreciating USAmericans' poetry. 
>  So far the list has Sam Gwynn, Susan Holahan, me, and two men from 
> Chicago, Tyehimba Jess and [forgive me, forgot his name!] a man who 
> poem'ed that he'd like a 'twelve-night stand' with the woman he'd just 
> invited to dinner.  If I classified your beautiful visual works as 
> poems, Bob, then you'd be on the list, too.
Thanks, Judy, but most of my visual works would lose much more than 
fifty percent of their aesthetic value if you removed their words, so 
they have to be considered a form of literature.  In fact, you could say 
that some of them aren't visual poems, just poems, because their graphic 
elements are just decorative.  Others of my mathematical poems are 
without graphic elements, just verbal and mathematical typography, 
conventionally used.
>
> Best,
>
> Judy who wonders when you'll post a nother poem for our WEPD analysis
Why me?  I posted one, and suggested another which was rejected.  I'll 
try to discuss another if anyone else posts one but I'm not up to 
posting one myself.  At least not right now.

all best, Bob



From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb 25 20:20:08 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:20:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] In the Word-Hoard by Adam Kirsch
Message-ID: <8CB65C77F0D6629-F1B4-1BDD@FWM-D02.sysops.aol.com>

http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=061cd0bf-414f-4e58-b842-c7b37e807c66

THE NEW REPUBLIC
In the Word-Hoard by Adam Kirsch
Post Date Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney
By Dennis O'Driscoll

(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 522 pp., $32)
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From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb 25 20:52:20 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:52:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Leonardo the failure
Message-ID: <8CB65CBFF033DEE-F1B4-1D6C@FWM-D02.sysops.aol.com>


http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=zs61txc4kwr4kd1q1rjbfxt41952gdmf


His notebooks were crammed with inventions: new kinds of clocks, a double-hulled ship, flying machines, military tanks, an odometer, the parachute, and a machine gun, to name just a few. If you wanted a new high-tech weapon, a gigantic bronze statue, or a method for moving a river, Leonardo could devise something that just might work.


But Leonardo rarely completed any of the great projects that he sketched in his notebooks. His groundbreaking research in human anatomy resulted in no publications ? at least not in his lifetime. Not only did Leonardo fail to realize his potential as an engineer and a scientist, but he also spent his career hounded by creditors to whom he owed paintings and sculptures for which he had accepted payment but ? for some reason ? could not deliver, even when his deadline was extended by years. His surviving paintings amount to no more than 20, and five or six, including the "Mona Lisa," were still in his possession when he died. Apparently, he was still tinkering with them.


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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Wed Feb 25 21:01:17 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:01:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com>

> OK, not right now for you to select a poem, then, Bob.
>
>
Since Barry Spacks and I and you have posted poems for your WEPD analysis,
>> it would be fair to ask that another NP listmember propose a poem for us to
>> evaluate.  It doesn't need to be a 'classic' or a clearly controversial poem
>> or even one known by us.
>
>

> One thing I've truly appreciated and believe will recur:  the discussion
>> that forms around your WEPD list has brought forth, for some of us, amazing
>> surprises in what we thought we knew about the poems and in what we had
>> assumed would be the logical or general response to them.  Education at its
>> best.
>
>

> Judy
>
>

>> Judy who wonders when you'll post a nother poem for our WEPD analysis
>>
> Why me?  I posted one, and suggested another which was rejected.  I'll try
> to discuss another if anyone else posts one but I'm not up to posting one
> myself.  At least not right now.
>
> all best, 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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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Wed Feb 25 21:10:44 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:10:44 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>

OK, here's one.

SHEEP

When I was once in Baltimore,
A man came up to me and cried,
?Come, I have eighteen hundred sheep,
And we sail on Tuesday?s tide.

?If you will sail with me, young man,
I'll pay you fifty shillings down;
These eighteen hundred sheep I take
 From Baltimore to Glasgow town.?

He paid me fifty shillings down,
I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep;
We soon had cleared the harbour?s mouth,
We soon were in the salt sea deep.

The first night we were out at sea,
Those sheep were quiet in their mind;
The second night they cried with fear ?
They smelt no pastures in the wind.

They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,
They cried so loud I could not sleep:
For fifty thousand shillings down
I would not sail again with sheep.

W. H. Davies

Judy Prince wrote:
>
>         OK, not right now for you to select a poem, then, Bob.  
>
>
>         Since Barry Spacks and I and you have posted poems for your
>         WEPD analysis, it would be fair to ask that another NP
>         listmember propose a poem for us to evaluate.  It doesn't need
>         to be a 'classic' or a clearly controversial poem or even one
>         known by us.  
>
>  
>
>         One thing I've truly appreciated and believe will recur:  the
>         discussion that forms around your WEPD list has brought forth,
>         for some of us, amazing surprises in what we thought we knew
>         about the poems and in what we had assumed would be the
>         logical or general response to them.  Education at its best.  
>
>  
>
>         Judy
>
>
>
>         Judy who wonders when you'll post a nother poem for our WEPD
>         analysis
>
>     Why me?  I posted one, and suggested another which was rejected.
>      I'll try to discuss another if anyone else posts one but I'm not
>     up to posting one myself.  At least not right now.
>
>     all best, Bob
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     New-Poetry mailing list
>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb 26 02:42:16 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:42:16 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Leonardo the failure
In-Reply-To: <8CB65CBFF033DEE-F1B4-1D6C@FWM-D02.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB65CBFF033DEE-F1B4-1D6C@FWM-D02.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902252342q7fea1dd0q47a9c88259129377@mail.gmail.com>

some things are right, some are wrong. There was no way Leonardo could sell
a submarine or a jet to a little local lord, that is also why he never made
it, not just out of procrastination and insecurity! And to those who want a
well-ordered society, and here I agree with the end of the article, they are
killing geniality.
Yes, how can we separate laziness from geniality? But just have a look at
the Notebooks.

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 2:52 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=zs61txc4kwr4kd1q1rjbfxt41952gdmf
>
> His notebooks were crammed with inventions: new kinds of clocks, a
> double-hulled ship, flying machines, military tanks, an odometer, the
> parachute, and a machine gun, to name just a few. If you wanted a new
> high-tech weapon, a gigantic bronze statue, or a method for moving a river,
> Leonardo could devise something that just might work.
>
> But Leonardo rarely completed any of the great projects that he sketched in
> his notebooks. His groundbreaking research in human anatomy resulted in no
> publications ? at least not in his lifetime. Not only did Leonardo fail to
> realize his potential as an engineer and a scientist, but he also spent his
> career hounded by creditors to whom he owed paintings and sculptures for
> which he had accepted payment but ? for some reason ? could not deliver,
> even when his deadline was extended by years. His surviving paintings amount
> to no more than 20, and five or six, including the "Mona Lisa," were still
> in his possession when he died. Apparently, he was still tinkering with
> them.
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice
> and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job<http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Feb 26 02:59:12 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:59:12 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A5CCCB.3010407@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com><49A4AAD6.7070206@nut-n-but.net><6768ac830902241832g4770ee21r3211ab6864120898@mail.gmail.com><49A5266E.8050503@nut-n-but.net><6768ac830902250438r710da369o3147563c8a1120d5@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5CCCB.3010407@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <3B308121908D4DAC9C0AD7A08ECF28B2@RobinPC>

<<
Question: what's a good book on the history of the sonnet in English?  I 
ought to read one but am too lazy to do a proper search for one.

--Bob
>>

J.W.Lever, _The Elizabethan Love Sonnet_, which first came out in 1956, used 
to be the standard, and may still be, for the early period.

Lever also edited an anthology of the complete sequences of Sidney, Spender, 
Daniel and Drayton (no Shaekspeare or Greville) -- _Sonnets of the English 
Renaissance_.

Robin



_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry 




From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb 26 08:43:56 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:43:56 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poe in Spain
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902260543l4844f46fr3fabe7e6fa84cc18@mail.gmail.com>

*>Van:* Cristinta Crespo
[mailto:congreso.poe at iuien-uah.net<congreso.poe at iuien-uah.net>]

*>Verzonden:* woensdag 25 februari 2009 14:08





[image: cid:image001.png at 01C995A8.1F4500B0]<http://www.iuien-uah.net/images/stories/publ_guidelines.pdf>







-- 
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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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 26 08:54:15 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:54:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Leonardo the failure
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902252342q7fea1dd0q47a9c88259129377@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB65CBFF033DEE-F1B4-1D6C@FWM-D02.sysops.aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902252342q7fea1dd0q47a9c88259129377@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB6630D8A33830-1284-749@WEBMAIL-DY10.sysops.aol.com>

http://www.jamescoxgallery.com/leonardo.shtml

Some may recall that one Leonardo project, a massive bronze, was finally?cast in Beacon NY a few years back, and then installed in the city that Leonardo intended it for, Milan Italy.
Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 2:42 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Leonardo the failure


some things are right, some are wrong. There was no way Leonardo could sell a submarine or a jet to a little local lord, that is also why he never made it, not just out of procrastination and insecurity! And to those who want a well-ordered society, and here I agree with the end of the article, they are killing geniality. 
Yes, how can we separate laziness from geniality? But just have a look at the Notebooks. 


On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 2:52 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:


http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=zs61txc4kwr4kd1q1rjbfxt41952gdmf


His notebooks were crammed with inventions: new kinds of clocks, a double-hulled ship, flying machines, military tanks, an odometer, the parachute, and a machine gun, to name just a few. If you wanted a new high-tech weapon, a gigantic bronze statue, or a method for moving a river, Leonardo could devise something that just might work.


But Leonardo rarely completed any of the great projects that he sketched in his notebooks. His groundbreaking research in human anatomy resulted in no publications ? at least not in his lifetime. Not only did Leonardo fail to realize his 
potential as an engineer and a scientist, but he also spent his career hounded by creditors to whom he owed paintings and sculptures for which he had accepted payment but ? for some reason ? could not deliver, even when his deadline was extended by years. His surviving paintings amount to no more than 20, and five or six, including the "Mona Lisa," were still in his possession when he died. Apparently, he was still tinkering with them.

?


Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job. 

_______________________________________________
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! 




_______________________________________________
ew-Poetry mailing list
ew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
ttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Thu Feb 26 09:31:00 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:31:00 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <AA0D076A-19B1-4481-97AE-33AA7820C88E@ripon.edu>

History of a Literary Movement

After Margrave died, nothing
Seemed worth while. I said as much
To Grumbach, who replied:
  ?The oscillations of fashion
Do not amuse me. There have been
Great men before, there will be
Other great men. Only man
Is important, man is ultimate.?
I can still see him sitting there,
Sipping level by level his
Pousse-cafe. He was a fat man.
Fat men are seldom the best
Creative writers.

The rest of us
Slowly dispersed, hardly
Ever saw each other again,
And did not corespond, for
There was little enough to say.
Only Impli and I
Hung on, feeling as we did
That the last word had not

Finally been said. Sometimes
I feel, I might say, cheated.
Life here at Bad Grandstein
Is dull, is dull, what with
The eternal rocks and the river;
And Impli, though one of my
Dearest friends, can never,
I have decided, become great.

-- Howard Nemerov.  The Collected Poems.  U Chicago Press, 1977.  
[originally in The Image & The Law, 1947]


========================================
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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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Thu Feb 26 09:35:34 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:35:34 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Can poetry have greatness?
Message-ID: <d26.25af79a6.36d802b6@aol.com>

Thanks, David.
**************Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your 
neighborhood today. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filing&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000004)
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 09:44:48 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:44:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To Be
	Chopped-Line Prose?
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>

I should have finished that question with...."in order to be considered
acceptable"?
Is it that American poets now feel that the best poetry is prose that has
been line-chopped just short of bumping into the right-margin as prose does?

Is it that American poets now feel that poetry is prose....that there is
really no difference between the two?

Is it that American poets now feel that poetry is a short story?

Is it that there are no or few American POETS now?  Have 'they' disappeared,
mutated, their work morphing back to prose because that is the Choice of
Most Contemporary American Poets?

Shall we who do not consider ourselves contemporary American poets ONLY
because we do not think, and I mean this most fervently, that poetry is the
same as prose with chopped line endings, just keep writing poetry but wait
for a couple decades until poetry is considered poetry again in order for
our work to be acknowledged?

Am I becoming the new Bob Grumman?

Best,

earnest Judy
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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Thu Feb 26 09:47:06 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:47:06 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To Be
	Chopped-Li...
Message-ID: <bc0.4dd9b110.36d8056a@aol.com>

Could you give some examples of what you consider "chopped line prose"  
instead of simply saying "most contemporary American poetry"? It's kind of hard  to 
have a discussion about something like this without dealing with specifics  .
**************Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your 
neighborhood today. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filing&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000004)
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 09:55:21 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:55:21 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902260655m7d983635t25675d977129760@mail.gmail.com>

Dear Mole,
Thank you for posting SHEEP!  I'll sidestep all the possible suggestive
jokes that SHEEP might um raise, and tell you that sheep are my favourite
people.  Dumb as a box of rocks, yes, but then so are dogs and cats, those
bloody domestics.

I'll be delighted to WEPD-analyze this SHEEP, but am now appealing to others
to do so before me, just to be fair.  Also I am now appealing to Bob to post
his WEPD checklist for us to use----which I hope he will find time, energy,
and the desire to make more concise.

Good Ole Mole, thanks again.

Judy

2009/2/25 TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>

> OK, here's one.
>
> SHEEP
>
> When I was once in Baltimore,
> A man came up to me and cried,
> ?Come, I have eighteen hundred sheep,
> And we sail on Tuesday?s tide.
>
> ?If you will sail with me, young man,
> I'll pay you fifty shillings down;
> These eighteen hundred sheep I take
> From Baltimore to Glasgow town.?
>
> He paid me fifty shillings down,
> I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep;
> We soon had cleared the harbour?s mouth,
> We soon were in the salt sea deep.
>
> The first night we were out at sea,
> Those sheep were quiet in their mind;
> The second night they cried with fear ?
> They smelt no pastures in the wind.
>
> They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,
> They cried so loud I could not sleep:
> For fifty thousand shillings down
> I would not sail again with sheep.
>
> W. H. Davies
>
> Judy Prince wrote:
>
>>
>>        OK, not right now for you to select a poem, then, Bob.
>>
>>        Since Barry Spacks and I and you have posted poems for your
>>        WEPD analysis, it would be fair to ask that another NP
>>        listmember propose a poem for us to evaluate.  It doesn't need
>>        to be a 'classic' or a clearly controversial poem or even one
>>        known by us.
>>
>>        One thing I've truly appreciated and believe will recur:  the
>>        discussion that forms around your WEPD list has brought forth,
>>        for some of us, amazing surprises in what we thought we knew
>>        about the poems and in what we had assumed would be the
>>        logical or general response to them.  Education at its best.
>>
>>        Judy
>>
>>
>>
>>        Judy who wonders when you'll post a nother poem for our WEPD
>>        analysis
>>
>>    Why me?  I posted one, and suggested another which was rejected.
>>     I'll try to discuss another if anyone else posts one but I'm not
>>    up to posting one myself.  At least not right now.
>>
>>    all best, Bob
>>
>>
>>    _______________________________________________
>>    New-Poetry mailing list
>>    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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
>>
>>
>
> --
> Tad Richards
> Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
> http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner
>
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb 26 09:59:38 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:59:38 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Leonardo the failure
In-Reply-To: <8CB6630D8A33830-1284-749@WEBMAIL-DY10.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB65CBFF033DEE-F1B4-1D6C@FWM-D02.sysops.aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902252342q7fea1dd0q47a9c88259129377@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB6630D8A33830-1284-749@WEBMAIL-DY10.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902260659g1d3e6e6et36289123ce681e0d@mail.gmail.com>

Incredible, indeed. Thank you. If you read Vasari's wonderful notes on
Leonardo, he stresses that Leonardo wanted things "oh... just so big!"
http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil%20of%20art/printer-friendly/Vasari%20on%20Leonardo%20TWO%20columns.pdf

marvelous and divine, the son of Ser Piero da Vinci...

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 2:54 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> http://www.jamescoxgallery.com/leonardo.shtml
>
> Some may recall that one Leonardo project, a massive bronze, was
> finally cast in Beacon NY a few years back, and then installed in the city
> that Leonardo intended it for, Milan Italy.
> Finnegan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
> Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 2:42 am
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Leonardo the failure
>
> some things are right, some are wrong. There was no way Leonardo could sell
> a submarine or a jet to a little local lord, that is also why he never made
> it, not just out of procrastination and insecurity! And to those who want a
> well-ordered society, and here I agree with the end of the article, they are
> killing geniality.
> Yes, how can we separate laziness from geniality? But just have a look at
> the Notebooks.
>
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 2:52 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=zs61txc4kwr4kd1q1rjbfxt41952gdmf
>>
>> His notebooks were crammed with inventions: new kinds of clocks, a
>> double-hulled ship, flying machines, military tanks, an odometer, the para
>> chute, and a machine gun, to name just a few. If you wanted a new high-tech
>> weapon, a gigantic bronze statue, or a method for moving a river, Leonardo
>> could devise something that just might work.
>>
>> But Leonardo rarely completed any of the great projects that he sketched
>> in his notebooks. His groundbreaking research in human anatomy resulted in
>> no publications ? at least not in his lifetime. Not only did Leonardo fail
>> to realize his potential as an engineer and a scientist, but he also spent
>> his career hounded by creditors to whom he owed paintings and sculptures for
>> which he had accepted payment but ? for some reason ? could not deliver,
>> even when his deadline was extended by years. His surviving paintings amount
>> to no more than 20, and five or six, including the "Mona Lisa," were still
>> in his possession when he died. Apparently, he was still tinkering with
>> them.
>>
>>
>
-- 
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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 10:05:12 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:05:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To Be 
	Chopped-Li...
In-Reply-To: <bc0.4dd9b110.36d8056a@aol.com>
References: <bc0.4dd9b110.36d8056a@aol.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902260705t534a69ebh9bf319d64f9cabb2@mail.gmail.com>

Well, you are right, Al.  Doubtless you can sense my frustration and
impatience which have given rise to posing a universal that is not a
universal, but rather The Trend of The Decade, and one about which some
poets wildly disagree.  Of course, my brain bristles with examples, but then
my stomach wants breakfast.  And my stomach always wins.
Let me eat, run errands, and then bring the latest New Yorker upstairs to
the Mac and type in at least one example of TToTD.

Incidentally, I'm also going to do that which is considered either 'Very
American' or 'Very Uncool':  pray.  How else to face the day?

Best, of course,

Judy

2009/2/26 <AlMaginnes at aol.com>

>  Could you give some examples of what you consider "chopped line prose"
> instead of simply saying "most contemporary American poetry"? It's kind of
> hard to have a discussion about something like this without dealing with
> specifics .
>
> ------------------------------
> Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your
> neighborhood today<http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filing&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000004>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Thu Feb 26 10:06:21 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:06:21 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To Be
	Chopped-L...
Message-ID: <d39.43852ff7.36d809ed@aol.com>

Don't use the New Yorker. Find some good poetry.
**************Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your 
neighborhood today. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filing&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000004)
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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Thu Feb 26 10:15:29 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:15:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Tomorrow Night - If You Dare ...
Message-ID: <851911.62725.qm@web83301.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

To head into the hills of Brooklyn --

The Stain of Poetry:?
A Reading 
Series presents


 ? 

February 27th @ 7 p.m. - Stain Bar - Williamsburg ,
 Brooklyn 

 ? 

*Jason Gray, Tony Mancus, Deborah Poe, Ric Royer, Mario
Susko and Jessica Reed*

 ? 

~~~

 ? 

Jason Gray is the author of Photographing Eden (Ohio Univ.
Press, 2008), winner of the Hollis Summers Prize, and two chapbooks, How to
Paint the Savior Dead (Kent State Univ. Press, 2007) and Adam & Eve Go to
the Zoo (Dream Horse, 2003). His poems and reviews have appeared in Poetry, The
American Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. He
coedits the online magazine, Unsplendid (www.unsplendid.com). Web site:
jason-gray.net. 

 ? 

~~~

 ? 

Tony Mancus? poems have appeared or will be appearing in
cream city review, Handsome, Forklift, Ohio ,
Memorious and elsewhere. He teaches writing at Montclair 
 State University 
and Hunter College . He co-founded Flying Guillotine
Press (flyingguillotinepress.blogspot.com) and makes books in Brooklyn and Queens . 

 ? 

~~~

 ? 

Deborah Poe is the author of the poetry collection Our
Parenthetical Ontology (CustomWords 2008) as well as chapbooks from
Furniture_Press and Stockport Flats Press. Poe has received several literary
awards including the Thayer Fellowship of the Arts (2008) and three Pushcart
Prize nominations. Her writing is forthcoming or has appeared in journals such
as Coconut, Diode, Ploughshares, Filter Literary Magazine, Denver Quarterly,
Copper Nickel, and FOURSQUARE Editions as well as in the anthologies In Our Own
Words (MW Enterprises 2009), Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry and
Prose on HIV/AIDS From the Black Diaspora (Third World Press 2007) and A Sing
Economy (Flim Forum 2008). Her current projects include ?Elements? (her poetry
collection based on the periodic table), a short fiction collection entitled
?Event Landmarks,? and an anthology of short fiction. Assistant Professor of
English at Pace University , Pleasantville, Poe teaches
creative writing, contemporary fiction and theory. Visit her Web site,
www.deborahpoe.com, for more. 

 ? 

~~~

 ? 

Ric Royer is a writer, performer, writer of performances and
performer of writings. Other works of literature include Hystery of Heat
(Publishing Genius), There Were One and It Was Two (Narrow House Records), and
Anthesteria (Bark Art Press). The Weather Not The Weather is forthcoming from
Outside Voices Press. He is also a founding editor of Ferrum Wheel. 

 ? 

An imprint of Bootstrap Productions ( Cambridge , Mass. ),
Buffalo N.Y.-based Outside Voices publishes poetry & experimental
text-based art. 

 ? 

http://www.ricroyer.com 

http://www.looktouch.com/press 

 ? 

~~~

 ? 

A witness and survivor of the war in Bosnia , Mario Susko moved to the US in 1993
where he lived in the 70s and got his M.A. and Ph.D. from SUNY Stony Brook. He
has published 77 books, 28 of which are his poetry collections. His most recent
work includes an integral edition/translation of Walt Whitman?s Leaves of
Grass, as well as an anthology of modern Jewish-American short stories A
Declaration of Being which he co-edited with M. Schwartzman and translated into
Croatian. His 6th poetry collection in English, Closing Time, was released in
2008 by Harbor Mountain Press. This January his Croatian publisher Meandarmedia
put out a Croatian edition of Closing Time and the erbacce-press from Liverpool , UK ,
released his chapbook Rules of Engagement. 

 ? 

~~~

 ? 

Jessica Reed?s poetry has appeared in The Paris Review, Tin
House, LIT, The Huffington Post, Zeek: A Journal of Jewish Thought and Culture,
as well as various online journals, and has been anthologized in Satellite
Convulsions: Poems from Tin House. She is the 2007 recipient of the Marie
Ponsot Poetry Prize and the Jerome Lowell Dejur Award. Originally from
Asheville, North Carolina, she lives in New York City, where she works as a
technical editor and where she received her MFA from the the City College of
the City University of New York.

 ? 

~~~

 ? 

 ? 

Hosted by Amy King and Ana Bo?i?evi? 

 ? 

stain bar 

766 grand street 

brooklyn, ny 11211 

(L train to Grand
  Street , 

1 block west) 

 ? 

SITE:? http://www.stainofpoetry.com/

 ? 

VIDEO:? http://stainofpoetry.wordpress.com/video/

_______



Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Thu Feb 26 10:29:09 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:29:09 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To Be
	Chopped-Li...
In-Reply-To: <bc0.4dd9b110.36d8056a@aol.com>
Message-ID: <C5CC1165.6236%grahamd@ripon.edu>

And I'll add what I always add when this chestnut gets roasted again. . . .

There's a circularity to the argument ("this poem is just chopped-up prose")
that is seldom acknowledged by the makers.  Typically it goes like this:
(a) All poetry must have X or Y.  Otherwise it's just chopped-up prose.
(b) THIS poem doesn't have X or Y.  (c) herefore it isn't a poem, it's just
chopped-up prose.  

But what about if you don't buy the original premise, which remains assumed?
Or what if things are a leeeeetle bit more complicated than defining poetry
as X or Y (meter, heightened diction, or whatever).


On 2/26/09 8:47 AM, "AlMaginnes at aol.com" <AlMaginnes at aol.com> wrote:

> Could you give some examples of what you consider "chopped line prose" instead
> of simply saying "most contemporary American poetry"? It's kind of hard to
> have a discussion about something like this without dealing with specifics .
>  
> 
> Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your neighborhood
> today 
> <http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filing&nci
> d=emlcntusyelp00000004> .
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

-- 


====================================================
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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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Thu Feb 26 10:32:17 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:32:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To Be 
	Chopped-Li...
In-Reply-To: <C5CC1165.6236%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <bc0.4dd9b110.36d8056a@aol.com> <C5CC1165.6236%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902260732p1ef6f2d6wededa6ae7bd25aa7@mail.gmail.com>

Well said, David.  Of course, I'm one of those anti-intellectual philistine
who thinks that art cannot be quantified, so what would I know?

Best,
Jeff Newberry

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 10:29 AM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

>  And I'll add what I always add when this chestnut gets roasted again. . .
> .
>
> There's a circularity to the argument ("this poem is just chopped-up
> prose") that is seldom acknowledged by the makers.  Typically it goes like
> this:  (a) All poetry must have X or Y.  Otherwise it's just chopped-up
> prose.   (b) THIS poem doesn't have X or Y.  (c) herefore it isn't a poem,
> it's just chopped-up prose.
>
> But what about if you don't buy the original premise, which remains
> assumed?  Or what if things are a leeeeetle bit more complicated than
> defining poetry as X or Y (meter, heightened diction, or whatever).
>
>
> On 2/26/09 8:47 AM, "AlMaginnes at aol.com" <AlMaginnes at aol.com> wrote:
>
> Could you give some examples of what you consider "chopped line prose"
> instead of simply saying "most contemporary American poetry"? It's kind of
> hard to have a discussion about something like this without dealing with
> specifics .
>
> ------------------------------
> Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your
> neighborhood today <
> http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filing&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000004>
> .
>
> ------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> --
>
>
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ====================================================
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that
is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and
experience, from which each according to his own immediate and peculiar
needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Feb 26 11:05:43 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:05:43 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <BE69400522444D8EAF0583170499E38E@RobinPC>

Bits of this I like, but with many reservations -- most of all, in a five 
stanza poem, one of these stanzas is wholly redundant:

> He paid me fifty shillings down,
> I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep;
> We soon had cleared the harbour?s mouth,
> We soon were in the salt sea deep.

Dropping this would also eliminate the inversion-for-the-sake-of-rhyme of 
"salt sea deep."

And in an abcb form, rhyming "cried" with "tide" in the very first stanza? 
Maybe how Davies pronounced this in early 20thC England when he was riding 
the rails would give a decent rhyme, but I doubt it.  To my ear, it's simply 
a slack rhyme.

A annecdote dressed up with a few good lines, but not dressed-up enough.

It simply doesn't bear comparison with even some moderately good quatrain 
ballads, let alone the best in that form.

Robin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "TheOldMole" <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views" 
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:10 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?


> OK, here's one.
>
> SHEEP
>
> When I was once in Baltimore,
> A man came up to me and cried,
> ?Come, I have eighteen hundred sheep,
> And we sail on Tuesday?s tide.
>
> ?If you will sail with me, young man,
> I'll pay you fifty shillings down;
> These eighteen hundred sheep I take
> From Baltimore to Glasgow town.?
>
> He paid me fifty shillings down,
> I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep;
> We soon had cleared the harbour?s mouth,
> We soon were in the salt sea deep.
>
> The first night we were out at sea,
> Those sheep were quiet in their mind;
> The second night they cried with fear ?
> They smelt no pastures in the wind.
>
> They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,
> They cried so loud I could not sleep:
> For fifty thousand shillings down
> I would not sail again with sheep.
>
> W. H. Davies
>
> Judy Prince wrote:
>>
>>         OK, not right now for you to select a poem, then, Bob.
>>
>>         Since Barry Spacks and I and you have posted poems for your
>>         WEPD analysis, it would be fair to ask that another NP
>>         listmember propose a poem for us to evaluate.  It doesn't need
>>         to be a 'classic' or a clearly controversial poem or even one
>>         known by us.
>>
>>         One thing I've truly appreciated and believe will recur:  the
>>         discussion that forms around your WEPD list has brought forth,
>>         for some of us, amazing surprises in what we thought we knew
>>         about the poems and in what we had assumed would be the
>>         logical or general response to them.  Education at its best.
>>
>>         Judy
>>
>>
>>
>>         Judy who wonders when you'll post a nother poem for our WEPD
>>         analysis
>>
>>     Why me?  I posted one, and suggested another which was rejected.
>>      I'll try to discuss another if anyone else posts one but I'm not
>>     up to posting one myself.  At least not right now.
>>
>>     all best, Bob
>>
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     New-Poetry mailing list
>>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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
>>
>
> -- 
> Tad Richards
> Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
> http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner
>
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Feb 26 11:12:46 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:12:46 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Another Ballad -- James K. Baxter
In-Reply-To: <49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <EAA452A378424FF79C7F18F87B489882@RobinPC>

James K. Baxter, "Lament for Barney Flanagan"

LICENSEE OF THE HESPERUS HOTEL

Flanagan got up on a Saturday morning,
Pulled on his pants while the coffee was warming;
He didn't remember the doctor's warning,
"Your heart's too big, Mr. Flanagan."

Barney Flanagan, sprung like a frog
>From a wet root in an Irish bog -
May his soul escape from the tooth of the dog!
God have mercy on Flanagan.

Barney Flanagan R.I.P.
Rode to his grave on Hennessy's
Like a bottle-cork boat in the Irish Sea.
The bell-boy rings for Flanagan.

Barney Flanagan, ripe for a coffin,
Eighteen stone and brandy-rotten,
Patted the housemaid's velvet bottom -
"Oh, is it you, Mr. Flanagan?"

The sky was bright as a new milk token.
Bill the Bookie and Shellshock Hogan
Waited outside for the pub to open -
"Good day, Mr. Flanagan."

At noon he was drinking in the lounge bar corner
With a sergeant of police and a racehorse owner
When the Angel of Death looked over his shoulder -
"Could you spare a moment, Flanagan?"

Oh the deck was cut; the bets were laid;
But the very last card that Barney played
Was the Deadman's Trump, the bullet of Spades -
"Would you like more air, Mr. Flanagan?"

The priest came running but the priest came late
For Barney was banging at the Pearly Gate.
St Peter said, "Quiet! You'll have to wait
For a hundred masses, Flanagan."

The regular boys and the loud accountants
Left their nips and their seven-ounces
As chickens fly when the buzzard pounces -
"Have you heard about old Flanagan?"

Cold in the parlour Flanagan lay
Like a bride at the end of her marriage day.
The Waterside Workers' Band will play
A brass goodbye to Flanagan.

While publicans drink their profits still.
While lawyers flock to be in at the kill,
While Aussie barmen milk the till
We will remember Flanagan.

For Barney had a send-off and no mistake.
He died like a man for his country's sake;
And the Governor-General came to his wake.
Drink again to Flanagan!

Despise not, O Lord, the work of Thine own hands
And let light perpetual shine upon him.





From jfq at myuw.net  Thu Feb 26 11:15:30 2009
From: jfq at myuw.net (Jason Quackenbush)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:15:30 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <BE69400522444D8EAF0583170499E38E@RobinPC>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
	<BE69400522444D8EAF0583170499E38E@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <BF5CDB8D-6624-4AC6-A334-75131E89DBB7@myuw.net>

that's the real issue of rhyme. it's often quite difficult to hear  
the rhyme correctly when the accent of the poet is in question.

for example to my american ears, there's always something sort of  
hoity toity sounding to prounouncing "again" with a long "a" in the  
second syllable, but it's often necessary to read it that way when  
reading british poets.


On Feb 26, 2009, at 8:05 AM, Robin Hamilton wrote:

> Bits of this I like, but with many reservations -- most of all, in  
> a five stanza poem, one of these stanzas is wholly redundant:
>
>> He paid me fifty shillings down,
>> I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep;
>> We soon had cleared the harbour?s mouth,
>> We soon were in the salt sea deep.
>
> Dropping this would also eliminate the inversion-for-the-sake-of- 
> rhyme of "salt sea deep."
>
> And in an abcb form, rhyming "cried" with "tide" in the very first  
> stanza? Maybe how Davies pronounced this in early 20thC England  
> when he was riding the rails would give a decent rhyme, but I doubt  
> it.  To my ear, it's simply a slack rhyme.
>
> A annecdote dressed up with a few good lines, but not dressed-up  
> enough.
>
> It simply doesn't bear comparison with even some moderately good  
> quatrain ballads, let alone the best in that form.
>
> Robin
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "TheOldMole" <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views" <new- 
> poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:10 AM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
>
>
>> OK, here's one.
>>
>> SHEEP
>>
>> When I was once in Baltimore,
>> A man came up to me and cried,
>> ?Come, I have eighteen hundred sheep,
>> And we sail on Tuesday?s tide.
>>
>> ?If you will sail with me, young man,
>> I'll pay you fifty shillings down;
>> These eighteen hundred sheep I take
>> From Baltimore to Glasgow town.?
>>
>> He paid me fifty shillings down,
>> I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep;
>> We soon had cleared the harbour?s mouth,
>> We soon were in the salt sea deep.
>>
>> The first night we were out at sea,
>> Those sheep were quiet in their mind;
>> The second night they cried with fear ?
>> They smelt no pastures in the wind.
>>
>> They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,
>> They cried so loud I could not sleep:
>> For fifty thousand shillings down
>> I would not sail again with sheep.
>>
>> W. H. Davies
>>
>> Judy Prince wrote:
>>>
>>>         OK, not right now for you to select a poem, then, Bob.
>>>
>>>         Since Barry Spacks and I and you have posted poems for your
>>>         WEPD analysis, it would be fair to ask that another NP
>>>         listmember propose a poem for us to evaluate.  It doesn't  
>>> need
>>>         to be a 'classic' or a clearly controversial poem or even  
>>> one
>>>         known by us.
>>>
>>>         One thing I've truly appreciated and believe will recur:   
>>> the
>>>         discussion that forms around your WEPD list has brought  
>>> forth,
>>>         for some of us, amazing surprises in what we thought we knew
>>>         about the poems and in what we had assumed would be the
>>>         logical or general response to them.  Education at its best.
>>>
>>>         Judy
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>         Judy who wonders when you'll post a nother poem for our WEPD
>>>         analysis
>>>
>>>     Why me?  I posted one, and suggested another which was rejected.
>>>      I'll try to discuss another if anyone else posts one but I'm  
>>> not
>>>     up to posting one myself.  At least not right now.
>>>
>>>     all best, Bob
>>>
>>>
>>>     _______________________________________________
>>>     New-Poetry mailing list
>>>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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
>>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Tad Richards
>> Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
>> http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner
>>
>> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
>> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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

Jason Quackenbush
jfq at myuw.net







From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Thu Feb 26 11:16:36 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:16:36 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 45
In-Reply-To: <200902261314.n1QDE4mK017357@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902261314.n1QDE4mK017357@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <EE8AF1EC-56DB-4EF0-9236-01961DF93B66@verizon.net>


On Feb 26, 2009, at 5:14 AM, Judy wrote:
>
> Am I becoming the new Bob Grumman?

     omigod

    (one-word poem)

   prayerfully,

Barry

>


From editor at pavementsaw.org  Thu Feb 26 11:19:33 2009
From: editor at pavementsaw.org (David Baratier)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:19:33 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] vote for my poem on good reads?
Message-ID: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Hope this works, here is the link to vote on my poem that is the finalist for March on the Goodreads site. Vote immediately! 
To directly vote on the poem, use--

http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/10300.GOODREADS_MARCH_NEWSLETTER_TOP


Here is the poem



A girl named Scuba 


We named our daughter Scuba. I am not sure how it happened, some say we should have named her after a famous literary friend in a career advancing homage, others that it should be a family name, or, if we wanted to stay within the water element, to invoke the powerful like Poseidon, the great turtle underneath us or re-invigorate a failure like Aquaman or The Prince of Tides. You don?t know what it?s like, you who named your kids before meeting them, you who didn?t spend a week in intensive care waiting for word about an aqueous angel, you who never held water. 

-David Baratier 



here are the contenders--
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/110615.PLEASE_VOTE_FOR_MARCH_S_GOODREADS_POEM_FIVE_FINALISTS



Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1


      




From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 26 11:27:36 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:27:36 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To Be
	Chopped-Li...
In-Reply-To: <C5CC1165.6236%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <8CB664644B833A1-169C-4ED@WEBMAIL-DF20.sysops.aol.com>

I think my take on this is similar: What's wrong with poetry using all the robust and multifarious resources that prose has to offer? Since the advent of free-verse it has, and will continue to do so. Prose in effect is subsumed by poetry, just as?all the other aspects/techniques of deployed language can be subsumed by poetry.?In that sense poetry gives up nothing, it gains by?absorbing the?resources of prose (which technically almost entirely overlap the resources of poetry).?

One of the most attractive elements of prose is its ability to become limpid or almost transparent.?Prose can easily disguise its artifice (both the aural and visual)?while foregrounding its poetic content. And that will always be?an attractive attribute of prose for?a certan number of poets.?
Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
To: NewPoetry <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:29 am
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To Be Chopped-Li...


And I'll add what I always add when this chestnut gets roasted again. . . .

There's a circularity to the argument ("this poem is just chopped-up prose") that is seldom acknowledged by the makers. ?Typically it goes like this: ?(a) All poetry must have X or Y. ?Otherwise it's just chopped-up prose. ??(b) THIS poem doesn't have X or Y. ?(c) herefore it isn't a poem, it's just chopped-up prose. ?

But what about if you don't buy the original premise, which remains assumed? ?Or what if things are a leeeeetle bit more complicated than defining poetry as X or Y (meter, heightened diction, or whatever). ??


On 2/26/09 8:47 AM, "AlMaginnes at aol.com" <AlMaginnes at aol.com> wrote:


Could you give some examples of what you consider "chopped line prose" instead of simply saying "most contemporary American poetry"? It's kind of hard to have a discussion about something like this without dealing with specifics .

Get a jump start on your taxes. Find a tax professional in your neighborhood today <http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=Tax+Return+Preparation+%26+Filing&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000004> .

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


-- 


====================================================
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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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Feb 26 11:36:52 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:36:52 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <BF5CDB8D-6624-4AC6-A334-75131E89DBB7@myuw.net>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com><49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org><BE69400522444D8EAF0583170499E38E@RobinPC>
	<BF5CDB8D-6624-4AC6-A334-75131E89DBB7@myuw.net>
Message-ID: <107272FD589B4F70A609AEE2BDEC97A5@RobinPC>

>From Jason Quackenbush:

> that's the real issue of rhyme. it's often quite difficult to hear  the 
> rhyme correctly when the accent of the poet is in question.

It's a problem -- I've never been able to resolve Marvell's rhyme in "To His 
Coy Mistress":

        And yonder all before us lie
        Deserts of vast eternity.

On the other hand, is even Pope rhyming a diphthong with a single vowel in 
the following couplet:

    Round and round the ghosts of beauty glide,
    And haunt the places where their honour died.

I find I can accept Pope's rhyme there, though "glide" and "died" wouldn't 
be a full rhyme in my own pronunciation.

But with the W.H.Davies, it just doesn't seem to ring true.

Are there any recordings of Davies reading his own poems, or descriptions of 
the way he spoke?

The eighteenth century had their plowmen poets and water poets and 
whatever -- was Davies the token tramp poet for the Georgians?

Robin

> for example to my american ears, there's always something sort of  hoity 
> toity sounding to prounouncing "again" with a long "a" in the  second 
> syllable, but it's often necessary to read it that way when  reading 
> british poets. 




From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb 26 11:42:59 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:42:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <AA0D076A-19B1-4481-97AE-33AA7820C88E@ripon.edu>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net>	<7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com>	<49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
	<AA0D076A-19B1-4481-97AE-33AA7820C88E@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <49A6C693.80107@opus40.org>

Loved the Nemerov.

David Graham wrote:
> *History of a Literary Movement*
>  
> After Margrave died, nothing                     
> Seemed worth while. I said as much  
> To Grumbach, who replied:      
>  ?The oscillations of fashion
> Do not amuse me. There have been
> Great men before, there will be
> Other great men. Only man
> Is important, man is ultimate.?
> I can still see him sitting there,
> Sipping level by level his
> Pousse-cafe. He was a fat man.
> Fat men are seldom the best
> Creative writers.
>  
> The rest of us                                              
> Slowly dispersed, hardly                             
> Ever saw each other again,                         
> And did not corespond, for                    
> There was little enough to say.                 
> Only Impli and I                                          
> Hung on, feeling as we did                         
> That the last word had not
>  
> Finally been said. Sometimes                        
> I feel, I might say, cheated.                         
> Life here at Bad Grandstein                             
> Is dull, is dull, what with                             
> The eternal rocks and the river;                 
> And Impli, though one of my                     
> Dearest friends, can never,                               
> I have decided, become great.
>  
> -- Howard Nemerov.  /The Collected Poems./  U Chicago Press, 1977.  
> [originally in /The Image & The Law/, 1947]
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu <mailto:grahamd at ripon.edu>
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 26 11:47:06 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:47:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <BE69400522444D8EAF0583170499E38E@RobinPC>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com><49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
	<BE69400522444D8EAF0583170499E38E@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <8CB6648FE1EFCFF-169C-691@WEBMAIL-DF20.sysops.aol.com>

The poem starts out?on a light note and could be read as merely humorous take on a young seaman's experience on what is presumably his maiden voyage, but there is the possibility of a underside to its meaning...embedded there could be?the terrible legacy of The Middle Passage, coming in those last two stanzas:

The first night we were out at sea,?
Those sheep were quiet in their mind;?
The second night they cried with fear ??
They smelt no pastures in the wind.?
?
They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,?
 They cried so loud I could not sleep:?
 For fifty thousand shillings down?
 I would not sail again with sheep.?

--
Finnegan



-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:05 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?


Bits of this I like, but with many reservations -- most of all, in a five stanza poem, one of these stanzas is wholly redundant:?
?
> He paid me fifty shillings down,?
> I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep;?
> We soon had cleared the harbour?s mouth,?
> We soon were in the salt sea deep.?
?
Dropping this would also eliminate the inversion-for-the-sake-of-rhyme of "salt sea deep."?
?
And in an abcb form, rhyming "cried" with "tide" in the very first stanza? Maybe how Davies pronounced this in early 20thC England when he was riding the rails would give a decent rhyme, but I doubt it.20To my ear, it's simply a slack rhyme.?
?
A annecdote dressed up with a few good lines, but not dressed-up enough.?
?
It simply doesn't bear comparison with even some moderately good quatrain ballads, let alone the best in that form.?
?
Robin?
?
----- Original Message ----- From: "TheOldMole" <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>?
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>?
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:10 AM?
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness??
?
> OK, here's one.?
>?
> SHEEP?
>?
> When I was once in Baltimore,?
> A man came up to me and cried,?
> ?Come, I have eighteen hundred sheep,?
> And we sail on Tuesday?s tide.?
>?
> ?If you will sail with me, young man,?
> I'll pay you fifty shillings down;?
> These eighteen hundred sheep I take?
> From Baltimore to Glasgow town.??
>?
> He paid me fifty shillings down,?
> I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep;?
> We soon had cleared the harbour?s mouth,?
> We soon were in the salt sea deep.?
>?
> The first night we were out at sea,?
> Those sheep were quiet in their mind;?
> The second night they cried with fear ??
> They smelt no pastures in the wind.?
>?
> They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,?
> They cried so loud I could not sleep:?
> For fifty thousand shillings down?
> I would no
t sail again with sheep.?
>?
> W. H. Davies?
>?
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb 26 11:56:17 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:56:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] vote for my poem on good reads?
In-Reply-To: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <49A6C9B1.5070406@opus40.org>

I was able to vote since I didn't enter this month, my last month's 
entry having ignominiously not even made the finals. I liked two poems, 
yours and one other, and was able to vote with a clear conscious for 
little Scuba.

David Baratier wrote:
> Hope this works, here is the link to vote on my poem that is the finalist for March on the Goodreads site. Vote immediately! 
> To directly vote on the poem, use--
>
> http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/10300.GOODREADS_MARCH_NEWSLETTER_TOP
>
>
> Here is the poem
>
>
>
> A girl named Scuba 
>
>
> We named our daughter Scuba. I am not sure how it happened, some say we should have named her after a famous literary friend in a career advancing homage, others that it should be a family name, or, if we wanted to stay within the water element, to invoke the powerful like Poseidon, the great turtle underneath us or re-invigorate a failure like Aquaman or The Prince of Tides. You don?t know what it?s like, you who named your kids before meeting them, you who didn?t spend a week in intensive care waiting for word about an aqueous angel, you who never held water. 
>
> -David Baratier 
>
>
>
> here are the contenders--
> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/110615.PLEASE_VOTE_FOR_MARCH_S_GOODREADS_POEM_FIVE_FINALISTS
>
>
>
> Be well
>
> David Baratier, Editor
>
> Pavement Saw Press
> 321 Empire Street
> Montpelier OH 43543
> http://pavementsaw.org
>
> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>
>
>       
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Feb 26 12:00:06 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:00:06 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <8CB6648FE1EFCFF-169C-691@WEBMAIL-DF20.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com><49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org><BE69400522444D8EAF0583170499E38E@RobinPC>
	<8CB6648FE1EFCFF-169C-691@WEBMAIL-DF20.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <E9E897F927074A7C8B343D778519D75E@RobinPC>

From: jforjames at aol.com

<<
... but there is the possibility of a underside to its meaning...embedded 
there could be the terrible legacy of The Middle Passage, coming in those 
last two stanzas:
>>

Possibly, but if you try to go by sea to Glasgow from Baltimore via the 
African coast, you probably have more problems than simply a flock of 
moaning sheep.

Sometimes a sheep is only a sheep, Dr. Freud.  <g>

Robin

----------------------------------------------

The first night we were out at sea,
Those sheep were quiet in their mind;
The second night they cried with fear ?
They smelt no pastures in the wind.

They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,
They cried so loud I could not sleep:
For fifty thousand shillings down
I would not sail again with sheep.

--
Finnegan





From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb 26 11:58:50 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:58:50 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <107272FD589B4F70A609AEE2BDEC97A5@RobinPC>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com><49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org><BE69400522444D8EAF0583170499E38E@RobinPC>	<BF5CDB8D-6624-4AC6-A334-75131E89DBB7@myuw.net>
	<107272FD589B4F70A609AEE2BDEC97A5@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <49A6CA4A.8040604@opus40.org>

My tin ear doesn't hear the fault between "cried" and "tide," I confess. 
But in Marvell's day, wasn't rhyme for the eye still a standard?

Robin Hamilton wrote:
>> From Jason Quackenbush:
>
>> that's the real issue of rhyme. it's often quite difficult to hear  
>> the rhyme correctly when the accent of the poet is in question.
>
> It's a problem -- I've never been able to resolve Marvell's rhyme in 
> "To His Coy Mistress":
>
>        And yonder all before us lie
>        Deserts of vast eternity.
>
> On the other hand, is even Pope rhyming a diphthong with a single 
> vowel in the following couplet:
>
>    Round and round the ghosts of beauty glide,
>    And haunt the places where their honour died.
>
> I find I can accept Pope's rhyme there, though "glide" and "died" 
> wouldn't be a full rhyme in my own pronunciation.
>
> But with the W.H.Davies, it just doesn't seem to ring true.
>
> Are there any recordings of Davies reading his own poems, or 
> descriptions of the way he spoke?
>
> The eighteenth century had their plowmen poets and water poets and 
> whatever -- was Davies the token tramp poet for the Georgians?
>
> Robin
>
>> for example to my american ears, there's always something sort of  
>> hoity toity sounding to prounouncing "again" with a long "a" in the  
>> second syllable, but it's often necessary to read it that way when  
>> reading british poets. 
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb 26 12:12:42 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:12:42 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] vote for my poem on good reads?
In-Reply-To: <49A6C9B1.5070406@opus40.org>
References: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<49A6C9B1.5070406@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902260912m7cbb25difad1ed717989e@mail.gmail.com>

I also voted for David Baratier - undoubtedly the best, even if I also sort
of liked another two...
And here is a poem I read today that I find worth mentioning:

http://timtim.typepad.com/exultationsdifficulties/2007/03/speaking_of_lis_1.html



On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:56 PM, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:

> I was able to vote since I didn't enter this month, my last month's entry
> having ignominiously not even made the finals. I liked two poems, yours and
> one other, and was able to vote with a clear conscious for little Scuba.
>
>
> David Baratier wrote:
>
>> Hope this works, here is the link to vote on my poem that is the finalist
>> for March on the Goodreads site. Vote immediately! To directly vote on the
>> poem, use--
>>
>> http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/10300.GOODREADS_MARCH_NEWSLETTER_TOP
>>
>>
>> Here is the poem
>>
>>
>>
>> A girl named Scuba
>>
>> We named our daughter Scuba. I am not sure how it happened, some say we
>> should have named her after a famous literary friend in a career advancing
>> homage, others that it should be a family name, or, if we wanted to stay
>> within the water element, to invoke the powerful like Poseidon, the great
>> turtle underneath us or re-invigorate a failure like Aquaman or The Prince
>> of Tides. You don?t know what it?s like, you who named your kids before
>> meeting them, you who didn?t spend a week in intensive care waiting for word
>> about an aqueous angel, you who never held water.
>> -David Baratier
>>
>>
>> here are the contenders--
>>
>> http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/110615.PLEASE_VOTE_FOR_MARCH_S_GOODREADS_POEM_FIVE_FINALISTS
>>
>>
>>
>> Be well
>>
>> David Baratier, Editor
>>
>> Pavement Saw Press
>> 321 Empire Street
>> Montpelier OH 43543
>> http://pavementsaw.org
>>
>> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
>> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Tad Richards
> Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
> http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner
>
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb 26 12:14:34 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:14:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <E9E897F927074A7C8B343D778519D75E@RobinPC>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com><49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org><BE69400522444D8EAF0583170499E38E@RobinPC>	<8CB6648FE1EFCFF-169C-691@WEBMAIL-DF20.sysops.aol.com>
	<E9E897F927074A7C8B343D778519D75E@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <49A6CDFA.10206@opus40.org>

Being expected to shut up and do your job when your job involves you in 
the suffering of others.


Robin Hamilton wrote:
> From: jforjames at aol.com
>
> <<
> ... but there is the possibility of a underside to its 
> meaning...embedded there could be the terrible legacy of The Middle 
> Passage, coming in those last two stanzas:
>>>
>
> Possibly, but if you try to go by sea to Glasgow from Baltimore via 
> the African coast, you probably have more problems than simply a flock 
> of moaning sheep.
>
> Sometimes a sheep is only a sheep, Dr. Freud.  <g>
>
> Robin
>
> ----------------------------------------------
>
> The first night we were out at sea,
> Those sheep were quiet in their mind;
> The second night they cried with fear ?
> They smelt no pastures in the wind.
>
> They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,
> They cried so loud I could not sleep:
> For fifty thousand shillings down
> I would not sail again with sheep.
>
> -- 
> Finnegan
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From chris.lott at gmail.com  Thu Feb 26 12:19:22 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:19:22 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To Be 
	Chopped-Line Prose?
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0902260919w7423b214v9a0bc7af73e09257@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:44 AM, Judy Prince
<jbalizsprince at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> Am I becoming the new Bob Grumman?

Sadly, the answer must be --

c


From chris.lott at gmail.com  Thu Feb 26 12:21:48 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:21:48 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] vote for my poem on good reads?
In-Reply-To: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0902260921t3f28f68lb71108b0f960d013@mail.gmail.com>

I'm voting for it, but I'm even more interested now in what Judy
thinks given her recent primal poetry scream.

c

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 7:19 AM, David Baratier <editor at pavementsaw.org> wrote:
> Hope this works, here is the link to vote on my poem that is the finalist for March on the Goodreads site. Vote immediately!
> To directly vote on the poem, use--
>
> http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/10300.GOODREADS_MARCH_NEWSLETTER_TOP


From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Thu Feb 26 12:43:41 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:43:41 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] vote for my poem on good reads?
In-Reply-To: <49A6C9B1.5070406@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <820932.81894.qm@web83303.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Hmmm.? Did you post past the deadline?? I don't recall seeing yours, Tad!

_______



Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/

--- On Thu, 2/26/09, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:
From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] vote for my poem on good reads?
To: editor at pavementsaw.org, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Date: Thursday, February 26, 2009, 11:56 AM

I was able to vote since I didn't enter this month, my last month's 
entry having ignominiously not even made the finals. I liked two poems, 
yours and one other, and was able to vote with a clear conscious for 
little Scuba.

David Baratier wrote:
> Hope this works, here is the link to vote on my poem that is the finalist
for March on the Goodreads site. Vote immediately! 
> To directly vote on the poem, use--
>
> http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/10300.GOODREADS_MARCH_NEWSLETTER_TOP
>
>
> Here is the poem
>
>
>
> A girl named Scuba 
>
>
> We named our daughter Scuba. I am not sure how it happened, some say we
should have named her after a famous literary friend in a career advancing
homage, others that it should be a family name, or, if we wanted to stay within
the water element, to invoke the powerful like Poseidon, the great turtle
underneath us or re-invigorate a failure like Aquaman or The Prince of Tides.
You don?t know what it?s like, you who named your kids before meeting them,
you who didn?t spend a week in intensive care waiting for word about an
aqueous angel, you who never held water. 
>
> -David Baratier 
>
>
>
> here are the contenders--
>
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/110615.PLEASE_VOTE_FOR_MARCH_S_GOODREADS_POEM_FIVE_FINALISTS
>
>
>
> Be well
>
> David Baratier, Editor
>
> Pavement Saw Press
> 321 Empire Street
> Montpelier OH 43543
> http://pavementsaw.org
>
> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>
>
>       



      
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 12:57:03 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:57:03 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 45
In-Reply-To: <EE8AF1EC-56DB-4EF0-9236-01961DF93B66@verizon.net>
References: <200902261314.n1QDE4mK017357@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<EE8AF1EC-56DB-4EF0-9236-01961DF93B66@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902260957k1efa1b4ds98944b7df673fa89@mail.gmail.com>

You goose.  <g>
Judy aka TNBG

2009/2/26 Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>

>
> On Feb 26, 2009, at 5:14 AM, Judy wrote:
>
>>
>> Am I becoming the new Bob Grumman?
>>
>
>    omigod
>
>   (one-word poem)
>
>  prayerfully,
>
> Barry
>
>
>>  _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 13:04:08 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:04:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To Be 
	Chopped-Line Prose?
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0902260919w7423b214v9a0bc7af73e09257@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<9b1b9dab0902260919w7423b214v9a0bc7af73e09257@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902261004w1a16c477jee55301ba97adff0@mail.gmail.com>

Oh Chris, tell me it ain't true!!!
wails Judy

2009/2/26 Chris Lott <chris.lott at gmail.com>

> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:44 AM, Judy Prince
> <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Am I becoming the new Bob Grumman?
>
> Sadly, the answer must be --
>
> c
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 13:09:32 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:09:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] vote for my poem on good reads?
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0902260921t3f28f68lb71108b0f960d013@mail.gmail.com>
References: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<9b1b9dab0902260921t3f28f68lb71108b0f960d013@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902261009l68c109b1w58c502adc5c8259@mail.gmail.com>

Chris,
I've had breakfast and homemade peanut butter chocolate fudge, so am ready
for a nother primal wotsit.  Earplugs, yes, may be necessary.

The Hon. Judith B. Prince and her ilk

2009/2/26 Chris Lott <chris.lott at gmail.com>

> I'm voting for it, but I'm even more interested now in what Judy
> thinks given her recent primal poetry scream.
>
> c
>
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 7:19 AM, David Baratier <editor at pavementsaw.org>
> wrote:
> > Hope this works, here is the link to vote on my poem that is the finalist
> for March on the Goodreads site. Vote immediately!
> > To directly vote on the poem, use--
> >
> > http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/10300.GOODREADS_MARCH_NEWSLETTER_TOP
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 13:18:23 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:18:23 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To Be
	Chopped-Line Prose?
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com>

I'm thinking....what makes words sound, feel and flow like music.  All of
the things that make that happen.  How do they make that happen?
Why do they make that happen?  Why do so many of us want them to make that
happen?

Can we talk about it without quoting or paraphrasing others' opinions---only
quoting poetry bits as examples?

Can we talk about it without using poetry jargon?

Try to take a poem that I call chopped-line prose and alter the line breaks
however you think it'd feel more musical to your tongue and ear.

Try to take a poem that's not what I call chopped-line prose and make it
into chopped-line prose.

peanut butter chocolate fudge is a lovely thing indeed

jbprince

2009/2/26 Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>

> I should have finished that question with...."in order to be considered
> acceptable"?
> Is it that American poets now feel that the best poetry is prose that has
> been line-chopped just short of bumping into the right-margin as prose does?
>
> Is it that American poets now feel that poetry is prose....that there is
> really no difference between the two?
>
> Is it that American poets now feel that poetry is a short story?
>
> Is it that there are no or few American POETS now?  Have 'they'
> disappeared, mutated, their work morphing back to prose because that is the
> Choice of Most Contemporary American Poets?
>
> Shall we who do not consider ourselves contemporary American poets ONLY
> because we do not think, and I mean this most fervently, that poetry is the
> same as prose with chopped line endings, just keep writing poetry but wait
> for a couple decades until poetry is considered poetry again in order for
> our work to be acknowledged?
>
> Am I becoming the new Bob Grumman?
>
> Best,
>
> earnest Judy
>
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Feb 26 13:20:24 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:20:24 -0000
Subject: Fw: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
Message-ID: <9DC276302E704297ACDB9A01CE2629C2@RobinPC>

From: "TheOldMole" <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>

> My tin ear doesn't hear the fault between "cried" and "tide," I confess.

I hear "cried" as a dyphthong, and "tide" as a single vowel.

> But in Marvell's day, wasn't rhyme for the eye still a standard?

Eye rhyme was only ever very occasional, and that's not where the Marvell
couplet is at -- "lie" and "eternity" are spelled differently, but seem as
if they ought to be pronounced the same.

(The spelling in the only extant source, Marvell's posthumous _Miscellaneous
Poems_ of 1681 has "lye" / "Eternity".)

Robin 




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Feb 26 13:21:13 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:21:13 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
Message-ID: <29897039860D4CF9866A6751B07F2910@RobinPC>

From: "TheOldMole" <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>

> Being expected to shut up and do your job when your job involves you in 
> the suffering of others.

That's not how I'd read it -- more the speaker utterly pissed-off because he
can't get to sleep because of the bleating of the sheep.  No sympathy there,
for me.

Robin 




From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Thu Feb 26 13:37:35 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:37:35 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: an example
In-Reply-To: <200902261525.n1QFPXmK020467@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902261525.n1QFPXmK020467@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <9770B1CC-1BCF-4D57-9B90-85A484FBE49E@verizon.net>


On Feb 26, 2009, at 7:25 AM, Judy wrote:

>
> I'm thinking....what makes words sound, feel and flow like music.

An example, sans jargon as requested, slightly tweaked from Judy's  
prose original:

> 		peanut butter
>                 chocolate fudge
>                 a lovely thing
> 	        indeed
>
      goose-ally,

  Barry
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Feb 26 13:44:07 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:44:07 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <9DC276302E704297ACDB9A01CE2629C2@RobinPC>
References: <9DC276302E704297ACDB9A01CE2629C2@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <CB77CBBB3B07464AAA4494E192D26D80@RobinPC>

> I hear "cried" as a dyphthong, and "tide" as a single vowel.

That is, I'd hear "cried" and "tied" (as in "tied up") as rhyming, but 
neither rhyming with (the) "tide" (of the sea).

So "tied" (rhyming with "cried") and "tide" would [in my speech] be a 
phonetically distinct minimal pair.

i.e. insofar as "tide" and "tied" are distinct, only one but not both can 
form a full rhyme with "cried".

I think ...

            :-(

R. 




From halvard at gmail.com  Thu Feb 26 13:51:20 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:51:20 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 45
In-Reply-To: <EE8AF1EC-56DB-4EF0-9236-01961DF93B66@verizon.net>
References: <200902261314.n1QDE4mK017357@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<EE8AF1EC-56DB-4EF0-9236-01961DF93B66@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902261051v50372c54ief6ed2fbc0039853@mail.gmail.com>

Just wondering if folks who get N-P in digest form aren't allowed to change
that subject line (the one that says New-Poetry digest, such and such a
date).

Hal

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 10:16 AM, Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>wrote:

>
> On Feb 26, 2009, at 5:14 AM, Judy wrote:
>
>>
>> Am I becoming the new Bob Grumman?
>>
>
>    omigod
>
>   (one-word poem)
>
>  prayerfully,
>
> Barry
>
>
>>  _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Feb 26 14:31:53 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:31:53 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Vowel Problem
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <C606E7A49663441D9BC433089473CE19@RobinPC>

                Merry Mary Married Hairy Harry

This is the phonetic equivalent of colo(u)rless green ideas sleep furiously -- how many *distinct vowels do you pronounce/hear in this phrase?

I *think I can distinguish four different vowels in the phrase, but I may be deluding myself.

The largest number of distinctions are made in certain Scottish areas of Scotland -- I think in Aberdeen, all five (possible) vowel sounds are distinct -- and some areas of USAmerica (the South?) have the fewest.

But nuff said on this, but.

Robin

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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb 26 14:38:52 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:38:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] vote for my poem on good reads?
In-Reply-To: <820932.81894.qm@web83303.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <820932.81894.qm@web83303.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <49A6EFCC.2070203@opus40.org>

Next time I'll get it in early. But you know...you're not obligated to 
pick NewPosies.

amy king wrote:
> Hmmm.  Did you post past the deadline?  I don't recall seeing yours, Tad!
>
> _______
>
> Amy's Alias
> http://amyking.org/
>
> --- On *Thu, 2/26/09, TheOldMole /<Opus40-01 at opus40.org>/* wrote:
>
>     From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
>     Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] vote for my poem on good reads?
>     To: editor at pavementsaw.org, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &
>     Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     Date: Thursday, February 26, 2009, 11:56 AM
>
>     I was able to vote since I didn't enter this month, my last month's 
>     entry having ignominiously not even made the finals. I liked two poems, 
>     yours and one other, and was able to vote with a clear conscious for 
>     little Scuba.
>
>     David Baratier wrote:
>     > Hope this works, here is the link to vote on my poem that is the finalist
>     for March on the Goodreads site. Vote immediately! 
>     > To directly vote on the poem, use--
>     >
>     >
>      http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/10300.GOODREADS_MARCH_NEWSLETTER_TOP
>     >
>     >
>     > Here is the poem
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     > A girl named Scuba 
>     >
>     >
>     > We named our daughter Scuba. I am not sure how it happened, some say we
>     should have named her after a famous literary friend in a career advancing
>     homage, others that it should be a family name, or, if we wanted to stay within
>     the water element, to invoke the powerful like Poseidon, the great turtle
>     underneath us or re-invigorate a failure like Aquaman or The Prince of Tides.
>     You don?t know what it?s like, you who named your kids before meeting them,
>     you who didn?t spend a week in intensive care waiting for word about an
>     aqueous angel, you who never held water. 
>     >
>     > -David Baratier 
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     > here are the
>      contenders--
>     >
>     http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/110615.PLEASE_VOTE_FOR_MARCH_S_GOODREADS_POEM_FIVE_FINALISTS
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     > Be well
>     >
>     > David Baratier, Editor
>     >
>     > Pavement Saw Press
>     > 321 Empire Street
>     > Montpelier OH 43543
>     > http://pavementsaw.org
>     >
>     > Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
>     > http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>     >
>     >
>     >       
>               
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb 26 14:44:01 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:44:01 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <29897039860D4CF9866A6751B07F2910@RobinPC>
References: <29897039860D4CF9866A6751B07F2910@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <49A6F101.70400@opus40.org>

Even though he understands why the sheep are bleating?

Robin Hamilton wrote:
> From: "TheOldMole" <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
>
>> Being expected to shut up and do your job when your job involves you 
>> in the suffering of others.
>
> That's not how I'd read it -- more the speaker utterly pissed-off 
> because he
> can't get to sleep because of the bleating of the sheep.  No sympathy 
> there,
> for me.
>
> Robin
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb 26 14:45:14 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:45:14 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry]The New Bob Grumman (was  Re: New-Poetry Digest,
	Vol 56, Issue 45)
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902261051v50372c54ief6ed2fbc0039853@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902261314.n1QDE4mK017357@wiz.cath.vt.edu>	<EE8AF1EC-56DB-4EF0-9236-01961DF93B66@verizon.net>
	<f160a1210902261051v50372c54ief6ed2fbc0039853@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A6F14A.8050803@opus40.org>

You can.

Halvard Johnson wrote:
> Just wondering if folks who get N-P in digest form aren't allowed to 
> change
> that subject line (the one that says New-Poetry digest, such and such a
> date).
>
> Hal
>
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 10:16 AM, Barry Spacks 
> <barry.spacks at verizon.net <mailto:barry.spacks at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
>
>     On Feb 26, 2009, at 5:14 AM, Judy wrote:
>
>
>         Am I becoming the new Bob Grumman?
>
>
>        omigod
>
>       (one-word poem)
>
>      prayerfully,
>
>     Barry
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     New-Poetry mailing list
>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> halvard at gmail.com <mailto:halvard at gmail.com>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html 
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/index.html>
> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html 
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/vidalocabooks.html>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From grahamd at ripon.edu  Thu Feb 26 14:52:12 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:52:12 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] The New Bob Grumman
In-Reply-To: <49A6F14A.8050803@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <C5CC4F0C.6279%grahamd@ripon.edu>


Whoever the New Bob Grumman is, the challenge will be, of course, a
technical one:  how to "be" BG without merely recycling arguments that have
been in widespread use by the Old Bob Grumman (OBG) for the past 50 years.
Yet unless one does trot out such arguments, how will we know it's the NBG?

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
====================================================





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb 26 16:21:09 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:21:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] vote for my poem on good reads?
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0902260921t3f28f68lb71108b0f960d013@mail.gmail.com>
References: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<9b1b9dab0902260921t3f28f68lb71108b0f960d013@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A707C5.4020600@nut-n-but.net>

Chris Lott wrote:
> I'm voting for it, but I'm even more interested now in what Judy
> thinks given her recent primal poetry scream.
>
> c
The real Bob Grumman couldn't vote for it because he hadn't seen the 
other entries.  If one of them was a picture of a some kind of rabbit, 
he'd have to vote for that instead.

--Bob G.





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb 26 16:26:25 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:26:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <29897039860D4CF9866A6751B07F2910@RobinPC>
References: <29897039860D4CF9866A6751B07F2910@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <49A70901.4020702@nut-n-but.net>

Robin Hamilton wrote:
> From: "TheOldMole" <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
>
>> Being expected to shut up and do your job when your job involves you 
>> in the suffering of others.
>
> That's not how I'd read it -- more the speaker utterly pissed-off 
> because he
> can't get to sleep because of the bleating of the sheep.  No sympathy 
> there,
> for me.
>
> Robin
Yow, Robin, you surprise me.  Why, in that case, the mention of the 
sheep not being able to smell pastures?

--Bob



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Feb 26 16:39:01 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:39:01 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others -- D.M.Black
In-Reply-To: <49A707C5.4020600@nut-n-but.net>
References: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com><9b1b9dab0902260921t3f28f68lb71108b0f960d013@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A707C5.4020600@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <F45117FA72BE411CA434C3999EBEACF7@RobinPC>

The Red Judge

We shut the red judge in a bronze jar
- By "we", meaning myself and the black judge -
And there was peace, for a time.  You can have enough
Yowling from certain justices.  The jar
We buried, (pitching and swelling like the tough
Membrane of an unshelled egg), on the Calton Hill.
And there was peace, for a time.  My friend the black
Judge was keen on whisky, and I kept
Within earshot of sobriety only by drinking
Slow ciders, and pretending
Unfelt absorption in the repetitive beer-mats.  It was a kind of
Vibration we noticed first - hard to tell
Whether we heard it or were shaken by,
Whether the tumblers quivered, or our minds.  It grew
To a thick thudding, and an occasional creak
Like a nearby axle, but as it were
Without the sense of "nearby". - The hard flag-
stones wriggled slightly under the taut linoleum.
I supported the black judge to the nearest door
- Detached his clutched glass for the protesting barman -
And propped him against a bus-stop.  Maybe
It was only a pneumatic drill mating at Queen Street,
Or an impotent motor-bike - the sounds grew harsher.
My gestures stopped a 24 that spat
Some eleventh commandment out of its sober driver,
But I was more conscious of the rocking walls,
The pavement's shrugging off its granite kerb...

Quite suddenly the night was still: the cracks
In the roadway rested, and the tenements
Of Rose Street stood inscrutable as always. The black judge
Snored at his post.  And all around
The bright blood filled the gutters, overflowed
The window-sills and doorsteps, soaked my anyway
Inadequate shoes, and there was a sound of cheering
Faintly and everywhere, and the Red Judge walked
O thirty feet high and scarlet towards our stop.

D.M.Black

        http://www.dmblack.me.uk/





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb 26 17:07:34 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:07:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To
	BeChopped-Line Prose?
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A712A6.2030208@nut-n-but.net>


> Am I becoming the new Bob Grumman?
>
> Best,
>
> earnest Judy
Yup.  Easy, wasn't it!

--Bob



From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Thu Feb 26 17:11:00 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:11:00 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others -- D.M.Black
In-Reply-To: <F45117FA72BE411CA434C3999EBEACF7@RobinPC>
References: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<9b1b9dab0902260921t3f28f68lb71108b0f960d013@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A707C5.4020600@nut-n-but.net>
	<F45117FA72BE411CA434C3999EBEACF7@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <648208b60902261411y28dc77f0n7b05bf6a8417eb54@mail.gmail.com>

What a marvelous, muscular poem.  Thank you for introducing me to D.M.
Black.
- Jim

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Robin Hamilton <
robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:

> The Red Judge
>
> We shut the red judge in a bronze jar
> - By "we", meaning myself and the black judge -
> And there was peace, for a time.  You can have enough
> Yowling from certain justices.  The jar
> We buried, (pitching and swelling like the tough
> Membrane of an unshelled egg), on the Calton Hill.
> And there was peace, for a time.  My friend the black
> Judge was keen on whisky, and I kept
> Within earshot of sobriety only by drinking
> Slow ciders, and pretending
> Unfelt absorption in the repetitive beer-mats.  It was a kind of
> Vibration we noticed first - hard to tell
> Whether we heard it or were shaken by,
> Whether the tumblers quivered, or our minds.  It grew
> To a thick thudding, and an occasional creak
> Like a nearby axle, but as it were
> Without the sense of "nearby". - The hard flag-
> stones wriggled slightly under the taut linoleum.
> I supported the black judge to the nearest door
> - Detached his clutched glass for the protesting barman -
> And propped him against a bus-stop.  Maybe
> It was only a pneumatic drill mating at Queen Street,
> Or an impotent motor-bike - the sounds grew harsher.
> My gestures stopped a 24 that spat
> Some eleventh commandment out of its sober driver,
> But I was more conscious of the rocking walls,
> The pavement's shrugging off its granite kerb...
>
> Quite suddenly the night was still: the cracks
> In the roadway rested, and the tenements
> Of Rose Street stood inscrutable as always. The black judge
> Snored at his post.  And all around
> The bright blood filled the gutters, overflowed
> The window-sills and doorsteps, soaked my anyway
> Inadequate shoes, and there was a sound of cheering
> Faintly and everywhere, and the Red Judge walked
> O thirty feet high and scarlet towards our stop.
>
> D.M.Black
>
>       http://www.dmblack.me.uk/
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 17:11:32 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:11:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The Vowel Problem
In-Reply-To: <C606E7A49663441D9BC433089473CE19@RobinPC>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com>
	<C606E7A49663441D9BC433089473CE19@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902261411p246de98ej4d15e9d03d81f967@mail.gmail.com>

I hear the same vowel sound in each word's first syllable, and it sounds
like 'air' or 'pear' or 'dare'.  That's from a midwesterner, USA.  Do any of
you USAmericans hear more than one sound?  And are there any UK- born and
raised folk on NP besides Robin Hamilton?
Judy

2009/2/26 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>

>                  Merry Mary Married Hairy Harry
>
> This is the phonetic equivalent of colo(u)rless green ideas sleep furiously
> -- how many *distinct vowels do you pronounce/hear in this phrase?
>
> I *think I can distinguish four different vowels in the phrase, but I may
> be deluding myself.
>
> The largest number of distinctions are made in certain Scottish areas of
> Scotland -- I think in Aberdeen, all five (possible) vowel sounds are
> distinct -- and some areas of USAmerica (the South?) have the fewest.
>
> But nuff said on this, but.
>
> Robin
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 17:13:25 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:13:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To 
	BeChopped-Line Prose?
In-Reply-To: <49A712A6.2030208@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A712A6.2030208@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902261413w26ec618bqe1851f73108f57e5@mail.gmail.com>

Won't be as easy for you to become the new Judy.
;-)

2009/2/26 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

>
>  Am I becoming the new Bob Grumman?
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> earnest Judy
>>
> Yup.  Easy, wasn't it!
>
> --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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 17:19:17 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:19:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: an example
In-Reply-To: <9770B1CC-1BCF-4D57-9B90-85A484FBE49E@verizon.net>
References: <200902261525.n1QFPXmK020467@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<9770B1CC-1BCF-4D57-9B90-85A484FBE49E@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902261419k13b399d2h633b9f1168631eca@mail.gmail.com>

I agree, Barry.  Now tell me why.
jbp

2009/2/26 Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>

>
> On Feb 26, 2009, at 7:25 AM, Judy wrote:
>
>
> I'm thinking....what makes words sound, feel and flow like music.
>
>
> An example, sans jargon as requested, slightly tweaked from Judy's prose
> original:
>
> peanut butter
>
>                 chocolate fudge
>
>                 a lovely thing
>
> indeed
>
>
>      goose-ally,
>
>  Barry
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Feb 26 17:27:03 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:27:03 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A70901.4020702@nut-n-but.net>
References: <29897039860D4CF9866A6751B07F2910@RobinPC>
	<49A70901.4020702@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <41AE53AA0B154BD8AC71E0DFB5B5F355@RobinPC>

> Yow, Robin, you surprise me.  Why, in that case, the mention of the sheep 
> not being able to smell pastures?
>
> --Bob

Well, OK, maybe I overstated, but it seems to turn on what is the 
predominant tone of Davies' poem.  Is the speaker unwilling to ship again 
with 18,000 sheep because he is sorry for them (which, as you point out, he 
is) or because he can't sleep because of their continual bleating (which 
seems to me one of the cruxes of the poem)?

The problem with my interpretation is that any sensible bindlestiff would 
put up with a month's insomnia (how long was the passage from Baltimore to 
Glasgow, and was it by sail or by steam?) for the sake of 50,000 shillings.

Or is that mathematical precision simply rhetorical exaggeration?

{And incidentally, how big a ship would you have to have to crowd into it 
18,000 sheep?}

I can't get out of my head that somewhere behind this poems lies RLS -- "I 
must go down to the seas again" -- even if in reaction -- "See, here's what 
a *real sailor's poem would sound like."

Seems to me Davies, who I never could manage to treat seriously (but then I 
never went a bundle on any of the Georgians other Graves and Edward Thomas), 
was more pseudo-tramp than super-tramp.

Though he did apparently sail the USA-UK route six or seven times as a 
deckhand, so maybe he knows whereof he talks.

Robin







From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb 26 17:24:18 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:24:18 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>

Here's my Check-List again, slightly revised:

A Poem Is Excellent Regardless of How Long Halfwits Have Praised or 
Dismissed It If It:

(1) provides a passage into something importantly true or centrally 
beautiful, if not both:

(2) is clear, but not easily clear, nor ever finally fully clear:

(3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which 
pulls its elements reasonably close together; 

(4) contains few or no superfluous words or other matter;

(5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have 
such as
uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, 
visual art), and imagery;

(6) avoids excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment, ideation, 
technique and  form.


--Bob G.





From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Thu Feb 26 17:33:53 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:33:53 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902261433n2339b5a4lddbd21d55822bcef@mail.gmail.com>

Yes, because one can quantify the unquantifiable.

Makes perfect sense--measuring the standards of personal taste.

Jeff Newberry

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:24 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> Here's my Check-List again, slightly revised:
>
> A Poem Is Excellent Regardless of How Long Halfwits Have Praised or
> Dismissed It If It:
>
> (1) provides a passage into something importantly true or centrally
> beautiful, if not both:
>
> (2) is clear, but not easily clear, nor ever finally fully clear:
>
> (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which
> pulls its elements reasonably close together;
> (4) contains few or no superfluous words or other matter;
>
> (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have
> such as
> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
> art), and imagery;
>
> (6) avoids excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment, ideation,
> technique and  form.
>
>
> --Bob G.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 
You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that
is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and
experience, from which each according to his own immediate and peculiar
needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb 26 17:39:20 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:39:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To
	BeChopped-Line Prose?
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902261413w26ec618bqe1851f73108f57e5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><49A712A6.2030208@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902261413w26ec618bqe1851f73108f57e5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A71A18.7050208@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Won't be as easy for you to become the new Judy.
>
> ;-)
I'm going for bigger things.  I figure if I constantly post poems here 
by various mediocre plaintext American poets and say how much I like 
them, I'll become . . . well, gosh, there aren't many here I could not 
then become the New Version of!

--Bob



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb 26 17:44:35 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:44:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <41AE53AA0B154BD8AC71E0DFB5B5F355@RobinPC>
References: <29897039860D4CF9866A6751B07F2910@RobinPC>	<49A70901.4020702@nut-n-but.net>
	<41AE53AA0B154BD8AC71E0DFB5B5F355@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <49A71B53.1040905@opus40.org>

Isn't that Masefield?

Robin Hamilton wrote:
>> Yow, Robin, you surprise me.  Why, in that case, the mention of the 
>> sheep not being able to smell pastures?
>>
>> --Bob
>
> Well, OK, maybe I overstated, but it seems to turn on what is the 
> predominant tone of Davies' poem.  Is the speaker unwilling to ship 
> again with 18,000 sheep because he is sorry for them (which, as you 
> point out, he is) or because he can't sleep because of their continual 
> bleating (which seems to me one of the cruxes of the poem)?
>
> The problem with my interpretation is that any sensible bindlestiff 
> would put up with a month's insomnia (how long was the passage from 
> Baltimore to Glasgow, and was it by sail or by steam?) for the sake of 
> 50,000 shillings.
>
> Or is that mathematical precision simply rhetorical exaggeration?
>
> {And incidentally, how big a ship would you have to have to crowd into 
> it 18,000 sheep?}
>
> I can't get out of my head that somewhere behind this poems lies RLS 
> -- "I must go down to the seas again" -- even if in reaction -- "See, 
> here's what a *real sailor's poem would sound like."
>
> Seems to me Davies, who I never could manage to treat seriously (but 
> then I never went a bundle on any of the Georgians other Graves and 
> Edward Thomas), was more pseudo-tramp than super-tramp.
>
> Though he did apparently sail the USA-UK route six or seven times as a 
> deckhand, so maybe he knows whereof he talks.
>
> Robin
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb 26 17:45:08 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:45:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902261433n2339b5a4lddbd21d55822bcef@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>	<7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com>	<49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<731bb17a0902261433n2339b5a4lddbd21d55822bcef@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A71B74.5020106@opus40.org>

But can one eff the ineffable?

Jeff Newberry wrote:
> Yes, because one can quantify the unquantifiable.
>
> Makes perfect sense--measuring the standards of personal taste.
>
> Jeff Newberry
>
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:24 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>> wrote:
>
>     Here's my Check-List again, slightly revised:
>
>     A Poem Is Excellent Regardless of How Long Halfwits Have Praised
>     or Dismissed It If It:
>
>     (1) provides a passage into something importantly true or
>     centrally beautiful, if not both:
>
>     (2) is clear, but not easily clear, nor ever finally fully clear:
>
>     (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like
>     which pulls its elements reasonably close together;
>     (4) contains few or no superfluous words or other matter;
>
>     (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other
>     poems have such as
>     uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics,
>     visual art), and imagery;
>
>     (6) avoids excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment,
>     ideation, technique and  form.
>
>
>     --Bob G.
>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     New-Poetry mailing list
>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; 
> and that is what art really is, particular stories of particular 
> people and experience, from which each according to his own immediate 
> and peculiar needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Feb 26 17:51:39 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:51:39 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A71B53.1040905@opus40.org>
References: <29897039860D4CF9866A6751B07F2910@RobinPC>	<49A70901.4020702@nut-n-but.net><41AE53AA0B154BD8AC71E0DFB5B5F355@RobinPC>
	<49A71B53.1040905@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <166C57A2ADE64022935BDC84EB0722ED@RobinPC>

From: "TheOldMole" <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>

> Isn't that Masefield?

Ooops, yes -- my bad.  

Now which Robert Louis Stevenson poem *was it I was trying to think of?

            :-(

Robin



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 19:14:10 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:14:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To 
	BeChopped-Line Prose?
In-Reply-To: <49A71A18.7050208@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A712A6.2030208@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902261413w26ec618bqe1851f73108f57e5@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A71A18.7050208@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902261614i36acd9f9gfa7dea6c407343f0@mail.gmail.com>

Quite right.  Go for it!
jbp

2009/2/26 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> Judy Prince wrote:
>
>> Won't be as easy for you to become the new Judy.
>>
>> ;-)
>>
> I'm going for bigger things.  I figure if I constantly post poems here by
> various mediocre plaintext American poets and say how much I like them, I'll
> become . . . well, gosh, there aren't many here I could not then become the
> New Version of!
>
>
> --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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From halvard at gmail.com  Thu Feb 26 20:04:18 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:04:18 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To 
	BeChopped-Line Prose?
In-Reply-To: <49A712A6.2030208@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A712A6.2030208@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902261704l7b5e5240vb4ab83cd3c1856a7@mail.gmail.com>

Now, what are we going to do with the old one?

Hal

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

>
>  Am I becoming the new Bob Grumman?
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> earnest Judy
>>
> Yup.  Easy, wasn't it!
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 20:13:57 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:13:57 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902261713l35ab4662w38d4c0071f2a96a8@mail.gmail.com>

Here's my evaluation of SHEEP using Bob's latest revised WEPD checklist.
 First, the poem, then Bob's checklist, and finally my brief evaluation.

2009/2/25 TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>

> OK, here's one.
>
> SHEEP
>
> When I was once in Baltimore,
> A man came up to me and cried,
> ?Come, I have eighteen hundred sheep,
> And we sail on Tuesday?s tide.
>
> ?If you will sail with me, young man,
> I'll pay you fifty shillings down;
> These eighteen hundred sheep I take
> From Baltimore to Glasgow town.?
>
> He paid me fifty shillings down,
> I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep;
> We soon had cleared the harbour?s mouth,
> We soon were in the salt sea deep.
>
> The first night we were out at sea,
> Those sheep were quiet in their mind;
> The second night they cried with fear ?
> They smelt no pastures in the wind.
>
> They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,
> They cried so loud I could not sleep:
> For fifty thousand shillings down
> I would not sail again with sheep.
>
> W. H. Davies
>
-----------
Bob's latest revised WEPD [What Excellent Poems Do, or What an Excellent
Poem Does] checklist:

(1) provides a passage into something importantly true or centrally
beautiful, if not both; (2) is clear, but not easily clear, nor ever finally
fully clear; (3) has a Unifying Principle, or some meaning or image or the
like which pulls its elements reasonably close together; (4) contains few or
no superfluous words or other matter; (5) boasts some constituent of
substance that few or no other poems have such as uncommon diction, grammar,
expressive modality (e.g., mathematics,  visual art, and imagery; (6) avoids
excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment, ideation, technique, and
form.

------------------------
My evaluation:

1)  If it's about sheep, I've found nothing importantly true or centrally
beautiful.  If it's about human cargo as some NPers have suggested, the
young man's sensitivity to their condition in the penultimate stanza and
first half of the final stanza is at major odds with his drone-dull
elsewhere attitude, and that disunity split-shatters it as effective social
commentary.  ZERO
2)  It is wordly clear, tho apparently [see #1 above] not interpretatively
 clear.  ZERO
3)  Whether sheep or human cargo:  2 points above zero for the simple story
told
4)  Repeating "eighteen hundred sheep" in five quatrains earns Davies' a
ZERO
5)  Apart from "were quiet in their mind" and "[T]hey smelt no pastures in
the wind", no unusual or fresh diction or imagery.  1 point above zero
6)  [See #5 above]  1 point above zero

Davies seemed more concerned with accommodating rhyming than with making (a)
an importantly true statement or beauty, or (b) telling a simple story in
fresh imagery.  SHEEP deserve better.

Judy
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Thu Feb 26 20:17:00 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:17:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Does Most Contemporary American Poetry Have To 
	BeChopped-Line Prose?
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902261704l7b5e5240vb4ab83cd3c1856a7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A712A6.2030208@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902261704l7b5e5240vb4ab83cd3c1856a7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902261717yd513091i588c9460d4755a6c@mail.gmail.com>

;-)
jbp

2009/2/26 Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>

> Now, what are we going to do with the old one?
>
> Hal
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:
>
>>
>>  Am I becoming the new Bob Grumman?
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> earnest Judy
>>>
>> Yup.  Easy, wasn't it!
>>
>> --Bob
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> 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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Thu Feb 26 20:32:00 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:32:00 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>





On Feb 26, 2009, at 4:24 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:
> (6) avoids excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment,  
> ideation,
> technique and  form.
>
>
> --Bob G.
===================

Hmmmm.  Excessive use of dead form or technique. . . .  I'll need an  
example to help me grasp that.  What's a dead form, for starters?   
Would the sonnet, perhaps, be a dead form?  If not, what is?  Iambic  
pentameter?  Triolets?  Masques?  Heroic couplets?

On the other hand, if the sonnet is a dead form, then why would we  
care if one uses it "excessively"?  Dead is dead, after all.

I'm afraid that #6 as stated strikes me as close to nonsensical.   As  
opposed to #1-5, which strike me as merely misguided. . . .




========================================
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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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 26 20:45:31 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:45:31 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <8CB669435AFCDEC-1378-1275@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>

He said 'dead language'...not dead form, David. 
I think Bob's criteria?1-6 are all good, in fact hard to argue with...
but the problem is, as Jeff suggested, subjectivity and taste?set in.
How do you ever get agreement rating the poem by each criterion?
Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 8:32 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry












On Feb 26, 2009, at 4:24 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:

(6) avoids excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment, ideation,
technique and? form.


--Bob G.


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




Hmmmm. ?Excessive use of dead form or technique. . . . ?I'll need an example to help me grasp that. ?What's a dead form, for starters? ?Would the sonnet, perhaps, be a dead form? ?If not, what is? ?Iambic pentameter? ?Triolets? ?Masques? ?Heroic couplets? ?




On the other hand, if the sonnet is a dead form, then why would we care if one uses it "excessively"? ?Dead is dead, after all. ?




I'm afraid that #6 as stated strikes me as close to nonsensical. ? As opposed to #1-5, which strike me as merely misguided. . . .













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

David Graham

grahamd at ripon.edu




Home Page:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz




Poetry Library:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html

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





= 


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 26 20:47:47 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:47:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <8CB6694865696CC-1378-1293@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>

I see he did say 'dead form'...
Memo to self: read to end of line.
Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 8:32 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry












On Feb 26, 2009, at 4:24 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:

(6) avoids excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment, ideation,
technique and? form.


--Bob G.


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




Hmmmm. ?Excessive use of dead form or technique. . . . ?I'll need an example to help me grasp that. ?What's a dead form, for starters? ?Would the sonnet, perhaps, be a dead form? ?If not, what is? ?Iambic pentameter? ?Triolets? ?Masques? ?Heroic couplets? ?




On the other hand, if the sonnet is a dead form, then why would we care if one uses it "excessively"? ?Dead is dead, after all. ?




I'm afraid that #6 as stated strikes me as close to nonsensical. ? As opposed to #1-5, which strike me as merely misguided. . . .













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

David Graham

grahamd at ripon.edu




Home Page:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz




Poetry Library:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html

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





= 


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 26 20:56:38 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:56:38 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <8CB6695C2AD30F4-1378-130A@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>

I think the?sonnet is poetry's elephant graveyard. A place old poets go to die. 
Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 8:32 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry












On Feb 26, 2009, at 4:24 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:

(6) avoids excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment, ideation,
technique and? form.


--Bob G.


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




Hmmmm. ?Excessive use of dead form or technique. . . . ?I'll need an example to help me grasp that. ?What's a dead form, for starters? ?Would the sonnet, perhaps, be a dead form? ?If not, what is? ?Iambic pentameter? ?Triolets? ?Masques? ?Heroic couplets? ?




On the other hand, if the sonnet is a dead form, then why would we care if one uses it "excessively"? ?Dead is dead, after all. ?




I'm afraid that #6 as stated strikes me as close to nonsensical. ? As opposed to #1-5, which strike me as merely misguided. . . .













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

David Graham

grahamd at ripon.edu




Home Page:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz




Poetry Library:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html

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





= 


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb 26 21:20:32 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:20:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902261713l35ab4662w38d4c0071f2a96a8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com><7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com><49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com><49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
	<7db1d01b0902261713l35ab4662w38d4c0071f2a96a8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB669919CBF1BC-1378-1433@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>

The poem is certainly not about human cargo per se, it's sheep all the way. The?notion (possible reading)?that I suggested was?
this: "Was the poet, in speaking about the sheep in transit across the Atlantic, and openly anthropomorphizing their shipboard 
distress, inviting the reader to to recall the many slave ships laden with human cargo (humans in cattle boats, so to speak) crying 
out so pitifully,.that the reader's mind might imagine a?young lad who going to sea for first time on a slaver might turn down a 
great sum to make a second passage in such woeful company. 
I'd like to believe this 'shadow narrative' is present in Davies' poem. Certainly there's no proof in the poem itself. I'm willing
to say it's about bleating sheep driving a poor young seaman out of the business. That's a s/light poem; one with no chance?for excellence
no matter how well rendered.
Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 8:13 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?


Here's my evaluation of SHEEP using Bob's latest revised WEPD checklist. ?First, the poem, then Bob's checklist, and finally my brief evaluation.


2009/2/25 TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>

OK, here's one.

SHEEP

When I was once in Baltimore,
A man came up to me and cried,
?Come, I have eighteen hundred sheep,
And we sail on Tuesday?s tide.

?If you will sail with me, young man,
I'll pay you fifty shillings do
wn;
These eighteen hundred sheep I take
>From Baltimore to Glasgow town.?

He paid me fifty shillings down,
I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep;
We soon had cleared the harbour?s mouth,
We soon were in the salt sea deep.

The first night we were out at sea,
Those sheep were quiet in their mind;
The second night they cried with fear ?
They smelt no pastures in the wind.

They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,
They cried so loud I could not sleep:
For fifty thousand shillings down
I would not sail again with sheep.

W. H. Davies


----------- 


Bob's latest revised WEPD [What Excellent Poems Do, or What an Excellent Poem Does] checklist:




(1) provides a passage into something importantly true or centrally beautiful, if not both; (2) is clear, but not easily clear, nor ever finally fully clear; (3) has a Unifying Principle, or some meaning or image or the like which pulls its elements reasonably close together; (4) contains few or no superfluous words or other matter; (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have such as uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, ?visual art, and imagery; (6) avoids excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment, ideation, technique, and form. ?





------------------------

My evaluation:




1) ?If it's about sheep, I've found nothing importantly true or centrally beautiful. ?If it's about human cargo as some NPers have suggested, the young man's 
sensitivity to their condition in the penultimate stanza and first half of the final stanza is at major odds with his drone-dull elsewhere attitude, and that disunity split-shatters it as effective social commentary. ?ZERO

2) ?It is wordly clear, tho apparently [see #1 above] not interpretatively ?clear. ?ZERO

3) ?Whether sheep or human cargo: ?2 points above zero for the simple story told

4) ?Repeating "eighteen hundred sheep" in five quatrains earns Davies' a ZERO

5) ?Apart from "were quiet in their mind" and "[T]hey smelt no pastures in the wind", no unusual or fresh diction or imagery. ?1 point above zero

6) ?[See #5 above] ?1 point above zero




Davies seemed more concerned with accommodating rhyming than with making (a) an importantly true statement or beauty, or (b) telling a simple story in fresh imagery. ?SHEEP deserve better.




Judy
















_______________________________________________
ew-Poetry mailing list
ew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
ttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From acgold01 at louisville.edu  Thu Feb 26 22:06:46 2009
From: acgold01 at louisville.edu (Alan C Golding)
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:06:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] How many vowels?
Message-ID: <49A711DA.AC48.0004.0@gwise.louisville.edu>

Merry Mary Married Hairy Harry

Judy wrote: "I hear the same vowel sound in each word's first syllable, and it sounds like 'air' or 'pear' or 'dare'.  That's from a midwesterner, USA.  Do any of you USAmericans hear more than one sound?  And are there any UK- born and raised folk on NP besides Robin Hamilton?"

My London-born and southeast-England-raised ear hears three different vowel sounds: merry, mary/hairy, and married/harry.  They're pretty audibly different where I come from.  But I can imagine hearing four from the aural vantage-point of Glaswegian Scots: that is, I'm imagining, Robin, that you hear the first syllable of "hairy" as different from that of "Mary?"

Living in the U.S. South and learning from friends that "pen" and "pin," "tar" and "tire" were treated as homophones when they (the friends, not the pins) were in school was an utter jaw-dropper for me.  Gobsmacked, I was.

Now here's a question: does anyone hear differences among the final -y sounds?

Alan






From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Fri Feb 27 02:07:27 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:07:27 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
In-Reply-To: <8CB669919CBF1BC-1378-1433@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB64E61DCED020-498-44C@webmail-me21.sysops.aol.com>
	<7db1d01b0902241456j5100424ekf34d804ade974ee5@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902251526p1efc9271y342e56aac096e6a8@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5EB67.8030301@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902251801p6d9fd74dl22de0274d95fefa3@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A5FA24.7060604@opus40.org>
	<7db1d01b0902261713l35ab4662w38d4c0071f2a96a8@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB669919CBF1BC-1378-1433@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902262307r6c66c8f1u4501a1e6a9a72933@mail.gmail.com>

This interpretation can be applied and I would praise it if a student
suggested it. On the other hand, isn't it strong enough as an
anthropomorphization of the sheep - their cry is overwhelming? Those who had
a pet know to what degree an animal can feel,
veganly yours,

Anny

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 3:20 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> The poem is certainly not about human cargo per se, it's sheep all the way.
> The notion (possible reading) that I suggested was
> this: "Was the poet, in speaking about the sheep in transit across the
> Atlantic, and openly anthropomorphizing their shipboard
> distress, inviting the reader to to recall the many slave ships laden with
> human cargo (humans in cattle boats, so to speak) crying
> out so pitifully,.that the reader's mind might imagine a young lad who
> going to sea for first time on a slaver might turn down a
> great sum to make a second passage in such woeful company.
> I'd like to believe this 'shadow narrative' is present in Davies' poem.
> Certainly there's no proof in the poem itself. I'm willing
> to say it's about bleating sheep driving a poor young seaman out of the
> business. That's a s/light poem; one with no chance for excellence
> no matter how well rendered.
> Finnegan
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 8:13 pm
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] oh my oh my, Can poetry have greatness?
>
> Here's my evaluation of SHEEP using Bob's latest revised WEPD checklist.
>  First, the poem, then Bob's checklist, and finally my brief evaluation.
>
> 2009/2/25 TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
>
>> OK, here's one.
>>
>> SHEEP
>>
>> When I was once in Baltimore,
>> A man came up to me and cried,
>> ?Come, I have eighteen hundred sheep,
>> And we sail on Tuesday?s tide.
>>
>> ?If you will sail with me, young man,
>> I'll pay you fifty shillings down;
>> These eighteen hundred sheep I take
>> >From Baltimore to Glasgow town.?
>>
>> He paid me fifty shillings down,
>> I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep;
>> We soon had cleared the harbour?s mouth,
>> We soon were in the salt sea deep.
>>
>> The first night we were out at sea,
>> Those sheep were quiet in their mind;
>> The second night they cried with fear ?
>> They smelt no pastures in the wind.
>>
>> They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,
>> They cried so loud I could not sleep:
>> For fifty thousand shillings down
>> I would not sail again with sheep.
>>
>> W. H. Davies
>>
> -----------
>
> Bob's latest revised WEPD [What Excellent Poems Do, or What an Excellent
> Poem Does] checklist:
>
>  (1) provides a passage into something importantly true or centrally
> beautiful, if not both; (2) is clear, but not easily clear, nor ever finally
> fully clear; (3) has a Unifying Principle, or some meaning or image or the
> like which pulls its elements reasonably close20together; (4) contains few
> or no superfluous words or other matter; (5) boasts some constituent of
> substance that few or no other poems have such as uncommon diction, grammar,
> expressive modality (e.g., mathematics,  visual art, and imagery; (6) avoids
> excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment, ideation, technique, and
> form.
>
>  ------------------------
> My evaluation:
>
>  1)  If it's about sheep, I've found nothing importantly true or centrally
> beautiful.  If it's about human cargo as some NPers have suggested, the
> young man's sensitivity to their condition in the penultimate stanza and
> first half of the final stanza is at major odds with his drone-dull
> elsewhere attitude, and that disunity split-shatters it as effective social
> commentary.  ZERO
> 2)  It is wordly clear, tho apparently [see #1 above] not interpretatively
>  clear.  ZERO
> 3)  Whether sheep or human cargo:  2 points above zero for the simple story
> told
> 4)  Repeating "eighteen hundred sheep" in five quatrains earns Davies' a
> ZERO
> 5)  Apart from "were quiet in their mind" and "[T]hey smelt no pastures in
> the wind", no unusual or fresh diction or imagery.  1 point above zero
> 6)  [See #5 above]  1 point above zero
>
>  Davies seemed more concerned with accommodating rhyming than with making
> (a) an importantly true statement or beauty, or (b) telling a simple story
> in fresh imagery.  SHEEP deserve better.
>
>  Judy
>
>
>
>
>   _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice
> and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job<http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Fri Feb 27 02:15:29 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:15:29 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <8CB6695C2AD30F4-1378-130A@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
	<8CB6695C2AD30F4-1378-130A@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902262315v2f61c864q91e790521432fc3c@mail.gmail.com>

It is just astounding to notice how Bob Grumman, the rebel of the list,
needs rules to quantify something that he likes. If someone signed in for
the first time to the present list, that someone would get the idea that BG
is the judging judge of verse in general, and Jeff, David and James the
uncorrectable children who need to escape from written standards to which
people usually conform.

Re.: graveyard_
I feel totally alive.

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 2:56 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> I think the sonnet is poetry's elephant graveyard. A place old poets go to
> die.
> Finnegan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
> To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 8:32 pm
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
>
>
>
>
>
>  On Feb 26, 2009, at 4:24 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:
>
> (6) avoids excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment, ideation,
> technique and  form.
>
>
> --Bob G.
>
> ===================
>
>  Hmmmm.  Excessive use of dead form or technique. . . .  I'll need an
> example to help me grasp that.  What's a dead form, for starters?  Would the
> sonnet, perhaps, be a dead form?  If not, what is?  Iambic pentameter?
>  Triolets?  Masques?  Heroic couplets?
>
>  On the other hand, if the sonnet is a dead form, then why would we care
> if one uses it "excessively"?  Dead is dead, after all.
>
>  I'm afraid that #6 as stated strikes me as close to nonsensical.   As
> opposed to #1-5, which strike me as merely misguided. . . .
>
>
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
> =
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice
> and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job<http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>
> .
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Fri Feb 27 04:23:28 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:23:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902262315v2f61c864q91e790521432fc3c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
	<8CB6695C2AD30F4-1378-130A@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902262315v2f61c864q91e790521432fc3c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902270123t47977a77m1445fd1e250b16f0@mail.gmail.com>

Anny, maybe Bob's always acting [as in being an 'actor'].  Of course, one
could dismiss that idea since it comes, after all, from The New Bob Grumman.
Best,

Judy

2009/2/27 Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>

> It is just astounding to notice how Bob Grumman, the rebel of the list,
> needs rules to quantify something that he likes. If someone signed in for
> the first time to the present list, that someone would get the idea that BG
> is the judging judge of verse in general, and Jeff, David and James the
> uncorrectable children who need to escape from written standards to which
> people usually conform.
>
> Re.: graveyard_
> I feel totally alive.
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 2:56 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> I think the sonnet is poetry's elephant graveyard. A place old poets go to
>> die.
>> Finnegan
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
>> To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>> Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 8:32 pm
>> Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  On Feb 26, 2009, at 4:24 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:
>>
>> (6) avoids excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment, ideation,
>> technique and  form.
>>
>>
>> --Bob G.
>>
>> ===================
>>
>>  Hmmmm.  Excessive use of dead form or technique. . . .  I'll need an
>> example to help me grasp that.  What's a dead form, for starters?  Would the
>> sonnet, perhaps, be a dead form?  If not, what is?  Iambic pentameter?
>>  Triolets?  Masques?  Heroic couplets?
>>
>>  On the other hand, if the sonnet is a dead form, then why would we care
>> if one uses it "excessively"?  Dead is dead, after all.
>>
>>  I'm afraid that #6 as stated strikes me as close to nonsensical.   As
>> opposed to #1-5, which strike me as merely misguided. . . .
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ========================================
>> David Graham
>> grahamd at ripon.edu
>>
>> Home Page:
>> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>>
>> Poetry Library:
>> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
>> ==========================================
>>
>>
>> =
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> Looking for work? Get job alerts, employment information, career advice
>> and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job<http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>
>> .
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>
>
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 27 06:38:01 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:38:01 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail
	.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <49A7D099.7060300@nut-n-but.net>

David Graham wrote:
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 26, 2009, at 4:24 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:
>> (6) avoids excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment, ideation,
>> technique and  form.
>>
>>
>> --Bob G.
> ===================
>
> Hmmmm.  Excessive use of dead form or technique. . . .  I'll need an 
> example to help me grasp that.  What's a dead form, for starters? 
>  Would the sonnet, perhaps, be a dead form?  If not, what is?  Iambic 
> pentameter?  Triolets?  Masques?  Heroic couplets?  
>
> On the other hand, if the sonnet is a dead form, then why would we 
> care if one uses it "excessively"?  Dead is dead, after all.
I added this criterion to my list last--because it realized that the 
other criteria concerned what an excellent poem should have, do or be 
only, not what it should avoid having, doing or being.  One problem with 
it, for me, was that in some poems you may want dead language for 
satirical purposes, or to contrast with more vivid language.  But I 
decided that where such language worked, it would not be excessive.

I added "form" last to the list of things to avoid, and would agree that 
it is the wrong word.  I'm referring really to excessive adherence to 
formal requirements /at the expense of more important concerns/.  "Dead" 
is not quite the right word for what I'm talking about, either, however 
helpful it is to Bales-level critics.   I'm sure everyone at New-Poetry 
knows exactly what I mean, but it is true that something dead is 
finished for good, and in poetry dead language, imagery, etc., can be 
revived.  Maybe "predictable" would be the right word. 

So, a revision:

(6) avoids excessive use of predictable language, imagery, sentiment, 
ideation,
technique and structural ploys.

>  I'm afraid that #6 as stated strikes me as close to nonsensical.   As 
> opposed to #1-5, which strike me as merely misguided. . . .
What criteria would you use if you were looking for excellent poems for 
an anthology you were editing or a class you were teaching, David?
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 27 07:02:31 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:02:31 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <8CB669435AFCDEC-1378-1275@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail
	.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net><F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
	<8CB669435AFCDEC-1378-1275@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <49A7D657.2040505@nut-n-but.net>

jforjames at aol.com wrote:


> I think Bob's criteria 1-6 are all good, in fact hard to argue with...
Thanks, James.  I still wonder whether I have all the criteria I should 
have.

> but the problem is, as Jeff suggested, subjectivity and taste set in.
> How do you ever get agreement rating the poem by each criterion?
> Finnegan
1. What other means of judging excellence in poetry do we have?

2. Subjectivity is ultimately unavoidable in judging anything, including 
science.  I think each of my criteria, when each term in it is fully 
defined, are minimally subjective.  For instance, a list of predictable 
similes could be made that everyone would agree on.

3. The list is for anyone's use, so should help a given individual use 
his personal taste to evaluate poems.  But, as I wrote in an earlier 
post, for larger use--for determining for a culture which of its poems 
is truly excellent, I would limit those using the list to a hundred 
experts in poetry, defined as people who have written a book of poetry 
or of criticism of poetry, or the equivalent (100 critical essays in 
some magazine, for instance), which the majority of the 100 experts 
involved judge as reasonably good.  The result would be poems that at 
least one hundred such experts valued, and to me that would make them 
excellent, however limited in number those who appreciate them would be.

I don't think we could find /any/ poem that everyone in a society would 
consider excellent, but I think we could find some that ten thousand 
experts, as I've defined them, would find to be excellent, and the 
overwhelming majority of others in the experts' society would agree.  
That, in effect, is what seems to me to have happened.

Additional note: once a poem gets its hundred or thousand (whatever 
number is agreed on) adherents, it remains forever excellent, even after 
no one any longer can stand it.  I think it unfair for it to lose its 
standing just because its context is gone, and/or its once-fresh 
techniques, diction or whatever, have become stale--due probably to its 
influence.  Of course, I think this rarely happens since so many people, 
including experts, accept the views of previous generations with little 
or no reflection, or actual emotional connection to the poetry involved.

Another thought: Some poems a special group of experts considers 
excellent a second group of experts may find to be completely 
ineffective.  This seems to have happened with the Andrews poem 
(although we only had 97 experts in favor of it--me counting as 93 of 
them)  I would label such poems "Interesting Poems."

4.  There is also the continuing problem of what a poem is.  My list 
deals with texts already established as poems.

--Bob G.

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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Fri Feb 27 08:44:59 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:44:59 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Last Day to Vote for the Poem
Message-ID: <676524.31373.qm@web83302.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>



READ:? 
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/110615.PLEASE_VOTE_FOR_MARCH_S_GOODREADS_POEM_TOP_FIVE_FINALI

VOTE:? 
http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/10300.GOODREADS_MARCH_NEWSLETTER_TOP

_______





Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From halvard at gmail.com  Fri Feb 27 09:53:12 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:53:12 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902262315v2f61c864q91e790521432fc3c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
	<8CB6695C2AD30F4-1378-130A@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902262315v2f61c864q91e790521432fc3c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902270653h35b42868h727ebecb9ca10986@mail.gmail.com>

>
>
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 2:56 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> I think the sonnet is poetry's elephant graveyard. A place old poets go to
>> die.
>> Finnegan
>>
>
Hey, I re(pre)sent that, Finnegan!

Hal, who'd prefer a nifty lie of some sort

-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From skip at louisiana.edu  Fri Feb 27 10:47:21 2009
From: skip at louisiana.edu (Skip Fox)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:47:21 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <8CB6695C2AD30F4-1378-130A@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <98B22F698F8A4E84A2D99E66572D69E7@win.louisiana.edu>

I've been dying for decades.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of jforjames at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 7:57 PM
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry

 

I think the sonnet is poetry's elephant graveyard. A place old poets go to
die. 
Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 8:32 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry

 

 

 

On Feb 26, 2009, at 4:24 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:

(6) avoids excessive use of dead language, imagery, sentiment, ideation,
technique and  form.


--Bob G.

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

 

Hmmmm.  Excessive use of dead form or technique. . . .  I'll need an example
to help me grasp that.  What's a dead form, for starters?  Would the sonnet,
perhaps, be a dead form?  If not, what is?  Iambic pentameter?  Triolets?
Masques?  Heroic couplets?  

 

On the other hand, if the sonnet is a dead form, then why would we care if
one uses it "excessively"?  Dead is dead, after all.  

 

I'm afraid that #6 as stated strikes me as close to nonsensical.   As
opposed to #1-5, which strike me as merely misguided. . . .

 

 

 

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

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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 27 14:03:28 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:03:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902270123t47977a77m1445fd1e250b16f0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail
	.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net><F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu><8CB6695C2AD30F4-1378-130A@WEBMAIL-DC06.sy
	sops.aol.com><4b65c2d70902262315v2f61c864q91e790521432fc3c@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902270123t47977a77m1445fd1e250b16f0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A83900.9020808@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Anny, maybe Bob's always acting [as in being an 'actor'].  Of course, 
> one could dismiss that idea since it comes, after all, from The New 
> Bob Grumman.
>
> Best,
>
> Judy
Most of my acting is in exaggeration of heart-felt beliefs of mine.

>
> 2009/2/27 Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com 
> <mailto:anny.ballardini at gmail.com>>
>
>     It is just astounding to notice how Bob Grumman, the rebel of the
>     list, needs rules to quantify something that he likes. 
>
I need to understand everything, and that requires classification.  I 
don't see that my criteria for excellence in poetry is "quantifying" 
anything, nor that it's about "something I like," at least so far as 
that suggests I've decided what kind of poetry I like and made up a list 
of desiderata for excellence in poetry that excludes all other kinds of 
poetry.  I challenge anyone to show how my list excludes anything but 
inferior poetry.

I do think poetry, like everything else, is ultimately 
quantifiable--though not absolutely.  I think eventually we'll have 
instruments that will be able to measure a given poem's effect on 
someone exposed to it.  In the meantime, I wonder just what those 
opposed to "quantification" would have us do when deciding whether to 
read so-and-so's latest collection of poems, say, or in gathering 
selections for an anthology of poetry.  Use their wondrously keen 
intuition?  But intuition, properly described, is just quantification 
(as they define it, not I)--quantification concealed so they don't have 
to defend their choices.  Or think.

>     If someone signed in for the first time to the present list, that
>     someone would get the idea that BG is the judging judge of verse
>     in general, and Jeff, David and James the uncorrectable children
>     who need to escape from written standards to which people usually
>     conform.  
>
That seems even more the case at Spidertangle where vispo people get 
into discussions about visual poetry the way we get into discussions 
about conventional poetry (mostly) here.  I've always believed that the 
best art follows rules, but that the received rules will always require 
enlargement for the most creative of those who come to them, and that no 
one should be compelled to follow any rules--and no genuine artist will 
pay them much heed /while making art/.

--Robert
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Fri Feb 27 14:08:25 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:08:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <49A83900.9020808@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70902262315v2f61c864q91e790521432fc3c@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902270123t47977a77m1445fd1e250b16f0@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A83900.9020808@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902271108re07f988j8197fccbd204bdf2@mail.gmail.com>

Yeah, well I second all of that, Bob.
Judy

2009/2/27 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

>  Judy Prince wrote:
>
> Anny, maybe Bob's always acting [as in being an 'actor'].  Of course, one
> could dismiss that idea since it comes, after all, from The New Bob Grumman.
>
>  Best,
>
>  Judy
>
> Most of my acting is in exaggeration of heart-felt beliefs of mine.
>
>
> 2009/2/27 Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
>
>> It is just astounding to notice how Bob Grumman, the rebel of the list,
>> needs rules to quantify something that he likes.
>
>   I need to understand everything, and that requires classification.  I
> don't see that my criteria for excellence in poetry is "quantifying"
> anything, nor that it's about "something I like," at least so far as that
> suggests I've decided what kind of poetry I like and made up a list of
> desiderata for excellence in poetry that excludes all other kinds of
> poetry.  I challenge anyone to show how my list excludes anything but
> inferior poetry.
>
> I do think poetry, like everything else, is ultimately quantifiable--though
> not absolutely.  I think eventually we'll have instruments that will be able
> to measure a given poem's effect on someone exposed to it.  In the meantime,
> I wonder just what those opposed to "quantification" would have us do when
> deciding whether to read so-and-so's latest collection of poems, say, or in
> gathering selections for an anthology of poetry.  Use their wondrously keen
> intuition?  But intuition, properly described, is just quantification (as
> they define it, not I)--quantification concealed so they don't have to
> defend their choices.  Or think.
>
>   If someone signed in for the first time to the present list, that
>> someone would get the idea that BG is the judging judge of verse in general,
>> and Jeff, David and James the uncorrectable children who need to escape from
>> written standards to which people usually conform.
>>
>   That seems even more the case at Spidertangle where vispo people get
> into discussions about visual poetry the way we get into discussions about
> conventional poetry (mostly) here.  I've always believed that the best art
> follows rules, but that the received rules will always require enlargement
> for the most creative of those who come to them, and that no one should be
> compelled to follow any rules--and no genuine artist will pay them much heed
> *while making art*.
>
> --Robert
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb 27 14:34:15 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:34:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <49A7D657.2040505@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net><F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu><8CB669435AFCDEC-1378-1275@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com>
	<49A7D657.2040505@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8CB6729823D5AAE-F74-1249@WEBMAIL-MY32.sysops.aol.com>

I'd can go along with 'law of large numbers' determining the excellence of?a subject?poem. However, I don't know what magic 100 experts could bring to the process that 1000 literate/educated souls couldn't acheive as well. My other caveats would be: (a) That shifting?tastes through time may subvert the process. And?(b) there is the question of 'outliers',?poems that a small number consider important/great, but for the majority fall flat or run against prevailing/educated tastes. (c) If I give a poem a 10 and you rate it 0, our average score is 5. If I give it a?6 and you a 4, it's a 5 score again. But in that first case, that magnitude of the deviation tells us?that poem evoked a strong response and that must be accounted for in some way. Something may be?very off in the process of appraising its merits.?Lastly (d) applying such criteria to an already canonical poem would yield a built-in bias: Poems get taught, and?these poems teach us how to read and appreciate them over time.

In the end I don't think, pace David, that a 'test for poetry' is?really?workable. (And I'm saying that as?one who has?built a similar?contraption that I posted a couple weeks back when this question first arose.)?But not being workable isn't the same as saying it's without usefulness. Perhaps the most useful aspect of?your criteria, or anyone's manifest(o) of criteria, it that is asks?one to evaluate?his/her own?aesthetic criteria, to reassess?what one uses to define good or bad poetry, and it offers?one an opportunity to mentally question the adequacy of these versus one's own?criteria, and perhaps make some adjustment to the criteria?at?hand?or to our own set. So in a way, your criteria may not be good for really for testing poems for excellence, but?they may be serving well as a test for one's?own?aesthetic judgments or one's critical?thinking?about poems.?
Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Sent: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 7:02 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry


jforjames at aol.com wrote:



I think Bob's criteria?1-6 are all good, in fact hard to argue with...

Thanks, James.? I still wonder whether I have all the criteria I should have.


but the problem is, as Jeff suggested, subjectivity and taste?set in.
How do you ever get agreement rating the poem by each criterion?
Finnegan
1. What other means of judging excellence in poetry do we have?

2. Subjectivity is ultimately unavoidable in judging anything, including science.? I think each of my criteria, when each term in it is fully defined, are minimally subjective.? For instance, a list of predictable similes could be made that everyone would agree on.

3. The list is for anyone's use, so should help a given individual use his personal taste to evaluate poems.? But, as I wrote in an earlier post, for larger use--for determining for a culture which of its poems is truly excellent, I would limit those using the list to a hundred experts in poetry, defined as people who have written a book of poetry or of criticism of poetry, or the equivalent (100 critical essays in some magazine, for instance), which the majority of the 100 experts involved judge as reasonably good.? The result would be poems that at least one hundred such experts valued, and to me that would make them excellent, however limited in number those who appreciate them would be.

I don't think we could find any poem that everyone in a society would consider excellent, but I think we could find some that ten thousand experts, as I've defined them, would find to be excellent, and the overwhelming majority of others in the experts' society would agree.? That, in effect, is what seems to me to have happened.

Additional note: once a poem gets its hundred or thousand (whatever number is agreed on) adherents, it remains forever excellent, even after no one any longer can stand it.? I think it unfair for it to lose its standing just because its context is gone, and/or its once-fresh techniques, diction or whatever, have become stale--due probably to its influence.? Of course, I think this rarely happens since so many people, including experts, accept the views of previous generations with little or no reflection, or actual emotional connection to the poetry involved.

Another thought: Some poems a special group of experts considers excellent a second group of experts may find to be completely ineffective.? This seems to have happened with the Andrews poem (although we only had 97 experts in favor of it--me counting as 93 of them)? I would label such poems "Interesting Poems."

4.? There is also the continuing problem of what a poem is.? My list deals with texts already established as poems.

--Bob G.




_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Fri Feb 27 14:35:21 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:35:21 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] die Bruecke
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902271135o721b5b4byfff0c2d9f6cb1c9f@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/arts/design/27bruc.html?_r=1&8dpc

Partly inspired by the city?s many bridges, they called themselves the
Br?cke, or bridge. They felt it implied movement toward the future and away
from the ?older, well-established powers,? in the words of their unusually
open-ended manifesto. They liked echoing Nietzsche, who described man as ?a
rope, fastened between animal and Superman. ... a bridge and not a goal.?

-- 
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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 27 16:17:13 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:17:13 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902271108re07f988j8197fccbd204bdf2@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net><F332D767-9886-4327-9233
	-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu><4b65c2d70902262315v2f61c864q91e790521432fc3c@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902270123t47977a77m1445fd1e250b1
	6f0@mail.gmail.com><49A83900.9020808@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902271108re07f988j8197fccbd204bdf2@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A85859.7070702@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Yeah, well I second all of that, Bob.  
>
> Judy
Oh, no!  Now I'll have to think it all through again to find out what's 
wrong with it!

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 27 16:50:54 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:50:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <8CB6729823D5AAE-F74-1249@WEBMAIL-MY32.sysops.aol.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902261018r39c455c6l42b1696bffd72981@mail.gmail
	.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net><F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu><8CB669435AFCDEC-1378-1275@WEBMAIL-DC06.sy
	sops.aol.com><49A7D657.2040505@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB6729823D5AAE-F74-1249@WEBMAIL-MY32.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <49A8603E.9050701@nut-n-but.net>

jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> I'd can go along with 'law of large numbers' determining the 
> excellence of a subject poem. However, I don't know what magic 100 
> experts could bring to the process that 1000 literate/educated souls 
> couldn't acheive as well.
Main reason for the 100 experts is that I have a more or less objective 
method for choosing them: all of them must have produced a book of 
poetry or poetry criticism, or the equivalent, that all the rest accept 
as competent.  Not having that or something like it would mean you could 
easily get a thousand literate/educated (I'd prefer 
literate/intelligent, myself) souls who thought every poem Jimmy Carter 
ever wrote an excellent poem). 


> My other caveats would be: (a) That shifting tastes through time may 
> subvert the process.
It can't by definition.  I'm suggesting that once you get your hundred 
(or a thousand or whatever) experts to agree on the excellence of the 
poem under consideration, it becomes one permanently.  But as I stated 
when I first advanced this idea but may not have in my latest post on 
it, they have to wait ten years (maybe more) before voting.  The logic 
is that the experts of a time will know what's excellent/ for their time 
and why/.  And a poem excellent for its time should be considered 
permanently excellent since it's not fair that a later time should be 
allowed to shoot it down because they no longer share its point of view 
and or have become over-familiar with its once-fresh techniques, 
diction, imagery, etc.--or too /un/familiar with them, or found out its 
author smoked cigarettes, etc.


> And (b) there is the question of 'outliers', poems that a small number 
> consider important/great, but for the majority fall flat or run 
> against prevailing/educated tastes. 
A central intention of mine is to allow such poems in since they're 
important for a certain segment of poetry's best audience.  My whole 
premise is that a poem should not be considered excellent just because a 
lot of not-particularly bright people like it, nor scorned because it's 
beyond the taste of the majority.


> (c) If I give a poem a 10 and you rate it 0, our average score is 5. 
> If I give it a 6 and you a 4, it's a 5 score again. But in that first 
> case, that magnitude of the deviation tells us that poem evoked a 
> strong response and that must be accounted for in some way. Something 
> may be very off in the process of appraising its merits.
It /is/ accounted for.  If I can get enough experts to give the 
poem--not a ten, but a six--then it qualifies as an excellent poem.  
You'll still have the division.  A taxonomy of excellent poems could be 
worked out--you'd have excellent poems for advanced tastes, excellent 
poems for educated tastes, and excellent poems for (just about) all 
tastes. You'd also have poems that were excellent for their time.  Rod 
McKuen would lose out.  Ashbery would make the cut (at least with some 
of his poems).  You and I might even get one or two to qualify, who 
knows.  I'm not sure I could find a hundred experts by my definition who 
are aware of my poetry, but I'm fairly sure I could find ten who give 
something of mine sixes.

I would add that your criticism would apply to any scheme for evaluation 
of poetry.
> Lastly (d) applying such criteria to an already canonical poem would 
> yield a built-in bias: Poems get taught, and these poe! ms (hey, watch 
> the infraverbal trickery!) teach us how to read and appreciate them 
> over time.
I would claim that such poems became Excellent because earlier 
generations unconsciously applied my criteria to them.  I also believe 
that adherence to my critieria would minimize this bias--by, among other 
things, forcing people to really read the poems under consideration.  
But it won't matter, because if you follow my suggestion, it will not be 
legal to demote an excellent poem.  We have to accept the canonical 
poems as excellent.  This, by the way, differs from accepting a poet as 
canonical.  Wordsworth is canonical, but not all his poems are 
excellent, or probably ever have been rated as such--in any legitimate way.

Aside from all that, the criteria should be useful in simply exploring 
various poems.  We all apply some kind of criteria to our 
poems-in-progress, or just-finished.  Having explicit criteria to refer 
to like mine might help.  It will certainly help those who think having 
rhymes in the right place and correct meter is all you need realize 
there is more to it than that.

>
> In the end I don't think, pace David, that a 'test for poetry' 
> is really workable. (And I'm saying that as one who has built a 
> similar contraption that I posted a couple weeks back when this 
> question first arose.) But not being workable isn't the same as saying 
> it's without usefulness. Perhaps the most useful aspect of your 
> criteria, or anyone's manifest(o) of criteria, it that is asks one to 
> evaluate his/her own aesthetic criteria, to reassess what one uses to 
> define good or bad poetry, and it offers one an opportunity to 
> mentally question the adequacy of these versus one's own criteria, and 
> perhaps make some adjustment to the criteria at hand or to our own 
> set. So in a way, your criteria may not be good for really for testing 
> poems for excellence, but they may be serving well as a test for 
> one's own aesthetic judgments or one's critical thinking about poems. 
> Finnegan
Ah, pretty much what I just said.  However, there has to be some way to 
test for excellence in poetry.  I think most opponents of my list simply 
don't want the test to be explicit--perhaps for fear they'll find their 
poetry doesn't qualify.  I would ask, if my Check-List isn't of value 
for determining whether a poem is excellent or not, what means should be 
used for that purpose?

--Bob G.

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> Sent: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 7:02 am
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
>
> jforjames at aol.com wrote:
>
>
>> I think Bob's criteria 1-6 are all good, in fact hard to argue with...
> Thanks, James.  I still wonder whether I have all the criteria I 
> should have.
>
>> but the problem is, as Jeff suggested, subjectivity and taste set in.
>> How do you ever get agreement rating the poem by each criterion?
>> Finnegan
> 1. What other means of judging excellence in poetry do we have?
>
> 2. Subjectivity is ultimately unavoidable in judging anything, 
> including science.  I think each of my criteria, when each term in it 
> is fully defined, are minimally subjective.  For instance, a list of 
> predictable similes could be made that everyone would agree on.
>
> 3. The list is for anyone's use, so should help a given individual use 
> his personal taste to evaluate poems.  But, as I wrote in an earlier 
> post, for larger use--for determining for a culture which of its poems 
> is truly excellent, I would limit those using the list to a hundred 
> experts in poetry, defined as people who have written a book of poetry 
> or of criticism of poetry, or the equivalent (100 critical essays in 
> some magazine, for instance), which the majority of the 100 experts 
> involved judge as reasonably good.  The result would be poems that at 
> least one hundred such experts valued, and to me that would make them 
> excellent, however limited in number those who appreciate them would be.
>
> I don't think we could find /any/ poem that everyone in a society 
> would consider excellent, but I think we could find some that ten 
> thousand experts, as I've defined them, would find to be excellent, 
> and the overwhelming majority of others in the experts' society would 
> agree.  That, in effect, is what seems to me to have happened.
>
> Additional note: once a poem gets its hundred or thousand (whatever 
> number is agreed on) adherents, it remains forever excellent, even 
> after no one any longer can stand it.  I think it unfair for it to 
> lose its standing just because its context is gone, and/or its 
> once-fresh techniques, diction or whatever, have become stale--due 
> probably to its influence.  Of course, I think this rarely happens 
> since so many people, including experts, accept the views of previous 
> generations with little or no reflection, or actual emotional 
> connection to the poetry involved.
>
> Another thought: Some poems a special group of experts considers 
> excellent a second group of experts may find to be completely 
> ineffective.  This seems to have happened with the Andrews poem 
> (although we only had 97 experts in favor of it--me counting as 93 of 
> them)  I would label such poems "Interesting Poems."
>
> 4.  There is also the continuing problem of what a poem is.  My list 
> deals with texts already established as poems.
>
> --Bob G.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
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> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Fri Feb 27 17:42:56 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:42:56 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <49A85859.7070702@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<4b65c2d70902262315v2f61c864q91e790521432fc3c@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A83900.9020808@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902271108re07f988j8197fccbd204bdf2@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A85859.7070702@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902271442x5f3b4539ncab8362aac288e69@mail.gmail.com>

Replying to you, Bob, and to Finnegan's recent response to your WEPD, as
well:  I don't carefully attend to your and Finnegan's discussion about
numbers, 'experts', and consensus.  Therefore, Bob, you need not worry about
what's wrong with your analysis-explanation.  <g>   Rather, I'm always
looking for other things which I hope now to explain to you.
P'raps bcuz I'm new to NP as well as new to poetry, despite having
uni-studied it and written it from time to time, I'm delighted with using
your WEPD for the discoveries it gives.  It focuses, directs, insists that I
'find out' why I like or don't like a poem.  Though I'm not expecting to
agree with others' assessments, I've nevertheless been shocked and intrigued
at the several strong evaluations that feel odd and strange.  The entire
experience is new.

At uni we 'discussed' poems/poets only to note and memorise how they were
wonderful.  After all, they had been chosen by a host of experts, nah?  <g>
 It seldom occurred to me to disagree with the profs' assessments.  When I
did, in fact, disagree with them, I assumed the culprit was my own ignorance
or a stubborn nonconformist Judy.  And, since drama, not poetry, was my
'darling', I didn't concern m'sel' much with the gulf between profs' poem
evaluations and mine---the final grade was the prize.  And now, so many
years later, I've written great globs of poetry, have forced other poets to
comment on them <g>, and have found some excellent advice as well as lots of
odd 'interpretations' of what I felt I was trying to say.  I've also posed
several other people's poems that I find quite winning [on this list, but
more often on a nother list] and seen lukewarm, at best, reactions to them.
 I had come to think that males view poems differently than females do.
 Better said:  I'd concluded that males see quite different things in poems
and that they prefer quite different poetic themes and treatments than
females do.

Fast forward to our using WEPD:  Now I not only see some male/female
differences in interpretations and subject-preferences, but I see that what
I'd have thought were slight idiosyncratic interps are actually quite
widespread and strong----AND I can see WHY others interpret and evaluate as
they do.  The latter, for me, is the importance of using a system such as
your WEPD.  I stress the word 'using'.  Close-applying each category on the
checklist, assigning a number, and then standing back to see how it all [may
or may not] support one's opinion of the poem---are essential.  For example:
 I now much better understand Finnegan's assessment of SHEEP because of my
own grappling with each categoried aspect of the poem, because of having to
explain to myself the effectiveness of each poetic element.  And I agree
with Finnegan's assessment.  The agreement itself is less important than
that my WEPD dig-down analysis yielded a wider/deeper basis for
understanding his views.

Best,

Judy

2009/2/27 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> Judy Prince wrote:
>
>> Yeah, well I second all of that, Bob.
>> Judy
>>
> Oh, no!  Now I'll have to think it all through again to find out what's
> wrong with it!
>
> --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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 27 18:02:28 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:02:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902271442x5f3b4539ncab8362aac288e69@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net><4b65c2d70902262315v2f61
	c864q91e790521432fc3c@mail.gmail.com><49A83900.9020808@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902271108re07f988j8197fccbd204bdf2@mail.gmail.co
	m><49A85859.7070702@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902271442x5f3b4539ncab8362aac288e69@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A87104.9090504@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Replying to you, Bob, and to Finnegan's recent response to your WEPD, 
> as well:  I don't carefully attend to your and Finnegan's discussion 
> about numbers, 'experts', and consensus.  Therefore, Bob, you need not 
> worry about what's wrong with your analysis-explanation.  <g>   
> Rather, I'm always looking for other things which I hope now to 
> explain to you.
I think James and I said much the same thing as you at the ends of our 
two most recent posts.  Evaluational methods don't matter much in the 
long run so far as forming a canon is concerned because the few will 
always like their favorite poems enough, and have enough talent to 
persuade the intelligent,  to keep them alive, and the many will have 
the power of sheer number to keep their favorites alive.

But a good check list will help poetry engagents focus on poems, 
apprecitate them more fully and wisely, and defend their favorites and 
maybe persuade people not to worship some poem (including, perhaps, 
themselves) because it got into the /Atlantic Monthly/ or /Poetry/.

As for the difference between how males and females respond to poems, 
I'm entirely with you there, but can't say more because it's practically 
illegal to reveal a belief that males and females are different from one 
another.  (Much less that females don't have the foggiest notion . . .  
ooops.)

--Bob
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Fri Feb 27 18:12:51 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:12:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <49A87104.9090504@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net> <49A83900.9020808@nut-n-but.net>
	<49A85859.7070702@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902271442x5f3b4539ncab8362aac288e69@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A87104.9090504@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902271512j26d33b5hbfec85e405eb535a@mail.gmail.com>

Yes, again we agree----on what you're willing to say, anyway.
Males and females are different.  There, I've said it, and it's less non-PC
for me to say it than for you to say it [or make it apparent, as you just
have, that you think females 'don't have the foggiest notion' about......].

Females and males are different.  Fact.  Fact:  Recent scientific evidence
has shown that the brains of females are hardwired for multi-tasking, and
that the brains of males are not.

But, hey, some of my best friends are males.

Best,

The New and FEMALE Bob Grumman

2009/2/27 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

>  Judy Prince wrote:
>
> Replying to you, Bob, and to Finnegan's recent response to your WEPD, as
> well:  I don't carefully attend to your and Finnegan's discussion about
> numbers, 'experts', and consensus.  Therefore, Bob, you need not worry about
> what's wrong with your analysis-explanation.  <g>   Rather, I'm always
> looking for other things which I hope now to explain to you.
>
> I think James and I said much the same thing as you at the ends of our two
> most recent posts.  Evaluational methods don't matter much in the long run
> so far as forming a canon is concerned because the few will always like
> their favorite poems enough, and have enough talent to persuade the
> intelligent,  to keep them alive, and the many will have the power of sheer
> number to keep their favorites alive.
>
> But a good check list will help poetry engagents focus on poems,
> apprecitate them more fully and wisely, and defend their favorites and maybe
> persuade people not to worship some poem (including, perhaps, themselves)
> because it got into the *Atlantic Monthly* or *Poetry*.
>
> As for the difference between how males and females respond to poems, I'm
> entirely with you there, but can't say more because it's practically illegal
> to reveal a belief that males and females are different from one another.
> (Much less that females don't have the foggiest notion . . .  ooops.)
>
> --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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From halvard at gmail.com  Fri Feb 27 18:14:14 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:14:14 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <49A8603E.9050701@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu>
	<49A7D657.2040505@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB6729823D5AAE-F74-1249@WEBMAIL-MY32.sysops.aol.com>
	<49A8603E.9050701@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902271514w1cac547dwb773872ea490409f@mail.gmail.com>

Q: What do you call 100 experts in excellence in poetry at the bottom of the
sea?
A: A good beginning.

Hal

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 3:50 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

>  jforjames at aol.com wrote:
>
> I'd can go along with 'law of large numbers' determining the excellence
> of a subject poem. However, I don't know what magic 100 experts could bring
> to the process that 1000 literate/educated souls couldn't acheive as well.
>
> Main reason for the 100 experts is that I have a more or less objective
> method for choosing them: all of them must have produced a book of poetry or
> poetry criticism, or the equivalent, that all the rest accept as competent.
> Not having that or something like it would mean you could easily get a
> thousand literate/educated (I'd prefer literate/intelligent, myself) souls
> who thought every poem Jimmy Carter ever wrote an excellent poem).
>
>
> My other caveats would be: (a) That shifting tastes through time may
> subvert the process.
>
> It can't by definition.  I'm suggesting that once you get your hundred (or
> a thousand or whatever) experts to agree on the excellence of the poem under
> consideration, it becomes one permanently.  But as I stated when I first
> advanced this idea but may not have in my latest post on it, they have to
> wait ten years (maybe more) before voting.  The logic is that the experts of
> a time will know what's excellent* for their time and why*.  And a poem
> excellent for its time should be considered permanently excellent since it's
> not fair that a later time should be allowed to shoot it down because they
> no longer share its point of view and or have become over-familiar with its
> once-fresh techniques, diction, imagery, etc.--or too *un*familiar with
> them, or found out its author smoked cigarettes, etc.
>
>
> And (b) there is the question of 'outliers', poems that a small number
> consider important/great, but for the majority fall flat or run against
> prevailing/educated tastes.
>
> A central intention of mine is to allow such poems in since they're
> important for a certain segment of poetry's best audience.  My whole premise
> is that a poem should not be considered excellent just because a lot of
> not-particularly bright people like it, nor scorned because it's beyond the
> taste of the majority.
>
>
> (c) If I give a poem a 10 and you rate it 0, our average score is 5. If I
> give it a 6 and you a 4, it's a 5 score again. But in that first case, that
> magnitude of the deviation tells us that poem evoked a strong response and
> that must be accounted for in some way. Something may be very off in the
> process of appraising its merits.
>
> It *is* accounted for.  If I can get enough experts to give the poem--not
> a ten, but a six--then it qualifies as an excellent poem.  You'll still have
> the division.  A taxonomy of excellent poems could be worked out--you'd have
> excellent poems for advanced tastes, excellent poems for educated tastes,
> and excellent poems for (just about) all tastes. You'd also have poems that
> were excellent for their time.  Rod McKuen would lose out.  Ashbery would
> make the cut (at least with some of his poems).  You and I might even get
> one or two to qualify, who knows.  I'm not sure I could find a hundred
> experts by my definition who are aware of my poetry, but I'm fairly sure I
> could find ten who give something of mine sixes.
>
> I would add that your criticism would apply to any scheme for evaluation of
> poetry.
>
> Lastly (d) applying such criteria to an already canonical poem would yield
> a built-in bias: Poems get taught, and these poe! ms (hey, watch the
> infraverbal trickery!) teach us how to read and appreciate them over time.
>
> I would claim that such poems became Excellent because earlier generations
> unconsciously applied my criteria to them.  I also believe that adherence to
> my critieria would minimize this bias--by, among other things, forcing
> people to really read the poems under consideration.  But it won't matter,
> because if you follow my suggestion, it will not be legal to demote an
> excellent poem.  We have to accept the canonical poems as excellent.  This,
> by the way, differs from accepting a poet as canonical.  Wordsworth is
> canonical, but not all his poems are excellent, or probably ever have been
> rated as such--in any legitimate way.
>
> Aside from all that, the criteria should be useful in simply exploring
> various poems.  We all apply some kind of criteria to our poems-in-progress,
> or just-finished.  Having explicit criteria to refer to like mine might
> help.  It will certainly help those who think having rhymes in the right
> place and correct meter is all you need realize there is more to it than
> that.
>
>
> In the end I don't think, pace David, that a 'test for poetry'
> is really workable. (And I'm saying that as one who has built a
> similar contraption that I posted a couple weeks back when this question
> first arose.) But not being workable isn't the same as saying it's without
> usefulness. Perhaps the most useful aspect of your criteria, or anyone's
> manifest(o) of criteria, it that is asks one to evaluate his/her
> own aesthetic criteria, to reassess what one uses to define good or bad
> poetry, and it offers one an opportunity to mentally question the adequacy
> of these versus one's own criteria, and perhaps make some adjustment to the
> criteria at hand or to our own set. So in a way, your criteria may not be
> good for really for testing poems for excellence, but they may be serving
> well as a test for one's own aesthetic judgments or one's
> critical thinking about poems.
> Finnegan
>
> Ah, pretty much what I just said.  However, there has to be some way to
> test for excellence in poetry.  I think most opponents of my list simply
> don't want the test to be explicit--perhaps for fear they'll find their
> poetry doesn't qualify.  I would ask, if my Check-List isn't of value for
> determining whether a poem is excellent or not, what means should be used
> for that purpose?
>
> --Bob G.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> Sent: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 7:02 am
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
>
> jforjames at aol.com wrote:
>
>
> I think Bob's criteria 1-6 are all good, in fact hard to argue with...
>
> Thanks, James.  I still wonder whether I have all the criteria I should
> have.
>
> but the problem is, as Jeff suggested, subjectivity and taste set in.
> How do you ever get agreement rating the poem by each criterion?
> Finnegan
>
> 1. What other means of judging excellence in poetry do we have?
>
> 2. Subjectivity is ultimately unavoidable in judging anything, including
> science.  I think each of my criteria, when each term in it is fully
> defined, are minimally subjective.  For instance, a list of predictable
> similes could be made that everyone would agree on.
>
> 3. The list is for anyone's use, so should help a given individual use his
> personal taste to evaluate poems.  But, as I wrote in an earlier post, for
> larger use--for determining for a culture which of its poems is truly
> excellent, I would limit those using the list to a hundred experts in
> poetry, defined as people who have written a book of poetry or of criticism
> of poetry, or the equivalent (100 critical essays in some magazine, for
> instance), which the majority of the 100 experts involved judge as
> reasonably good.  The result would be poems that at least one hundred such
> experts valued, and to me that would make them excellent, however limited in
> number those who appreciate them would be.
>
> I don't think we could find *any* poem that everyone in a society would
> consider excellent, but I think we could find some that ten thousand
> experts, as I've defined them, would find to be excellent, and the
> overwhelming majority of others in the experts' society would agree.  That,
> in effect, is what seems to me to have happened.
>
> Additional note: once a poem gets its hundred or thousand (whatever number
> is agreed on) adherents, it remains forever excellent, even after no one any
> longer can stand it.  I think it unfair for it to lose its standing just
> because its context is gone, and/or its once-fresh techniques, diction or
> whatever, have become stale--due probably to its influence.  Of course, I
> think this rarely happens since so many people, including experts, accept
> the views of previous generations with little or no reflection, or actual
> emotional connection to the poetry involved.
>
> Another thought: Some poems a special group of experts considers excellent
> a second group of experts may find to be completely ineffective.  This seems
> to have happened with the Andrews poem (although we only had 97 experts in
> favor of it--me counting as 93 of them)  I would label such poems
> "Interesting Poems."
>
> 4.  There is also the continuing problem of what a poem is.  My list deals
> with texts already established as poems.
>
> --Bob G.
>
>  _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>  ------------------------------
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> and job-seeking tools at AOL Find a Job<http://jobs.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntuscare00000001>
> .
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
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> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb 27 19:20:17 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:20:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Quote du jour
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902271514w1cac547dwb773872ea490409f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net><F332D767-9886-4327-9233-3D83254FFB52@ripon.edu><49A7D657.2040505@nut-n-but.net><8CB6729823D5AAE-F74-1249@WEBMAIL-MY32.sysops.aol.com><49A8603E.9050701@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902271514w1cac547dwb773872ea490409f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB67517793935D-10C8-1E45@WEBMAIL-DF12.sysops.aol.com>


The first notion I had that writing is not the registration of one?s comings and goings came with my reading, at about eighteen, of Stevens?s ?Sea Surface Full of Clouds? in some anthology. What I remember of that poem is the thrill of the word ?chocolate? muscular and solitary on the page. This was not chocolate, but a manifestation of the poet?s arrogant appropriation of anything. The word virtually sailed free of all connections.

?

?Gilbert Sorrentino, ?Writing and Writers: Disjecta Membra,? Something Said (Dalkey Archive Press, 2001)


-
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 27 19:27:06 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:27:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902271512j26d33b5hbfec85e405eb535a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<49A83900.9020808@nut-n-but.net><49A85859.7070702@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902271442x5f3b4539ncab8362aac288e69@mail.gmail.com><
	49A87104.9090504@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902271512j26d33b5hbfec85e405eb535a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A884DA.3050302@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Yes, again we agree----on what you're willing to say, anyway.
>
> Males and females are different.  There, I've said it, and it's less 
> non-PC for me to say it than for you to say it [or make it apparent, 
> as you just have, that you think females 'don't have the foggiest 
> notion' about......].
>
> Females and males are different.  Fact.  Fact:  Recent scientific 
> evidence has shown that the brains of females are hardwired for 
> multi-tasking, and that the brains of males are not. 
I would replace "shown" in the above with "suggested."  The "science " 
of neurophysiology is still extremely primitive.  I believe that females 
probably /are /more wired for multi-tasking than males are (but less for 
focussed thinking).  And, of course, you always have to throw in that 
there are exceptions.  Not me, though.  I'm a near-zero-tasker.

--Bob
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb 27 19:24:25 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:24:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Excellence in Poetry
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902271512j26d33b5hbfec85e405eb535a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902260644q5f02e0e5j4bf1ca0c006930e6@mail.gmail.com><49A71692.4030603@nut-n-but.net>
	<49A83900.9020808@nut-n-but.net><49A85859.7070702@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902271442x5f3b4539ncab8362aac288e69@mail.gmail.com><
	49A87104.9090504@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902271512j26d33b5hbfec85e405eb535a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A88439.40005@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Yes, again we agree----on what you're willing to say, anyway.
>
> Males and females are different.  There, I've said it, and it's less 
> non-PC for me to say it than for you to say it [or make it apparent, 
> as you just have, that you think females 'don't have the foggiest 
> notion' about......].
>
> Females and males are different.  Fact.  Fact:  Recent scientific 
> evidence has shown that the brains of females are hardwired for 
> multi-tasking, and that the brains of males are not. 
I would replace "shown" in the above with "suggested."  The "science " 
of neurophysiology is still extremely primitive.  I believe that females 
probably /are /more wired for multi-tasking than males are (but less for 
focussed thinking).  And, of course, you always have to throw in that 
there are exceptions.  Not me, though.  I'm a near-zero-tasker.

--Bob
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Fri Feb 27 20:51:01 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:51:01 -0500
Subject: Fwd: [New-Poetry] Poems by others -- D.M.Black
In-Reply-To: <F45117FA72BE411CA434C3999EBEACF7@RobinPC>
References: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<9b1b9dab0902260921t3f28f68lb71108b0f960d013@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A707C5.4020600@nut-n-but.net>
	<F45117FA72BE411CA434C3999EBEACF7@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902271751x6f6f0dc6w6be0dc0bece7856b@mail.gmail.com>

Hey, Bob Grumman, how about our analysing WEPDly the following poem, The Red
Judge, that Robin sent in yesterday?  One NP member has said he likes it,
and without analysing it WEPDly I think it's totally Male and chopped-line
prose masquerading as a poem.  No one will agree with me on either score,
but I do want to read their analyses and to try one of my own.
Did you analyse SHEEP yet?
Judy

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
Date: 2009/2/26
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others -- D.M.Black
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp; Views" <
new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


The Red Judge

We shut the red judge in a bronze jar
- By "we", meaning myself and the black judge -
And there was peace, for a time.  You can have enough
Yowling from certain justices.  The jar
We buried, (pitching and swelling like the tough
Membrane of an unshelled egg), on the Calton Hill.
And there was peace, for a time.  My friend the black
Judge was keen on whisky, and I kept
Within earshot of sobriety only by drinking
Slow ciders, and pretending
Unfelt absorption in the repetitive beer-mats.  It was a kind of
Vibration we noticed first - hard to tell
Whether we heard it or were shaken by,
Whether the tumblers quivered, or our minds.  It grew
To a thick thudding, and an occasional creak
Like a nearby axle, but as it were
Without the sense of "nearby". - The hard flag-
stones wriggled slightly under the taut linoleum.
I supported the black judge to the nearest door
- Detached his clutched glass for the protesting barman -
And propped him against a bus-stop.  Maybe
It was only a pneumatic drill mating at Queen Street,
Or an impotent motor-bike - the sounds grew harsher.
My gestures stopped a 24 that spat
Some eleventh commandment out of its sober driver,
But I was more conscious of the rocking walls,
The pavement's shrugging off its granite kerb...

Quite suddenly the night was still: the cracks
In the roadway rested, and the tenements
Of Rose Street stood inscrutable as always. The black judge
Snored at his post.  And all around
The bright blood filled the gutters, overflowed
The window-sills and doorsteps, soaked my anyway
Inadequate shoes, and there was a sound of cheering
Faintly and everywhere, and the Red Judge walked
O thirty feet high and scarlet towards our stop.

D.M.Black

      http://www.dmblack.me.uk/



_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 28 06:14:11 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 06:14:11 -0500
Subject: Fwd: [New-Poetry] Poems by others -- D.M.Black
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902271751x6f6f0dc6w6be0dc0bece7856b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com><9b1b9dab0902260921t3f28f68lb71108b0f960d013@mail.gmail.com><49A707C5.40
	20600@nut-n-but.net><F45117FA72BE411CA434C3999EBEACF7@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902271751x6f6f0dc6w6be0dc0bece7856b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A91C83.6020608@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Hey, Bob Grumman, how about our analysing WEPDly the following poem, 
> The Red Judge, that Robin sent in yesterday?  One NP member has said 
> he likes it, and without analysing it WEPDly I think it's totally Male 
> and chopped-line prose masquerading as a poem.  No one will agree with 
> me on either score, but I do want to read their analyses and to try 
> one of my own.  
>
> Did you analyse SHEEP yet? 
No.  I was hoping it was not a project poem.  I'll try to get to both 
poems soon.

--Bob
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 28 06:28:12 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 06:28:12 -0500
Subject: Fwd: [New-Poetry] Poems by others -- D.M.Black
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902271751x6f6f0dc6w6be0dc0bece7856b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <518445.78728.qm@web45607.mail.sp1.yahoo.com><9b1b9dab0902260921t3f28f68lb71108b0f960d013@mail.gmail.com><49A707C5.40
	20600@nut-n-but.net><F45117FA72BE411CA434C3999EBEACF7@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902271751x6f6f0dc6w6be0dc0bece7856b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A91FCC.1020801@nut-n-but.net>

I'm going to do both poems quickly because I'm not that interested in 
them.  Both faill to be be excellent for the same reason: standardness.  
Neither, that is, (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or 
no other poems have such as uncommon diction, grammar, expressive 
modality (e.g., mathematics, visual art), and imagery.  The poem by 
Black has arresting images, but its sort of arresting images are 
standard for surrealistic poetry of its kind.  I think both poems are 
good ones.  I enjoyed them, at any rate.

I would add, Judy, that the poem by Black is not "masquerading as a 
poem."  It is lineated: therefore, by my standards, it /is/ a poem.  I 
would venture that if it were printed as prose, it wouldn't be as good 
as it is.  The lineation is not brilliant but I think it mostly effective.

--Bob

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From ershadmz at yahoo.com  Sat Feb 28 09:31:18 2009
From: ershadmz at yahoo.com (ershad mazumder)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 06:31:18 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry
Message-ID: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>



If You Really Love Me  By   Ershad Mazumder from Bangladesh
________________________________________________________________


Gaze on the sky
When it is midnight
You will see me
Among the smiling stars
If you really love me.

Feel me in your soul
You will see me
All around you
Like a smiling rose
If you really love me.

Never try to touch me
I shall disappear
Like a melting moon
If you really love me.


      Get your preferred Email name!
Now you can @ymail.com and @rocketmail.com. 
http://mail.promotions.yahoo.com/newdomains/aa/



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb 28 11:38:35 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 17:38:35 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry
In-Reply-To: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com>

Lovely

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 3:31 PM, ershad mazumder <ershadmz at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
> If You Really Love Me  By   Ershad Mazumder from Bangladesh
> ________________________________________________________________
>
>
> Gaze on the sky
> When it is midnight
> You will see me
> Among the smiling stars
> If you really love me.
>
> Feel me in your soul
> You will see me
> All around you
> Like a smiling rose
> If you really love me.
>
> Never try to touch me
> I shall disappear
> Like a melting moon
> If you really love me.
>
>
>      Get your preferred Email name!
> Now you can @ymail.com and @rocketmail.com.
> http://mail.promotions.yahoo.com/newdomains/aa/
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 28 15:07:54 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:07:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] A New Poetics Term, Maybe
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>
	<4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A9999A.5040804@nut-n-but.net>

Knowing how tend alwuz to make fun of my poetics terms, I was hesitant 
to float my latest through New-Poetry.  But I need help.  The coinage is 
"Eratotype."  Its meaning is "specific type of poem."  "Erato" because 
Erato is the muse of poetry and I couldn't think of anything else.  
"Type," of course, because it's a type of something.  The help I need is 
simply feedback.  If anyone knows of a word in use that means what 
eratotype means, terrific.  Or, if anyone can come up with a better 
term, I'll be glad to use it instead.

Sure, "type of poem" would be a reasonable possibility, but it's too 
general: it could mean just love poem.  "Poetic form" would do the trick 
if there weren't so many kinds of poems that don't really have forms. 

The reason I felt a need for the term is that I've been thinking about 
my current "poet's block."  It was different from my normal poet's 
block, which is just not being able to think of anything to write 
about.  My current problem is that I can't think of any "eratotype" to 
compose.  All the eratotypes I can think of seem dead to me.  In 
particular, I feel I've exhausted my own long-division poem eratotype.  
I am confident I could make good new ones but I wouldn't be doing 
anything interestingly new in them, I'd be repeating myself. 

Anyway, any thoughts would be appreciated.

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 28 15:11:20 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:11:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>
	<4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A99A68.5030609@nut-n-but.net>

Anny Ballardini wrote:
> Lovely
No, it isn't.  What it is, is Very Nice. 

Actually, Ershad, I'm agreeing with Anny.  "Very Nice" often means 
"lovely," for me.  But I hate agreeing with Anny, so . . .

--Bob



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb 28 15:09:24 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:09:24 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry
In-Reply-To: <49A99A68.5030609@nut-n-but.net>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>
	<4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A99A68.5030609@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902281209t443952e9t922b7bb2bcc23e18@mail.gmail.com>

:-)

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 9:11 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> Anny Ballardini wrote:
>
>> Lovely
>>
> No, it isn't.  What it is, is Very Nice.
> Actually, Ershad, I'm agreeing with Anny.  "Very Nice" often means
> "lovely," for me.  But I hate agreeing with Anny, so . . .
>
> --Bob
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From halvard at gmail.com  Sat Feb 28 15:13:41 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:13:41 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] A New Poetics Term, Maybe
In-Reply-To: <49A9999A.5040804@nut-n-but.net>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>
	<4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A9999A.5040804@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902281213l5228fr4845d56c7644cf91@mail.gmail.com>

Just do it!

Hal

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 2:07 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> Knowing how tend alwuz to make fun of my poetics terms, I was hesitant to
> float my latest through New-Poetry.  But I need help.  The coinage is
> "Eratotype."  Its meaning is "specific type of poem."  "Erato" because Erato
> is the muse of poetry and I couldn't think of anything else.  "Type," of
> course, because it's a type of something.  The help I need is simply
> feedback.  If anyone knows of a word in use that means what eratotype means,
> terrific.  Or, if anyone can come up with a better term, I'll be glad to use
> it instead.
>
> Sure, "type of poem" would be a reasonable possibility, but it's too
> general: it could mean just love poem.  "Poetic form" would do the trick if
> there weren't so many kinds of poems that don't really have forms.
> The reason I felt a need for the term is that I've been thinking about my
> current "poet's block."  It was different from my normal poet's block, which
> is just not being able to think of anything to write about.  My current
> problem is that I can't think of any "eratotype" to compose.  All the
> eratotypes I can think of seem dead to me.  In particular, I feel I've
> exhausted my own long-division poem eratotype.  I am confident I could make
> good new ones but I wouldn't be doing anything interestingly new in them,
> I'd be repeating myself.
> Anyway, any thoughts would be appreciated.
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb 28 15:14:20 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:14:20 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] A New Poetics Term, Maybe
In-Reply-To: <49A9999A.5040804@nut-n-but.net>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>
	<4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A9999A.5040804@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902281214k20c53706nfc6205c84a9dfbcb@mail.gmail.com>

If it can be of any help, I understood what you mean by Eratotype in the
moment in which you say:
My current problem is that I can't think of any "eratotype" to compose.

and the meaning is *Forms of Poetry*, and in your case, a new form of
poetry.


On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 9:07 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> Knowing how tend alwuz to make fun of my poetics terms, I was hesitant to
> float my latest through New-Poetry.  But I need help.  The coinage is
> "Eratotype."  Its meaning is "specific type of poem."  "Erato" because Erato
> is the muse of poetry and I couldn't think of anything else.  "Type," of
> course, because it's a type of something.  The help I need is simply
> feedback.  If anyone knows of a word in use that means what eratotype means,
> terrific.  Or, if anyone can come up with a better term, I'll be glad to use
> it instead.
>
> Sure, "type of poem" would be a reasonable possibility, but it's too
> general: it could mean just love poem.  "Poetic form" would do the trick if
> there weren't so many kinds of poems that don't really have forms.
> The reason I felt a need for the term is that I've been thinking about my
> current "poet's block."  It was different from my normal poet's block, which
> is just not being able to think of anything to write about.  My current
> problem is that I can't think of any "eratotype" to compose.  All the
> eratotypes I can think of seem dead to me.  In particular, I feel I've
> exhausted my own long-division poem eratotype.  I am confident I could make
> good new ones but I wouldn't be doing anything interestingly new in them,
> I'd be repeating myself.
> Anyway, any thoughts would be appreciated.
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Feb 28 15:44:02 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:44:02 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] New Poetics Term, Maybe
In-Reply-To: <49A9999A.5040804@nut-n-but.net>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>
	<4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A9999A.5040804@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8630D0EC-FF59-4BEF-90DD-FBCF3A47B0C8@ripon.edu>

"Form" and "type" are both hopelessly vague & elastic terms, not much  
use at all in describing kinds of poetry.  A poetic form can mean  
anything from metrical and/or stanzaic patterning through subject  
matter, rhetorical mode, or even *lack* of some type of technique  
(e.g. the form of the prose poem).


========================================
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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 28 15:49:28 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:49:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] A New Poetics Term, Maybe
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902281214k20c53706nfc6205c84a9dfbcb@mail.gmail.com>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com><4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com><49A9999A.50
	40804@nut-n-but.net>
	<4b65c2d70902281214k20c53706nfc6205c84a9dfbcb@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A9A358.3030004@nut-n-but.net>

Anny Ballardini wrote:
> If it can be of any help, I understood what you mean by Eratotype in 
> the moment in which you say:
> My current problem is that I can't think of any "eratotype" to compose.
>
> and the meaning is /Forms of Poetry/, and in your case, a new form of 
> poetry.
>
Thanks, Anny.  I'm trying to mean forms /or the equivalent/ of poetry 
since some kinds of poems aren't forms--aren't sonnets, for instance, or 
anything with any kind of definable form.


--Bob
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 28 16:07:45 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:07:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] A New Poetics Term, Maybe
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902281213l5228fr4845d56c7644cf91@mail.gmail.com>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com><4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com><49A9999A.50
	40804@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902281213l5228fr4845d56c7644cf91@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A9A7A1.90808@nut-n-but.net>

Halvard Johnson wrote:
> Just do it!
>
> Hal
Good advice, Hal.  In fact, I did do it, writing a very conventional 
all-words poem.  I'll keep repeating myself--with the hope that worrying 
about it may deflect me into an eratotype that's new to me, or a way of 
using an eratoytpe that isn't in a way that's new for me.

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 28 16:09:56 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:09:56 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] New Poetics Term, Maybe
In-Reply-To: <8630D0EC-FF59-4BEF-90DD-FBCF3A47B0C8@ripon.edu>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com><4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com><49A9999A.50
	40804@nut-n-but.net>
	<8630D0EC-FF59-4BEF-90DD-FBCF3A47B0C8@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <49A9A824.6080005@nut-n-but.net>

David Graham wrote:
> "Form" and "type" are both hopelessly vague & elastic terms, not much 
> use at all in describing kinds of poetry.  A poetic form can mean 
> anything from metrical and/or stanzaic patterning through subject 
> matter, rhetorical mode, or even *lack* of some type of technique 
> (e.g. the form of the prose poem). 
Exactly.

--Bob



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb 28 16:42:25 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:42:25 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] funny ... ?
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902281342n1bec0732r574b86dd865df1e7@mail.gmail.com>

It is late here already, and I do not know if I should be amused or not, but
here it is as I just received it, and as they say in Italian, you can talk
of the fact if you do not tell the name of the one who did it...

My dear haiku friend Anny Ballardini,
Please translation of my haiku poems
from English into Italian language
/ for Cascina Macondo Contest/
5  -  7  -  5 syllables:

kissing -
the scent of snow
in his beard

departing train -
sparrows on the icy road
stop my tears

rising sun -
the sunflowers'
dark heads

Many, many THANKS!Please reply!
BEST WISHES... Sister [name of the person who is sending this and of whom I
have never heard]
[oh yes, the entire message is in that disturbing enormous character...]


-- 
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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 28 17:35:17 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 17:35:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] funny ... ?
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902281342n1bec0732r574b86dd865df1e7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4b65c2d70902281342n1bec0732r574b86dd865df1e7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A9BC25.60008@nut-n-but.net>

Anny Ballardini wrote:
> It is late here already, and I do not know if I should be amused or 
> not, but here it is as I just received it, and as they say in Italian, 
> you can talk of the fact if you do not tell the name of the one who 
> did it...
But they aren't bad (albeit very conventional) haiku. . . .  especially 
the sunflower one.

--Bob





From jforjames at aol.com  Sat Feb 28 17:50:44 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 17:50:44 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] 20 
Message-ID: <8CB680E1F5C9A4B-D84-3D7@MBLK-M39.sysops.aol.com>


http://wordcage.blogspot.com/2009/02/fine-ill-do-it-just-this-once.html
20 poetry books that made me fall in love with poetry (or that made me continue loving it).


These are in no particular order.


You are Happy - Margaret Atwood
Collected Poems of Zbigniew Herbert - Zbigniew Herbert
Les Fleurs du Mal - Charles Baudelaire
The Cinnamon Peeler - Michael Ondaatje
Powers of Congress - Alice Fulton
Residencia en la tierra I & II - Pablo Neruda
In the House of Slaves - Evelyn Lau
Homage to the Lame Wolf - Selected poems of Vasko Popa
Bright Existence - Brenda Hillman
Rose - Li-Young Lee
Awake - Dorianne Laux
Nightmare Becomes Responsibility - Michael S. Harper
The Back Country - Gary Snyder
The Country Between Us - Carolyn Forche
Gathering the Tribes - Carolyn Forche
Trilogy - H.D.
Harmonium - Wallace Stevens
Ariel - Sylvia Plath
The Selected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca - Federico Garcia Lorca
Fate - Ai
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From jforjames at aol.com  Sat Feb 28 18:12:31 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:12:31 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] poetry blossoming on Internet
Message-ID: <8CB68112A7AC5E2-854-D4B@webmail-de14.sysops.aol.com>


http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/poets-say-poetry-blossoming-internet/story.aspx?guid=%7B62D1D11B-C58B-4D13-93A7-DA74C912639B%7D&dist=msr_2

Poets say poetry blossoming on Internet

Last update: 2:11 p.m. EST Feb. 28, 2009
LONDON, Feb 28, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- 

Poetry is once again gaining popularity thanks to the Internet, where amateur poets worldwide can publish their works, two respected U.K. poets say. 


Scottish poet Richard Price and English poet Andrew Motion agree the Internet has brought about renewed interest in the world of poetry through its ability to connect people around the world, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday. 

"What's interesting is it's counter-intuitive," 
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sat Feb 28 18:23:19 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:23:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] funny ... ?
In-Reply-To: <49A9BC25.60008@nut-n-but.net>
References: <4b65c2d70902281342n1bec0732r574b86dd865df1e7@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A9BC25.60008@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <49A9C767.7090802@opus40.org>

I like the snow in the beard one.

I think you should do it.

Bob Grumman wrote:
> Anny Ballardini wrote:
>> It is late here already, and I do not know if I should be amused or 
>> not, but here it is as I just received it, and as they say in 
>> Italian, you can talk of the fact if you do not tell the name of the 
>> one who did it...
> But they aren't bad (albeit very conventional) haiku. . . .  
> especially the sunflower one.
>
> --Bob
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>

-- 
Tad Richards
Read my NY Writing Careers Examiner column today!
http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sat Feb 28 18:43:04 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:43:04 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] A New Poetics Term, Maybe
In-Reply-To: <49A9999A.5040804@nut-n-but.net>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>
	<4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com>
	<49A9999A.5040804@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902281543j79a04189u1bd231f06564ebac@mail.gmail.com>

Happy Sunday night, Bob.
I spose I could add "eratotype" to my list of 'Bobbisms', but no, it must
stop.  Reason it must stop is that I don't have a clue what you mean by
"eratotype"---as well as it reminds me too much of 'erratic' and 'rat'
[apologies to any rodents].  P'raps you could reach into your very poetic
soul and come up with a poem using most of your 'Bobbisms', such as
'flow-break' or 'informature'.  Or a poem that goes wild with
free-associated bits about 'eratotype'.  Here's me starting you off:
RAT BITES

typical trash, that.
rag tag rat tapping types
trails of wheelie bin tails
topical trickster kicks off
from left brain

ferrets flipping in Birmingham
front garden bunnies flee
guinea pig on a lead looks like
your sister's fuzzy house slipper

mouses crouch behind the couch
sofalicious month-old crisps
flavour [barbe a queue] of the favoured
moles precede well grounded voles
not to mention trolls
capering in caverns

erat-a-tat-tat-O-type

Barry Spacks where R U
we need a banana verse reverse
perhaps perverse stall of Bobbistics
stem stall Indo-European blots roots boots
map your atlas, or somebody's ratless

oy

--------------

Have fun, Bob!

Best,

Judy




2009/2/28 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> Knowing how tend alwuz to make fun of my poetics terms, I was hesitant to
> float my latest through New-Poetry.  But I need help.  The coinage is
> "Eratotype."  Its meaning is "specific type of poem."  "Erato" because Erato
> is the muse of poetry and I couldn't think of anything else.  "Type," of
> course, because it's a type of something.  The help I need is simply
> feedback.  If anyone knows of a word in use that means what eratotype means,
> terrific.  Or, if anyone can come up with a better term, I'll be glad to use
> it instead.
>
> Sure, "type of poem" would be a reasonable possibility, but it's too
> general: it could mean just love poem.  "Poetic form" would do the trick if
> there weren't so many kinds of poems that don't really have forms.
> The reason I felt a need for the term is that I've been thinking about my
> current "poet's block."  It was different from my normal poet's block, which
> is just not being able to think of anything to write about.  My current
> problem is that I can't think of any "eratotype" to compose.  All the
> eratotypes I can think of seem dead to me.  In particular, I feel I've
> exhausted my own long-division poem eratotype.  I am confident I could make
> good new ones but I wouldn't be doing anything interestingly new in them,
> I'd be repeating myself.
> Anyway, any thoughts would be appreciated.
>
> --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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 28 19:02:14 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:02:14 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] 20
In-Reply-To: <8CB680E1F5C9A4B-D84-3D7@MBLK-M39.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB680E1F5C9A4B-D84-3D7@MBLK-M39.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <49A9D086.9020606@nut-n-but.net>

Yikes, what is poor Wally doing there!?

Is this list yours or from the blog, James?  Sorry, I'm not up to 
clicking to the blog right now.

--Bob





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 28 19:21:10 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:21:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] A New Poetics Term, Maybe
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902281543j79a04189u1bd231f06564ebac@mail.gmail.com>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com><4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com><49A9999A.50
	40804@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902281543j79a04189u1bd231f06564ebac@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A9D4F6.5040001@nut-n-but.net>

Judy Prince wrote:
> Happy Sunday night, Bob.
>
> I spose I could add "eratotype" to my list of 'Bobbisms', but no, it 
> must stop.  Reason it must stop is that I don't have a clue what you 
> mean by "eratotype"---
No clue even though I defined it?  I like the idea of erratic, by the 
way--poetry is error, after all.

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb 28 19:23:52 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:23:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] A New Poetics Term, Maybe
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902281543j79a04189u1bd231f06564ebac@mail.gmail.com>
References: <863532.21398.qm@web65411.mail.ac4.yahoo.com><4b65c2d70902280838y6ae7e655y194ca45ed81dcd6@mail.gmail.com><49A9999A.50
	40804@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902281543j79a04189u1bd231f06564ebac@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49A9D598.2010409@nut-n-but.net>

You made me look up "poetry" in a thesaurus, Judy, and I found "lyric," 
which is really the only kind of poetry I need my term to fit.  So I may 
go with "lyritype."

--Bob



From by.tjmst at gmail.com  Sat Feb 28 21:16:38 2009
From: by.tjmst at gmail.com (gbemi tijani)
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:16:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Invitation to connect on LinkedIn
Message-ID: <391252944.6176428.1235873798603.JavaMail.app@ech3-cdn08.prod>

LinkedIn
------------



   
new poetry,

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

- gbemi

Learn more:
https://www.linkedin.com/e/isd/502690774/gVngSLoP/

------------------------------------------

What is LinkedIn and why should you join?
http://learn.linkedin.com/what-is-linkedin

 
------
(c) 2009, LinkedIn Corporation

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From chris.lott at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 01:16:26 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:16:26 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] For Bob's WEPD experiment: 'Success' by Rebecca 
	McKee
In-Reply-To: <498269C0.3030409@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291747x2e1bcec7m9d01dd35cf4c464a@mail.gmail.com>
	<498264C2.9000901@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291838h5d13c0at76e6f81377d2fbcc@mail.gmail.com>
	<498269C0.3030409@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0901312216l5b50da03oc09d282f1ad3af1f@mail.gmail.com>

This is all very interesting, but my prediction was about which poems
you would agree as being excellent, not which poems you would agree
were not. There is quite a difference between the former and the
latter. And I posit as evidence pretty much every conversation on this
list since I first started reading it. If you start agreeing regularly
it will be an amazing change from the past won't it? What
characterizes this list more thoroughly than Bob's naysaying of poems
submitted by others and championing of poems that almost no one seem
to like?

You'll need to do a few poems to start meaning anything significant...
interesting that so far none of the dullard post avant poems have come
up, nor visual poetry, nor anything the list bit controversial.
Choosing Shakespeare, Housman and some craptacular poem that could
have come from any 8th grade workshiop seems a bit like stacking the
deck.

But carry on. It is nice to see talk about poems here. I'll check back
in a few weeks and see what happened.

c


From chris.lott at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 01:20:08 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:20:08 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence
In-Reply-To: <4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<49825503.6040104@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com>
	<4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
> Well, all I can say, Michael, is that I think one can use a check-list to
> come close to deciding whether most poems are excellent

Marcus Bales is probably falling in love with you at this very moment.
At one point, at least, his mission was to rip all subjectivity from
aesthetic appreciation.

> I can't see how any poem can give
> anyone lasting pleasure;

Proof that you and I, at least, are different species. But then we knew that...

c


From chris.lott at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 01:28:49 2009
From: chris.lott at gmail.com (Chris Lott)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:28:49 -0900
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<49825503.6040104@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com>
	<4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9b1b9dab0901312228t51dd9ed4w7061515f12b92602@mail.gmail.com>

Just to be clear (since Marcus is probably scanning the mail
constantly for his name)-- I know that the checklist doesn't negate
subjectivity (being simply a manifestation of it)... but considering
the paucity of suitors, I think it'll do.

c

On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Chris Lott <chris.lott at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>> Well, all I can say, Michael, is that I think one can use a check-list to
>> come close to deciding whether most poems are excellent
>
> Marcus Bales is probably falling in love with you at this very moment.
> At one point, at least, his mission was to rip all subjectivity from
> aesthetic appreciation.
>
>> I can't see how any poem can give
>> anyone lasting pleasure;
>
> Proof that you and I, at least, are different species. But then we knew that...
>
> c
>



-- 
Chris Lott


From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb  1 05:54:58 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 05:54:58 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For Bob's WEPD experiment: 'Success' by Rebecca 
	McKee
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0901312216l5b50da03oc09d282f1ad3af1f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291747x2e1bcec7m9d01dd35cf4c464a@mail.gmail.com>
	<498264C2.9000901@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291838h5d13c0at76e6f81377d2fbcc@mail.gmail.com>
	<498269C0.3030409@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0901312216l5b50da03oc09d282f1ad3af1f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902010254h54e064bcu769bac916d13c9e4@mail.gmail.com>

Your several assumptions, reasonably, may find themselves untrue, Chris.
Trying to find out what many of us think makes Excellent poems will usually
reveal what many of us think has made a not-Excellent poem.  Flip-sides of a
coin.

Further, many people [even poet-people] change their views as they learn
more, widen their perspectives; and, of course, new or 'lurking' listmembers
appear whose responses may differ from what you're remembering in past
list-chats.

And, finally, even Bob---yes, even Bob---changes his opinions, as he so
often un-ego'ly and generously admits to us.

I suggest that you join us in evaluating poems; offer a poem or changes in
the checklist.  Why not?  What's there to lose?  I'm finding it as
frustrating and surprise-fascinating as worthwhile projects usually prove to
be.

Best,

Judy

2009/2/1 Chris Lott <chris.lott at gmail.com>

> This is all very interesting, but my prediction was about which poems
> you would agree as being excellent, not which poems you would agree
> were not. There is quite a difference between the former and the
> latter. And I posit as evidence pretty much every conversation on this
> list since I first started reading it. If you start agreeing regularly
> it will be an amazing change from the past won't it? What
> characterizes this list more thoroughly than Bob's naysaying of poems
> submitted by others and championing of poems that almost no one seem
> to like?
>
> You'll need to do a few poems to start meaning anything significant...
> interesting that so far none of the dullard post avant poems have come
> up, nor visual poetry, nor anything the list bit controversial.
> Choosing Shakespeare, Housman and some craptacular poem that could
> have come from any 8th grade workshiop seems a bit like stacking the
> deck.
>
> But carry on. It is nice to see talk about poems here. I'll check back
> in a few weeks and see what happened.
>
> c
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 06:40:57 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:40:57 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu><4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com><4982550
	3.6040104@nut-n-but.net><6768ac830901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com><4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>

Chris Lott wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>   
>> Well, all I can say, Michael, is that I think one can use a check-list to
>> come close to deciding whether most poems are excellent
>>     
>
> Marcus Bales is probably falling in love with you at this very moment.
> At one point, at least, his mission was to rip all subjectivity from
> aesthetic appreciation.
I believe you have Marcus wrong, Chris.  He believes poetry is 
undefinable.  He definitely believe that you can't classify poetries.

--Bob
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 06:55:16 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:55:16 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For Bob's WEPD experiment: 'Success' by Rebecca McKee
In-Reply-To: <9b1b9dab0901312216l5b50da03oc09d282f1ad3af1f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b
	0901291747x2e1bcec7m9d01dd35cf4c464a@mail.gmail.com><498264C2.9000901@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0901291838h5d13c0at76e6f81377d2fbc
	c@mail.gmail.com><498269C0.3030409@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0901312216l5b50da03oc09d282f1ad3af1f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49858DA4.4080403@nut-n-but.net>

Chris Lott wrote:
> This is all very interesting, but my prediction was about which poems
> you would agree as being excellent, not which poems you would agree
> were not.
Okay.  Still, I'm sure you're right that just about no group of people 
would agree on every case.  We, however, as a group, have so far agreed 
on every case. 


>  There is quite a difference between the former and the
> latter. And I posit as evidence pretty much every conversation on this
> list since I first started reading it. If you start agreeing regularly
> it will be an amazing change from the past won't it? What
> characterizes this list more thoroughly than Bob's naysaying of poems
> submitted by others and championing of poems that almost no one seem
> to like?
>   
How so?   Unless you require 100% agreement, which I certainly would not. 

> You'll need to do a few poems to start meaning anything significant...
> interesting that so far none of the dullard post avant poems have come
> up, nor visual poetry, nor anything the list bit controversial.
> Choosing Shakespeare, Housman and some craptacular poem that could
> have come from any 8th grade workshop seems a bit like stacking the
> deck.
>
>   
Feel free to give us a poem, Chris.  I don't care what poems we analyze, 
but it would prefer not to get into visual poetry because we know that 
only I, and maybe sometimes Judy with the proviso it isn't poetry, would 
consider it excellent, and I would probably not be able to resist the 
temptation to argue for a thousand posts.  It seems reasonable to me to 
start with poems we all know--and, it is to be hoped--agree are 
excellent, to clarify just what qualifies as that by check list.

I hope to post a revised check list later today.  Look for it.  It will 
be minimally objective the way most laws in countries like ours are: all 
kinds of borblurs, as I call them--like between manslaughter and 
murder.  That doesn't make laws subjective.

--Bob



From halvard at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 11:11:02 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:11:02 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence
In-Reply-To: <49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<6768ac830901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com>
	<4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>

Here's a question for those of you pondering "excellence": Can you name some
(maybe two or three) poems you consider excellent but which you also dislike
or, even better, actively hate?

Hal
-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sun Feb  1 11:58:20 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:58:20 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re:  Excellence
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<6768ac830901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com>
	<4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
	<9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e18168@mail.gmail.com>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2257855C-ABFC-4C70-A372-F4C7EBA77F6C@ripon.edu>

That's a softball.  "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," for one.   
Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" for another.  Then there's "The Red  
Wheelbarrow" . . . .  Quite a lot of the Norton Anthology, in fact.

I save actual hatred for people, usually (often former Presidents),  
but I can say that I don't much love the above poems, and never have.




========================================
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 Feb 1, 2009, at 10:11 AM, Halvard Johnson wrote:

> Here's a question for those of you pondering "excellence": Can you  
> name some (maybe two or three) poems you consider excellent but  
> which you also dislike or, even better, actively hate?
>
> Hal
> -- 

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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sun Feb  1 12:15:51 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 11:15:51 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Langston Hughes
Message-ID: <31EE2A7B-E2A6-4248-9216-346804B663F0@ripon.edu>

Born this day in 1902.


Democracy

Democracy will not come
Today, this year
     Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
     To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I?m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow?s bread.

     Freedom
     Is a strong seed
     Planted In a great need.
     I live here, too.
     I want freedom
     Just as you.

--Langston Hughes.  fr. "Montage of a Dream Deferred."



========================================
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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 12:45:36 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:45:36 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu><4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com><6768ac8
	30901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com><4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net><9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e1816
	8@mail.gmail.com><49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>

A poem is excellent if judged at any time ten years after its 
publication to be so by a
hundred or more poetry experts using the following check-list--if no 
more than ninety-nine
such experts can be found to disagree with that judgement within ten 
years of that
judgement, a poetry expert being defined as someone who has seriously 
engaged the
works of ten or more poets (which means having read at least fifty poems 
by each)
including the works of at least one solitextual poet (poet whose works 
are solely textual)
and one pluraesthetic poet (poet whose works make significant use of 
more than one
expressive modality such as a visual poet) and has either composed fifty 
pages of poetry or
one hundred twenty pages of poetry criticism or who has been accepted as 
a poetry expert
by twenty or more poetry experts.

An Excellent Poem:

(1) expresses something importantly true or represents of something 
centrally beautiful--
assuming it doesn't do both;

(2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or 
something that makes
its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but 
eventually achieves Clarity;

(3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which 
pulls its elements
reasonably close together; 

(4) contains few or no superfluous words;

(5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have 
such as
uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
art), and imagery;

(6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or 
thought; too overt
Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;

Comments: I added the panel of Poetry Experts after thinking over 
Michael's assertion
that "we know that Emily's little poem is excellent because a 
significant number of people
are still willing to give their time to reading it and thinking and 
writing about it."  I agreed
at first with this, but then decided that popularity is no real evidence 
of quality.  Look at
the religious sects still incredibly popular, for instance.  And there 
are poems that have
stood :the test of time" that most genuine lovers of poetry don't think 
much of, like some
of Poe's.  I think Poe is badly under-rated, myself, but I can't believe 
that all the poems still
in anthologies and greatly enjoyed by many people are excellent. 

Note that I have proclaimed that any poem that is approved as excellent 
by my hundred or
more experts keeps its rating forever, however later generations look on 
it.  My reasoning
is that it possible, even probable, that contemporaries will find a poem 
to be excellent for
something about it later generations are no longer sensitive to, just as 
the reverse so
frequently happens.  But I do require ten years to pass for a poem to 
become eligible for
evaluation to prevent fashion or prestige from being too quickly 
influential.

Note, too, that I have ordained that a mere hundred experts can 
pronounce a poem
excellent.  That means that even if ten thousand pronounce it crap, the 
hundred win.

My six desiderata seem objective enough to me--the way laws in a 
democratic society are.
In each case something objective is examined and judged by professionals 
or the
equivalent for excellence the same way deeds are examined and judged by 
professionals or
the equivalent for lawfulness.  Some subjectivity is unavoidable, but it 
is minimized by
having specifics to judge, and expertise to counter-balance empty 
enthusiasm or unfair
antagonism. 

I added "central beauty" to number one to take care of poems that have 
no easy "truth" to
latch onto, haiku being a good example of that, and so many poems since 
1900 that I feel
the evolution of poetry has been toward greater and greater implicitness 
of meaning since
its origin and especially recently.  Side-comment: I believe poetry as a 
whole has been
improving, possibly on pace with science--because of its broadening, not 
necessarily
because of any qualitative improvement in individual poems; we have more 
words to work
with and more techniques--any more expressive modalities, so we have an 
ever-increasing
range of possible poems, which is a Good Thing.

I think I could find something importantly true in every poem I thought 
excellent, but in
many cases--"lighght," for instance--it doesn't seem worth the effort 
and representation of
central beauty is usually much easier to demonstrate (I think few could 
disagree that light
is not a central beauty of existence however little they like the poem 
celebrating it).

Number two is an addition because the constituent, suggested by Barry 
Spacks, makes
sense to me.  Number three is also an addition, because important in my 
own poetics, and
often--especially by otherstream poets--given short shrift.  Number four 
is "Compactness"
which I improved, I think, to "Conciseness," and someone else to "Economy of
Expression" or the like before I finally settled on the words here as 
doing the best job of
pinning it down.  Number 5 is the same as it was originally, I think.  
Number six is new
because I realized in the discussion so far that we were ignoring flaws 
that should keep a
poem from being excellent.

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 12:55:30 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:55:30 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu><4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com><6768ac8
	30901291741r3e52b967lbe8a9d4225a291cb@mail.gmail.com><4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net><9b1b9dab0901312220j2535f7r6f679a1634e1816
	8@mail.gmail.com><49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4985E212.3090100@nut-n-but.net>

Halvard Johnson wrote:
> Here's a question for those of you pondering "excellence": Can you 
> name some (maybe two or three) poems you consider excellent but which 
> you also dislike or, even better, actively hate?
>
> Hal
Well, I just accepted Emily's bustle poem as excellent because my check 
list required me to.  I'm sure there are a lot of poems like that.  
Another by Emily that I hate is the one about London being a place she 
knows exists although she's never visited it, so Heaven, which she has 
never visited, also exists.  I hate "The Inferno" for its intolerance 
but have to agree that it is excellent for the same reason.   I'm 
neutral about the rest of the Divine Comedy.  I can't think of any 
others offhand, but am sure there must be some.  Generally, though, I 
very much like the poems up to 1900 that have been canonized.

--Bob



From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 13:14:53 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 11:14:53 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net> <49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <648208b60902011014o14f8f7edl7eb42f1e0c656eb1@mail.gmail.com>

How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui generis.
- Jim

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 10:45 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> A poem is excellent if judged at any time ten years after its publication
> to be so by a
> hundred or more poetry experts using the following check-list--if no more
> than ninety-nine
> such experts can be found to disagree with that judgement within ten years
> of that
> judgement, a poetry expert being defined as someone who has seriously
> engaged the
> works of ten or more poets (which means having read at least fifty poems by
> each)
> including the works of at least one solitextual poet (poet whose works are
> solely textual)
> and one pluraesthetic poet (poet whose works make significant use of more
> than one
> expressive modality such as a visual poet) and has either composed fifty
> pages of poetry or
> one hundred twenty pages of poetry criticism or who has been accepted as a
> poetry expert
> by twenty or more poetry experts.
>
> An Excellent Poem:
>
> (1) expresses something importantly true or represents of something
> centrally beautiful--
> assuming it doesn't do both;
>
> (2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or something
> that makes
> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
> eventually achieves Clarity;
>
> (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which
> pulls its elements
> reasonably close together;
> (4) contains few or no superfluous words;
>
> (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have
> such as
> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
> art), and imagery;
>
> (6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or
> thought; too overt
> Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
> Comments: I added the panel of Poetry Experts after thinking over Michael's
> assertion
> that "we know that Emily's little poem is excellent because a significant
> number of people
> are still willing to give their time to reading it and thinking and writing
> about it."  I agreed
> at first with this, but then decided that popularity is no real evidence of
> quality.  Look at
> the religious sects still incredibly popular, for instance.  And there are
> poems that have
> stood :the test of time" that most genuine lovers of poetry don't think
> much of, like some
> of Poe's.  I think Poe is badly under-rated, myself, but I can't believe
> that all the poems still
> in anthologies and greatly enjoyed by many people are excellent.
> Note that I have proclaimed that any poem that is approved as excellent by
> my hundred or
> more experts keeps its rating forever, however later generations look on
> it.  My reasoning
> is that it possible, even probable, that contemporaries will find a poem to
> be excellent for
> something about it later generations are no longer sensitive to, just as
> the reverse so
> frequently happens.  But I do require ten years to pass for a poem to
> become eligible for
> evaluation to prevent fashion or prestige from being too quickly
> influential.
>
> Note, too, that I have ordained that a mere hundred experts can pronounce a
> poem
> excellent.  That means that even if ten thousand pronounce it crap, the
> hundred win.
>
> My six desiderata seem objective enough to me--the way laws in a democratic
> society are.
> In each case something objective is examined and judged by professionals or
> the
> equivalent for excellence the same way deeds are examined and judged by
> professionals or
> the equivalent for lawfulness.  Some subjectivity is unavoidable, but it is
> minimized by
> having specifics to judge, and expertise to counter-balance empty
> enthusiasm or unfair
> antagonism.
> I added "central beauty" to number one to take care of poems that have no
> easy "truth" to
> latch onto, haiku being a good example of that, and so many poems since
> 1900 that I feel
> the evolution of poetry has been toward greater and greater implicitness of
> meaning since
> its origin and especially recently.  Side-comment: I believe poetry as a
> whole has been
> improving, possibly on pace with science--because of its broadening, not
> necessarily
> because of any qualitative improvement in individual poems; we have more
> words to work
> with and more techniques--any more expressive modalities, so we have an
> ever-increasing
> range of possible poems, which is a Good Thing.
>
> I think I could find something importantly true in every poem I thought
> excellent, but in
> many cases--"lighght," for instance--it doesn't seem worth the effort and
> representation of
> central beauty is usually much easier to demonstrate (I think few could
> disagree that light
> is not a central beauty of existence however little they like the poem
> celebrating it).
>
> Number two is an addition because the constituent, suggested by Barry
> Spacks, makes
> sense to me.  Number three is also an addition, because important in my own
> poetics, and
> often--especially by otherstream poets--given short shrift.  Number four is
> "Compactness"
> which I improved, I think, to "Conciseness," and someone else to "Economy
> of
> Expression" or the like before I finally settled on the words here as doing
> the best job of
> pinning it down.  Number 5 is the same as it was originally, I think.
>  Number six is new
> because I realized in the discussion so far that we were ignoring flaws
> that should keep a
> poem from being excellent.
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 
"Polish doesn't change quartz into a diamond."
                               -Wilma Askinas

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org
http://www.hamiltonstone.org/catalog.html#temporarymeaning
http://www.fieralingue.it/documenti/mr_bondo.pdf
http://www.poetserv.org/jvc/home/index.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescervantes/
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 14:19:13 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:19:13 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <648208b60902011014o14f8f7edl7eb42f1e0c656eb1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu><4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com><4982613
	A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net><f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com><4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
	<648208b60902011014o14f8f7edl7eb42f1e0c656eb1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4985F5B1.6050802@nut-n-but.net>

James Cervantes wrote:
> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui generis.
>
> - Jim
You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't mean 
in some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means 
differing from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check 
list doesn't have that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be 
special in some way.  Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a 
diction all its own, and like but not the same as the diction in her 
other poems, and unlike the diction in just about any other poet's 
poems, but not enough to make her poem sui generis, I don't think.  
Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui generis.

--Bob





From halvard at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 14:21:04 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 13:21:04 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <4985F5B1.6050802@nut-n-but.net>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
	<648208b60902011014o14f8f7edl7eb42f1e0c656eb1@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985F5B1.6050802@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902011121s48bbea88r9dc722939bb3ea5@mail.gmail.com>

I love chopped sui generis.

Hal

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> James Cervantes wrote:
>
>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui generis.
>>
>> - Jim
>>
> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't mean in
> some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means differing
> from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check list doesn't have
> that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be special in some way.
>  Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a diction all its own, and like
> but not the same as the diction in her other poems, and unlike the diction
> in just about any other poet's poems, but not enough to make her poem sui
> generis, I don't think.  Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui generis.
>
>
> --Bob
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb  1 14:25:13 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:25:13 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<4982613A.3090806@nut-n-but.net> <49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902011125i3fb1f674pecf0ead217b5a6a0@mail.gmail.com>

Bob, forgive your poor volunteer, Judy.  I don't want to read this new
version of WEPD.  Having skimmed it at warp speed, I've determined that it's
like the second draft of most of my poems; i.e., worse than the original
because it's TOO thorough, TOO explainy, TOO boring----and most important,
it's TOO lengthy.  Did I mention boring?
If I actually need to read, understand, and apply m'sel' to USING the new
WEPD, then I resign my position as volunteer of our wonderful little WEPD
experiment.

Unless, of course, you send me a check [or cheque] for $50 a week throughout
our experiment.

carpe diem Judy

2009/2/1 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> A poem is excellent if judged at any time ten years after its publication
> to be so by a
> hundred or more poetry experts using the following check-list--if no more
> than ninety-nine
> such experts can be found to disagree with that judgement within ten years
> of that
> judgement, a poetry expert being defined as someone who has seriously
> engaged the
> works of ten or more poets (which means having read at least fifty poems by
> each)
> including the works of at least one solitextual poet (poet whose works are
> solely textual)
> and one pluraesthetic poet (poet whose works make significant use of more
> than one
> expressive modality such as a visual poet) and has either composed fifty
> pages of poetry or
> one hundred twenty pages of poetry criticism or who has been accepted as a
> poetry expert
> by twenty or more poetry experts.
>
> An Excellent Poem:
>
> (1) expresses something importantly true or represents of something
> centrally beautiful--
> assuming it doesn't do both;
>
> (2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or something
> that makes
> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
> eventually achieves Clarity;
>
> (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which
> pulls its elements
> reasonably close together;
> (4) contains few or no superfluous words;
>
> (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have
> such as
> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
> art), and imagery;
>
> (6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or
> thought; too overt
> Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
> Comments: I added the panel of Poetry Experts after thinking over Michael's
> assertion
> that "we know that Emily's little poem is excellent because a significant
> number of people
> are still willing to give their time to reading it and thinking and writing
> about it."  I agreed
> at first with this, but then decided that popularity is no real evidence of
> quality.  Look at
> the religious sects still incredibly popular, for instance.  And there are
> poems that have
> stood :the test of time" that most genuine lovers of poetry don't think
> much of, like some
> of Poe's.  I think Poe is badly under-rated, myself, but I can't believe
> that all the poems still
> in anthologies and greatly enjoyed by many people are excellent.
> Note that I have proclaimed that any poem that is approved as excellent by
> my hundred or
> more experts keeps its rating forever, however later generations look on
> it.  My reasoning
> is that it possible, even probable, that contemporaries will find a poem to
> be excellent for
> something about it later generations are no longer sensitive to, just as
> the reverse so
> frequently happens.  But I do require ten years to pass for a poem to
> become eligible for
> evaluation to prevent fashion or prestige from being too quickly
> influential.
>
> Note, too, that I have ordained that a mere hundred experts can pronounce a
> poem
> excellent.  That means that even if ten thousand pronounce it crap, the
> hundred win.
>
> My six desiderata seem objective enough to me--the way laws in a democratic
> society are.
> In each case something objective is examined and judged by professionals or
> the
> equivalent for excellence the same way deeds are examined and judged by
> professionals or
> the equivalent for lawfulness.  Some subjectivity is unavoidable, but it is
> minimized by
> having specifics to judge, and expertise to counter-balance empty
> enthusiasm or unfair
> antagonism.
> I added "central beauty" to number one to take care of poems that have no
> easy "truth" to
> latch onto, haiku being a good example of that, and so many poems since
> 1900 that I feel
> the evolution of poetry has been toward greater and greater implicitness of
> meaning since
> its origin and especially recently.  Side-comment: I believe poetry as a
> whole has been
> improving, possibly on pace with science--because of its broadening, not
> necessarily
> because of any qualitative improvement in individual poems; we have more
> words to work
> with and more techniques--any more expressive modalities, so we have an
> ever-increasing
> range of possible poems, which is a Good Thing.
>
> I think I could find something importantly true in every poem I thought
> excellent, but in
> many cases--"lighght," for instance--it doesn't seem worth the effort and
> representation of
> central beauty is usually much easier to demonstrate (I think few could
> disagree that light
> is not a central beauty of existence however little they like the poem
> celebrating it).
>
> Number two is an addition because the constituent, suggested by Barry
> Spacks, makes
> sense to me.  Number three is also an addition, because important in my own
> poetics, and
> often--especially by otherstream poets--given short shrift.  Number four is
> "Compactness"
> which I improved, I think, to "Conciseness," and someone else to "Economy
> of
> Expression" or the like before I finally settled on the words here as doing
> the best job of
> pinning it down.  Number 5 is the same as it was originally, I think.
>  Number six is new
> because I realized in the discussion so far that we were ignoring flaws
> that should keep a
> poem from being excellent.
>
> --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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb  1 14:26:46 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:26:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902011121s48bbea88r9dc722939bb3ea5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
	<648208b60902011014o14f8f7edl7eb42f1e0c656eb1@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985F5B1.6050802@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902011121s48bbea88r9dc722939bb3ea5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902011126y2d5de55bia6a3b508ef83cc6c@mail.gmail.com>

and I had thought it a hog call.
Judy

2009/2/1 Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>

> I love chopped sui generis.
>
> Hal
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:
>
>> James Cervantes wrote:
>>
>>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui generis.
>>>
>>> - Jim
>>>
>> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't mean
>> in some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means differing
>> from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check list doesn't have
>> that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be special in some way.
>>  Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a diction all its own, and like
>> but not the same as the diction in her other poems, and unlike the diction
>> in just about any other poet's poems, but not enough to make her poem sui
>> generis, I don't think.  Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui generis.
>>
>>
>> --Bob
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> 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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 14:55:14 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:55:14 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902011125i3fb1f674pecf0ead217b5a6a0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu><4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com><4982613
	A.3090806@nut-n-but.net>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net><f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com><4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902011125i3fb1f674pecf0ead217b5a6a0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4985FE22.6070302@nut-n-but.net>

You do too much at warp speed, Judy.  The new check list is only 120 
words in length.  270 if you count the part about the panel of experts, 
but you can skip that since the experiment will only use the 
Check-List.  No one is really bothering much with it, anyway.  The rest 
is discussion, and you seem not to like discussion too much.  
Strokes/folks.  Anyway, I hope you stay on.  I'll do the Houseman, at 
least, and stay on if others want to continue the project (which you 
were the one to suggest, by the way).

--Bob



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sun Feb  1 15:35:24 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 15:35:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
In-Reply-To: <4985FE22.6070302@nut-n-but.net>
References: <A3FA6BF9-6C86-4B4A-9A84-90AE98D5934C@ripon.edu>
	<4b65c2d70901282308h4d385de5ncaffb84069e5b828@mail.gmail.com>
	<49858A49.9000602@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902010811s5a3a1a14p126be1921bd7f75@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985DFC0.4010406@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902011125i3fb1f674pecf0ead217b5a6a0@mail.gmail.com>
	<4985FE22.6070302@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902011235o59a5bb6eiab1944369a0b2ffd@mail.gmail.com>

Do the Housman, and let's see how things go.
warp speed mind Judy

2009/2/1 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> You do too much at warp speed, Judy.  The new check list is only 120 words
> in length.  270 if you count the part about the panel of experts, but you
> can skip that since the experiment will only use the Check-List.  No one is
> really bothering much with it, anyway.  The rest is discussion, and you seem
> not to like discussion too much.  Strokes/folks.  Anyway, I hope you stay
> on.  I'll do the Houseman, at least, and stay on if others want to continue
> the project (which you were the one to suggest, by the way).
>
>
> --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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From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Sun Feb  1 15:35:46 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:35:46 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: WEPD Banana
In-Reply-To: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <A5E7A2E1-7372-4B3C-B52E-F744CAA37CC7@verizon.net>


I maintain that poems may pass the Excellencey
test even if only some of the test's criteria help to build its case.

Regarding "Bananas," a sort of Zenish jeu d'esprit, working it
through the whole WEPD word-grinder becomes
a joke about a joke. The poem must, I feel, go elsewhere
for justification.

I'll put before the court an excerpt from my mini-essay on the poem,
composed for a wide-ranging anthology in progress.

Speaking of "the unsayable," here's an experimental piece that some
may take as simply silly, an arbitrary blurt. Yet blurt is the wrong
word, for the tone here is unassumingly quiet and calculatedly  
subversive. A "Language" poem, the piece takes to a far level Wallace  
Stevens dictum that poetry "should resist meaning almost  
successfully." Heavy emphasis, in cases like this,  falls on the word  
"almost."

The fact that Andrews' four word tease appeared in the prestigious   
Paris Review in 1972 has helped to gain it attention. The poem's  
energy lies in its oddity, running against received notions of "making  
sense" to free the imagination toward limitless suggestion.

As Robert Pinsky writes in his short survey THE SITUATION OF POETRY,  
"Comic and reductive, Andrews's poem calls attention to the somewhat  
arbitrary nature of any connection between specific examples and  
general ideas...[it] might be made to exemplify nearly anything."

Unique, hence unrepeatable in strategy, the poem may best earn  
relevance from the reader in connection with its tongue-in-cheek daring.
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From halvard at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 15:44:34 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:44:34 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: WEPD Banana
In-Reply-To: <A5E7A2E1-7372-4B3C-B52E-F744CAA37CC7@verizon.net>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<A5E7A2E1-7372-4B3C-B52E-F744CAA37CC7@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902011244j7b0023dfjfa6a3125a1eb3b58@mail.gmail.com>

Never thought of relevance as something to be "earned," Barry.

Hal, still learning something relevant every day

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 2:35 PM, Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>wrote:

>
> I maintain that poems may pass the Excellencey
> test even if only some of the test's criteria help to build its case.
>
> Regarding "Bananas," a sort of Zenish jeu d'esprit, working it
> through the whole WEPD word-grinder becomes
> a joke about a joke. The poem must, I feel, go elsewhere
> for justification.
>
> I'll put before the court an excerpt from my mini-essay on the poem,
> composed for a wide-ranging anthology in progress.
>
> Speaking of "the unsayable," here's an experimental piece that some
> may take as simply silly, an arbitrary blurt. Yet blurt is the wrong
> word, for the tone here is unassumingly quiet and calculatedly subversive.
> A "Language" poem, the piece takes to a far level Wallace Stevens dictum
> that poetry "should resist meaning almost successfully." Heavy emphasis, in
> cases like this,  falls on the word "almost."
>
> The fact that Andrews' four word tease appeared in the prestigious  Paris
> Review in 1972 has helped to gain it attention. The poem's energy lies in
> its oddity, running against received notions of "making sense" to free the
> imagination toward limitless suggestion.
>
> As Robert Pinsky writes in his short survey THE SITUATION OF POETRY, "Comic
> and reductive, Andrews's poem calls attention to the somewhat arbitrary
> nature of any connection between specific examples and general ideas...[it]
> might be made to exemplify nearly anything."
>
> Unique, hence unrepeatable in strategy, the poem may best earn relevance
> from the reader in connection with its tongue-in-cheek daring.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  1 15:54:17 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:54:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: WEPD Banana
In-Reply-To: <A5E7A2E1-7372-4B3C-B52E-F744CAA37CC7@verizon.net>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<A5E7A2E1-7372-4B3C-B52E-F744CAA37CC7@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <49860BF9.5020504@nut-n-but.net>

Barry Spacks wrote:
>
> I maintain that poems may pass the Excellencey 
> test even if only some of the test's criteria help to build its case.
>
> Regarding "Bananas," a sort of Zenish jeu d'esprit, working it 
> through the whole WEPD word-grinder becomes
> a joke about a joke. The poem must, I feel, go elsewhere
> for justification.
I'll try the check-list on it, Barry, but not for a while.  First, the 
Housman.  Interesting essay on the Andrews, by the way.  It's a jump-cut 
poem, though, not a language poem--unless "The Wasteland" is.

--Bob



From matthew.shindell at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 16:09:39 2009
From: matthew.shindell at gmail.com (Matthew Shindell)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 13:09:39 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 2
In-Reply-To: <200902011700.n11H050O013918@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902011700.n11H050O013918@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <0EEA972A-7EB3-4506-8914-30F2260CC273@gmail.com>

Nick,

Thanks for the comment. You're right about earlier periods of  
conscription. Kelly made the same comment. I'll have to look again &  
remind myself what was "first" about this draft.

This talk is in Philadelphia. I'm assuming they will all know where  
Frankford PA is. But maybe I should add a sentence to clarify.

Thanks again for coming. Sorry you didn't get to stay for the pizza.

M

(sent from my iPhone)

Matthew Shindell
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of History
Science Studies Program
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California

On Feb 1, 2009, at 9:00 AM, new-poetry-request at wiz.cath.vt.edu wrote:

> Send New-Poetry mailing list submissions to
>    new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>
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>
> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Bob Grumman)
>   2. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Halvard Johnson)
>   3. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Judy Prince)
>   4. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Judy Prince)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:19:13 -0500
> From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;    Views"
>    <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID: <4985F5B1.6050802 at nut-n-but.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> James Cervantes wrote:
>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui  
>> generis.
>>
>> - Jim
> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't  
> mean
> in some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means
> differing from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check
> list doesn't have that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem  
> be
> special in some way.  Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a
> diction all its own, and like but not the same as the diction in her
> other poems, and unlike the diction in just about any other poet's
> poems, but not enough to make her poem sui generis, I don't think.
> Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui generis.
>
> --Bob
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 13:21:04 -0600
> From: Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,    Views"
>    <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <f160a1210902011121s48bbea88r9dc722939bb3ea5 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I love chopped sui generis.
>
> Hal
>
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n- 
> but.net>wrote:
>
>> James Cervantes wrote:
>>
>>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui  
>>> generis.
>>>
>>> - Jim
>>>
>> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't  
>> mean in
>> some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means  
>> differing
>> from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check list  
>> doesn't have
>> that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be special in  
>> some way.
>> Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a diction all its own,  
>> and like
>> but not the same as the diction in her other poems, and unlike the  
>> diction
>> in just about any other poet's poems, but not enough to make her  
>> poem sui
>> generis, I don't think.  Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui  
>> generis.
>>
>>
>> --Bob
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> 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
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:25:13 -0500
> From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,    Views"
>    <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <7db1d01b0902011125i3fb1f674pecf0ead217b5a6a0 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Bob, forgive your poor volunteer, Judy.  I don't want to read this new
> version of WEPD.  Having skimmed it at warp speed, I've determined  
> that it's
> like the second draft of most of my poems; i.e., worse than the  
> original
> because it's TOO thorough, TOO explainy, TOO boring----and most  
> important,
> it's TOO lengthy.  Did I mention boring?
> If I actually need to read, understand, and apply m'sel' to USING  
> the new
> WEPD, then I resign my position as volunteer of our wonderful little  
> WEPD
> experiment.
>
> Unless, of course, you send me a check [or cheque] for $50 a week  
> throughout
> our experiment.
>
> carpe diem Judy
>
> 2009/2/1 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
>
>> A poem is excellent if judged at any time ten years after its  
>> publication
>> to be so by a
>> hundred or more poetry experts using the following check-list--if  
>> no more
>> than ninety-nine
>> such experts can be found to disagree with that judgement within  
>> ten years
>> of that
>> judgement, a poetry expert being defined as someone who has seriously
>> engaged the
>> works of ten or more poets (which means having read at least fifty  
>> poems by
>> each)
>> including the works of at least one solitextual poet (poet whose  
>> works are
>> solely textual)
>> and one pluraesthetic poet (poet whose works make significant use  
>> of more
>> than one
>> expressive modality such as a visual poet) and has either composed  
>> fifty
>> pages of poetry or
>> one hundred twenty pages of poetry criticism or who has been  
>> accepted as a
>> poetry expert
>> by twenty or more poetry experts.
>>
>> An Excellent Poem:
>>
>> (1) expresses something importantly true or represents of something
>> centrally beautiful--
>> assuming it doesn't do both;
>>
>> (2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or  
>> something
>> that makes
>> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
>> eventually achieves Clarity;
>>
>> (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like  
>> which
>> pulls its elements
>> reasonably close together;
>> (4) contains few or no superfluous words;
>>
>> (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems  
>> have
>> such as
>> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics,  
>> visual
>> art), and imagery;
>>
>> (6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction,  
>> imagery or
>> thought; too overt
>> Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>>
>> Comments: I added the panel of Poetry Experts after thinking over  
>> Michael's
>> assertion
>> that "we know that Emily's little poem is excellent because a  
>> significant
>> number of people
>> are still willing to give their time to reading it and thinking and  
>> writing
>> about it."  I agreed
>> at first with this, but then decided that popularity is no real  
>> evidence of
>> quality.  Look at
>> the religious sects still incredibly popular, for instance.  And  
>> there are
>> poems that have
>> stood :the test of time" that most genuine lovers of poetry don't  
>> think
>> much of, like some
>> of Poe's.  I think Poe is badly under-rated, myself, but I can't  
>> believe
>> that all the poems still
>> in anthologies and greatly enjoyed by many people are excellent.
>> Note that I have proclaimed that any poem that is approved as  
>> excellent by
>> my hundred or
>> more experts keeps its rating forever, however later generations  
>> look on
>> it.  My reasoning
>> is that it possible, even probable, that contemporaries will find a  
>> poem to
>> be excellent for
>> something about it later generations are no longer sensitive to,  
>> just as
>> the reverse so
>> frequently happens.  But I do require ten years to pass for a poem to
>> become eligible for
>> evaluation to prevent fashion or prestige from being too quickly
>> influential.
>>
>> Note, too, that I have ordained that a mere hundred experts can  
>> pronounce a
>> poem
>> excellent.  That means that even if ten thousand pronounce it crap,  
>> the
>> hundred win.
>>
>> My six desiderata seem objective enough to me--the way laws in a  
>> democratic
>> society are.
>> In each case something objective is examined and judged by  
>> professionals or
>> the
>> equivalent for excellence the same way deeds are examined and  
>> judged by
>> professionals or
>> the equivalent for lawfulness.  Some subjectivity is unavoidable,  
>> but it is
>> minimized by
>> having specifics to judge, and expertise to counter-balance empty
>> enthusiasm or unfair
>> antagonism.
>> I added "central beauty" to number one to take care of poems that  
>> have no
>> easy "truth" to
>> latch onto, haiku being a good example of that, and so many poems  
>> since
>> 1900 that I feel
>> the evolution of poetry has been toward greater and greater  
>> implicitness of
>> meaning since
>> its origin and especially recently.  Side-comment: I believe poetry  
>> as a
>> whole has been
>> improving, possibly on pace with science--because of its  
>> broadening, not
>> necessarily
>> because of any qualitative improvement in individual poems; we have  
>> more
>> words to work
>> with and more techniques--any more expressive modalities, so we  
>> have an
>> ever-increasing
>> range of possible poems, which is a Good Thing.
>>
>> I think I could find something importantly true in every poem I  
>> thought
>> excellent, but in
>> many cases--"lighght," for instance--it doesn't seem worth the  
>> effort and
>> representation of
>> central beauty is usually much easier to demonstrate (I think few  
>> could
>> disagree that light
>> is not a central beauty of existence however little they like the  
>> poem
>> celebrating it).
>>
>> Number two is an addition because the constituent, suggested by Barry
>> Spacks, makes
>> sense to me.  Number three is also an addition, because important  
>> in my own
>> poetics, and
>> often--especially by otherstream poets--given short shrift.  Number  
>> four is
>> "Compactness"
>> which I improved, I think, to "Conciseness," and someone else to  
>> "Economy
>> of
>> Expression" or the like before I finally settled on the words here  
>> as doing
>> the best job of
>> pinning it down.  Number 5 is the same as it was originally, I think.
>> Number six is new
>> because I realized in the discussion so far that we were ignoring  
>> flaws
>> that should keep a
>> poem from being excellent.
>>
>> --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: 4
> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:26:46 -0500
> From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: halvard at gmail.com, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,
>    Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <7db1d01b0902011126y2d5de55bia6a3b508ef83cc6c at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> and I had thought it a hog call.
> Judy
>
> 2009/2/1 Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>
>
>> I love chopped sui generis.
>>
>> Hal
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n- 
>> but.net>wrote:
>>
>>> James Cervantes wrote:
>>>
>>>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui  
>>>> generis.
>>>>
>>>> - Jim
>>>>
>>> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It  
>>> doesn't mean
>>> in some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means  
>>> differing
>>> from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check list  
>>> doesn't have
>>> that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be special in  
>>> some way.
>>> Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a diction all its own,  
>>> and like
>>> but not the same as the diction in her other poems, and unlike the  
>>> diction
>>> in just about any other poet's poems, but not enough to make her  
>>> poem sui
>>> generis, I don't think.  Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui  
>>> generis.
>>>
>>>
>>> --Bob
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> New-Poetry mailing list
>>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Halvard Johnson
>> ================
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
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> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> End of New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 2
> *****************************************


From matthew.shindell at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 16:13:19 2009
From: matthew.shindell at gmail.com (Matthew Shindell)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 13:13:19 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 2
In-Reply-To: <200902011700.n11H050O013918@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902011700.n11H050O013918@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <F5064BEE-EB7E-44A6-9888-AD57F942F5BE@gmail.com>

Apologies for my previous message. I was trying to respond to one of  
my history colleagues and somehow responded to the list instead.

Thanks for understanding!

M

(sent from my iPhone)

Matthew Shindell
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of History
Science Studies Program
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California

On Feb 1, 2009, at 9:00 AM, new-poetry-request at wiz.cath.vt.edu wrote:

> Send New-Poetry mailing list submissions to
>    new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>
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>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Bob Grumman)
>   2. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Halvard Johnson)
>   3. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Judy Prince)
>   4. Re: Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List (Judy Prince)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:19:13 -0500
> From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;    Views"
>    <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID: <4985F5B1.6050802 at nut-n-but.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> James Cervantes wrote:
>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui  
>> generis.
>>
>> - Jim
> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't  
> mean
> in some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means
> differing from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check
> list doesn't have that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem  
> be
> special in some way.  Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a
> diction all its own, and like but not the same as the diction in her
> other poems, and unlike the diction in just about any other poet's
> poems, but not enough to make her poem sui generis, I don't think.
> Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui generis.
>
> --Bob
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 13:21:04 -0600
> From: Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,    Views"
>    <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <f160a1210902011121s48bbea88r9dc722939bb3ea5 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I love chopped sui generis.
>
> Hal
>
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n- 
> but.net>wrote:
>
>> James Cervantes wrote:
>>
>>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui  
>>> generis.
>>>
>>> - Jim
>>>
>> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It doesn't  
>> mean in
>> some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means  
>> differing
>> from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check list  
>> doesn't have
>> that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be special in  
>> some way.
>> Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a diction all its own,  
>> and like
>> but not the same as the diction in her other poems, and unlike the  
>> diction
>> in just about any other poet's poems, but not enough to make her  
>> poem sui
>> generis, I don't think.  Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui  
>> generis.
>>
>>
>> --Bob
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> 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
> -------------- next part --------------
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:25:13 -0500
> From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,    Views"
>    <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <7db1d01b0902011125i3fb1f674pecf0ead217b5a6a0 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Bob, forgive your poor volunteer, Judy.  I don't want to read this new
> version of WEPD.  Having skimmed it at warp speed, I've determined  
> that it's
> like the second draft of most of my poems; i.e., worse than the  
> original
> because it's TOO thorough, TOO explainy, TOO boring----and most  
> important,
> it's TOO lengthy.  Did I mention boring?
> If I actually need to read, understand, and apply m'sel' to USING  
> the new
> WEPD, then I resign my position as volunteer of our wonderful little  
> WEPD
> experiment.
>
> Unless, of course, you send me a check [or cheque] for $50 a week  
> throughout
> our experiment.
>
> carpe diem Judy
>
> 2009/2/1 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
>
>> A poem is excellent if judged at any time ten years after its  
>> publication
>> to be so by a
>> hundred or more poetry experts using the following check-list--if  
>> no more
>> than ninety-nine
>> such experts can be found to disagree with that judgement within  
>> ten years
>> of that
>> judgement, a poetry expert being defined as someone who has seriously
>> engaged the
>> works of ten or more poets (which means having read at least fifty  
>> poems by
>> each)
>> including the works of at least one solitextual poet (poet whose  
>> works are
>> solely textual)
>> and one pluraesthetic poet (poet whose works make significant use  
>> of more
>> than one
>> expressive modality such as a visual poet) and has either composed  
>> fifty
>> pages of poetry or
>> one hundred twenty pages of poetry criticism or who has been  
>> accepted as a
>> poetry expert
>> by twenty or more poetry experts.
>>
>> An Excellent Poem:
>>
>> (1) expresses something importantly true or represents of something
>> centrally beautiful--
>> assuming it doesn't do both;
>>
>> (2) is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or  
>> something
>> that makes
>> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
>> eventually achieves Clarity;
>>
>> (3) has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like  
>> which
>> pulls its elements
>> reasonably close together;
>> (4) contains few or no superfluous words;
>>
>> (5) boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems  
>> have
>> such as
>> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics,  
>> visual
>> art), and imagery;
>>
>> (6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction,  
>> imagery or
>> thought; too overt
>> Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>>
>> Comments: I added the panel of Poetry Experts after thinking over  
>> Michael's
>> assertion
>> that "we know that Emily's little poem is excellent because a  
>> significant
>> number of people
>> are still willing to give their time to reading it and thinking and  
>> writing
>> about it."  I agreed
>> at first with this, but then decided that popularity is no real  
>> evidence of
>> quality.  Look at
>> the religious sects still incredibly popular, for instance.  And  
>> there are
>> poems that have
>> stood :the test of time" that most genuine lovers of poetry don't  
>> think
>> much of, like some
>> of Poe's.  I think Poe is badly under-rated, myself, but I can't  
>> believe
>> that all the poems still
>> in anthologies and greatly enjoyed by many people are excellent.
>> Note that I have proclaimed that any poem that is approved as  
>> excellent by
>> my hundred or
>> more experts keeps its rating forever, however later generations  
>> look on
>> it.  My reasoning
>> is that it possible, even probable, that contemporaries will find a  
>> poem to
>> be excellent for
>> something about it later generations are no longer sensitive to,  
>> just as
>> the reverse so
>> frequently happens.  But I do require ten years to pass for a poem to
>> become eligible for
>> evaluation to prevent fashion or prestige from being too quickly
>> influential.
>>
>> Note, too, that I have ordained that a mere hundred experts can  
>> pronounce a
>> poem
>> excellent.  That means that even if ten thousand pronounce it crap,  
>> the
>> hundred win.
>>
>> My six desiderata seem objective enough to me--the way laws in a  
>> democratic
>> society are.
>> In each case something objective is examined and judged by  
>> professionals or
>> the
>> equivalent for excellence the same way deeds are examined and  
>> judged by
>> professionals or
>> the equivalent for lawfulness.  Some subjectivity is unavoidable,  
>> but it is
>> minimized by
>> having specifics to judge, and expertise to counter-balance empty
>> enthusiasm or unfair
>> antagonism.
>> I added "central beauty" to number one to take care of poems that  
>> have no
>> easy "truth" to
>> latch onto, haiku being a good example of that, and so many poems  
>> since
>> 1900 that I feel
>> the evolution of poetry has been toward greater and greater  
>> implicitness of
>> meaning since
>> its origin and especially recently.  Side-comment: I believe poetry  
>> as a
>> whole has been
>> improving, possibly on pace with science--because of its  
>> broadening, not
>> necessarily
>> because of any qualitative improvement in individual poems; we have  
>> more
>> words to work
>> with and more techniques--any more expressive modalities, so we  
>> have an
>> ever-increasing
>> range of possible poems, which is a Good Thing.
>>
>> I think I could find something importantly true in every poem I  
>> thought
>> excellent, but in
>> many cases--"lighght," for instance--it doesn't seem worth the  
>> effort and
>> representation of
>> central beauty is usually much easier to demonstrate (I think few  
>> could
>> disagree that light
>> is not a central beauty of existence however little they like the  
>> poem
>> celebrating it).
>>
>> Number two is an addition because the constituent, suggested by Barry
>> Spacks, makes
>> sense to me.  Number three is also an addition, because important  
>> in my own
>> poetics, and
>> often--especially by otherstream poets--given short shrift.  Number  
>> four is
>> "Compactness"
>> which I improved, I think, to "Conciseness," and someone else to  
>> "Economy
>> of
>> Expression" or the like before I finally settled on the words here  
>> as doing
>> the best job of
>> pinning it down.  Number 5 is the same as it was originally, I think.
>> Number six is new
>> because I realized in the discussion so far that we were ignoring  
>> flaws
>> that should keep a
>> poem from being excellent.
>>
>> --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: 4
> Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:26:46 -0500
> From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry: a New Check-List
> To: halvard at gmail.com, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,
>    Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID:
>    <7db1d01b0902011126y2d5de55bia6a3b508ef83cc6c at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> and I had thought it a hog call.
> Judy
>
> 2009/2/1 Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>
>
>> I love chopped sui generis.
>>
>> Hal
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n- 
>> but.net>wrote:
>>
>>> James Cervantes wrote:
>>>
>>>> How little poetry we would have if each and every poem were sui  
>>>> generis.
>>>>
>>>> - Jim
>>>>
>>> You seem to be taking "sui generis" too literally, Jim.  It  
>>> doesn't mean
>>> in some way unlike every other poem, at least not to me; it means  
>>> differing
>>> from all other poems in some fairly extreme way.  My check list  
>>> doesn't have
>>> that as a requirement, only that an excellent poem be special in  
>>> some way.
>>> Dickinson's poems, for instance, each have a diction all its own,  
>>> and like
>>> but not the same as the diction in her other poems, and unlike the  
>>> diction
>>> in just about any other poet's poems, but not enough to make her  
>>> poem sui
>>> generis, I don't think.  Unless every good poet's oeuvre is sui  
>>> generis.
>>>
>>>
>>> --Bob
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> New-Poetry mailing list
>>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Halvard Johnson
>> ================
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
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> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> End of New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 2
> *****************************************


From JforJames at aol.com  Sun Feb  1 17:24:29 2009
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 17:24:29 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <d28.3fe776aa.36b77b1d@aol.com>

I've posted this poem before on Super Bowl Sunday. The Boss is playing at  
halftime, and he's a poet. 
Kurt Warner won a Super Bowl for the St. Louis Rams. Know QBing for  the 
Arizona Cardinals. The St. Louis Cardinals were my team growing up. Some  kind of 
sentimental triangulation going on. James Wright remains a foundational  poet 
for me since I first really understood what contemporary poetry was or  could 
be when I read his _The Branch Will Not Break_...
 
Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
 
In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long  beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at  Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of  heroes.
 
All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like  starved pullets,
Dying for love.
 
Therefore, 
Their sons grows suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of  October,
And gallop terribly against each other?s bodies.  
 
--James Wright

**************From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay 
up-to-date with the latest news. (http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023)
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 17:32:20 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 23:32:20 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <d28.3fe776aa.36b77b1d@aol.com>
References: <d28.3fe776aa.36b77b1d@aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902011432n1f99a20fpb3b7adc0d6870f2c@mail.gmail.com>

It's an exceptional poem.

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 11:24 PM, <JforJames at aol.com> wrote:

>  I've posted this poem before on Super Bowl Sunday. The Boss is playing at
> halftime, and he's a poet.
> Kurt Warner won a Super Bowl for the St. Louis Rams. Know QBing for the
> Arizona Cardinals. The St. Louis Cardinals were my team growing up. Some
> kind of sentimental triangulation going on. James Wright remains a
> foundational poet for me since I first really understood what contemporary
> poetry was or could be when I read his _The Branch Will Not Break_...
>
> Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
>
> In the Shreve High football stadium,
> I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
> And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
> And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
> Dreaming of heroes.
>
> All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
> Their women cluck like starved pullets,
> Dying for love.
>
> Therefore,
> Their sons grows suicidally beautiful
> At the beginning of October,
> And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.
>
> --James Wright
>
> ------------------------------
> From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay up-to-date
> with the latest news <http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023>.
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Sun Feb  1 17:34:44 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 17:34:44 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <d0d.48fe33e8.36b77d84@aol.com>

James Dickey had a poem called "In the Pocket" (which may have been  
commissioned by the NFL) and another called "The Bee," which recalled his  football 
days at Clemson. And Randall Jarrell, I think, had a poem about the  death of 
Big Daddy Lipscomb.
**************From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay 
up-to-date with the latest news. (http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023)
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Sun Feb  1 17:46:18 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 17:46:18 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902011432n1f99a20fpb3b7adc0d6870f2c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <d28.3fe776aa.36b77b1d@aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902011432n1f99a20fpb3b7adc0d6870f2c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902011446x59516303k1dcc33ae9bcfc972@mail.gmail.com>

One of my favorite poets is Howard Nemerov ? here are the last two sections
of his "Watching Footbal on TV":

VI

Passing and catching overcome the world,
The hard condition of the world, they do
Human intention honor in the world.
A football wants to wobble, that's its shape
And nature, and to make it spiral true
's a triumph in itself, to make it hit
The patterning receiver on the hands
The instant he looks back, well, that's to be
For the time being in a state of grace,
And move the viewers in their living rooms
To lost nostalgic visions of themselves
As in an earlier, other world where grim
Fate in the form of gravity may be
Not merely overcome, but overcome
Casually and with style, and that is grace.


VII

Each year brings rookies and makes veterans,
The have their dead by now, their wounded as well,
They have Immortals in a Hall of Fame,
They have the stories of the tribe, the plays
And instant replays many times replayed.
But even fame will tire of its fame,
And immortality itself will fall asleep.
It's taken many years, but yet in time,
To old men crouched before the ikon's changes,
Changes become reminders, all the games
Are blended in one vast remembered game
Of similar images simultaneous
And superposed; nothing surprises us
Nor can delight, though we see the tight end
Stagger into the end zone again again.



I posted last year at my blog (
http://www.mikesnider.org/radio/formalblog/2008/02/03.html#a769) about this
poem and about TV and the Super Bowl, so I didn't have to type in what's
above. I just don't have it in me to type the rest, right after a three hour
band parctice, but I do love the poem.  And James Wright's, too.

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Anny Ballardini
<anny.ballardini at gmail.com>wrote:

> It's an exceptional poem.
>
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 11:24 PM, <JforJames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>  I've posted this poem before on Super Bowl Sunday. The Boss is playing
>> at halftime, and he's a poet.
>> Kurt Warner won a Super Bowl for the St. Louis Rams. Know QBing for the
>> Arizona Cardinals. The St. Louis Cardinals were my team growing up. Some
>> kind of sentimental triangulation going on. James Wright remains a
>> foundational poet for me since I first really understood what contemporary
>> poetry was or could be when I read his _The Branch Will Not Break_...
>>
>> Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
>>
>> In the Shreve High football stadium,
>> I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
>> And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
>> And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
>> Dreaming of heroes.
>>
>> All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
>> Their women cluck like starved pullets,
>> Dying for love.
>>
>> Therefore,
>> Their sons grows suicidally beautiful
>> At the beginning of October,
>> And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.
>>
>> --James Wright
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> >From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay
>> up-to-date with the latest news<http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023>
>> .
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>
>
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Sun Feb  1 17:48:20 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 17:48:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902011446x59516303k1dcc33ae9bcfc972@mail.gmail.com>
References: <d28.3fe776aa.36b77b1d@aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902011432n1f99a20fpb3b7adc0d6870f2c@mail.gmail.com>
	<6768ac830902011446x59516303k1dcc33ae9bcfc972@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902011448p1cec3311r1a46ef18b3c0a905@mail.gmail.com>

>
> That last was from my old blog -- the new addy is just
>> http://www.mikesnider.org/formalblog
>
>
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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Sun Feb  1 18:05:35 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 18:05:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <d0d.48fe33e8.36b77d84@aol.com>
References: <d0d.48fe33e8.36b77d84@aol.com>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902011505n7b3608d9w66b24d078e0e9f34@mail.gmail.com>

Gary Gildner has a poem called "First Practice."


FIRST PRACTICE

After the doctor checked to see
we weren't ruptured,
the man with the short cigar took us
under the grade school,
where we went in case of attack
or storm, and said
he was Clifford Hill, he was
a man who believed dogs
ate dogs, he had once killed
for his country, and if
there were any girls present
for them to leave now.

No one
left. OK, he said, he said I take
that to mean you are hungry
men who hate to lose as much
as I do. OK. Then
he made two lines of us
facing each other,
and across the way, he said,
is the man you hate most
in the world,
and if we are to win
that title I want to see how.
But I don't want to see
any marks when you're dressed,
he said. He said, Now.



Jeff Newberry

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 5:34 PM, <AlMaginnes at aol.com> wrote:

>  James Dickey had a poem called "In the Pocket" (which may have been
> commissioned by the NFL) and another called "The Bee," which recalled his
> football days at Clemson. And Randall Jarrell, I think, had a poem about the
> death of Big Daddy Lipscomb.
>
> ------------------------------
> From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay up-to-date
> with the latest news <http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023>.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
Blog:  http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com
Obama Myths:  http://www.matthew25.org/paf/index.htm
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sun Feb  1 21:34:19 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 21:34:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902011505n7b3608d9w66b24d078e0e9f34@mail.gmail.com>
References: <d0d.48fe33e8.36b77d84@aol.com>
	<731bb17a0902011505n7b3608d9w66b24d078e0e9f34@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49865BAB.1030200@opus40.org>

For me Wright wins the poetry Super Bowl.

Jeff Newberry wrote:
> Gary Gildner has a poem called "First Practice."
>
>
>     FIRST PRACTICE
>
>     After the doctor checked to see
>     we weren't ruptured,
>     the man with the short cigar took us
>     under the grade school,
>     where we went in case of attack
>     or storm, and said
>     he was Clifford Hill, he was
>     a man who believed dogs
>     ate dogs, he had once killed
>     for his country, and if
>     there were any girls present
>     for them to leave now.
>
>     No one
>     left. OK, he said, he said I take
>     that to mean you are hungry
>     men who hate to lose as much
>     as I do. OK. Then
>     he made two lines of us
>     facing each other,
>     and across the way, he said,
>     is the man you hate most
>     in the world,
>     and if we are to win
>     that title I want to see how.
>     But I don't want to see
>     any marks when you're dressed,
>     he said. He said, Now.
>
>
>
> Jeff Newberry
>
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 5:34 PM, <AlMaginnes at aol.com 
> <mailto:AlMaginnes at aol.com>> wrote:
>
>     James Dickey had a poem called "In the Pocket" (which may have
>     been commissioned by the NFL) and another called "The Bee," which
>     recalled his football days at Clemson. And Randall Jarrell, I
>     think, had a poem about the death of Big Daddy Lipscomb.
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     >From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay
>     up-to-date with the latest news
>     <http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000023>.
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     New-Poetry mailing list
>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Blog:  http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com
> Obama Myths:  http://www.matthew25.org/paf/index.htm
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  1 22:26:53 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 22:26:53 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <d31.48bf0d06.36b7c1fd@cs.com>

Fred Chappell has good one--about watching the Redskins with Allen Tate--but 
I can't find it online.  Ed Hirsch has a good one too, called "Last Practice."

http://www.jstor.org/pss/4336194

I played the game all of my formative years but have yet to get a poem out of 
it.  But I remain hopeful
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  1 22:28:47 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 22:28:47 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <bbc.3ae176de.36b7c26f@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/1/2009 5:05:51 PM Central Standard Time, 
jeff.newberry at gmail.com writes: 
> 
> Gary Gildner has a poem called "First Practice."
> 
> 
I have had students argue that this may be about, say, wrestling  To which I 
say, "Bah."
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  1 22:30:46 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 22:30:46 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <d16.40877584.36b7c2e6@cs.com>

I think Gildner may have actually played football.  I doubt that Wright did.  


\No denigration of Wright, of course.
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  1 22:33:13 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 22:33:13 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <c9c.3e9f8649.36b7c379@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/1/2009 9:31:14 PM Central Standard Time, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com 
writes: 
> 
> \No denigration of Wright, of course.
> 
"No," I meant.  After the Super Bowl one's fingers move badly.  Nice game, 
though.
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From almaginnes at aol.com  Sun Feb  1 22:34:16 2009
From: almaginnes at aol.com (almaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:34:16 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <d16.40877584.36b7c2e6@cs.com>
References: <d16.40877584.36b7c2e6@cs.com>
Message-ID: <8CB52FE42964F9C-C60-1AA6@mblk-d23.sysops.aol.com>

I think I read somewhere that Wright did play a little as a teenager. I've written a couple of bad poems about my time playing football, but hopefully no one will ever see them.


-----Original Message-----
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:30 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know


I think Gildner may have actually played football.? I doubt that Wright did.? 

\No denigration of Wright, of course. 

_______________________________________________
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

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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  1 22:45:41 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 22:45:41 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <bc6.3aa668c0.36b7c665@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/1/2009 9:34:37 PM Central Standard Time, 
almaginnes at aol.com writes: 
> 
> I think I read somewhere that Wright did play a little as a teenager. I've 
> written a couple of bad poems about my time playing football, but hopefully no 
> one will ever see them.
> 
Never have, myself, though playing up through sophomore in college. Just 
never could think about what to say about this mindless activity.  Eventually, 
though.  What Whitehead said:

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1505.html
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From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Sun Feb  1 23:01:17 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:01:17 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 3
In-Reply-To: <200902020038.n120c00N020606@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902020038.n120c00N020606@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <3B325963-E722-4103-8229-A9FE9284BE17@verizon.net>


On Feb 1, 2009, at 4:38 PM, Hal wrote:
>
> Never thought of relevance as something to be "earned," Barry.

Yep, Hal, that's how we do things these now.

B
>
>



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Feb  1 23:07:56 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 23:07:56 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence?
Message-ID: <cf7.4be6dab0.36b7cb9c@cs.com>

I recently received this as an entry in a contest I'm judging. I thought it 
the best of the lot (given the generally low quality). It kind of reminded me 
of Craig Raine, with some genuinely um-Martian turns or phrase.  Any thoughts?

Obviously, I Said

For example, the wheelbarrow behind 
the avocado pit indicates that the flatulent 
cloud formation gives secret financial 

aid to an industrial complex. If a dreamlike
maelstrom usually gives a pink slip 
to the overpriced bowling ball, then 
 
some pig pen beyond a power drill it
resembles.  Some mating ritual 
hibernates, or a shabby 

tornado recognizes a cocker spaniel. 
Most people believe that a dolphin 
around a microscope gives secret 

financial aid to the barely bohemian 
maelstrom, but they need to remember 
how lazily the mastadon meditates.

For example, a fire hydrant 
defined by a tornado indicates that the tabloid 
of the turkey almost avoids contact with a polygon.


 
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Mon Feb  2 01:08:06 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 01:08:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence?
In-Reply-To: <cf7.4be6dab0.36b7cb9c@cs.com>
References: <cf7.4be6dab0.36b7cb9c@cs.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902012208n7ba2668am1ba335637a76f2e3@mail.gmail.com>

If you will indulge me, Sam.  I'm often flip and jokey; my style, my joy.
 But p'raps this moment, the discussion about Excellent poetry, and recent
news have met for seriousness.
Tonight a SHAKSPER listmember, Felix de Villiers, reacting to a discussion
thread on "Heroes", regarding 'Hamlet', wrote:  "There is hardly a great
play or novel in which the main characters don't struggle against their
established social world."

He quotes Hamlet and then comments:

"If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story."

"Telling the story is a form of resistance against destiny. Hamlet makes
this plea to Horatio, but it is Shakespeare who tells the story."

A truly fine poem, play or novel does not have to climb such a pinnacle, can
be a beautiful wit-force or just Beauty itself.  But it needs to be
comprehended, or those things cannot be seen.  We all are trying for in our
own work, and looking for in others' work, fresh, startling, jolts of power.
 These jolts need something that few folks mention:  They need to evoke
instant awe-filled RECOGNITION.  We feel the jolt because we 'see' two
strange things suddenly tied together and somehow we 'recognise' something
new.  Magic. These fresh jolting figures inject us with utterly new news
from an odd old mate suddenly given to a nother odd old mate.  We have
undergone Instant Analogy---logic so fleet that it's pre-logic.  A stun of
truth so strong it moves us, many times literally, to action.  We jump.

But the poem needs to be comprehended or the thing which most powers
poetry---the blast of pre-logic analogy---cannot be known.

A case in point is the work of Jen Hadfield.  She is a genius poet.  Yet,
many of her most recent published works display sense-laden disconnects.
 She's brilliant with metaphor, an utter joy to read---if the individual
figures can be comprehended, and if the several cohere.  Her poems in
CHAPMAN a couple years ago [sorry, not to hand, so I can't give the date]
did all the magic I've described, but now she seems, unfortunately I think,
to've danced off the edge of connection and coherence.  And I profoundly
wish she'd come back.

Same thing I wish for your contest entrant.

Be well,

Judy



2009/2/1 <Rsgwynn1 at cs.com>

> I recently received this as an entry in a contest I'm judging. I thought it
> the best of the lot (given the generally low quality). It kind of reminded
> me of Craig Raine, with some genuinely um-Martian turns or phrase.  Any
> thoughts?
>
> *Obviously, I Said
>
> *For example, the wheelbarrow behind
> the avocado pit indicates that the flatulent
> cloud formation gives secret financial
>
> aid to an industrial complex. If a dreamlike
> maelstrom usually gives a pink slip
> to the overpriced bowling ball, then
>
> some pig pen beyond a power drill it
> resembles.  Some mating ritual
> hibernates, or a shabby
>
> tornado recognizes a cocker spaniel.
> Most people believe that a dolphin
> around a microscope gives secret
>
> financial aid to the barely bohemian
> maelstrom, but they need to remember
> how lazily the mastadon meditates.
>
> For example, a fire hydrant
> defined by a tornado indicates that the tabloid
> of the turkey almost avoids contact with a polygon.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 04:58:35 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 01:58:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fogged Clarity
Message-ID: <711646.17846.qm@web83303.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

>From Ben Evans:

I am writing to you to announce the launch of our new arts
review, Fogged Clarity.? Our
February (debut) issue is free and available at http://foggedclarity.com/.? In it you will find new work from poets
Bruce Smith, Amy King, and Barry Schwabsky, experimental photography by Kyle
Jones and Ryan Daly, short fiction by Dmitri Gheorgheni, and much more.?? Fogged Clarity aims to transcend the
conventions of the typical literary review by incorporating music, the visual
arts, interviews, and political exposition.?
Our ambition is to form a community of artists whose interaction is not
constrained by medium, but broadened by a collective love of expression.? Our network is extensive, and our passion
for ventilation intense.? We sincerely
hope you will join us as we embark on this journey.

?

I wish you the best, 

?

Benjamin Evans

Editor, Fogged Clarity

_______





Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 05:06:08 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 02:06:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Pirene's Fountain
Message-ID: <82660.64332.qm@web83306.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>





Pirene?s Fountain 

January 2009, Volume 2 : Issue 4


? ????????? ?

Kim Addonizio ????????? 

Michelle Bitting ???????? ?

Lisel Mueller ? ?

Lisa Alvarado ??????????? ??????????? ?

David Nelson Bradsher ???????? 

Anselm Brocki ?????????? 

Michael Brownstein ?? ??????????? ?

Roberta Burnett ???????? 

Michael Ceraolo ???????? 

Rusty Childers ?????????? 

Alison Croggon ????????? 

Maggie Flanagan-Wilkie ??????? ?

Maria Mazziotti Gillan ?????????? ?

Ami Kaye ?????? 

Amy King ????? 

Oliver Lodge ? 

Joanne Lowery ?????????? ?

Aine MacAodha ??????? 

Amy MacLennan ?????? ?

Steve Meador  

Charles Morrison ??????? 

Scott Owens ? 

Doug Ramspeck ???????? 

Maria Terrone  

Lark Vernon
?? 

Julene Tripp Weaver ? ?

Sam Wilding ? ?

Jane Yolen ???? 

?

http://www.pirenesfountain.com/current_issue.html

?

?



_______





Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 05:09:04 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 02:09:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Denver Syntax
Message-ID: <937846.76991.qm@web83306.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>





Denver Syntax -- Winter 2009

{l i t a n y?? f o
r?? r e g i f t i n g}

{l i t a n y?? f o
r?? t h e?? b e n e f i t s}

{l i t a n y?? f o
r?? i n s o m n i a}

? reb livingston

?

{m i s s?? d i f a l c
o}

{t i m e}

{u n l a c e d?? a n
d?? u n t i e d}

? puma perl

?

{b o o z i n g}

? jim chandler

?

{3 2?? f l a v o r
s?? o f??
l o v e?? a n d?? d e a t h}

{w h e n?? y o u?? a r e??
c l o s e?? e n o u g h}

? john dorsey

?

{s i m u l a t i o n s,??
o r?? f o r t u n e?? t a l l y i n g}

? lisa gordon

?

{t h e?? b e s t}

? barton smock

?

{c o l o r?? p h o t o
g r a p h y}

{g o o d?? t i d i n g
s}

{q u i c k l y?? p a s
s i n g}

? luc simonic

?

{a d d i c t e d?? t
o?? l i v i n g}

? paul adrian mabelis

?

{e x c e r p t}

{d o w n}

{w i n t e r?? d a w
n?? s t a l l}

? matthew rounsville

?

{j u s t?? t o?? m i n d??
f u c k}

{t h e?? r e p r o d u
c t i o n?? o f?? p r o f i l e s}

{t h e?? m a r b l
e?? f a u n}

{t h e?? a n i m a
l?? l a n g u a g e s}

? amy king

?

{a?? s e r i e s?? o f??
p o e m s?? f o r?? r o b e r t??
b l y}

? ron androla


http://www.denversyntax.com/issue16/poems/poems.html



_______







Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From browning at splitthisrock.org  Mon Feb  2 05:12:54 2009
From: browning at splitthisrock.org (browning)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 11:12:54 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Call for submissions: Poetry for the Green Pages
Message-ID: <962554CDC8514444825379F9CA8E4022@SBLAPTOP>

Passing this on.

Sarah

**

Please circulate this message: 

The editorial board of the Green Pages--which until now has been a quarterly
newspaper but is switching, at least temporarily, to a strictly web-based
format--wants to begin publishing one or two poems in each issue. To see the
latest issue of this publication on-line visit:

http://gp.org/greenpages-blog/ 

Submissions should be on themes related to the ten key values of the Green
Party (see below). There is no limit on length, but shorter poems will
generally get preference over longer ones, all other factors being equal. 

You may submit one or more poems via email to: gppoetry at optimum.net. Include
your name and phone number in the body of the message. Include your poem(s)
as an attachment in either MSWord or text format to ensure that formatting
is preserved. We will attempt to acknowledge all submissions, and of course
inform those whose poetry is accepted for publication. 

Steve Bloom
Poetry Consultant
Green Pages

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------

TEN KEY VALUES OF THE GREEN PARTY

1. GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY
Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect their lives
and not be subject to the will of another. Therefore, we will work to
increase public participation at every level of government and to ensure
that our public representatives are fully accountable to the people who
elect them. We will also work to create new types of political organizations
which expand the process of participatory democracy by directly including
citizens in the decision-making process.

2. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from
the resources afforded us by society and the environment. We must
consciously confront in ourselves, our organizations, and society at large,
barriers such as racism and class oppression, sexism and homophobia, ageism
and disability, which act to deny fair treatment and equal justice under the
law.

3. ECOLOGICAL WISDOM
Human societies must operate with the understanding that we are part of
nature, not separate from nature.  We must maintain an ecological balance
and live within the ecological and resource limits of our communities and
our planet. We support a sustainable society which utilizes resources in
such a way that future generations will benefit and not suffer from the
practices of our generation. To this end we must practice agriculture which
replenishes the soil; move to an energy efficient economy; and live in ways
that respect the integrity of natural systems.

4. NON-VIOLENCE
It is essential that we develop effective alternatives to society's current
patterns of violence. We will work to demilitarize, and eliminate weapons of
mass destruction, without being naive about the intentions of other
governments.  We recognize the need for self-defense and the defense of
others who are in helpless situations. We promote non-violent methods to
oppose practices and policies with which we disagree, and will guide our
actions toward lasting personal, community and global peace.

5. DECENTRALIZATION
Centralization of wealth and power contributes to social and economic
injustice, environmental destruction, and militarization. Therefore, we
support a restructuring of social, political and economic institutions away
from a system which is controlled by and mostly benefits the powerful few,
to a democratic, less bureaucratic system. Decision-making should, as much
as possible, remain at the individual and local level, while assuring that
civil rights are protected for all citizens.

6. COMMUNITY-BASED ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
We recognize it is essential to create a vibrant and sustainable economic
system, one that can create jobs and provide a decent standard of living for
all people while maintaining a healthy ecological balance. A successful
economic system will offer meaningful work with dignity, while paying a
"living wage" which reflects the real value of a person's work.

Local communities must look to economic development that assures protection
of the environment and workers' rights; broad citizen participation in
planning; and enhancement of our "quality of life." We support independently
owned and operated companies which are socially responsible, as well as
co-operatives and public enterprises that distribute resources and control
to more people through democratic participation.

7. FEMINISM AND GENDER EQUITY
We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and
economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination
and control with more cooperative ways of interacting that respect
differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the
sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with
moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our
decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we want.

8. RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY
We believe it is important to value cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual,
religious and spiritual diversity, and to promote the development of
respectful relationships across these lines.

We believe that the many diverse elements of society should be reflected in
our organizations and decision-making bodies, and we support the leadership
of people who have been traditionally closed out of leadership roles. We
acknowledge and encourage respect for other life forms than our own and the
preservation of biodiversity.

9. PERSONAL AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY
We encourage individuals to act to improve their personal well-being and, at
the same time, to enhance ecological balance and social harmony. We seek to
join with people and organizations around the world to foster peace,
economic justice, and the health of the planet.

10. FUTURE FOCUS AND SUSTAINABILITY
Our actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals. We seek to
protect valuable natural resources, safely disposing of or "unmaking" all
waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not
depend on continual expansion for survival. We must counterbalance the drive
for short-term profits by assuring that economic development, new
technologies, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations who
will inherit the results of our actions.

 <http://www.greens.org/values/> Ten Key Values from other state and local
Greens.
There is no authoritative version of the Ten Key Values of the Greens.  The
Ten Key Values are guiding principles that are adapted and defined to fit
each state and local chapter.

 

 

**

Sarah Browning

Co-Director

Split This Rock Poetry Festival

c/o Institute for Policy Studies

1112 16th Street, NW, Suite 600

Washington, DC 20036

 <mailto:browning at splitthisrock.org> browning at splitthisrock.org

 <http://www.splitthisrock.org/> www.splitthisrock.org

202-787-5210

 

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From AlMaginnes at aol.com  Mon Feb  2 06:57:43 2009
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com (AlMaginnes at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 06:57:43 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
Message-ID: <d06.4b14cc4e.36b839b7@aol.com>

Speaking of Whitehead, he wrote a nice sonnet called "Linemen Lived In A  
Closed World."
**************Stay up to date on the latest news - from sports scores to 
stocks and so much more. (http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000022)
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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb  2 10:28:47 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:28:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know
In-Reply-To: <d06.4b14cc4e.36b839b7@aol.com>
References: <d06.4b14cc4e.36b839b7@aol.com>
Message-ID: <8CB5362128E006E-48C-604@WEBMAIL-DY37.sysops.aol.com>


Sam posted a link to it...
I wish there was some more specific imagery in it, but I do like the idea of the linemen being locked in a world of endless conflict, and giving them a nobility as they
ply their trade within a kind of nether space.
Finnegan
....

Good Linemen Live in a Closed World 


Good linemen live in a closed world -- they move
Inside themselves to move themselves against
The others and their violence -- they give
To interior visions whole seasons no good sense
Would approve -- their insides creak and groan, crying
A thing that's trapped along the line is shrill
And curious and wants out. Bodies playing
Laugh and dream to gain the massive will
Their trade requires. These men maintain, they attack,
They suffer repetition for years and years.
Part war and similar to art, their work
Is sometimes elegant. Inside their fears
At the closed center of one fear, they move
Quickly against themselves with a massive love.



?-- James Whitehead


-----Original Message-----
From: AlMaginnes at aol.com
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 6:57 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] The only football poem I know




Speaking of Whitehead, he wrote a nice sonnet called "Linemen Lived In A Closed World."

Stay up to date on the latest news - from sports scores to stocks and so much more.




_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Mon Feb  2 11:11:12 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 11:11:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>

I've been reading Keith Tuma's *By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and Postmodern
British Poetry and American Readers* and his *Anthology of Twentieth-Century
British & Irish Poetry* for my comprehensive examinations.

I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been reading,
poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading for my exams.  So,
forgive me if some of my questions of observations seem elementary or
self-evident.

By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is Basil Bunting,
a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate and graduate years as an
English major.  I like *Briggflats* quite a lot, though I'm still grappling
with the poem.  Bunting's lines with their heavy stresses and Anglo-saxon
vocabulary remind me of Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."  The poem
itself is a Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound
immediately.

But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with Eliot's more
"universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe "far-reaching?")
concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with this place (his place?):
Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into the landscape, carving itself into
the land, not unlike the mason carving stone in the poem's opening lines.
Despite his concern with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in
a dose of mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves
through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved notions--such
as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.

So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on earth is
he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me--I've not checked)
in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.  Perhaps he's not ignored;
perhaps I've just missed him.  Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a
conversation about a poet who really has my ear right now.

Best,
Jeff Newberry

--
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From skip at louisiana.edu  Mon Feb  2 11:42:53 2009
From: skip at louisiana.edu (Skip Fox)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 10:42:53 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <FA1EBF02B76F4CE6BACA955FBDCF9AA7@win.louisiana.edu>

Barbara Lesch's 1979 diss. (made into a book?) is very good on Bunting.
Providing a base for a solid reading.  I've not kept up with the
scholarship, but it's my understanding that in the last 20 years he's
received a lot more attention.

 

For me, he's one of the central British/Irish poets along with Yeats, Auden,
Thomas, Prince, & Hughes. Small corpus, but then they say he was a "master
of fireplace and poker" (used to burn a lot of mss.).

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Jeff Newberry
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 10:11 AM
To: NewPoetry
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting

 

I've been reading Keith Tuma's By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and Postmodern
British Poetry and American Readers and his Anthology of Twentieth-Century
British & Irish Poetry for my comprehensive examinations.

I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been reading,
poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading for my exams.  So,
forgive me if some of my questions of observations seem elementary or
self-evident.

By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is Basil Bunting,
a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate and graduate years as an
English major.  I like Briggflats quite a lot, though I'm still grappling
with the poem.  Bunting's lines with their heavy stresses and Anglo-saxon
vocabulary remind me of Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."  The poem
itself is a Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound
immediately.  

But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with Eliot's more
"universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe "far-reaching?")
concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with this place (his place?):
Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into the landscape, carving itself into
the land, not unlike the mason carving stone in the poem's opening lines.
Despite his concern with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in
a dose of mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves
through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved notions--such
as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.

So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on earth is
he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me--I've not checked)
in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.  Perhaps he's not ignored;
perhaps I've just missed him.  Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a
conversation about a poet who really has my ear right now.

Best,
Jeff Newberry

-- 

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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Mon Feb  2 12:13:04 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 17:13:04 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <FA1EBF02B76F4CE6BACA955FBDCF9AA7@win.louisiana.edu>
References: <FA1EBF02B76F4CE6BACA955FBDCF9AA7@win.louisiana.edu>
Message-ID: <1FF6BE56BB7E4EB09EB7216DD7159623@RobinPC>

From: Skip Fox

<<
For me, he's one of the central British/Irish poets along with Yeats, Auden, 
Thomas, Prince, & Hughes. Small corpus, but then they say he was a "master 
of fireplace and poker" (used to burn a lot of mss.).
>>

... or along with David Jones and Geoffrey Hill?

Very much the child of Pound.  He would seem to be bigger in the UK than the 
US.

Robin 




From gejs1 at rochester.rr.com  Mon Feb  2 13:21:59 2009
From: gejs1 at rochester.rr.com (Gerald Schwartz)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 13:21:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <DDA741356DFF44F78E009EEB66D29C05@yourae066c3a9b>

I've always read Briggflatts like a nineteeth-century adventure story, both victorian and modern.

Few poets social activism and peregrinations reavl so much as Bunting's, who understood the rhythms and conflicts of the century and was able to translate his wisdom into verbal music so prodigious and unigue as to transfor both British and American (see Duncan, Johnson, Wiliams...) poetic landscape.

Years ago, Pierre Joris, who filled me in on B. B.'s mideast espionage career, told me the rosetta stone to his work was a tiny excerpt from his "Villion,":

Presision clarifying vagueness; 
boundary to a wilderness
of detail; chisel voice
smoothing the flanks of noise;
catalytic making whisper and whisper
run together like two drops of quicksilver

Be Seeing you,
Gerald S. 


  I've been reading Keith Tuma's By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and Postmodern British Poetry and American Readers and his Anthology of Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry for my comprehensive examinations.

  I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been reading, poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading for my exams.  So, forgive me if some of my questions of observations seem elementary or self-evident.

  By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is Basil Bunting, a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate and graduate years as an English major.  I like Briggflats quite a lot, though I'm still grappling with the poem.  Bunting's lines with their heavy stresses and Anglo-saxon vocabulary remind me of Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."  The poem itself is a Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound immediately.  

  But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with Eliot's more "universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe "far-reaching?") concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with this place (his place?):  Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into the landscape, carving itself into the land, not unlike the mason carving stone in the poem's opening lines.  Despite his concern with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in a dose of mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved notions--such as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.

  So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on earth is he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me--I've not checked) in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.  Perhaps he's not ignored; perhaps I've just missed him.  Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a conversation about a poet who really has my ear right now.

  Best,
  Jeff Newberry

  -- 




------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  New-Poetry mailing list
  New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
  http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Mon Feb  2 13:45:21 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 19:45:21 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Groundhog Day
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902021045j1bd1cf23we1eb333b1e89c456@mail.gmail.com>

Happy Birthday to Bob Grumman,

and from the Writer's Almanac that reminds us all things:

German immigrants in Pennsylvania found that there weren't a lot of badgers
in America, but there were a lot of groundhogs, so the holiday evolved into
*Groundhog Day*. The first reference to Groundhog Day is from 1841, in the
diary of a storekeeper in Morgantown, Pennsylvania. He wrote: "Last Tuesday,
the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the
Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops
back for another six weeks' nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as
the weather is to be moderate."

-- 
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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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Mon Feb  2 13:50:33 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:50:33 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <DDA741356DFF44F78E009EEB66D29C05@yourae066c3a9b>
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
	<DDA741356DFF44F78E009EEB66D29C05@yourae066c3a9b>
Message-ID: <89ADA28069474FF9856B6327AFF5FBBD@RobinPC>

Yikes!!  I've just read Bunting's "Villon", published in Poetry in 1930 ...

        http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=8198

Unnerving.  I didn't think it would have been possible to overlay the early Cantos onto snibbits from "The Testament", but there you are.

I have to say, this confirms my reluctance to take Bunting at all seriously.

        <g>
  Years ago, Pierre Joris, who filled me in on B. B.'s mideast espionage career ... 

  Hm ...  I hadn't known he was an actual spook.

  I carefully didn't mention the Agenda connection.

  Robin
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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 14:47:37 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 11:47:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Millay Colony for the Arts Party at Bowery Poetry Club
Message-ID: <853879.59537.qm@web83306.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

On behalf of Cara Benson:

?
The Millay Colony for the Arts is hosting a party for residents of the Colony at?Bowery Poetry Club 
February 4 at 6:00 PM. 
?
Readings and performance from Damian Van Denburgh, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Katy Lederer, Peter Gil-Sheridan & Samita Sinha. 
Open mic follows. Drink specials and food.

Cost: Free for former residents and current applicants. All others $5.

Call 518-392-4144 for more information.
?
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery at Bleecker St., NYC
?

_______



Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 14:58:17 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 11:58:17 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Not in NYC?  Bill Berkson, Cindy Cruz, Aaron Fagan,
	Jennifer Fortin, Jean-Paul Pecqueur and Bill Rasmovicz
Message-ID: <496146.78808.qm@web83308.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Video of Friday's reading



You missed it? You're not in NY (and why should you be?) No problem!
Bill Berkson, Cindy Cruz, Aaron Fagan, Jennifer Fortin, Jean-Paul
Pecqueur and Bill Rasmovicz talking and shining in little boxes:


http://stainofpoetry.wordpress.com/video/? 


xo!



Ana and Amy

_______





Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From skip at louisiana.edu  Mon Feb  2 15:45:33 2009
From: skip at louisiana.edu (Skip Fox)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 14:45:33 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <89ADA28069474FF9856B6327AFF5FBBD@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <CE469999B315461DB4C3219BAA6D3089@win.louisiana.edu>

I can understand a complaint against the very early "Villon," but not much
of a one against ""The Orotava Road" about "an incident" in the Canary
Islands:

 

 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177185

 

 

An essence of the serious in such attentiveness and art, it seems to me.

 

 

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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Mon Feb  2 15:50:43 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 15:50:43 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <89ADA28069474FF9856B6327AFF5FBBD@RobinPC>
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
	<DDA741356DFF44F78E009EEB66D29C05@yourae066c3a9b>
	<89ADA28069474FF9856B6327AFF5FBBD@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902021250o1d820db0re734ee41a1639f85@mail.gmail.com>

Robin,

Help me out here.  You're saying that "Villon" is either a) plagiarism (but,
egad, what Modernist work--outside of perhaps Stein--isn't?) or b) a pale
imitation of Pound, no?

Can you say a bit more here?  Not trying to be testy--just genuinely
interested.

Best,
Jeff Newberry

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Robin Hamilton <
robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:

>  Yikes!!  I've just read Bunting's "Villon", published in *Poetry* in 1930
> ...
> **
>         http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=8198
>
> Unnerving.  I didn't think it would have been possible to overlay the early
> Cantos onto snibbits from "The Testament", but there you are.
>
> I have to say, this confirms my reluctance to take Bunting at all
> seriously.
>
>         <g>
>
> Years ago, Pierre Joris, who filled me in on B. B.'s mideast espionage
> career ...
>
> Hm ...  I hadn't known he was an actual spook.
>
> I carefully didn't mention the *Agenda* connection.
>
> Robin
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>






























*There's nothing that interesting this far down the page.  *
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  2 17:28:51 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:28:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Groundhog Day
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902021045j1bd1cf23we1eb333b1e89c456@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4b65c2d70902021045j1bd1cf23we1eb333b1e89c456@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498773A3.5050003@nut-n-but.net>

Anny Ballardini wrote:
> Happy Birthday to Bob Grumman,
>
> and from the Writer's Almanac that reminds us all things:
>
> German immigrants in Pennsylvania found that there weren't a lot of 
> badgers in America, but there were a lot of groundhogs, so the holiday 
> evolved into *Groundhog Day*. The first reference to Groundhog Day is 
> from 1841, in the diary of a storekeeper in Morgantown, Pennsylvania. 
> He wrote: "Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, 
> according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter 
> quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks' 
> nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be 
> moderate."
Hey, Anny, what's really neat about that is that I was born exactly 100 
years later!  You see, you see!!!!

--Bob Grumhog
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  2 18:15:16 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:15:16 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Effective-Poem Check-List, Housman
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902021250o1d820db0re734ee41a1639f85@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com><DDA741356DFF44F78E009EEB66D29C05@yourae066c3a9b><89ADA2
	8069474FF9856B6327AFF5FBBD@RobinPC>
	<731bb17a0902021250o1d820db0re734ee41a1639f85@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49877E84.5030801@nut-n-but.net>

I've had a tough day: got rained on going to a substitute teaching 
assignment, and have been fighting off some kind of head cold for the 
past few days.  I did a rough draft of my Analysis of the Houseman poem 
yesterday but it needs a lot more work, and I'm too beat to do it 
today.  So, I'll start by posting my paraphrase, followed by a few 
comments sure to bore Judy:

    Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
   
The boughs of the cherry trees, which are the most beautiful trees

    Is hung with bloom along the bough,

are laden with blossoms at this time

    And stands about the woodland ride

and line the trail through the woods

    Wearing white for Eastertide.

decked out in a white hue appropriate for Easter
(which is the happiest time of the year)

    Now, of my threescore years and ten,
    Twenty will not come again,

At this time, twenty of the seventy years the Bible suggests I'll have
are gone permanently.

    And take from seventy springs a score,

If you subtract twenty springtimes from seventy

    It only leaves me fifty more.

it will leave me just fifty more years of life


    And since to look at things in bloom
    Fifty springs are little room,

Because fifty years of springtimes don't give one much time
to enjoying looking at Nature's blossomings

    About the woodlands I will go

I'll proceed through the woods (right away)

    To see the cherry hung with snow.

To take in (as much as I can of) the beauty of the snow-like blossoms of 
the cherry tree.

The paraphrase is lengthy, perhaps too lengthy, but I believe a 
paraphrase should cover every word in the text paraphrased, and I did my 
best to do that.  A paraphrase that says too much is better than one 
that fails to say all it should.  I also expect to improve my paraphrase 
in due course.

I believe my paraphrase twice goes beyond paraphrase into what is 
implied by the text: the connection to the Bible four score and ten 
makes, and the fact that Eastertide is a happy time.  This brings up a 
question for me: I think a proper understanding of a poem requires, to 
begin with, a paraphrase that states in the simplest and most complete 
terms exactly what the poem explicitly says--AND something else that 
states in the simplest and most complete terms what the poem SAYS to any 
serious, knowledgeable engagent--which means things like the connection 
to the Bible, and the connotations.  Question: is there a name for such 
an enhanced paraphrase?  Or is a paraphrase expected to include what's 
implied?  I'm inclined to call the first kind of paraphrase a 
"denotational paraphrase," and the second a "full paraphrase." 

Later I expect to try to make a full paraphrase of this poem.

Okay, I've decided I should be able to give a very quick rough Judyan 
evaluation of the Housman, using my new check-list.  So, does the poem, 
for me:

(1) express something importantly true or represents of something 
centrally beautiful--
assuming it doesn't do both?

It does both.  Moreover, I think it expresses more than one important 
truth.  Note: I've been thinking that an excellent poem needn't express 
the same important truth to two people, it's sufficient that it express 
/some/ important truth to both.  I feel I know what the main meaning of 
the poem is but am not yet able to express it properly.  It is some 
combination of "Beauty is at least as important as anything else in 
existence,"  and "Seize not the moment but the lifetime--in this case, 
don't even think about a fling with Persephone, marry her."  Plus, 
"Hurrah for springtime and cherry trees."

But the poem has more meanings that are of value if not perhaps 
Important that I want to discuss but can't yet do coherently.

(2) have sufficient Thematic Misdirection, or something that makes its 
ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but 
eventually achieves Clarity?

The poem is weakest in this area but does, for me, have thematic 
indirection.  I'll just mention one instance of it: simply its taking a 
long time getting to its (surface) point, and doing so metrically, with 
all kinds of poetic devices, getting in the way of a quick prose 
understanding of its theme.  I also think its true theme is much more 
complex than a paraphrase of it indicates--so much so that I'm having 
trouble working it out.  This strongly suggests some kind of 
misdirection is going on.

(3) have a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like 
which pulls its elements
reasonably close together?

Yes.  I have a lot to say on this, but won't say it here.

(4) contain few or no superfluous words?

Not for me.  At a few place ("along the bough") it has text unneeded 
from its prose meaning but needed for its music, which is as important.

(5) boast some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have 
such as
uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
art), and imagery?

Several.  One is its tonal wit, you might call it, when it uses 
arithmetical calculation against lyrical swoonery.

(6) avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or 
thought; too overt
Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;

I don't think so.  I find nothing wrong with its rhymes.  None is in the 
love/above category, though none is brilliant.  Ditto the choice of 
words.  The use of the other sound devices is superior.  The meter is 
pentameter and tetrameter, with weak-beats lopped at the beginning of 
three or four lines to energizing effect, I think.  (It's not tetrameter 
and trimeter, Robin, so not a jingly-seeming as Dickinson's meter can 
seem, especially in a Serious Context like funerals, which the Housman 
is merrily not.)

So, it's an excellent poem for me.

Possible biases: I love spring, and I much prefer happy poems, 
healthy-seeming poems.

--Bob


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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb  2 18:18:32 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:18:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] on the down low
Message-ID: <8CB53A3B314CBFF-1184-324@webmail-dx01.sysops.aol.com>


Shssss...Don't let Bob know about this blog...
http://otherclutter.com/

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the sign post up ahead, your next stop...The VizPo Zone!...




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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb  2 19:32:39 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:32:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-193F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>










Loveliest of trees, the cherry now


Is hung with bloom along the bough,


And stands about the woodland ride


Wearing white for Eastertide.





?? ? ? Then we run into Biblical phrasing for the rather touchingly ironic feature that the speaker is so young,

?? ? ? yet concerned with last things. A bit of an air of comedy added by "only fifty more" where by tradition

?? ? ?this subject would demand a setting close to the end of partaking, that "grab what you still can while still around" motif.

?? ? ? I'd?add (forgive me) that even the obvious rhymes throughout support the "simplicity" that charms me in the poem.










Now, of my threescore years and ten,


Twenty will not come again,


And take from seventy springs a score,


It only leaves me fifty more.






?? ? ?I love the unpressured, quiet way the logic of the concluding statement works: given that the lovely tree is blooming

?? ? ?in the season of pain that turns to hope, and that I, the speaker, am mortal with limited days, it follows that...

?? ? I will go and partake. Anything more grand in the way of device or experiement -- their lack here lowering for

?? ? some the poem's "score" ?-- would take away from the spell of innocent affirmation (with subterrainian death-dread)

?? ? that the work enforces. ??





And since to look at things in bloom


Fifty springs are little room,


About the woodlands I will go


To see the cherry hung with snow.







-----Original Message-----
From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 3:51 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman


Applying the Check List to such a canonical piece is difficult.
Here's one I've always read and loved as a key carpe diem poem that clearly

falls flat (as Judy notes) in terms of innovation-areas of the Famous List

TO ITS BETTERMENT, I will claim below.




I take it that to give a work a Prix d'Or one remains free to assume that Excellence

in this game doesn't mean that all list-categories must yield enthusiastic response.

Keep them all in mind, sure, but ignore those irrelevant (how much more so,

I'd guess, with "Bananas..." (?) )




That said, my case for excellence:?




Telling start with an alternate foot, refreshing mastery, authority in gentle assertiveness

of tone;?2nd line's alliteration pleasing, and also forwards in its simplicity the asserted loveliness of

the blooming; connection to Easter in l.4 a powerful ideological note with its

death & resurrection associations; I'd add, softie that I am, the sense of whiteness

in the blooms (and later in "snow" as evoked) offers an additive to the emotion of

perceived innocence, purity, in the affection for natural beauty.








?????????????II





Loveliest of trees, the cherry now


Is hung with bloom along the bough,


And stands about the woodland ride


Wearing white for Eastertide.





?? ? ? Then we run into Biblical phrasing for the rather touchingly ironic feature that the speaker is so young,

?? ? ? yet concerned with last things. A bit of an air of comedy added by "only fifty more" where by tradition

?? ? ?this subject would demand a setting close to the end of partaking, that "grab what you still can while still around" motif.

?? ? ? I'd?add (forgive me) that even the obvious rhymes throughout support the "simplicity" that charms me in the poem.










Now, of my threescore years and ten,


Twenty will not come again,


And take from seventy springs a score,


It only leaves me fifty more.






?? ? ?I love the unpressured, quiet way the logic of the concluding statement works: given that the lovely tree is blooming

?? ? ?in the season of pain that turns to hope, and that I, the speaker, am mortal with limited days, it follows that...

?? ? I will go and partake. Anything more grand in the way of device or experiement -- their lack here lowering for

?? ? some the poem's "score" ?-- would take away from the spell of innocent affirmation (with subterrainian death-dread)

?? ? that the work enforces. ??





And since to look at things in bloom


Fifty springs are little room,


About the woodlands I will go


To see the cherry hung with snow.





So my defense of the piece as EXCELLENT INDEED brings up questions about the utility of the Check List in

allowing one to reach such a verdict with such a poem.




?? ? How dem professors do go on Miz Sally!




?? ? Barry















= 


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From jforjames at aol.com  Mon Feb  2 19:44:45 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:44:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-193F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net>
	<8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-193F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>


Pardon again, my errant reply...Here's what I meant to chime in with:

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.


(Nice clean pastoral start. A sauntering diction like a horse-drawn carriage ride. And the hint of the death/ressurection dyad?as the stanza?the end.)



Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.


(The second stanza may be a classic example of filling things out?for sake of rime scheme. The information is all given in first two lines,?but then is?restated by reversing the mental math. It begins to sound a bit like one of those math word?problems you were tested with in grade school: "If one train traveling west left Cleveland at 10 o'clock, traveling 100 miles per hour, and twenty minutes later another train left Chicago traveling east...)


And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.


(In the end, the?great failure?of the poem is that something conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry trees in 
bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the poet. The great poets tend to?see as beautiful the things that other's might overlook. A haiku poet would have done this poem in three lines, and saved us 9 more, pace the logic of?the second stanza.)


Finnegan
-----Original Message-----
From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 3:51 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman


Applying the Check List to such a canonical piece is difficult.
Here's one I've always read and loved as a key carpe diem poem that clearly
falls flat (as Judy notes) in terms of innovation-areas of the Famous List
TO ITS BETTERMENT, I will claim below.


I take it that to give a work a Prix d'Or one remains free to assume that Excellence
in this game doesn't mean that all list-categories must yield enthusiastic response.
Keep them all in mind, sure, but ignore those irrelevant (how much more so,
I'd guess, with "Bananas..." (?) )


That said, my case for excellence: 


Telling start with an alternate foot, refreshing mastery, authority in gentle assertiveness
of tone; 2nd line's alliteration pleasing, and also forwards in its simplicity the asserted loveliness of
the blooming; connection to Easter in l.4 a powerful ideological note with its
death & resurrection associations; I'd add, softie that I am, the sense of whiteness
in the blooms (and later in "snow" as evoked) offers an additive to the emotion of
perceived innocence, purity, in the affection for natural beauty.




???????????? II



Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.


?????? Then we run into Biblical phrasing for the rather touchingly ironic feature that the speaker is so young,
?????? yet concerned with last things. A bit of an air of comedy added by "only fifty more" where by tradition
????? this subject would demand a setting close to the end of partaking, that "grab what you still can while still around" motif.
?????? I'd add (forgive me) that even the obvious rhymes throughout support the "simplicity" that charms me in the poem.




Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.



????? I love the unpressured, quiet way the logic of the concluding statement works: given that the lovely tree is blooming
????? in the season of pain that turns to hope, and that I, the speaker, am mortal with limited days, it follows that...
???? I will go and partake. Anything more grand in the way of device or experiement -- their lack here lowering for
???? some the poem's "score"? -- would take away from the spell of innocent affirmation (with subterrainian death-dread)
???? that the work enforces.?? 


And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.



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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  2 19:58:32 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:58:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu><6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net><8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-1
	93F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
	<8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498796B8.9020801@nut-n-but.net>


> (The second stanza may be a classic example of filling things out for 
> sake of rime scheme. The information is all given in first two 
> lines, but then is restated by reversing the mental math. It begins to 
> sound a bit like one of those math word problems you were tested with 
> in grade school: "If one train traveling west left Cleveland at 10 
> o'clock, traveling 100 miles per hour, and twenty minutes later 
> another train left Chicago traveling east...)
Haw, James, I consider the second stanza to be what makes this poem 
great.  Pretty much for the reasons you find it poor, although I don't 
think it fills things out for the sake of the rhyme scheme.  The first 
two lines tell us the speaker is 20.  It doesn't tell us that leaves him 
50 more.  We can do the arithmetic, yes, but the poet is directing us 
from the age of the poet to how many years he has left.  He's making 
that the subject.

--Bob



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Mon Feb  2 20:20:20 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 20:20:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com>
	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net> <49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>
	<26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC>
	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>

We now have evaluations from Barry, me, Bob, and Finnegan on Housman's
'Loveliest of trees', and I wanted to let you all know more about Linda Sue
Grimes' interpretation of the poem's 'message'.  I had read the following
paragraph of Linda Sue's, thought it intriguing and came up with my
interpretation sent in two days ago, as given further below.  Here's Linda
Sue's paragraph, from April 1, 2007:
"A.E. Housman's 'Loveliest of trees,' often misread as a carpe diem poem,
actually offers a way to increase the enjoyment of beauty, not just grasp it
for a while."

Today I read her article which the paragraph above introduces.  Here's a
paragraph from the article that gets to the core of her interpretation:

"In the third stanza, the speaker claims that because fifty more
opportunities to enjoy these lovely trees with their luscious blossoms is
not enough, he will go to observe the same trees also in winter, when they
are 'hung with snow'.  That way the speaker doubles his opportunities to
enjoy the cherry trees 'wearing white'."

The entire brief article is a clear, logical argument for her interpretation
which is well worth our serious consideration.  She and I find it the most
logical of interpretations.  The poem itself is further below, and   here's
the url for Linda Sue's article:

http://poetry.suite101.com/article.cfm/housmans_loveliest_of_trees

Best,

Judy



2009/1/31 Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>

> OK, here goes my paraphrase and then my evaluation of AEHousman's Loveliest
> of Trees:
> PARAPHRASE:
>
> The cherry, most beautiful of all trees,
> is covered with white blossoms now as if celebrating Easter.
>
> Twenty of my [Biblically-promised] seventy years are spent,
> so I'll only see fifty more springs---
> not enough time to enjoy blooming things;
>
> hence I'll walk these woods in the winters, as well,
> to see the cherry boughs hung with snow.
>
> EVALUATION according to Bob's WEPD checklist:
>
> 1)  Importance:  Agreeing with Linda Sue Grimes, I feel it's not exactly a
> carpe diem poem.  I think it tells us to expect and to look for beauty
> even in the starkest times.  Not an insignificant observation.
>
> 2)  Clear, uncliched devices/forms:  I'd give it a ZERO for rockinghorse
> cliches, rhythms, rhymes.
>
> 3)  Word economy:  Pore H, he flails around, esp in the 2nd stanza, trying
> to squish and wiggle his slender meanings into a rhyming.  Was this the
> first poem he ever wrote?
>
> 4)  Impressive, uncommon diction or imagery:  ZERO.
>
> Not an Excellent poem.  Not a Good poem.  Maybe a sweet practice poem that
> has a significant message put in impoverishedly poetic form [like this
> sentence].
>
> Judy considering Barry's forthput banana poem next
>
> 2009/1/31 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
>
>  Oops -- my bad.  There's no indentation of any lines in the original, as
>> my previous transcription seemed to imply.
>>
>> R.
>>
>>               II
>>
>> Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>> Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>> And stands about the woodland ride
>> Wearing white for Eastertide.
>>
>> Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>> Twenty will not come again,
>> And take from seventy springs a score,
>> It only leaves me fifty more.
>>
>> And since to look at things in bloom
>> Fifty springs are little room,
>> About the woodlands I will go
>> To see the cherry hung with snow.
>>
>> A. E. Housman
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>
>
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Mon Feb  2 20:41:38 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 20:41:38 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Alicia Stallings on rhyme
Message-ID: <6768ac830902021741m41abbdb9s3c2afed0092b9c8@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/feature.html?id=182841

She's my hero.  An excerpt:

-----------
All rhymed poetry must be rhyme-driven. This is no longer to be considered
pejorative.

Rhyme is at the wheel. No, rhyme is the engine.

Rhyme is an engine of syntax: like meter, it understands the importance of
prepositions.

English is not rhyme poor. It is only uninflected. On the contrary, English
has a richness in rhymes across different parts of speech; whereas in many
other languages, rhyme is often merely a coincident jingle of accidence.

There are no tired rhymes. There are no forbidden rhymes. Rhymes are not
predictable unless lines are. Death and breath, womb and tomb, love and of,
moon, June, spoon, all still have great poems ahead of them.
--------

Huzzah!
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  2 20:51:41 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:51:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b
	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net>
	<49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0
	901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4987A32D.2020001@nut-n-but.net>


> "In the third stanza, the speaker claims that because fifty more 
> opportunities to enjoy these lovely trees with their luscious blossoms 
> is not enough, he will go to observe the same trees also in winter, 
> when they are 'hung with snow'.  That way the speaker doubles his 
> opportunities to enjoy the cherry trees 'wearing white'."
Her interpretation isn't illogical, it's just wrong.  That's because The 
poet spends a stanza describing the cherry trees right now.  He's not 
then going to say, "So off I'll go to enjoy them this coming winter."  
He also says he wants to enjoy the blooms; snow isn't a bloom.  Plus, he 
doesn't say 50 springs aren't enough, only that they are "little room."  
The lean seems therefore toward, I'd better make the most of what little 
room there is.  Last observation, if the poet wants to say he wants to 
double his pleasure of the trees' beauty by seeing them in winter, he 
could have said, "About the woods I'll also go/ To see the cherry hung 
with snow."  Oops, one more thought--that this idea is abrupt.  It also 
seems to me to distract from the idea of enjoying them while the poet 
can--because it's like a solution to his problem--for all we know, 
enjoying them in winter as well as spring would be enough.  In any case, 
it lessens the urgency of getting out there and enjoying them now, right 
away.

Can't stop: cherry trees aren't going to be any more beautiful in winter 
than any other non-evergreen.

--Bob




From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Mon Feb  2 20:50:53 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 20:50:53 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net>
	<8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-193F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
	<8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 7:44 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> (In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something conventially
> seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry trees in
> bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the
> poet. The great poets tend to see as beautiful the things that other's might
> overlook. A haiku poet would have done this poem in three lines, and saved
> us 9 more, pace the logic of the second stanza.)
>

Finnegan, sometmes the great poets point to things the rest of us may
overlook ? and sometimes thy remind us of the great common themes of human
life, in langauge that ,makes it new again.
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  2 21:01:10 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:01:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Alicia Stallings on rhyme
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902021741m41abbdb9s3c2afed0092b9c8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6768ac830902021741m41abbdb9s3c2afed0092b9c8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4987A566.3030608@nut-n-but.net>

Michael Snider wrote:
> http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/feature.html?id=182841
>
> She's my hero.  An excerpt:
>
> -----------
> All rhymed poetry must be rhyme-driven. This is no longer to be 
> considered pejorative. 
>
> Rhyme is at the wheel. No, rhyme is the engine. 
>
> Rhyme is an engine of syntax: like meter, it understands the 
> importance of prepositions.
>
> English is not rhyme poor. It is only uninflected. On the contrary, 
> English has a richness in rhymes across different parts of speech; 
> whereas in many other languages, rhyme is often merely a coincident 
> jingle of accidence. 
>
> There are no tired rhymes. There are no forbidden rhymes. Rhymes are 
> not predictable unless lines are. Death and breath, womb and tomb, 
> love and of, moon, June, spoon, all still have great poems ahead of them. 
> --------
>
> Huzzah!
I like what she says.  I think bad rhymes aren't the fault of the . . . 
rhymenants, I call them, but of their placement.  "love/above" is often 
a bad rhyme not because of the two words but because "love" is misplaced 
in order to get it where it can end-rhyme as in "Give your love/ to God 
above."  Or rhymes can be too expected and therefore very irritating due 
to the triteness of the poem they're in.  If a poet has a "you" at the 
end of one line, then immediately brings in the sky, you know "blue" is 
gonna come up.

Also, she exaggerates.  I think great rhyming poems are in part driven, 
have to be driven, by rhyme, but the can be driven in part by other 
things--and should be.

What I like most is that she makes it clear she's talking about "rhymed 
poetry," not "poetry."

--Bob
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Mon Feb  2 21:24:39 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 21:24:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <4987A32D.2020001@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net> <49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>
	<26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC>
	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
	<4987A32D.2020001@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902021824s5550787aw1bb33bd1434d17c7@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

>
> Can't stop: cherry trees aren't going to be any more beautiful in winter
> than any other non-evergreen.


But their shapes maybe lovely ? trees of different species are not
necessarily more alike without thir leaves ? and the beholding of them can
be infused withthe beholders memory: "bare ruined choirs where late the
sweet birds sang."
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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 21:42:42 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:42:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com>
	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net> <49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>
	<26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC>
	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Funny you should send this interpretation because that's the way I've always read the poem:  That the speaker, noting that there's not enough room to look at things in bloom in spring only, must also go about the woodlands in winter to look at the trees while they're hung with snow.  And, to respond to Bob, yes, the cherry may look no different from any other deciduous tree in winter, but it is.  Since it's a cherry tree hung with white it implies spring and the blooms.  Squint and it's spring!  Okay, bundle up and wear boots, and then squint and it's spring.  You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't think it's blatantly wrong.  The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.  It doesn't even mention boots.

John J







________________________________
From: Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
To: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>; "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &, Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 2, 2009 8:20:20 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem

We now have evaluations from Barry, me, Bob, and Finnegan on Housman's 'Loveliest of trees', and I wanted to let you all know more about Linda Sue Grimes' interpretation of the poem's 'message'.  I had read the following paragraph of Linda Sue's, thought it intriguing and came up with my interpretation sent in two days ago, as given further below.  Here's Linda Sue's paragraph, from April 1, 2007: 

"A.E. Housman's 'Loveliest of trees,' often misread as a carpe diem poem, actually offers a way to increase the enjoyment of beauty, not just grasp it for a while."

Today I read her article which the paragraph above introduces.  Here's a paragraph from the article that gets to the core of her interpretation: 

"In the third stanza, the speaker claims that because fifty more opportunities to enjoy these lovely trees with their luscious blossoms is not enough, he will go to observe the same trees also in winter, when they are 'hung with snow'.  That way the speaker doubles his opportunities to enjoy the cherry trees 'wearing white'." 

The entire brief article is a clear, logical argument for her interpretation which is well worth our serious consideration.  She and I find it the most logical of interpretations.  The poem itself is further below, and   here's the url for Linda Sue's article:  

http://poetry.suite101.com/article.cfm/housmans_loveliest_of_trees

Best,

Judy





2009/1/31 Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>

OK, here goes my paraphrase and then my evaluation of AEHousman's Loveliest of Trees:

PARAPHRASE:

The cherry, most beautiful of all trees,
is covered with white blossoms now as if celebrating Easter.

Twenty of my [Biblically-promised] seventy years are spent,
so I'll only see fifty more springs---
not enough time to enjoy blooming things;

hence I'll walk these woods in the winters, as well,
to see the cherry boughs hung with snow.

EVALUATION according to Bob's WEPD checklist:

1)  Importance:  Agreeing with Linda Sue Grimes, I feel it's not exactly a carpe diem poem.  I think it tells us to expect and to look for beauty even in the starkest times.  Not an insignificant observation.

2)  Clear, uncliched devices/forms:  I'd give it a ZERO for rockinghorse cliches, rhythms, rhymes.  

3)  Word economy:  Pore H, he flails around, esp in the 2nd stanza, trying to squish and wiggle his slender meanings into a rhyming.  Was this the first poem he ever wrote?

4)  Impressive, uncommon diction or imagery:  ZERO.

Not an Excellent poem.  Not a Good poem.  Maybe a sweet practice poem that has a significant message put in impoverishedly poetic form [like this sentence].

Judy considering Barry's forthput banana poem next


2009/1/31 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>


Oops -- my bad.  There's no indentation of any lines in the original, as my previous transcription seemed to imply.

R.

              II


Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

A. E. Housman 


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


      
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Feb  2 22:18:15 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:18:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b
	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net>
	<49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0
	901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
	<269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4987B777.9010505@nut-n-but.net>


> You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't think it's 
> blatantly wrong.
Agreed.

> The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look at 
things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung 
with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in 
bloom.  To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them. 

--Bob
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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Mon Feb  2 22:41:53 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 19:41:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b
	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net>
	<49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0
	901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
	<269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<4987B777.9010505@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them when they are hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two score years and ten.

JohnJ





________________________________
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 2, 2009 10:18:15 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem



You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't think
it's blatantly wrong. 

Agreed.


The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it. 

But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look at
things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung
with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in
bloom.  To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them.  

--Bob



      
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Mon Feb  2 23:02:49 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:02:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902021824s5550787aw1bb33bd1434d17c7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net>
	<49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>	<26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC>	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>	<4987A32D.2020001@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902021824s5550787aw1bb33bd1434d17c7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4987C1E9.4070801@opus40.org>

They might be, but it's still not what Housman is saying. I'm with Bob 
here all the way.

Michael Snider wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>> wrote:
>
>
>     Can't stop: cherry trees aren't going to be any more beautiful in
>     winter than any other non-evergreen.
>
>
> But their shapes maybe lovely ? trees of different species are not 
> necessarily more alike without thir leaves ? and the beholding of them 
> can be infused withthe beholders memory: "bare ruined choirs where 
> late the sweet birds sang."
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Mon Feb  2 23:06:49 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:06:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net>	<49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0	901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>	<269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>	<4987B777.9010505@nut-n-but.net>
	<630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4987C2D9.8040403@opus40.org>

That knocks the underpinnings out of the whole sense of urgency, Don't 
worry, it's not just the 50 springs, you have winters too. And summers 
and falls too...what the heck. The whole point is that for most very 
young men, fifty years is an eternity -- and yet, only a very young man 
is capable of that special kind of wonder to say that 50 springs is 
little room.

John Jeffrey wrote:
> Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he 
> must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them 
> when they are hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two 
> score years and ten.
>
> JohnJ
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> *To:* "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" 
> <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2009 10:18:15 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
>
>
>> You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't think it's 
>> blatantly wrong.
> Agreed.
>
>> The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
> But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look at 
> things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry 
> hung with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in 
> bloom.  To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them. 
>
> --Bob
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From halvard at gmail.com  Mon Feb  2 23:20:30 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 22:20:30 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <4987B777.9010505@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net> <49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>
	<26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC>
	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
	<269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<4987B777.9010505@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902022020o23c55f58hcf32020dd9267b93@mail.gmail.com>

If you haven't seen blossoming cherry trees hung with literal snow, Bob,
you've
never lived in Washington, DC.

Hal

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 9:18 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

>
>  You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't think it's
> blatantly wrong.
>
> Agreed.
>
>  The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
>
> But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look at
> things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung with
> snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in bloom.  To be
> reminded of blooms is not looking at them.
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb  3 07:18:30 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 07:18:30 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net>
	<7db1d01b0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com>
	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net> <49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>
	<26DBD3489DFB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC>
	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmail.com>
	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
	<269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902030418t34bec59di27cd19244c68b3f9@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks, John; I had begun to despair at folks' reading of a simple, direct
text.  And I thank Linda Sue Grimes for her patient, clear, logical
explanation.  Frankly, the interpretation that the three of us hold redeems
Housman, in my eyes.  As a 'seize the day' poem, oh how crashingly obvious
'twould be!
Judy

2009/2/2 John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com>

> Funny you should send this interpretation because that's the way I've
> always read the poem:  That the speaker, noting that there's not enough room
> to look at things in bloom in spring only, must also go about the woodlands
> in winter to look at the trees while they're hung with snow.  And, to
> respond to Bob, yes, the cherry may look no different from any other
> deciduous tree in winter, but it is.  Since it's a cherry tree hung with
> white it implies spring and the blooms.  Squint and it's spring!  Okay,
> bundle up and wear boots, and then squint and it's spring.  You could argue
> that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't think it's blatantly wrong.  The
> poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.  It doesn't even mention
> boots.
>
> John J
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
> *To:* Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>; "NewPoetry:
> Contemporary Poetry News &, Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2009 8:20:20 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
>
> We now have evaluations from Barry, me, Bob, and Finnegan on Housman's
> 'Loveliest of trees', and I wanted to let you all know more about Linda Sue
> Grimes' interpretation of the poem's 'message'.  I had read the following
> paragraph of Linda Sue's, thought it intriguing and came up with my
> interpretation sent in two days ago, as given further below.  Here's Linda
> Sue's paragraph, from April 1, 2007:
> "A.E. Housman's 'Loveliest of trees,' often misread as a carpe diem poem,
> actually offers a way to increase the enjoyment of beauty, not just grasp it
> for a while."
>
> Today I read her article which the paragraph above introduces.  Here's a
> paragraph from the article that gets to the core of her interpretation:
>
> "In the third stanza, the speaker claims that because fifty more
> opportunities to enjoy these lovely trees with their luscious blossoms is
> not enough, he will go to observe the same trees also in winter, when they
> are 'hung with snow'.  That way the speaker doubles his opportunities to
> enjoy the cherry trees 'wearing white'."
>
> The entire brief article is a clear, logical argument for her
> interpretation which is well worth our serious consideration.  She and I
> find it the most logical of interpretations.  The poem itself is further
> below, and   here's the url for Linda Sue's article:
>
> http://poetry.suite101.com/article.cfm/housmans_loveliest_of_trees
>
> Best,
>
> Judy
>
>
>
> 2009/1/31 Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
>
>> OK, here goes my paraphrase and then my evaluation of AEHousman's
>> Loveliest of Trees:
>> PARAPHRASE:
>>
>> The cherry, most beautiful of all trees,
>> is covered with white blossoms now as if celebrating Easter.
>>
>> Twenty of my [Biblically-promised] seventy years are spent,
>> so I'll only see fifty more springs---
>> not enough time to enjoy blooming things;
>>
>> hence I'll walk these woods in the winters, as well,
>> to see the cherry boughs hung with snow.
>>
>> EVALUATION according to Bob's WEPD checklist:
>>
>> 1)  Importance:  Agreeing with Linda Sue Grimes, I feel it's not exactly
>> a carpe diem poem.  I think it tells us to expect and to look for beauty
>> even in the starkest times.  Not an insignificant observation.
>>
>> 2)  Clear, uncliched devices/forms:  I'd give it a ZERO for rockinghorse
>> cliches, rhythms, rhymes.
>>
>> 3)  Word economy:  Pore H, he flails around, esp in the 2nd stanza,
>> trying to squish and wiggle his slender meanings into a rhyming.  Was this
>> the first poem he ever wrote?
>>
>> 4)  Impressive, uncommon diction or imagery:  ZERO.
>>
>> Not an Excellent poem.  Not a Good poem.  Maybe a sweet practice poem that
>> has a significant message put in impoverishedly poetic form [like this
>> sentence].
>>
>> Judy considering Barry's forthput banana poem next
>>
>> 2009/1/31 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
>>
>>  Oops -- my bad.  There's no indentation of any lines in the original, as
>>> my previous transcription seemed to imply.
>>>
>>> R.
>>>
>>>               II
>>>
>>> Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>>> Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>>> And stands about the woodland ride
>>> Wearing white for Eastertide.
>>>
>>> Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>>> Twenty will not come again,
>>> And take from seventy springs a score,
>>> It only leaves me fifty more.
>>>
>>> And since to look at things in bloom
>>> Fifty springs are little room,
>>> About the woodlands I will go
>>> To see the cherry hung with snow.
>>>
>>> A. E. Housman
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
>
>
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From lsgrimes at stonegulch.com  Tue Feb  3 08:11:18 2009
From: lsgrimes at stonegulch.com (Linda Sue Grimes)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 07:11:18 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu><6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net><8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-193F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
	<8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <78BDA7461DFD49AD883C61771BE58EC5@LindaSue>

"In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry trees in bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the poet."

By taking literally the final line, "To see the cherry hung with snow," you eliminate this problem.  

lsg

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: jforjames at aol.com 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 6:44 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman


  Pardon again, my errant reply...Here's what I meant to chime in with:

  Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
  Is hung with bloom along the bough,
  And stands about the woodland ride
  Wearing white for Eastertide.

  (Nice clean pastoral start. A sauntering diction like a horse-drawn carriage ride. And the hint of the death/ressurection dyad as the stanza the end.)

  Now, of my threescore years and ten,
  Twenty will not come again,
  And take from seventy springs a score,
  It only leaves me fifty more.

  (The second stanza may be a classic example of filling things out for sake of rime scheme. The information is all given in first two lines, but then is restated by reversing the mental math. It begins to sound a bit like one of those math word problems you were tested with in grade school: "If one train traveling west left Cleveland at 10 o'clock, traveling 100 miles per hour, and twenty minutes later another train left Chicago traveling east...)

  And since to look at things in bloom
  Fifty springs are little room,
  About the woodlands I will go
  To see the cherry hung with snow.

  (In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry trees in 
  bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the poet. The great poets tend to see as beautiful the things that other's might overlook. A haiku poet would have done this poem in three lines, and saved us 9 more, pace the logic of the second stanza.)

  Finnegan
  -----Original Message-----
  From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
  Sent: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 3:51 pm
  Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman

  Applying the Check List to such a canonical piece is difficult.
  Here's one I've always read and loved as a key carpe diem poem that clearly
  falls flat (as Judy notes) in terms of innovation-areas of the Famous List
  TO ITS BETTERMENT, I will claim below.

  I take it that to give a work a Prix d'Or one remains free to assume that Excellence
  in this game doesn't mean that all list-categories must yield enthusiastic response.
  Keep them all in mind, sure, but ignore those irrelevant (how much more so,
  I'd guess, with "Bananas..." (?) )

  That said, my case for excellence: 

  Telling start with an alternate foot, refreshing mastery, authority in gentle assertiveness
  of tone; 2nd line's alliteration pleasing, and also forwards in its simplicity the asserted loveliness of
  the blooming; connection to Easter in l.4 a powerful ideological note with its
  death & resurrection associations; I'd add, softie that I am, the sense of whiteness
  in the blooms (and later in "snow" as evoked) offers an additive to the emotion of
  perceived innocence, purity, in the affection for natural beauty.


               II

  Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
  Is hung with bloom along the bough,
  And stands about the woodland ride
  Wearing white for Eastertide.

         Then we run into Biblical phrasing for the rather touchingly ironic feature that the speaker is so young,
         yet concerned with last things. A bit of an air of comedy added by "only fifty more" where by tradition
        this subject would demand a setting close to the end of partaking, that "grab what you still can while still around" motif.
         I'd add (forgive me) that even the obvious rhymes throughout support the "simplicity" that charms me in the poem.


  Now, of my threescore years and ten,
  Twenty will not come again,
  And take from seventy springs a score,
  It only leaves me fifty more.

        I love the unpressured, quiet way the logic of the concluding statement works: given that the lovely tree is blooming
        in the season of pain that turns to hope, and that I, the speaker, am mortal with limited days, it follows that...
       I will go and partake. Anything more grand in the way of device or experiement -- their lack here lowering for
       some the poem's "score"  -- would take away from the spell of innocent affirmation (with subterrainian death-dread)
       that the work enforces.   

  And since to look at things in bloom
  Fifty springs are little room,
  About the woodlands I will go
  To see the cherry hung with snow.





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From amyhappens at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 08:19:43 2009
From: amyhappens at yahoo.com (amy king)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 05:19:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Call for Work
Message-ID: <881193.31765.qm@web83308.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

FoggedClarity.com seeks exceptional fiction and poetry

?

Arts Review Fogged Clarity is now accepting
submissions for our March and April editions.?
Submissions should be sent to submissions at foggedclarity.com.? Our February (debut) issue is free and
available at www.foggedclarity.com.? In it you will find new work from poets
Bruce Smith, Amy King, and Peter Ciccariello, experimental photography by Kyle
Jones and Ryan Daly, short fiction by Dmitri Gheorgheni, and much more.?? Fogged Clarity aims to transcend the
conventions of the typical literary review by incorporating music, the visual
arts, interviews, and political exposition.?
Our ambition is to form a community of artists whose interaction is not
constrained by medium, but broadened by a collective love of expression.? Our network is extensive, and our passion
for ventilation intense.? We sincerely
hope you will join us, and share the fruits of your own fogged clarity. 

?

I wish you the best, 

?

Benjamin Evans

Executive Editor, Fogged Clarity

?

????? 



-- 
Editor, "Fogged Clarity"
www.foggedclarity.com

Ben Evans
_______






Amy's Alias

http://amyking.org/


      
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 09:52:54 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:52:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b
	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net><49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489D
	FB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmai
	l.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com><269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com><4987B777.90105
	05@nut-n-but.net> <630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net>

John Jeffrey wrote:
> Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he 
> must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them 
> when they are hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two 
> score years and ten.
>
> JohnJ
>
Sorry, John, but you seem to me to be arguing that Housman is saying:

    And since to look at things in bloom
    Fifty springs are little room,
    About the woodlands I will go

    To do something other than look at cherry trees in bloom.

If he'd been talking about the beauty of cherry trees, that would make 
more sense, but he hasn't been: he's been talking about the beauty of 
cherry trees/ in bloom/ (and, implicitly, about the beauty of spring).

Do you not agree that my reading is at least as reasonable as yours?  
I've seen it that way for probably close to 50 years, but that's 
irrelevant; I have definitely been mistaken about some poems for longer 
than that.

Note to Judy: The Mole is on my side, and he's worth twenty Johns and 
19.5 Michaels, so phooey on you.  I would add that if you only can't 
appreciate a poem whose most overt message is "boring," you won't be 
able to appreciate many of the best poems in the language.  It's not a 
poem's message that counts, but how the poem expresses it.

--Hohenprofessor Bob
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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 10:04:21 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 07:04:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <4987C2D9.8040403@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <379440.51280.qm@web54103.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Funny, I see it as the opposite: that it heightens the urgency. ?Since 50 springs is little room, you need every season, not just spring. ?You need to go in both spring and winter.And that a young man is saying it, is understanding that 50 years may have little room, seems rather extraordinary, but that's where reading the rest of A Shropshire Lad gives s hint. ?The "young men" in Housman's world are a dark bunch. ?That middle stanza is proof that this is now simple youth.To me, reading this as a straight Oh-I'd-betta-go-look-at-da-pretty-twees-wite-now seems rather light, which is one of the major mistakes reading Housman's sing-song sounding poems. ?They always roll of the tongue so pretty, always rhyme so nicely, but they're generally not "pretty" or "nice." And looking at a bare tree hung with snow--since that's all you've got in winter--because you know that you may not make it to next spring is right up Housman's alley, or should I say right
 up his woodland ride.Just more thoughts when I should be working.JohnJ

--- On Mon, 2/2/09, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:
From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Date: Monday, February 2, 2009, 11:06 PM

That knocks the underpinnings out of the whole sense of urgency, Don't
worry, it's not just the 50 springs, you have winters too. And summers and
falls too...what the heck. The whole point is that for most very young men,
fifty years is an eternity -- and yet, only a very young man is capable of that
special kind of wonder to say that 50 springs is little room.

John Jeffrey wrote:
> Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he must go
out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them when they are
hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two score years and ten.
> 
> JohnJ
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> *To:* "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2009 10:18:15 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
> 
> 
>> You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't
think it's blatantly wrong.
> Agreed.
> 
>> The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
> But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look
at things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung
with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in bloom.
 To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them. 
> --Bob
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



      
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 10:07:28 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:07:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <78BDA7461DFD49AD883C61771BE58EC5@LindaSue>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu><6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net><8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-1
	93F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com><8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
	<78BDA7461DFD49AD883C61771BE58EC5@LindaSue>
Message-ID: <49885DB0.8000501@nut-n-but.net>

Linda Sue Grimes wrote:
> "In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something 
> conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the 
> population--cherry trees in bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth 
> experiencing over and over by the poet."
>  
> By taking literally the final line, *"*To see the cherry hung with 
> snow*,"* you eliminate this problem. 
>  
> lsg
Actually, you don't: the poet is still saying the cherry trees in bloom 
are worth seeing as much as one can.  Your interpretation only adds that 
even that isn't enough: one should experience their beauty when they 
have snow on them as well.  A great Failure, like the Great Failure of 
the Dickinson poem in telling us something 99.9% of the population takes 
as sad, the death of a loved one, will be emotionally upsetting.

One reason I'm so crotchety about this is that I've been arguing with a 
wack who believes Oxford wrote the works of Shakespeare about "Sonnet 
18."   That, he is certain, can't be about its addressee's being more 
beautiful in appearance and disposition than a summer's day because 
that's "boring"; for him, it has to be comparing Queen Elizabeth to 
Queen Mary of Scots--it has to have important people in it.  It also has 
to have bawdy puns in it, and if you don't agree with him that some are 
there, you are a Victorian prude.

--Bob
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Tue Feb  3 10:08:26 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:08:26 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net><49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489D	FB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmai	l.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com><269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com><4987B777.90105	05@nut-n-but.net>
	<630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <49885DEA.7000306@opus40.org>

Bob -- I think we should get together and have a beer over this, because 
malt does more than Housman can, to justify Nature's ways to man,

Bob Grumman wrote:
> John Jeffrey wrote:
>> Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he 
>> must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them 
>> when they are hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two 
>> score years and ten.
>>
>> JohnJ
>>
> Sorry, John, but you seem to me to be arguing that Housman is saying:
>
>     And since to look at things in bloom
>     Fifty springs are little room,
>     About the woodlands I will go
>
>     To do something other than look at cherry trees in bloom.
>
> If he'd been talking about the beauty of cherry trees, that would make 
> more sense, but he hasn't been: he's been talking about the beauty of 
> cherry trees/ in bloom/ (and, implicitly, about the beauty of spring).
>
> Do you not agree that my reading is at least as reasonable as yours?  
> I've seen it that way for probably close to 50 years, but that's 
> irrelevant; I have definitely been mistaken about some poems for 
> longer than that.
>
> Note to Judy: The Mole is on my side, and he's worth twenty Johns and 
> 19.5 Michaels, so phooey on you.  I would add that if you only can't 
> appreciate a poem whose most overt message is "boring," you won't be 
> able to appreciate many of the best poems in the language.  It's not a 
> poem's message that counts, but how the poem expresses it.
>
> --Hohenprofessor Bob
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb  3 10:10:52 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 10:10:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <379440.51280.qm@web54103.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <4987C2D9.8040403@opus40.org>
	<379440.51280.qm@web54103.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902030710w2350a62en52067b1de523eac0@mail.gmail.com>

I know one who'd heartily second your 'take' on AEH's Dark Side, John.
And I concur about H's 'pretty' and 'simple' wrapping around Deeper Stuff.
 He might be a right clivver dude; I'm not sure.  Might just be a nutcase.
Judy enjoying your humour as well as your logic, naturally.

2009/2/3 John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com>

> Funny, I see it as the opposite: that it heightens the urgency.  Since 50
> springs is little room, you need *every* season, not just spring.  You
> need to go in both spring *and* winter.
>
> And that a young man is saying it, is understanding that 50 years may have
> little room, seems rather extraordinary, but that's where reading the rest
> of A Shropshire Lad gives s hint.  The "young men" in Housman's world are a
> dark bunch.  That middle stanza is proof that this is now simple youth.
>
> To me, reading this as a straight
> Oh-I'd-betta-go-look-at-da-pretty-twees-wite-now seems rather light, which
> is one of the major mistakes reading Housman's sing-song sounding poems.
>  They always roll of the tongue so pretty, always rhyme so nicely, but
> they're generally not "pretty" or "nice." And looking at a bare tree hung
> with snow--since that's all you've got in winter--because you know that you
> may not make it to next spring is right up Housman's alley, or should I say
> right up his woodland ride.
>
> Just more thoughts when I should be working.
>
> JohnJ
>
> --- On *Mon, 2/2/09, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>* wrote:
>
> From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <
> new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Date: Monday, February 2, 2009, 11:06 PM
>
>
> That knocks the underpinnings out of the whole sense of urgency, Don't
> worry, it's not just the 50 springs, you have winters too. And summers and
> falls too...what the heck. The whole point is that for most very young men,
> fifty years is an eternity -- and yet, only a very young man is capable of that
> special kind of wonder to say that 50 springs is little room.
>
> John Jeffrey wrote:
> > Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he must go
> out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them when they are
> hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two score years and ten.
> >
> > JohnJ
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > *From:* Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> > *To:* "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
> <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> > *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2009 10:18:15 PM
> > *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
> >
> >
> >> You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't
> think it's blatantly wrong.
> > Agreed.
> >
> >> The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
> > But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look
> at things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung
> with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in bloom.
>  To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them.
> > --Bob
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
>
> -- Tad Richardshttp://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://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
>
>
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Tue Feb  3 10:13:02 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:13:02 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <49885DB0.8000501@nut-n-but.net>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu><6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net><8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-1	93F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com><8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>	<78BDA7461DFD49AD883C61771BE58EC5@LindaSue>
	<49885DB0.8000501@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <49885EFE.1020005@opus40.org>

It also has to have bawdy puns in it, and if you don't agree with him 
that some are there, you are a Victorian prude.

Doesn't everyone believe that?

Bob Grumman wrote:
> Linda Sue Grimes wrote:
>> "In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something 
>> conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the 
>> population--cherry trees in bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth 
>> experiencing over and over by the poet."
>>  
>> By taking literally the final line, *"*To see the cherry hung with 
>> snow*,"* you eliminate this problem. 
>>  
>> lsg
> Actually, you don't: the poet is still saying the cherry trees in 
> bloom are worth seeing as much as one can.  Your interpretation only 
> adds that even that isn't enough: one should experience their beauty 
> when they have snow on them as well.  A great Failure, like the Great 
> Failure of the Dickinson poem in telling us something 99.9% of the 
> population takes as sad, the death of a loved one, will be emotionally 
> upsetting.
>
> One reason I'm so crotchety about this is that I've been arguing with 
> a wack who believes Oxford wrote the works of Shakespeare about 
> "Sonnet 18."   That, he is certain, can't be about its addressee's 
> being more beautiful in appearance and disposition than a summer's day 
> because that's "boring"; for him, it has to be comparing Queen 
> Elizabeth to Queen Mary of Scots--it has to have important people in 
> it.  It also has to have bawdy puns in it, and if you don't agree with 
> him that some are there, you are a Victorian prude.
>
> --Bob
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Tue Feb  3 10:14:35 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:14:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902030710w2350a62en52067b1de523eac0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4987C2D9.8040403@opus40.org>	<379440.51280.qm@web54103.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<7db1d01b0902030710w2350a62en52067b1de523eac0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <49885F5B.1050407@opus40.org>

And that a young man is saying it, is understanding that 50 years may 
have little room, seems rather extraordinary, but that's where reading 
the rest of A Shropshire Lad gives s hint.  The "young men" in Housman's 
world are a dark bunch.  That middle stanza is proof that this is now 
simple youth.

I don't think he does really understand it, and that's part of the power 
of the poem.

Judy Prince wrote:
> I know one who'd heartily second your 'take' on AEH's Dark Side, John. 
>
> And I concur about H's 'pretty' and 'simple' wrapping around Deeper 
> Stuff.  He might be a right clivver dude; I'm not sure.  Might just be 
> a nutcase.
>
> Judy enjoying your humour as well as your logic, naturally.  
>
> 2009/2/3 John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com 
> <mailto:jjeffreymail at yahoo.com>>
>
>     Funny, I see it as the opposite: that it heightens the urgency.
>      Since 50 springs is little room, you need /every/ season, not
>     just spring.  You need to go in both spring /and/ winter.
>
>     And that a young man is saying it, is understanding that 50 years
>     may have little room, seems rather extraordinary, but that's where
>     reading the rest of A Shropshire Lad gives s hint.  The "young
>     men" in Housman's world are a dark bunch.  That middle stanza is
>     proof that this is now simple youth.
>
>     To me, reading this as a straight
>     Oh-I'd-betta-go-look-at-da-pretty-twees-wite-now seems rather
>     light, which is one of the major mistakes reading Housman's
>     sing-song sounding poems.  They always roll of the tongue so
>     pretty, always rhyme so nicely, but they're generally not "pretty"
>     or "nice." And looking at a bare tree hung with snow--since that's
>     all you've got in winter--because you know that you may not make
>     it to next spring is right up Housman's alley, or should I say
>     right up his woodland ride.
>
>     Just more thoughts when I should be working.
>
>     JohnJ
>
>
>     --- On *Mon, 2/2/09, TheOldMole /<Opus40-01 at opus40.org
>     <mailto:Opus40-01 at opus40.org>>/* wrote:
>
>         From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org
>         <mailto:Opus40-01 at opus40.org>>
>
>         Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
>         To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
>         <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>>
>         Date: Monday, February 2, 2009, 11:06 PM
>
>
>         That knocks the underpinnings out of the whole sense of urgency, Don't
>         worry, it's not just the 50 springs, you have winters too. And summers and
>         falls too...what the heck. The whole point is that for most very young men,
>         fifty years is an eternity -- and yet, only a very young man is capable of that
>         special kind of wonder to say that 50 springs is little room.
>
>         John Jeffrey wrote:
>         > Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he must go
>         out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them when they are
>         hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two score years and ten.
>         > 
>         > JohnJ
>         > 
>         > 
>         > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>         > *From:* Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>>
>         > *To:* "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
>         <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>>
>         > *Sent:* Monday, February 2, 2009 10:18:15 PM
>         > *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
>         > 
>         > 
>         >> You could argue that it's a stretch, perhaps, but I don't
>         think it's blatantly wrong.
>         > Agreed.
>         > 
>         >> The poem doesn't have any hard evidence against it.
>         > But it does: And since because the speaker has little time "to look
>         at things in BLOOM," he is going into the woodlands to see the cherry hung
>         with snow.  If they're literally hung with snow, they won't be in bloom.
>          To be reminded of blooms is not looking at them. 
>         > --Bob
>         > 
>         > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>         > 
>         > _______________________________________________
>         > New-Poetry mailing list
>         > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>         > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>         >   
>
>         -- Tad Richards
>         http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
>         http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
>         Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
>         http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239
>
>         _______________________________________________
>         New-Poetry mailing list
>         New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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 <mailto: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
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 10:19:19 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 07:19:19 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <930466.90778.qm@web54112.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Bob,I do agree that your reading is as reasonable as mine.? And yes, the poem talks about cherry trees in bloom--but if you're going to be that literal (not cherry trees, but cherry trees in bloom) then I would think that you'd stumble with "About the woodlands I will go / To see the cherry hung with snow." ?He doesn't say, "looking as if they are hung with snow." ?He specifically says "hung with snow." ?So if you're following a literal reading, then you've got a bit of a snow problem. ?But if you're going to say that the snow is metaphoric, or symbolic, or even just an image for blooms, then that would open the door for a less-literal reading of the rest of the poem.And if the Mole is worth 20 of me, then he's... ?let me think... ?20 times... carry the 4... ?hmmm. ? ?Ah, who cares. ?Math is stupit.JohnJ



--- On Tue, 2/3/09, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 9:52 AM




  

 
John Jeffrey wrote:

  
  
  Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore
he must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of
them when they are hung with snow.? Just the way I've read it for my
two score years and ten.

  

JohnJ

  

  
  

Sorry, John, but you seem to me to be arguing that Housman is saying:



??? And since to look at things in bloom

??? Fifty springs are little room,

??? About the woodlands I will go



??? To do something other than look at cherry trees in bloom.



If he'd been talking about the beauty of cherry trees, that would make
more sense, but he hasn't been: he's been talking about the beauty of
cherry trees in bloom (and, implicitly, about the beauty of
spring).



Do you not agree that my reading is at least as reasonable as yours??
I've seen it that way for probably close to 50 years, but that's
irrelevant; I have definitely been mistaken about some poems for longer
than that.



Note to Judy: The Mole is on my side, and he's worth twenty Johns and
19.5 Michaels, so phooey on you.? I would add that if you only can't
appreciate a poem whose most overt message is "boring," you won't be
able to appreciate many of the best poems in the language.? It's not a
poem's message that counts, but how the poem expresses it.



--Hohenprofessor 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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From editor at pavementsaw.org  Tue Feb  3 10:19:50 2009
From: editor at pavementsaw.org (David Baratier)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 07:19:50 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 56, Issue 5
In-Reply-To: <200902021700.n12H040N010119@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <215273.47209.qm@web45608.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

>So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting? 
> And why on earth is
> he so ignored?  

Bunting is too difficult for poets and their negligent attention spans. He is his own thing. If he was so similar to Pound many would read him because pomo Universities train "how to read."

Bunting has little truck with Pound, in fact the word "Pound" has become the unread poets version of laziness. "It's like Pound," synonymous with too much effort. "How come I cannot find these Chinese Analytics on my new Blackberry?" If we want to offer a populist American comparison, Charles Wright has much more in common. Early Wright Americanizes "P's" influence through a faux "oriental screen," his shorter lines with stunted vocabulary and elimination of otherness in language and pictograph are typical of frontierism. 

Go back to mapping of poems.
The key to Bunting is sound spoken aloud.


Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1




      



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 10:26:23 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:26:23 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <49885DEA.7000306@opus40.org>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b
	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net><49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489D
	FB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmai
	l.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com><269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com><4987B777.90105
	05@nut-n-but.net><630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com><49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net>
	<49885DEA.7000306@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <4988621F.9090900@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> Bob -- I think we should get together and have a beer over this, 
> because malt does more than Housman can, to justify Nature's ways to man,
You're right, Mole.  We should invite the opposition, too.  Enough beers 
and we should be able to straighten everything out.

--Bob



From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 10:29:59 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 08:29:59 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] on the down low
In-Reply-To: <8CB53A3B314CBFF-1184-324@webmail-dx01.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB53A3B314CBFF-1184-324@webmail-dx01.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <648208b60902030729y172e49b9x81dc1d1081d5a413@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 4:18 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Shssss...Don't let Bob know about this blog...
> http://otherclutter.com/
>
> You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight
> and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are
> that of imagination. That's the sign post up ahead, your next stop...The
> VizPo Zone!...
>

I like the Jeff Crouch graphics, especially "pie farm."  Overall, however,
don't folks think these are more graphic art, and not "visual poetry,"
though there might be poetry in those graphics, much as we say there's
"poetry in motion" in the movements of some dancers?
- Jim

"Polish doesn't change quartz into a diamond."
                               -Wilma Askinas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org
http://www.hamiltonstone.org/catalog.html#temporarymeaning
http://www.fieralingue.it/documenti/mr_bondo.pdf
http://www.poetserv.org/jvc/home/index.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescervantes/
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb  3 10:33:08 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 10:33:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <4988621F.9090900@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com>
	<49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net> <49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net>
	<0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com>
	<269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net> <49885DEA.7000306@opus40.org>
	<4988621F.9090900@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902030733m50d40750j3fe2d39baabd323c@mail.gmail.com>

Wine, maybe.
Judy

2009/2/3 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> TheOldMole wrote:
>
>> Bob -- I think we should get together and have a beer over this, because
>> malt does more than Housman can, to justify Nature's ways to man,
>>
> You're right, Mole.  We should invite the opposition, too.  Enough beers
> and we should be able to straighten everything out.
>
> --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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From rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu  Tue Feb  3 10:41:38 2009
From: rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu (Richard Wilsnack)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:41:38 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <4988621F.9090900@nut-n-but.net>
References: <7db1d01b0901270721g4a8bca49jd6a83f08e82210d4@mail.gmail.com><979381F2-758D-44F5-9E13-121ADDA61233@myuw.net><7db1d01b	0901291728p64c83c29u4158f8b3f21bebb2@mail.gmail.com><49825A1F.4030206@nut-n-but.net><49825F65.4020605@nut-n-but.net><26DBD3489D	FB4B12B801029837056812@RobinPC><0A779E5D7B1A452BB76FF08EA9F9F339@RobinPC><7db1d01b0901311040sef2d256i94cdbfd3f0c141af@mail.gmai	l.com><7db1d01b0902021720q19d68ee0gc97f1716c0349bb8@mail.gmail.com><269329.86352.qm@web54109.mail.re2.yahoo.com><4987B777.90105	05@nut-n-but.net><630945.87157.qm@web54104.mail.re2.yahoo.com><49885A46.5070107@nut-n-but.net>	<49885DEA.7000306@opus40.org>
	<4988621F.9090900@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498865B2.5050100@medicine.nodak.edu>

Bob Grumman wrote:
> TheOldMole wrote:
>> Bob -- I think we should get together and have a beer over this, 
>> because malt does more than Housman can, to justify Nature's ways to 
>> man,
> You're right, Mole.  We should invite the opposition, too.  Enough 
> beers and we should be able to straighten everything out.
After all,

"Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think..."

and

"The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale."

How should Housman's sobriety (or lack thereof?) when writing
"Loveliest of trees..." affect our interpretation (if at all)?

Richard W. Wilsnack
rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 10:44:38 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:44:38 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <930466.90778.qm@web54112.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <930466.90778.qm@web54112.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <49886666.3070107@nut-n-but.net>

John Jeffrey wrote:
>
> Bob,
>
> I do agree that your reading is as reasonable as mine.  And yes, the 
> poem talks about cherry trees/ in bloom/--but if you're going to be 
> that literal (not cherry trees, but cherry trees in bloom) then I 
> would think that you'd stumble with "About the woodlands I will go / 
> To see the cherry hung with snow."  He doesn't say, "/looking/ as if 
> they are hung with snow."  He specifically says "hung with snow."  So 
> if you're following a literal reading, then you've got a bit of a snow 
> problem.  But if you're going to say that the snow is metaphoric, or 
> symbolic, or even just an image for blooms, then that would open the 
> door for a less-literal reading of the rest of the poem.
>

Then what's "look at things in bloom" a metaphor for?  Actually, I take 
it as a synecdoche for spring.  It doesn't work, in my view, as any kind 
of trope for "the beauty of cherry trees," though the "blooms along the 
bough" could.

I did see your argument before you presented it, but the opposite is 
true, too: if you take "snow" as literal, you have to take "look at 
things in bloom" literally by your reasoning, too, and you can't.  
Sorry, I can't get past "look at things in bloom."  Trees with snow on 
them aren't in bloom.  And I have given other reasons against the 
interpretation that I'll repeat when (or if) I get to my evaluation, 
which I've only just sketched, so far.
>
> And if the Mole is worth 20 of me, then he's...  let me think...  20 
> times... carry the 4...  hmmm.    Ah, who cares.  Math is stupit.
>
> JohnJ
>
'Cause you know I'm right!

--Bob
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From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb  3 10:55:49 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:55:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>


Mike,
But do you think Houseman did in this case...that is,?allow us to?revisit a great common theme in a new way?
I don't think he did. But I'd agree that my assertion was too narrow. It should have put it this way:
Great poets see a new thing, an overlooked thing. Or they see an old thing in a?new way,?from a different/overloked angle/perspective.
Finnegan

Amid blossoming cherry
I feel my years may be shortened.
Let petals fall on me now.
--A. E. Housman

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Snider <mandolin at mikesnider.org>
Sent: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 8:50 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman


On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 7:44 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:



(In the end, the?great failure?of the poem is that something conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry trees in?
bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the poet. The great poets tend to?see as beautiful the things that other's might overlook. A haiku poet would have done this poem in three lines, and saved us 9 more, pace the logic of?the second stanza.)








Finnegan, sometmes the great poets point to things the rest of us may overlook ? and sometimes thy remind us of the great common themes of human life, in langauge that ,makes it new again.




_______________________________________________

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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 11:05:53 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 08:05:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <49886666.3070107@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <661423.3545.qm@web54111.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

I don't necessarily think there's a "right" on this one. ?You've got good points, and I can see your reasoning, and I'm fine with it. ?But I can also see mine. ?And there are things to point to in the poem that give each one the lie.

Many poems are like this. ?Trying to point to the "real meaning" is sort of like pointing at a cloud and saying, "Look, that one looks like a dog." ?To which someone else says, "No, no, that's a barcalounger." ?And a passerby says, "What the hell are you two talking about?"

Being a non-drinker, can I get a Diet Coke, or will that embarrass the rest of you?

JohnJ


--- On Tue, 2/3/09, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
To: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 10:44 AM




  

 
John Jeffrey wrote:

  
        Bob,
        I do agree that your reading is as reasonable as mine.? And
yes, the poem talks about cherry trees in bloom--but if you're
going to be that literal (not cherry trees, but cherry trees in bloom)
then I would think that you'd stumble with "About the woodlands I will
go / To see the cherry hung with snow." ?He doesn't say, "looking
as if they are hung with snow." ?He specifically says "hung with snow."
?So if you're following a literal reading, then you've got a bit of a
snow problem. ?But if you're going to say that the snow is metaphoric,
or symbolic, or even just an image for blooms, then that would open the
door for a less-literal reading of the rest of the poem.
        



Then what's "look at things in bloom" a metaphor for?? Actually, I take
it as a synecdoche for spring.? It doesn't work, in my view, as any
kind of trope for "the beauty of cherry trees," though the "blooms
along the bough" could.



I did see your argument before you presented it, but the opposite is
true, too: if you take "snow" as literal, you have to take "look at
things in bloom" literally by your reasoning, too, and you can't.?
Sorry, I can't get past "look at things in bloom."? Trees with snow on
them aren't in bloom.? And I have given other reasons against the
interpretation that I'll repeat when (or if) I get to my evaluation,
which I've only just sketched, so far.


  
        And if the Mole is worth 20 of me, then he's... ?let me
think... ?20 times... carry the 4... ?hmmm. ? ?Ah, who cares. ?Math is
stupit.
        JohnJ
        

'Cause you know I'm right!



--Bob

 




      
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Tue Feb  3 11:19:48 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:19:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <930466.90778.qm@web54112.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <930466.90778.qm@web54112.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <49886EA4.8010102@opus40.org>

Take from twenty moles a score,
That leaves -- come to think of it -- not much more.


John Jeffrey wrote:
>
> Bob,
>
> I do agree that your reading is as reasonable as mine.  And yes, the 
> poem talks about cherry trees/ in bloom/--but if you're going to be 
> that literal (not cherry trees, but cherry trees in bloom) then I 
> would think that you'd stumble with "About the woodlands I will go / 
> To see the cherry hung with snow."  He doesn't say, "/looking/ as if 
> they are hung with snow."  He specifically says "hung with snow."  So 
> if you're following a literal reading, then you've got a bit of a snow 
> problem.  But if you're going to say that the snow is metaphoric, or 
> symbolic, or even just an image for blooms, then that would open the 
> door for a less-literal reading of the rest of the poem.
>
> And if the Mole is worth 20 of me, then he's...  let me think...  20 
> times... carry the 4...  hmmm.    Ah, who cares.  Math is stupit.
>
> JohnJ
>
>
>
> --- On *Tue, 2/3/09, Bob Grumman /<bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>/* wrote:
>
>     From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
>     Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
>     To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
>     <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 9:52 AM
>
>     John Jeffrey wrote:
>>     Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore
>>     he must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty
>>     of them when they are hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it
>>     for my two score years and ten.
>>
>>     JohnJ
>>
>     Sorry, John, but you seem to me to be arguing that Housman is saying:
>
>         And since to look at things in bloom
>         Fifty springs are little room,
>         About the woodlands I will go
>
>         To do something other than look at cherry trees in bloom.
>
>     If he'd been talking about the beauty of cherry trees, that would
>     make more sense, but he hasn't been: he's been talking about the
>     beauty of cherry trees/ in bloom/ (and, implicitly, about the
>     beauty of spring).
>
>     Do you not agree that my reading is at least as reasonable as
>     yours?  I've seen it that way for probably close to 50 years, but
>     that's irrelevant; I have definitely been mistaken about some
>     poems for longer than that.
>
>     Note to Judy: The Mole is on my side, and he's worth twenty Johns
>     and 19.5 Michaels, so phooey on you.  I would add that if you only
>     can't appreciate a poem whose most overt message is "boring," you
>     won't be able to appreciate many of the best poems in the
>     language.  It's not a poem's message that counts, but how the poem
>     expresses it.
>
>     --Hohenprofessor Bob
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     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
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb  3 11:23:59 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:23:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <498796B8.9020801@nut-n-but.net>
References: <200901311700.n0VH040N017827@wiz.cath.vt.edu><6C22E8DA-CCB4-48CF-B3B0-C91388477DA3@verizon.net><8CB53AE0D7D0ED4-F10-193F@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com><8CB53AFBE9C74E2-F10-1A07@webmail-dg02.sysops.aol.com>
	<498796B8.9020801@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8CB5432F403BA51-DF4-425@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>

Bob, by mental math, the reader should get to 50 by the first two lines of the second stanza. Then he does it again for us to get to 50
in the third and fourth lines of the same stanza. And then in the final stanza he gives us 50 years again. So that's thrice! (once implicit, twice explicit), three references to what 'may' be 50 more years for the speaker on earth. And it's all?only suppostional, because none of knows the length of our time on earth. 

Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Sent: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 7:58 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman


> (The second stanza may be a classic example of filling things out for > sake of rime scheme. The information is all given in first two > lines, but then is restated by reversing the mental math. It begins to > sound a bit like one of those math word problems you were tested with > in grade school: "If one train traveling west left Cleveland at 10 > o'clock, traveling 100 miles per hour, and twenty minutes later > another train left Chicago traveling east...)?
Haw, James, I consider the second stanza to be what makes this poem great. Pretty much for the reasons you find it poor, although I don't think it fills things out for the sake of the rhyme scheme. The first two lines tell us the speaker is 20. It doesn't tell us that leaves him 50 more. We can do the arithmetic, yes, but the poet is directing us from the age of the poet to how many years he has left. He's making that the subject.?
?
--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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 11:35:56 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:35:56 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] on the down low
In-Reply-To: <648208b60902030729y172e49b9x81dc1d1081d5a413@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB53A3B314CBFF-1184-324@webmail-dx01.sysops.aol.com>
	<648208b60902030729y172e49b9x81dc1d1081d5a413@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4988726C.1060503@nut-n-but.net>

Nice to see this blog.  There seems to be a wide range of stuff there.  
Some does seem too little verbal to count as poetry, for me.  But some 
of them are quite verbal.  Anyway, I bookmarked the site.  Lots of names 
new to me.

--Bob



From grahamd at ripon.edu  Tue Feb  3 11:37:31 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:37:31 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Sounding Bunting
In-Reply-To: <215273.47209.qm@web45608.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <C5ADCEEB.5AA0%grahamd@ripon.edu>



On 2/3/09 9:19 AM, "David Baratier" <editor at pavementsaw.org> wrote:

 
> 
> Go back to mapping of poems.
> The key to Bunting is sound spoken aloud.
> 
> 
> Be well
> 
> David Baratier, Editor
===================================

Good point.  I'd say that precisely here is the link with Pound, though.
For all their fabled "difficulty" of surface & allusiveness, both Bunting
and Pound are wonderful when read aloud.  At their best.

Four white heifers with sprawling hooves
         trundle the waggon.
   Its ill-roped crates heavy with fruit sway.
The chisel point of the goad, blue and white,
         glitters ahead,
   a flame to follow lance-high in a man?s hand
who does not shave. His linen trousers
         like him want washing.
   You can see his baked skin through his shirt.
He has no shoes and his hat has a hole in it.
         ?Hu ! vaca ! Hu ! vaca !?
   he says staccato without raising his voice;
?Adios caballero? legato but
         in the same tone.

--Basil Bunting.  fr. *Odes* 30: "The Or0tava Road."

For what it's worth, I like Bunting much much more than Pound, myself.

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
====================================================






From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb  3 11:51:17 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 11:51:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902030851p12bd103cr5e9a87cb9ae6f950@mail.gmail.com>

Finnegan, I was too narrow as well. Just reminding us of some deep part of
our nature and our relation to the rest of the world, not necessarily in a
new way, but just returning it vividly to our minds, may be a lesser thing
than presenting "an old thing in a new way, from a different/overloked
angle/perspective," but it's no small beer, much  less failure.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 10:55 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Mike,
> But do you think Houseman did in this case...that is, allow us to revisit a
> great common theme in a new way?
> I don't think he did. But I'd agree that my assertion was too narrow. It
> should have put it this way:
> Great poets see a new thing, an overlooked thing. Or they see an old thing
> in a new way, from a different/overloked angle/perspective.
> Finnegan
>
> Amid blossoming cherry
> I feel my years may be shortened.
> Let petals fall on me now.
> --A. E. Housman
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Snider <mandolin at mikesnider.org>
> Sent: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 8:50 pm
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
>
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 7:44 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>  (In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something
>> conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry
>> trees in
>> bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the
>> poet. The great poets tend to see as beautiful the things that other's might
>> overlook. A haiku poet would have done this poem in three lines, and saved
>> us209 more, pace the logic of the second stanza.)
>>
>
>  Finnegan, sometmes the great poets point to things the rest of us may
> overlook ? and sometimes thy remind us of the great common themes of human
> life, in langauge that ,makes it new again.
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? *Find
> out now!<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 11:51:56 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 17:51:56 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902030851q4e94ba4co37d992902da1090b@mail.gmail.com>

Don't the petals resound of much Chinese bird/flower paintings started way
down the dynasties. Isn't the beauty of the entire poem right in those
petals?

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 4:55 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Mike,
> But do you think Houseman did in this case...that is, allow us to revisit a
> great common theme in a new way?
> I don't think he did. But I'd agree that my assertion was too narrow. It
> should have put it this way:
> Great poets see a new thing, an overlooked thing. Or they see an old thing
> in a new way, from a different/overloked angle/perspective.
> Finnegan
>
> Amid blossoming cherry
> I feel my years may be shortened.
> Let petals fall on me now.
> --A. E. Housman
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Snider <mandolin at mikesnider.org>
> Sent: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 8:50 pm
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
>
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 7:44 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>  (In the end, the great failure of the poem is that something
>> conventially seen as beautiful by about 99.9% of the population--cherry
>> trees in
>> bloom--is seen as beautiful and worth experiencing over and over by the
>> poet. The great poets tend to see as beautiful the things that other's might
>> overlook. A haiku poet would have done this poem in three lines, and saved
>> us209 more, pace the logic of the second stanza.)
>>
>
>  Finnegan, sometmes the great poets point to things the rest of us may
> overlook ? and sometimes thy remind us of the great common themes of human
> life, in langauge that ,makes it new again.
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? *Find
> out now!<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Tue Feb  3 12:01:32 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:01:32 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bunting's advice
Message-ID: <C5ADD48C.5AA5%grahamd@ripon.edu>

    Bunting's advice to young poets

I SUGGEST
1. Compose aloud; poetry is a sound.
2. Vary rhythm enough to stir the emotion you want but not so as to lose
impetus.
3. Use spoken words and syntax.
4. Fear adjective; they bleed nouns. Hate the passive.
5. Jettison ornament gaily but keep shape

Put your poem away till you forget it, then:
6. Cut out every word you dare.
7. Do it again a week later, and again.

Never explain - your reader is as smart as you.
-- 
Source:  Basil Bunting Poetry Centre
http://www.dur.ac.uk/basil-bunting-poetry.centre/poems.quotes/quotes/



====================================================
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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 12:07:00 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:07:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902030851q4e94ba4co37d992902da1090b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com><8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
	<4b65c2d70902030851q4e94ba4co37d992902da1090b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498879B4.3080700@nut-n-but.net>

Anny Ballardini wrote:
> Don't the petals resound of much Chinese bird/flower paintings started 
> way down the dynasties. Isn't the beauty of the entire poem right in 
> those petals?
I think so.  Lots of cherry blossoms out of Japan, too.  A main subject 
of haiku.

--Bob



From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Tue Feb  3 12:55:51 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:55:51 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Reader more clever than poem?
In-Reply-To: <200902031402.n13E2j0N002975@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902031402.n13E2j0N002975@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <9FAA8D9A-A546-47F2-8AF5-EF3FA61206B0@verizon.net>


  John J. wrote:

>>>  he must go out even when they're not in bloom
>>> and see the beauty of them when they are
>>> hung with snow.

	We just ignore, then, the setting of the poem's season:
         "Wearing white for EASTERTIDE"?

	Or we could hold on to the improved, more
	unusual version by reading that line as
         a yearning on the trees' part for resurrection
         by mocking up the Easter season via its snowblooms.

        I think Housman posits Spring as the poem's setting
       (wielding Ocham's razor) while we re-write in order to have
        blossom-like snow on the boughs strikingly at the last.

        For such a reading, we must think: 'wearing white
        AS IF THE SEASON WERE SPRING.'

        A more complex poem, certainly. Does it matter if
        it's not the poem Housman wrote? (honest question).

	gadflyingly,

	Barry


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 12:56:45 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:56:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902030851p12bd103cr5e9a87cb9ae6f950@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com><8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
	<6768ac830902030851p12bd103cr5e9a87cb9ae6f950@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4988855D.5080306@nut-n-but.net>

Michael Snider wrote:
> Finnegan, I was too narrow as well. Just reminding us of some deep 
> part of our nature and our relation to the rest of the world, not 
> necessarily in a new way, but just returning it vividly to our minds, 
> may be a lesser thing than presenting "an old thing in a new way, from 
> a different/overloked angle/perspective," but it's no small beer, much 
>  less failure.
I don't believe you can make something in poetry vivid without 
presenting it in some new way, however small.  As I hope to argue if you 
guys don't stop distracting me(!), the Housman does this, in my view, 
and not in a small new way but in more than one new way, and possibly in 
at least one unsmall new way.

--Bob





From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 13:28:25 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 13:28:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bunting's advice
In-Reply-To: <C5ADD48C.5AA5%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <C5ADD48C.5AA5%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902031028r6a9f666emdb42ecb1c47eaa28@mail.gmail.com>

David,

Do you know the source on this?  The website you provide doesn't list one.

Thanks for posting this list.

Best,
Jeff

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 12:01 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

>     Bunting's advice to young poets
>
> I SUGGEST
> 1. Compose aloud; poetry is a sound.
> 2. Vary rhythm enough to stir the emotion you want but not so as to lose
> impetus.
> 3. Use spoken words and syntax.
> 4. Fear adjective; they bleed nouns. Hate the passive.
> 5. Jettison ornament gaily but keep shape
>
> Put your poem away till you forget it, then:
> 6. Cut out every word you dare.
> 7. Do it again a week later, and again.
>
> Never explain - your reader is as smart as you.
> --
> Source:  Basil Bunting Poetry Centre
> http://www.dur.ac.uk/basil-bunting-poetry.centre/poems.quotes/quotes/
>
>
>
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ====================================================
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
Blog:  http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com
Obama Myths:  http://www.matthew25.org/paf/index.htm
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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 13:43:17 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 10:43:17 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
In-Reply-To: <9FAA8D9A-A546-47F2-8AF5-EF3FA61206B0@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <141249.95939.qm@web54106.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Again, though, is the problem of taking some lines/words as completely literal--"bloom" and "Eastertide"--and then not addressing "snow".

Of course, it could be an early Easter, and therefore early in spring, and maybe the cherry trees actually are hung with snow. ?Maybe they've bloomed and then it snowed, like Hal's DC trees.? Or, since Housman was a Brit, maybe he didn't like snow and meant it to mean "that bloomin' snow."

Still, I agree that the poem's current season is spring, and the the cherry trees are currently 9in the poem) hung with bloom--"now" as Housman says. ?My point is that the last line reads "About the woodlands I WILL go / To see the cherry hung with snow." ?That simple auxiliary will throws the sentence into the future. ?He could mean that he will go about the woodlands just after writing the poem (even though in the "now" of the poem the trees are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line seem odd) or that he will also go in winter when the trees actually are hung with snow.

Now, really, back to work... ?I mean it this time.

JohnJ



--- On Tue, 2/3/09, Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net> wrote:
From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Reader more clever than poem?
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 12:55 PM

 John J. wrote:

>>>  he must go out even when they're not in bloom
>>> and see the beauty of them when they are
>>> hung with snow.

	We just ignore, then, the setting of the poem's season:
        "Wearing white for EASTERTIDE"?

	Or we could hold on to the improved, more
	unusual version by reading that line as
        a yearning on the trees' part for resurrection
        by mocking up the Easter season via its snowblooms.

       I think Housman posits Spring as the poem's setting
      (wielding Ocham's razor) while we re-write in order to have
       blossom-like snow on the boughs strikingly at the last.

       For such a reading, we must think: 'wearing white
       AS IF THE SEASON WERE SPRING.'

       A more complex poem, certainly. Does it matter if
       it's not the poem Housman wrote? (honest question).

	gadflyingly,

	Barry
_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



      
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb  3 14:02:48 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 14:02:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <661423.3545.qm@web54111.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <49886666.3070107@nut-n-but.net>
	<661423.3545.qm@web54111.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902031102u2b5fac10pbc33aa75959152c0@mail.gmail.com>

Well, doubtless I'll be embarrassed by your drinking Diet anything.
Judy

2009/2/3 John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com>

> I don't necessarily think there's a "right" on this one.  You've got good
> points, and I can see your reasoning, and I'm fine with it.  But I can also
> see mine.  And there are things to point to in the poem that give each one
> the lie.
>
> Many poems are like this.  Trying to point to the "real meaning" is sort of
> like pointing at a cloud and saying, "Look, that one looks like a dog."  To
> which someone else says, "No, no, that's a barcalounger."  And a passerby
> says, "What the hell are you two talking about?"
>
> Being a non-drinker, can I get a Diet Coke, or will that embarrass the rest
> of you?
>
>
> JohnJ
>
>
> --- On *Tue, 2/3/09, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>* wrote:
>
> From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem
> To: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" <
> new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 10:44 AM
>
>
> John Jeffrey wrote:
>
>  Bob,
>
> I do agree that your reading is as reasonable as mine.  And yes, the poem
> talks about cherry trees* in bloom*--but if you're going to be that
> literal (not cherry trees, but cherry trees in bloom) then I would think
> that you'd stumble with "About the woodlands I will go / To see the cherry
> hung with snow."  He doesn't say, "*looking* as if they are hung with
> snow."  He specifically says "hung with snow."  So if you're following a
> literal reading, then you've got a bit of a snow problem.  But if you're
> going to say that the snow is metaphoric, or symbolic, or even just an image
> for blooms, then that would open the door for a less-literal reading of the
> rest of the poem.
>
>
> Then what's "look at things in bloom" a metaphor for?  Actually, I take it
> as a synecdoche for spring.  It doesn't work, in my view, as any kind of
> trope for "the beauty of cherry trees," though the "blooms along the bough"
> could.
>
> I did see your argument before you presented it, but the opposite is true,
> too: if you take "snow" as literal, you have to take "look at things in
> bloom" literally by your reasoning, too, and you can't.  Sorry, I can't get
> past "look at things in bloom."  Trees with snow on them aren't in bloom.
> And I have given other reasons against the interpretation that I'll repeat
> when (or if) I get to my evaluation, which I've only just sketched, so far.
>
>  And if the Mole is worth 20 of me, then he's...  let me think...  20
> times... carry the 4...  hmmm.    Ah, who cares.  Math is stupit.
>
> JohnJ
>
> 'Cause you know I'm right!
>
> --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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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb  3 14:36:55 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 14:36:55 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <4988855D.5080306@nut-n-but.net>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com>
	<6768ac830902030851p12bd103cr5e9a87cb9ae6f950@mail.gmail.com>
	<4988855D.5080306@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902031136p61ca31b3j793fe0130d93d79e@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> Michael Snider wrote:
>
>> Finnegan, I was too narrow as well. Just reminding us of some deep part of
>> our nature and our relation to the rest of the world, not necessarily in a
>> new way, but just returning it vividly to our minds, may be a lesser thing
>> than presenting "an old thing in a new way, from a different/overloked
>> angle/perspective," but it's no small beer, much  less failure.
>>
> I don't believe you can make something in poetry vivid without presenting
> it in some new way, however small.  As I hope to argue if you guys don't
> stop distracting me(!), the Housman does this, in my view, and not in a
> small new way but in more than one new way, and possibly in at least one
> unsmall new way.
>
> --Bob
>
> What do you mean by new? Seems to me saying something in a memorable and
> beautiful  way is new enough ? unless you've plagiarized!
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 15:06:46 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 15:06:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>

A few weeks (months?) ago, I was looking for a copy of Kenner's *A Homemade
World*, and one of you NewPo cats posted a fantastic link to a site that
search online bookstore:  everything from Abebooks to Powell's and beyond,
if I remember correctly.

Does anyone remember the site I was talking about?

Thanks,
Jeff Newberry

--
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From david.weinstock at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 15:10:05 2009
From: david.weinstock at gmail.com (David Weinstock)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 15:10:05 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <437b1e3a0902031210jf2c7fd8o41a865bef0f0e552@mail.gmail.com>

abebooks.com represents hundreds of used/rare booksellers, try that.




On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>wrote:

> A few weeks (months?) ago, I was looking for a copy of Kenner's *A
> Homemade World*, and one of you NewPo cats posted a fantastic link to a
> site that search online bookstore:  everything from Abebooks to Powell's and
> beyond, if I remember correctly.
>
> Does anyone remember the site I was talking about?
>
> Thanks,
> Jeff Newberry
>
> --
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
..........................................................

DAVID WEINSTOCK
240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753

Home: 802-388-6939
Cell:    802-989-4314
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 15:18:54 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 21:18:54 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
In-Reply-To: <437b1e3a0902031210jf2c7fd8o41a865bef0f0e552@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
	<437b1e3a0902031210jf2c7fd8o41a865bef0f0e552@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902031218g16eaf78ao17084d0719dc9fe@mail.gmail.com>

This is a good link but not the one Jeff mentions, I remember someone sent
it over but I do not have it.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:10 PM, David Weinstock
<david.weinstock at gmail.com>wrote:

> abebooks.com represents hundreds of used/rare booksellers, try that.
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> A few weeks (months?) ago, I was looking for a copy of Kenner's *A
>> Homemade World*, and one of you NewPo cats posted a fantastic link to a
>> site that search online bookstore:  everything from Abebooks to Powell's and
>> beyond, if I remember correctly.
>>
>> Does anyone remember the site I was talking about?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jeff Newberry
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> ..........................................................
>
> DAVID WEINSTOCK
> 240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753
>
> Home: 802-388-6939
> Cell:    802-989-4314
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From wwmorgan at ilstu.edu  Tue Feb  3 15:21:20 2009
From: wwmorgan at ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 14:21:20 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902031218g16eaf78ao17084d0719dc9fe@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
	<437b1e3a0902031210jf2c7fd8o41a865bef0f0e552@mail.gmail.com>
	<4b65c2d70902031218g16eaf78ao17084d0719dc9fe@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004a01c9863c$fe576570$fb063050$@edu>

I think Jeff and Anny may be thinking of www.bookfinder.com

 

Bill Morgan

 

From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Anny Ballardini
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 2:19 PM
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp, Views
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Book Site?

 

This is a good link but not the one Jeff mentions, I remember someone sent
it over but I do not have it.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:10 PM, David Weinstock <david.weinstock at gmail.com>
wrote:

abebooks.com represents hundreds of used/rare booksellers, try that.

 



 

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>
wrote:

A few weeks (months?) ago, I was looking for a copy of Kenner's A Homemade
World, and one of you NewPo cats posted a fantastic link to a site that
search online bookstore:  everything from Abebooks to Powell's and beyond,
if I remember correctly.

Does anyone remember the site I was talking about?

Thanks,
Jeff Newberry

-- 




_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




-- 
..........................................................

DAVID WEINSTOCK
240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753

Home: 802-388-6939
Cell:    802-989-4314



_______________________________________________
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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Tue Feb  3 15:26:21 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 21:26:21 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
In-Reply-To: <004a01c9863c$fe576570$fb063050$@edu>
References: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
	<437b1e3a0902031210jf2c7fd8o41a865bef0f0e552@mail.gmail.com>
	<4b65c2d70902031218g16eaf78ao17084d0719dc9fe@mail.gmail.com>
	<004a01c9863c$fe576570$fb063050$@edu>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902031226n295ea0b8h13f7c7c4f196862b@mail.gmail.com>

Yes, !
I put it on my blog, we have to remember: find a book, bookfinder... that
easy...
thanks.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:21 PM, Bill Morgan <wwmorgan at ilstu.edu> wrote:

>  I think Jeff and Anny may be thinking of www.bookfinder.com
>
>
>
> Bill Morgan
>
>
>
> *From:* new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu [mailto:
> new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] *On Behalf Of *Anny Ballardini
> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 03, 2009 2:19 PM
> *To:* NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp, Views
> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
>
>
>
> This is a good link but not the one Jeff mentions, I remember someone sent
> it over but I do not have it.
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 9:10 PM, David Weinstock <david.weinstock at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> abebooks.com represents hundreds of used/rare booksellers, try that.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>  A few weeks (months?) ago, I was looking for a copy of Kenner's *A
> Homemade World*, and one of you NewPo cats posted a fantastic link to a
> site that search online bookstore:  everything from Abebooks to Powell's and
> beyond, if I remember correctly.
>
> Does anyone remember the site I was talking about?
>
> Thanks,
> Jeff Newberry
>
> --
>
>
>   _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> --
> ..........................................................
>
> DAVID WEINSTOCK
> 240 Woodland Park, Middlebury, VT 05753
>
> Home: 802-388-6939
> Cell:    802-989-4314
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>
>


-- 
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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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb  3 16:10:58 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 16:10:58 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
In-Reply-To: <141249.95939.qm@web54106.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <9FAA8D9A-A546-47F2-8AF5-EF3FA61206B0@verizon.net>
	<141249.95939.qm@web54106.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902031310i5fc84cbcq19ce53b9379aa493@mail.gmail.com>

Folks, I do believe it's metaphorical snow. The most popular variety of
flowering cherry has a nearly pure white blossom and blooms only for a week
or so, then drops its petals so quickly it often seems like snowfall.
They're a symbol in Japan for transience and mortality, among other things,
and Housman would surely have known that, given the  craze for Japanese
culture near the turn of the last century.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:43 PM, John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Again, though, is the problem of taking some lines/words as completely
> literal--"bloom" and "Eastertide"--and then not addressing "snow".
>
> Of course, it could be an early Easter, and therefore early in spring, and
> maybe the cherry trees actually are hung with snow.  Maybe they've bloomed
> and then it snowed, like Hal's DC trees.  Or, since Housman was a Brit,
> maybe he didn't like snow and meant it to mean "that bloomin' snow."
>
> Still, I agree that the poem's current season is spring, and the the cherry
> trees are currently 9in the poem) hung with bloom--"now" as Housman says.
>  My point is that the last line reads "About the woodlands I WILL go / To
> see the cherry hung with snow."  That simple auxiliary *will* throws the
> sentence into the future.  He could mean that he will go about the woodlands
> just after writing the poem (even though in the "now" of the poem the trees
> are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line seem odd) or
> that he will also go in winter when the trees actually are hung with snow.
>
> Now, really, back to work...  I mean it this time.
>
> JohnJ
>
>
>
> --- On *Tue, 2/3/09, Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>* wrote:
>
> From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Reader more clever than poem?
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 12:55 PM
>
>
>  John J. wrote:
>
> >>>  he must go out even when they're not in bloom
> >>> and see the beauty of them when they are
> >>> hung with snow.
>
> 	We just ignore, then, the setting of the poem's season:
>         "Wearing white for EASTERTIDE"?
>
> 	Or we could hold on to the improved, more
> 	unusual version by reading that line as
>         a yearning on the trees' part for resurrection
>         by mocking up the Easter season via its snowblooms.
>
>        I think Housman posits Spring as the poem's setting
>       (wielding Ocham's razor) while we re-write in order to have
>        blossom-like snow on the boughs strikingly at the last.
>
>        For such a reading, we must think: 'wearing white
>        AS IF THE SEASON WERE SPRING.'
>
>        A more complex poem, certainly. Does it matter if
>        it's not the poem Housman wrote? (honest question).
>
> 	gadflyingly,
>
> 	Barry
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://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
>
>
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 16:13:03 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:13:03 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Rating the Housman
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902031136p61ca31b3j793fe0130d93d79e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6768ac830902021750m186aec8kdc075fba4dfb35e0@mail.gmail.com><8CB542EFA7D8A1F-DF4-2C@WEBMAIL-MY40.sysops.aol.com><6768
	ac830902030851p12bd103cr5e9a87cb9ae6f950@mail.gmail.com><4988855D.5080306@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902031136p61ca31b3j793fe0130d93d79e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4988B35F.8040703@nut-n-but.net>

Michael Snider wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>> wrote:
>
>     Michael Snider wrote:
>
>         Finnegan, I was too narrow as well. Just reminding us of some
>         deep part of our nature and our relation to the rest of the
>         world, not necessarily in a new way, but just returning it
>         vividly to our minds, may be a lesser thing than presenting
>         "an old thing in a new way, from a different/overloked
>         angle/perspective," but it's no small beer, much  less failure.
>
>     I don't believe you can make something in poetry vivid without
>     presenting it in some new way, however small.  As I hope to argue
>     if you guys don't stop distracting me(!), the Housman does this,
>     in my view, and not in a small new way but in more than one new
>     way, and possibly in at least one unsmall new way.
>
>     --Bob
>
>     What do you mean by new? Seems to me saying something in a
>     memorable and beautiful  way is new enough ? unless you've
>     plagiarized!
>
I think I'm saying that in order to say something in a memorable and 
beautiful way, you have to say it in some new way--that can be as small 
as using some ordinary word in a just slightly different way.  One 
possible newness of Housman's poem is its use of arithmetic, I think.  
Not that arithmetic hadn't been used before, but his use of it seems 
different from all others I'm familiar with.  I'll elaborate in due 
course, I hope.

I'm arguing a Very Minor Semantics point.

--Bob
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From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb  3 16:20:50 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:20:50 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CB545C6C57CCCC-1D0-1067@webmail-me19.sysops.aol.com>

I've had good luck with this site...it's searches several databases, like Alibris, abebooks, Powells, Biblio, etc.
You have to click on the Search Used link...
http://www.addall.com/
In fact yesterday I ordered I got The Prophets of Paris, for $8 plus shipping.
Which will be coming to me from Night Heron Books in Laramie Wyoming. 
Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>
To: NewPoetry <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 3:06 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?


A few weeks (months?) ago, I was looking for a copy of Kenner's A Homemade World, and one of you NewPo cats posted a fantastic link to a site that search online bookstore:? everything from Abebooks to Powell's and beyond, if I remember correctly.

Does anyone remember the site I was talking about?

Thanks,
Jeff Newberry

-- 





_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From reneea at verizon.net  Tue Feb  3 16:21:22 2009
From: reneea at verizon.net (Renee Ashley)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:21:22 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book Site?
References: <731bb17a0902031206w528c2d30ma8ac30433dc74f5e@mail.gmail.com>
	<437b1e3a0902031210jf2c7fd8o41a865bef0f0e552@mail.gmail.com>
	<4b65c2d70902031218g16eaf78ao17084d0719dc9fe@mail.gmail.com>
	<004a01c9863c$fe576570$fb063050$@edu>
	<4b65c2d70902031226n295ea0b8h13f7c7c4f196862b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003d01c98645$5da994f0$0201a8c0@Barnette>

You could also try http://www.bestwebbuys.com/books/
best,
Renee Ashley
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From barry.spacks at verizon.net  Tue Feb  3 16:35:27 2009
From: barry.spacks at verizon.net (Barry Spacks)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:35:27 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>


On Feb 3, 2009, at 9:00 AM, John J. wrote:

>  the trees are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow"  
> line seem odd)

goshes, John, not odd unless metaphor itself is always so.

The cherry's blossoms LOOK like snow. To evoke the blooms
with this particular metaphor lets the ubi sunt motif click in a
bit: blooming is evanescent, gone in a twink like 70 years of life,
so we're reminded of winter even in the glory of spring, adding
even more urgency as to the carpe diem guiding idea of the piece.

definitively,

Barry
>



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 17:08:32 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:08:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>

Quick question for anyone more knowledgeable than I about Housman's 
work: how metaphoric a poet is he?

--Bob



From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb  3 17:21:35 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:21:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8CB5464E88E0CB3-D68-2F4@webmail-me19.sysops.aol.com>

Housman was a?well-built Victorian of about 3000 square feet, 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. No garage. Stayed away from the Painted Ladies.


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Sent: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 5:08 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...


Quick question for anyone more knowledgeable than I about Housman's work: how metaphoric a poet is he??
?
--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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Tue Feb  3 17:49:07 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 17:49:07 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <8CB5464E88E0CB3-D68-2F4@webmail-me19.sysops.aol.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB5464E88E0CB3-D68-2F4@webmail-me19.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902031449u271bc529qd43a000deac7de4e@mail.gmail.com>

;-)

2009/2/3 <jforjames at aol.com>

> Housman was a well-built Victorian of about 3000 square feet, 3 bedrooms
> and 2 baths. No garage. Stayed away from the Painted Ladies.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> Sent: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 5:08 pm
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
>
> Quick question for anyone more knowledgeable than I about Housman's work:
> how metaphoric a poet is he?
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
> ------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? *Find
> out now!<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Feb  3 18:13:22 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:13:22 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>

> Quick question for anyone more knowledgeable than I about Housman's work: 
> how metaphoric a poet is he?
>
> --Bob

It's metaphors all the way down, Bob.  Housman's Shropshire is an intensely 
*literary construct, melded together from scraps and echoes of Shakespeare, 
the Bible, and the Rubaiyat.  (Would "Loveliest of trees ..." exist without 
Sonnet 18? -- Summer's lease hath all too short a date.)

It's got nothing at all to do with any existing England, and everything to 
do with Housman's state of mind.

He's profoundly derivative of better poems, and poets, as the comparison 
below suggests.

Within his narrow range, he *is powerful, but finally his imaginative world 
is tightly resticted.  The laureate of whinge.  He attempts to justify this 
in "Terence, this is stupid stuff ...", but the justification itself simply 
enacts the complaint he's trying to address.

The speaker of Poem VIII, "Farewell to barn and stack and tree ..." is the 
archetypical Housman figure, who has just returned from murdering someone 
(in this case his brother), and is uncertain whether to join the army, 
commit suicide, or be hanged for murder.

Other than Mithradates, no one dies old in Housman -- in this Shropshire of 
the mind, growing old is a sign of failure:

         XIX:  "To An Athlete Dying Young":

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
>From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

(To add to this catalogue, Housman has a very restricted and repetitive 
vocabulary, laced and loaded with semi-archaisms.)

My favourite Housman poem, and the one through which I tend to read the rest 
of his work, is "Hughley Steeple":

LXI

HUGHLEY STEEPLE

The vane on Hughley steeple
 Veers bright, a far-known sign,
And there lie Hughley people,
 And there lie friends of mine.
Tall in their midst the tower
 Divides the shade and sun,
And the clock strikes the hour
 And tells the time to none.

To south the headstones cluster,
 The sunny mounds lie thick;
The dead are more in muster
 At Hughley than the quick.
North, for a soon-told number,
 Chill graves the sexton delves,
And steeple-shadowed slumber
 The slayers of themselves.

To north, to south, lie parted,
 With Hughley tower above,
The kind, the single-hearted,
 The lads I used to love.
And, south or north, 'tis only
 A choice of friends one knows,
And I shall ne'er be lonely
 Asleep with these or those.

Incidentally, Project Gutenberg has copies of both _The Shropshire Lad_ and 
_Last Poems_, while all the poems can be found here:

        http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~martinh/poems/complete_housman.html

Robin

HOUSMAN AND SHAKESPEARE

Poem XXXI

WITH rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.



Song from _The Winter's Tale_

FEAR no more the heat o' the sun
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Feb  3 18:25:09 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:25:09 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
	<FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <5D7117D1C2A3447D8FA1DF0761D1F688@RobinPC>

Oops, sorry -- _Pericles_, of course.

Well, one Shakespearean Late Romance is very much like another ..  <g>

(And there's an irony in that in the context of the play, it's sung over the 
body of the cross-dressed Fidele, who isn't actually dead.  By her brothers, 
who at that point don't know they are her brothers.  Weird!)

R.

> Song from _The Winter's Tale_
>
> FEAR no more the heat o' the sun
> Nor the furious winter's rages; 




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Feb  3 18:29:01 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:29:01 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <5D7117D1C2A3447D8FA1DF0761D1F688@RobinPC>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net><FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
	<5D7117D1C2A3447D8FA1DF0761D1F688@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <CED9D0AA9D1C4BC9B83411FA886663C1@RobinPC>

> Oops, sorry -- _Pericles_, of course.
>
> Well, one Shakespearean Late Romance is very much like another ..  <g>

I spoke there truer than I meant, and I'd like to pretend (though this is 
not the case) that the mistake or mistakes was or were deliberate.

So one last time ...

CYMBELINE 




From editor at eratiopostmodernpoetry.com  Tue Feb  3 19:00:31 2009
From: editor at eratiopostmodernpoetry.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?e=B7ratio?=)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:00:31 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Correspondance (a sketchbook) New Digital Art Eratio
	Editions
Message-ID: <61531.74.73.224.204.1233705631.squirrel@webmail1.web.com>

e?
E?ratio Editions is happy to announce the publication of Correspondance (a
sketchbook) by Joseph F. Keppler.

Correspondance (a sketchbook) by Joseph F. Keppler.  Digital art.

?What can I call this work?  Neither painting nor critique yet informed by
art, the following are sketches to me.  Rather than executed on paper,
they?re drawings designed using the pervasive computer.  These graphics
approach oeuvre subjectively, not as meticulous copies or art history
illustrations, but as some poetic efforts.  My laptop simply opens a new
capacity for thinking about art and drawing it.  As studies these are
(a)musing tributes as well as appropriate(d) attributes.?  ?Joseph F.
Keppler, from the introduction.

What the cognoscenti are saying about Correspondance (a sketchbook):

?Readability and meaning construction, as well as the relation between the
visual and the literary, have been concerns of Joe?s for many years.  In
Correspondance we see Joe, who is also an astute critic on both literary
and visual art, take an artist?s approach, a visual poet?s approach, a
visual artist?s approach.  Joe Keppler is very unusual in his deep
engagement both with art history and the literary.  He?s a poet, a visual
poet, a sound poet, a sculptor of steel, a photographer, a painter, a
polyartist.  Not only in his practice but in his wide reading and viewing
of contemporary and historical work.  I don?t know anybody else as
voracious as he is not only in his own artistic practice but in learning
about art and philosophy.  He is an incredibly learned man as well as an
important poet and artist.  He shows us what it now means to be literate.?
 ?Jim Andrews  Vispo-Langu(im)age

?Correspondance is suffused with correspondence, bright exchanges between
artist and subject, playful responses between form, light, color, and art
history.  Poet and sculptor, Joe Keppler brings both mediums to bear,
poetry and sculpture, word and material, hand in hand.  Keppler adds a
third-dimension to the graceful dance (Joe the humble artist says, ?bump?)
through his lifelong study of painting and sculpture: allusions to
significant works, quotations of style, and adaptations that bring old
works to new life.  In this series of sketches, poet, artist, and art will
wheel you across the dance floors of the page.?  ?Crag Hill  Poetry
Scorecard

http://www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/eratioeditions.html

Also available from E?ratio Editions:

#5.  Six Comets Are Coming by Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino.  Volume I of
the collected works including Go and Go Mirrored, with revised
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#4.  The Logoclasody Manifesto.  Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino on
logoclasody, logoclastics, eidetics and pannarrativity.  Addenda include
the Crash Course in Logoclastics, Concrete to Eidetic (on visual poetry)
and On Mathematical Poetry.

#3.  Waves by M?rton Kopp?ny.  ?These works are minimalist by design, but
should we paraphrase the thought channeled therein, the effect would be
encyclopedic, ranging through philosophy, psychology, politics, and the
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#2.  Mending My Black Sweater and other poems by Mary Ann Sullivan.  Poems
of making conscious, of acceptance and of self-remembering, and of
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#1.  Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino joins John M. Bennett In the Bennett
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http://www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/eratioeditions.html


E?ratio Editions, a series of elegantly produced, quick loading e-chaps,
is reading for poetry, innovative narrative prose, critical and
theoretical essays, and digital art.  Please see the Contact page for
further guidelines and where to send.  Query editor with sample.

taxis de pasa logos
e?



From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 19:09:46 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 16:09:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <997098.69731.qm@web54110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Sigh...  This is the sort of email back&forth that exhausts me, all these qualifications on small points.  Anyway, I have no problem with metaphor.  I dated one back in the eighties--or thought I did.  My point was part of a larger discussion: That if the rest of the poem is read in a solely literally way, then how would the snow be explained?

To me, the snow is either a) the blooms look like snow (a fanciful description or an out-n-out metaphor) or b) the speaker is talking about winter, when the branches actually are hung with snow (which could still be read metaphorically).

Food calls.  I can smell it.  And that's no metaphor.

John J







________________________________
From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 4:35:27 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...


On Feb 3, 2009, at 9:00 AM, John J. wrote:

>  the trees are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line seem odd)

goshes, John, not odd unless metaphor itself is always so.

The cherry's blossoms LOOK like snow. To evoke the blooms
with this particular metaphor lets the ubi sunt motif click in a
bit: blooming is evanescent, gone in a twink like 70 years of life,
so we're reminded of winter even in the glory of spring, adding
even more urgency as to the carpe diem guiding idea of the piece.

definitively,

Barry
> 

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



      
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb  3 19:14:03 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:14:03 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <997098.69731.qm@web54110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<997098.69731.qm@web54110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902031614i67f5eccya8424341be2e10b9@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:09 PM, John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
> To me, the snow is either a) the blooms look like snow (a fanciful
> description or an out-n-out metaphor) or b) the speaker is talking about
> winter, when the branches actually are hung with snow (which could still be
> read metaphorically).
>

an out and out metaphor, and a pretty common one. It's not just that popular
varieties of flowering cherry are virtually all white, but that they last a
week or so at most (like other snow i spring, unless you ive in New
Hampshire), and that when they fall they look like snow falling ? and not
just a flurry.
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Tue Feb  3 19:15:02 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:15:02 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
Message-ID: <c29.4e724795.36ba3806@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/3/2009 3:11:20 PM Central Standard Time, 
mandolin at mikesnider.org writes: 
> 
> Folks, I do believe it's metaphorical snow. The most popular variety of 
> flowering cherry has a nearly pure white blossom and blooms only for a week or 
> so, then drops its petals so quickly it often seems like snowfall. They're a 
> symbol in Japan for transience and mortality, among other things, and Housman 
> would surely have known that, given the  craze for Japanese culture near the 
> turn of the last century.
> 
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:43 PM, John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Again, though, is the problem of taking some lines/words as completely 
>> literal--"bloom" and "Eastertide"--and then not addressing "snow".
>> 
>> Of course, it could be an early Easter, and therefore early in spring, and 
>> maybe the cherry trees actually are hung with snow.  Maybe they've bloomed 
>> and then it snowed, like Hal's DC trees.  Or, since Housman was a Brit, maybe 
>> he didn't like snow and meant it to mean "that bloomin' snow."
>> 
>> Still, I agree that the poem's current season is spring, and the the cherry 
>> trees are currently 9in the poem) hung with bloom--"now" as Housman says.  
>> My point is that the last line reads "About the woodlands I WILL go / To see 
>> the cherry hung with snow."  That simple auxiliary willthrows the sentence 
>> into the future.  He could mean that he will go about the woodlands just 
>> after writing the poem (even though in the "now" of the poem the trees are NOT 
>> hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line seem odd) or that he 
>> will also go in winter when the trees actually are hung with snow.
>> 
>> Now, really, back to work...  I mean it this time.
>> 
>> JohnJ
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
I agree with Mike.  Look at the tenses.  Starts in the present and then 
shifts to future, both distant and near.  The "snow" is a metaphor; it doesn't snow 
that much in England anyway, witness the recent news of London totally bogged 
down by 8".  But it does bring a nice metaphoric note of mortality in at the 
end of the poem.  He could have said something like "And through the woodlands 
I'll go round / To see the cherry fleeced and downed."  But he didn't.  The 
repetition of "woodland(s)" indicates that he'll keep on doing in the immediate 
future just what he's doing in the present, enjoying the cherry blossoms.  
Besides, a cherry tree covered with real snow would be indistinguishable from 
any other tree, wouldn't it?  It's only the lovely blossoms that make it stand 
out from other shrubberies, after all.

This has the past-present-future structure of many famous lyrics: Frost's 
"The Road Not Taken," for example.  I did it; I'm thinking about it now; I'll 
resolve to do something in the future.
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Tue Feb  3 19:20:34 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:20:34 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
Message-ID: <c62.413f7194.36ba3952@cs.com>

And he does repeat "springs" as well.  Maybe a synecdoche (an easy one) but 
literally a reference to the cherry hung with blossoms at the appropriate time 
of year.
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Feb  3 19:26:41 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 00:26:41 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <997098.69731.qm@web54110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<997098.69731.qm@web54110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1751654B1FA64B7AA5FD1528EE1E8487@RobinPC>

From: John Jeffrey:

<<
My point was part of a larger discussion: That if the rest of the poem is 
read in a solely literally way, then how would the snow be explained?
>>

Well, the poem has, as early as the first stanza, the cherry tree as a 
metaphorical bride, "Wearing white for Eastertide."

(There are other possibilities for the lady in white, but for various 
reasons, this is the one I'd go for.)

So blossom-as-wedding-dress transmutes into the blossom as snow in the final 
stanza.

As for "hung with bloom ... hung with snow ... ," if spring comes, can 
winter be far behind?

For some reason, Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush" springs, or falls, to mind.

R.

<<
To me, the snow is either a) the blooms look like snow (a fanciful 
description or an out-n-out metaphor) or b) the speaker is talking about 
winter, when the branches actually are hung with snow (which could still be 
read metaphorically).

Food calls.  I can smell it.  And that's no metaphor.

John J
>>








From: Barry Spacks <barry.spacks at verizon.net>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 4:35:27 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...


On Feb 3, 2009, at 9:00 AM, John J. wrote:

>  the trees are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line 
> seem odd)

goshes, John, not odd unless metaphor itself is always so.

The cherry's blossoms LOOK like snow. To evoke the blooms
with this particular metaphor lets the ubi sunt motif click in a
bit: blooming is evanescent, gone in a twink like 70 years of life,
so we're reminded of winter even in the glory of spring, adding
even more urgency as to the carpe diem guiding idea of the piece.

definitively,

Barry
>

_______________________________________________
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 




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 19:37:55 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:37:55 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902031614i67f5eccya8424341be2e10b9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><997098.69731.qm@web54
	110.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<6768ac830902031614i67f5eccya8424341be2e10b9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4988E363.2080805@nut-n-but.net>

I read/hear the poem working toward a climactic metaphor.  Again I ask, 
is Housman one to use many metaphors in his poems?

--Bob



From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb  3 19:36:41 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:36:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <4988E363.2080805@nut-n-but.net>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<6768ac830902031614i67f5eccya8424341be2e10b9@mail.gmail.com>
	<4988E363.2080805@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902031636p5f6ed2b1yfd533a25c604cf2@mail.gmail.com>

Yes.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:37 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> I read/hear the poem working toward a climactic metaphor.  Again I ask, is
> Housman one to use many metaphors in his poems?
>
> --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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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Tue Feb  3 19:57:12 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:57:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902031636p5f6ed2b1yfd533a25c604cf2@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<6768ac830902031614i67f5eccya8424341be2e10b9@mail.gmail.com>
	<4988E363.2080805@nut-n-but.net>
	<6768ac830902031636p5f6ed2b1yfd533a25c604cf2@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902031657g5e3bbd39kcdf3d2fc37aacfcd@mail.gmail.com>

All right that was too flippant. But I open the collected at random and
here's the second of twostwo stanzas in number XX of Last Poems:
Fall, winwinter, fall; for he,
    Prompt hand and headpiece clever,
         Has woven  winter robe
And made of earth and sea
     His overcoat for ever,
          And wears the turning globe.


On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Michael Snider <mandolin at mikesnider.org>wrote:




> Yes.
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:37 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:
>
>> I read/hear the poem working toward a climactic metaphor.  Again I ask, is
>> Housman one to use many metaphors in his poems?
>>
>> --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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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 20:27:16 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 17:27:16 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
References: <c29.4e724795.36ba3806@cs.com>
Message-ID: <639101.14866.qm@web54112.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Seeing Gwynn's name reminded me of a piece of paper I have tucked in a book... a poem I've always loved that ends this way:

         Glazed with ice,
Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone,
         And our own
Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below--
         Snow on snow.







________________________________
From: "Rsgwynn1 at cs.com" <Rsgwynn1 at cs.com>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 7:15:02 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?

In a message dated 2/3/2009 3:11:20 PM Central Standard Time, mandolin at mikesnider.org writes: 


Folks, I do believe it's metaphorical snow. The most popular variety of flowering cherry has a nearly pure white blossom and blooms only for a week or so, then drops its petals so quickly it often seems like snowfall. They're a symbol in Japan for transience and mortality, among other things, and Housman would surely have known that, given the  craze for Japanese culture near the turn of the last century.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:43 PM, John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com> wrote:

Again, though, is the problem of taking some lines/words as completely literal--"bloom" and "Eastertide"--and then not addressing "snow".

Of course, it could be an early Easter, and therefore early in spring, and maybe the cherry trees actually are hung with snow.  Maybe they've bloomed and then it snowed, like Hal's DC trees.  Or, since Housman was a Brit, maybe he didn't like snow and meant it to mean "that bloomin' snow."

Still, I agree that the poem's current season is spring, and the the cherry trees are currently 9in the poem) hung with bloom--"now" as Housman says.  My point is that the last line reads "About the woodlands I WILL go / To see the cherry hung with snow."  That simple auxiliary willthrows the sentence into the future.  He could mean that he will go about the woodlands just after writing the poem (even though in the "now" of the poem the trees are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line seem odd) or that he will also go in winter when the trees actually are hung with snow.

Now, really, back to work...  I mean it this time.

JohnJ







I agree with Mike.  Look at the tenses.  Starts in the present and then shifts to future, both distant and near.  The "snow" is a metaphor; it doesn't snow that much in England anyway, witness the recent news of London totally bogged down by 8".  But it does bring a nice metaphoric note of mortality in at the end of the poem.  He could have said something like "And through the woodlands I'll go round / To see the cherry fleeced and downed."  But he didn't.  The repetition of "woodland(s)" indicates that he'll keep on doing in the immediate future just what he's doing in the present, enjoying the cherry blossoms.  Besides, a cherry tree covered with real snow would be indistinguishable from any other tree, wouldn't it?  It's only the lovely blossoms that make it stand out from other shrubberies, after all.

This has the past-present-future structure of many famous lyrics: Frost's "The Road Not Taken," for example.  I did it; I'm thinking about it now; I'll resolve to do something in the future.


      
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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 20:34:23 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 17:34:23 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
Message-ID: <147419.90313.qm@web54101.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Crap!  I sent it before I finished....



Seeing Gwynn's name reminded me of a piece of paper I have tucked in a book... a poem I've always loved that ends this way:

         Glazed with ice,
Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone,
         And our own
Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below--
         Snow on snow.

It's one of Gywnn's poems, and since it's similar to Housman's, I say Sam is disqualified from commenting on the Housman.  (Besides, he disagreed with my view.  And since I really like Sam's work, I just can't have someone I admire disagreeing with me, so there you go.  Disqualified!  Sorry.)

John








________________________________
From: "Rsgwynn1 at cs.com" <Rsgwynn1 at cs.com>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 7:15:02 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?

In a message dated 2/3/2009 3:11:20 PM Central Standard Time, mandolin at mikesnider.org writes: 


Folks, I do believe it's metaphorical snow. The most popular variety of flowering cherry has a nearly pure white blossom and blooms only for a week or so, then drops its petals so quickly it often seems like snowfall. They're a symbol in Japan for transience and mortality, among other things, and Housman would surely have known that, given the  craze for Japanese culture near the turn of the last century.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:43 PM, John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com> wrote:

Again, though, is the problem of taking some lines/words as completely literal--"bloom" and "Eastertide"--and then not addressing "snow".

Of course, it could be an early Easter, and therefore early in spring, and maybe the cherry trees actually are hung with snow.  Maybe they've bloomed and then it snowed, like Hal's DC trees.  Or, since Housman was a Brit, maybe he didn't like snow and meant it to mean "that bloomin' snow."

Still, I agree that the poem's current season is spring, and the the cherry trees are currently 9in the poem) hung with bloom--"now" as Housman says.  My point is that the last line reads "About the woodlands I WILL go / To see the cherry hung with snow."  That simple auxiliary willthrows the sentence into the future.  He could mean that he will go about the woodlands just after writing the poem (even though in the "now" of the poem the trees are NOT hung with snow, which makes the "hung with snow" line seem odd) or that he will also go in winter when the trees actually are hung with snow.

Now, really, back to work...  I mean it this time.

JohnJ







I agree with Mike.  Look at the tenses.  Starts in the present and then shifts to future, both distant and near.  The "snow" is a metaphor; it doesn't snow that much in England anyway, witness the recent news of London totally bogged down by 8".  But it does bring a nice metaphoric note of mortality in at the end of the poem.  He could have said something like "And through the woodlands I'll go round / To see the cherry fleeced and downed."  But he didn't.  The repetition of "woodland(s)" indicates that he'll keep on doing in the immediate future just what he's doing in the present, enjoying the cherry blossoms.  Besides, a cherry tree covered with real snow would be indistinguishable from any other tree, wouldn't it?  It's only the lovely blossoms that make it stand out from other shrubberies, after all.

This has the past-present-future structure of many famous lyrics: Frost's "The Road Not Taken," for example.  I did it; I'm thinking about it now; I'll resolve to do something in the future.


      
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From jforjames at aol.com  Tue Feb  3 20:36:37 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:36:37 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <c62.413f7194.36ba3952@cs.com>
References: <c62.413f7194.36ba3952@cs.com>
Message-ID: <8CB548027F84B5D-1598-1E7C@MBLK-M33.sysops.aol.com>


I believe that all the readings of the poem could be plotted and would resolve around
a mean. Something like the Gaussian standard distribution. It's not that variant readings are
wrong, but that when you plot enough readings (large?sample) they begin to stack up?around 
some kind 'peak reading'; which could be the 'right' or just the 'popular' response to the poem.
Anyway, that is how literature gets built...with shared responses, each somewhat in error
pointing to that?'perfect reading' (which is not attainable, except in theory). Literature is not 
built from thousands of wildly variant (idiosyncratic) readings skewed in all directions.

Today I would say that there are blossoms and not real snow on that peak.

Finnegan
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Feb  3 21:28:10 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:28:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
In-Reply-To: <147419.90313.qm@web54101.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <147419.90313.qm@web54101.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4988FD3A.8090708@nut-n-but.net>

John Jeffrey wrote:
> Crap!  I sent it before I finished....
>
>
> **
> Seeing Gwynn's name reminded me of a piece of paper I have tucked in a 
> book... a poem I've always loved that ends this way:
>
>          Glazed with ice,
> Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone,
>          And our own
> Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below--
>          Snow on snow.
>
> It's one of Gywnn's poems, and since it's similar to Housman's, I say 
> Sam is disqualified from commenting on the Housman.  (Besides, he 
> disagreed with my view.  And since I really like Sam's work, I just 
> can't have someone I admire disagreeing with me, so there you go.  
> Disqualified!  Sorry.)
>
> John
Hmm, since Mole and I also disagree with you, it means . . . 

--Bob
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From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Tue Feb  3 22:02:30 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:02:30 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
References: <147419.90313.qm@web54101.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<4988FD3A.8090708@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <484676.30050.qm@web54102.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

...it means I'm going to bed.




________________________________
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 9:28:10 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?

 John Jeffrey wrote: 
Crap!  I sent it before I finished....



 
Seeing Gwynn's name reminded me of a piece of paper I have
tucked in a book... a poem I've always loved that ends this way:

         Glazed with ice,
Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone,
         And our own
Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below--
         Snow on snow.

It's one of Gywnn's poems, and since it's similar to Housman's, I say
Sam is disqualified from commenting on the Housman.  (Besides, he
disagreed with my view.  And since I really like Sam's work, I just
can't have someone I admire disagreeing with me, so there you go. 
Disqualified!  Sorry.)

John
Hmm, since Mole and I also disagree with you, it means . . .  

--Bob



      
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Feb  4 00:05:36 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 00:05:36 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
Message-ID: <d17.3f5b7e09.36ba7c20@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/3/2009 7:27:41 PM Central Standard Time, 
jjeffreymail at yahoo.com writes: 
> 
> Seeing Gwynn's name reminded me of a piece of paper I have tucked in a 
> book... a poem I've always loved that ends this way:
> 
>          Glazed with ice,
> Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone,
>          And our own
> Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below--
>          Snow on snow.
> 
> 
> 
> 
How nice!  Many thanks!  We got four inches of snow down her in mid-December, 
first time in over 20 years.  
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Feb  4 00:08:39 2009
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 00:08:39 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Reader more clever than poem?
Message-ID: <d53.40837f85.36ba7cd7@cs.com>

In a message dated 2/3/2009 7:34:41 PM Central Standard Time, 
jjeffreymail at yahoo.com writes: 
> 
> Crap!  I sent it before I finished....
> 
> 
> 
> Seeing Gwynn's name reminded me of a piece of paper I have tucked in a 
> book... a poem I've always loved that ends this way:
> 
>          Glazed with ice,
> Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone,
>          And our own
> Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below--
>          Snow on snow.
> 
> It's one of Gywnn's poems, and since it's similar to Housman's, I say Sam is 
> disqualified from commenting on the Housman.  (Besides, he disagreed with my 
> view.  And since I really like Sam's work, I just can't have someone I 
> admire disagreeing with me, so there you go.  Disqualified!  Sorry.)
> 
> John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
But, dammit, this was literal.  It really did snow after the camellia started 
blooming (though that silly plant always started blooming in January).  We've 
moved since, but I trust it continues blooming in all kinds of weather!  It's 
not uncommon for azaleas to bloom down here and get nipped by a late frost.
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From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Wed Feb  4 00:17:18 2009
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:17:18 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bunting's advice
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902031028r6a9f666emdb42ecb1c47eaa28@mail.gmail.com>
References: <C5ADD48C.5AA5%grahamd@ripon.edu>
	<731bb17a0902031028r6a9f666emdb42ecb1c47eaa28@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1A33D87E-C4D1-496F-9DFC-698D5EC14932@ripon.edu>

Wish I did, but no. The Bunting site did seem to be legit, anyway. So  
perhaps one could contact the archivist there?

David Graham
Grahamd at Ripon.edu


On Feb 3, 2009, at 12:28 PM, "Jeff Newberry" <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> David,
>
> Do you know the source on this?  The website you provide doesn't  
> list one.
>
> Thanks for posting this list.
>
> Best,
> Jeff
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 12:01 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>  
> wrote:
>    Bunting's advice to young poets
>
> I SUGGEST
> 1. Compose aloud; poetry is a sound.
> 2. Vary rhythm enough to stir the emotion you want but not so as to  
> lose impetus.
> 3. Use spoken words and syntax.
> 4. Fear adjective; they bleed nouns. Hate the passive.
> 5. Jettison ornament gaily but keep shape
>
> Put your poem away till you forget it, then:
> 6. Cut out every word you dare.
> 7. Do it again a week later, and again.
>
> Never explain - your reader is as smart as you.
> -- 
> Source:  Basil Bunting Poetry Centre
> http://www.dur.ac.uk/basil-bunting-poetry.centre/poems.quotes/quotes/
>
>
>
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ====================================================
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Blog:  http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com
> Obama Myths:  http://www.matthew25.org/paf/index.htm
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Wed Feb  4 11:00:06 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:00:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
	<FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>

I am curious to know if USAmericans on this list have heard or read the word
that Robin uses below, "whinge".  I hadn't heard it until fairly recently,
and still have a tough time reasoning out examples of it.  It's a lovely
word, but I can't nail how a whinge is different from complaining or
'bitching' [a commonly used but not lovely word, I think].  I've been told
that a 'whinge' is used for things about which nothing can be done, like bad
weather.  But apart from the weather example, I can't identify a whinge as
different from complaining or 'bitching'.
BTW, Robin's reference to "Terence" is for AEH's #62, the second to last
poem, in _The Shropshire Lad_ [which can be found at Project Gutenberg].

Judy

2009/2/3 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>

<snip>



>
> Within his narrow range, he *is powerful, but finally his imaginative world
> is tightly resticted.  The laureate of whinge.  He attempts to justify this
> in "Terence, this is stupid stuff ...", but the justification itself simply
> enacts the complaint he's trying to address.


<snip>
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From mandolin at mikesnider.org  Wed Feb  4 11:09:39 2009
From: mandolin at mikesnider.org (Michael Snider)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:09:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
	<FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6768ac830902040809t22d89771w242e32b68c64e92c@mail.gmail.com>

I've  read it and even used it, Judy, but I'm not sure I've ever heard it
from another's mouth. Come to think of it, I believe the summer I traveled
with Fred Truner (1974) may have been where I got it. There's and
explanation here (
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/03/on-whinge-and-whine.html ) which
matches my usage. It's not incompatible with what Robin says, I think ?
Robin?

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Judy Prince
<jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>wrote:

> I am curious to know if USAmericans on this list have heard or read the
> word that Robin uses below, "whinge".  I hadn't heard it until fairly
> recently, and still have a tough time reasoning out examples of it.  It's a
> lovely word, but I can't nail how a whinge is different from complaining or
> 'bitching' [a commonly used but not lovely word, I think].  I've been told
> that a 'whinge' is used for things about which nothing can be done, like bad
> weather.  But apart from the weather example, I can't identify a whinge as
> different from complaining or 'bitching'.
> BTW, Robin's reference to "Terence" is for AEH's #62, the second to last
> poem, in _The Shropshire Lad_ [which can be found at Project Gutenberg].
>
> Judy
>
> 2009/2/3 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
>
> <snip>
>
>
>
>>
>> Within his narrow range, he *is powerful, but finally his imaginative
>> world is tightly resticted.  The laureate of whinge.  He attempts to justify
>> this in "Terence, this is stupid stuff ...", but the justification itself
>> simply enacts the complaint he's trying to address.
>
>
> <snip>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
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From wwmorgan at ilstu.edu  Wed Feb  4 11:16:33 2009
From: wwmorgan at ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 10:16:33 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902040809t22d89771w242e32b68c64e92c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
	<FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
	<6768ac830902040809t22d89771w242e32b68c64e92c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <012701c986e3$f2d4a490$d87dedb0$@edu>

It's a favorite word of several of my favorite UK friends (I'm from the
US)-and it usually seems to assign a degree of self-pity and peevishness to
the person who is said to be "whingeing."

 

Bill Morgan

 

From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Snider
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 10:10 AM
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp, Views
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...

 

I've  read it and even used it, Judy, but I'm not sure I've ever heard it
from another's mouth. Come to think of it, I believe the summer I traveled
with Fred Truner (1974) may have been where I got it. There's and
explanation here (
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/03/on-whinge-and-whine.html ) which
matches my usage. It's not incompatible with what Robin says, I think -
Robin?

 

 

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>
wrote:

I am curious to know if USAmericans on this list have heard or read the word
that Robin uses below, "whinge".  I hadn't heard it until fairly recently,
and still have a tough time reasoning out examples of it.  It's a lovely
word, but I can't nail how a whinge is different from complaining or
'bitching' [a commonly used but not lovely word, I think].  I've been told
that a 'whinge' is used for things about which nothing can be done, like bad
weather.  But apart from the weather example, I can't identify a whinge as
different from complaining or 'bitching'. 

 

BTW, Robin's reference to "Terence" is for AEH's #62, the second to last
poem, in _The Shropshire Lad_ [which can be found at Project Gutenberg].  

 

Judy

2009/2/3 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>

 

<snip>

 


Within his narrow range, he *is powerful, but finally his imaginative world
is tightly resticted.  The laureate of whinge.  He attempts to justify this
in "Terence, this is stupid stuff ...", but the justification itself simply
enacts the complaint he's trying to address.

 

<snip> 


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

 

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From susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net  Wed Feb  4 11:19:39 2009
From: susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net (Susan Holahan)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:19:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
	<830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
	<FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC>
	<7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <DDF71946-6883-4BB3-8F27-608145846424@sbcglobal.net>

Isn't "whinge" very close to "whine"? But isn't "whinge" still wholly  
a Brit locution? So any distinctions in how it's used can't really be  
appreciated, this side of the water?

Susan H.

Cruel thing to say about AEH, anyway, after spending so much time on  
him.


On Feb 4, 2009, at 11:00 AM, Judy Prince wrote:

> I am curious to know if USAmericans on this list have heard or read  
> the word that Robin uses below, "whinge".  I hadn't heard it until  
> fairly recently, and still have a tough time reasoning out examples  
> of it.  It's a lovely word, but I can't nail how a whinge is  
> different from complaining or 'bitching' [a commonly used but not  
> lovely word, I think].  I've been told that a 'whinge' is used for  
> things about which nothing can be done, like bad weather.  But apart  
> from the weather example, I can't identify a whinge as different  
> from complaining or 'bitching'.
>
> BTW, Robin's reference to "Terence" is for AEH's #62, the second to  
> last poem, in _The Shropshire Lad_ [which can be found at Project  
> Gutenberg].
>
> Judy
>
> 2009/2/3 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
>
> <snip>
>
>
> Within his narrow range, he *is powerful, but finally his  
> imaginative world is tightly resticted.  The laureate of whinge.  He  
> attempts to justify this in "Terence, this is stupid stuff ...", but  
> the justification itself simply enacts the complaint he's trying to  
> address.
>
> <snip>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Feb  4 11:30:54 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 16:30:54 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <6768ac830902040809t22d89771w242e32b68c64e92c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net><FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC><7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
	<6768ac830902040809t22d89771w242e32b68c64e92c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC>

<<
( http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/03/on-whinge-and-whine.html ) which 
matches my usage. It's not incompatible with what Robin says, I think ? 
Robin?
>>

Pretty much how I'd see it, Michael, with the proviso that it's generally 
northern English and mostly Scots.

{Hm -- whinging would overlap between northern England and Scotland, while 
girning would be locally Scottish.}

The OED doesn't flag "whinge (V)" as a peculiarly Scottish usage, but most 
of the examples given there are from Scots texts, and there's a long entry 
in the DSL.

Robin 




From jjeffreymail at yahoo.com  Wed Feb  4 11:52:58 2009
From: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com (John Jeffrey)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 08:52:58 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

I've got family living in Wales (near the England border) and they use whinge all the time, especially my ex, talking about the kids. ?It's a word used to describe kids--or kid-like complaining, "whinging about cleaning his room... ?about doing homework... ?about not getting any sweets at Tesco," which is why it's associated closer to whine.

I've never heard it here in the U.S. (New England).

But I don't know if I agree that Housman whinges, unless you mean the man and not his poetry. ?Then again, I've had enough of talking about Housman for a while. ?(And, yes, I still think that snow can mean snow as well as a methaphor!)

JohnJ

P.S. Another favorite Brit phrase is "taking the piss." ?That always cracks me up.



--- On Wed, 2/4/09, Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:
From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 11:30 AM

<<
( http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/03/on-whinge-and-whine.html ) which
matches my usage. It's not incompatible with what Robin says, I think ?
Robin?
>> 

Pretty much how I'd see it, Michael, with the proviso that it's
generally northern English and mostly Scots.

{Hm -- whinging would overlap between northern England and Scotland, while
girning would be locally Scottish.}

The OED doesn't flag "whinge (V)" as a peculiarly Scottish usage,
but most of the examples given there are from Scots texts, and there's a
long entry in the DSL.

Robin 

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



      
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Wed Feb  4 12:12:20 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 12:12:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC>
	<915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com>

Hey, John, actually the #62's quite funny, whether intentionally or not, I
dunno.  It has a poet called "Terence" jibe'ly addressed by a bloke who
thinks his poetry's pitiful, then Terence's response, the interpretations of
which I'd be curious to find out from some of you [but you, John, can take a
break, of course from all this AEH interp stuff].  How much irony AEH uses,
I can't be certain.
Last night I read as much as Google Books would allow of Graves' fascinating
biog of Housman, and it does anchor rather firmly his reasons for melancholy
and obsession with deaths, loss of loves and so on.

Back to talk of 'whinge':  Your examples are great!  HOWEVER, I still think
that the English have a [to them not] subtle different situational use for
the word.  It's that difference in the understanding of how it's applied
that I wanted to get, but apparently NP has no [few?] English folk.  Bloody
shame!  <g>

And now to advance a nother odd [at least it used to be, to me] English
syntax which I'd never heard 'til recently, but which's apparently used in
some places in the USAmerican northeast.  Examples:  "Jane wants picked up
at the train station" or "The bedroom needs cleaned".  More typical in the
USA for would be "Jane wants TO BE picked up...." or "The bedroom needs
CLEANING".

Best and enjoying this,

Judy

2009/2/4 John Jeffrey <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com>

> I've got family living in Wales (near the England border) and they use
> whinge all the time, especially my ex, talking about the kids.  It's a word
> used to describe kids--or kid-like complaining, "whinging about cleaning his
> room...  about doing homework...  about not getting any sweets at Tesco,"
> which is why it's associated closer to whine.
>
> I've never heard it here in the U.S. (New England).
>
> But I don't know if I agree that Housman whinges, unless you mean the man
> and not his poetry.  Then again, I've had enough of talking about Housman
> for a while.  (And, yes, I still think that snow can mean snow as well as a
> methaphor!)
>
> JohnJ
>
> P.S. Another favorite Brit phrase is "taking the piss."  That always cracks
> me up.
>
>
>
> --- On *Wed, 2/4/09, Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>*wrote:
>
> From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" <
> new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 11:30 AM
>
>
> <<
> ( http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/03/on-whinge-and-whine.html ) which
> matches my usage. It's not incompatible with what Robin says, I think ?
> Robin?
> >>
>
> Pretty much how I'd see it, Michael, with the proviso that it's
> generally northern English and mostly Scots.
>
> {Hm -- whinging would overlap between northern England and Scotland, while
> girning would be locally Scottish.}
>
> The OED doesn't flag "whinge (V)" as a peculiarly Scottish usage,
> but most of the examples given there are from Scots texts, and there's a
> long entry in the DSL.
>
> Robin
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing listNew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.eduhttp://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
>
>
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From editor at arrowheadpress.co.uk  Wed Feb  4 12:20:33 2009
From: editor at arrowheadpress.co.uk (Roger Collett)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 17:20:33 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
References: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC><915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <027401c986ec$e49cb990$6501a8c0@ROCKY>

This particular syntax is Northern English, particularly Cumbria and Scottish, Dumfries and Galloway 
(and Ayrshire? Robin?)

Roger Collett
Arrowhead Press
http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality."
Jules de Gaultier

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Judy Prince 
  To: jjeffreymail at yahoo.com ; NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,Views 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 5:12 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...




  And now to advance a nother odd [at least it used to be, to me] English syntax which I'd never heard 'til recently, but which's apparently used in some places in the USAmerican northeast.  Examples:  "Jane wants picked up at the train station" or "The bedroom needs cleaned".  More typical in the USA for would be "Jane wants TO BE picked up...." or "The bedroom needs CLEANING".  


  Best and enjoying this,


  Judy



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From lsgrimes at stonegulch.com  Wed Feb  4 12:27:23 2009
From: lsgrimes at stonegulch.com (Linda Sue Grimes)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:27:23 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net>
	<4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <2FD0BC5100BA4313B6AF6BC57C04127E@LindaSue>

No very...

lsg
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bob Grumman 
  To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 4:08 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...


  Quick question for anyone more knowledgeable than I about Housman's 
  work: how metaphoric a poet is he?

  --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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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Feb  4 12:31:01 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 17:31:01 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <DDF71946-6883-4BB3-8F27-608145846424@sbcglobal.net>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net><FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC><7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
	<DDF71946-6883-4BB3-8F27-608145846424@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <D973CE5A57734ABC9D2C56C465A8EB7C@RobinPC>

From: Susan Holahan

<<
Cruel thing to say about AEH, anyway, after spending so much time on him.
>>

There are variant versions of the traditional song, "Isn't It Grand, Boys?", 
but while it post-dates Housman, it could have been composed with him in 
mind.

{I had a student once who coined the term "sentimental pessimism" to dismiss 
George Crabbe.  Struck me at the time that it was even more appropriate to 
Housman.}

Follows a short version ...

Robin

        Isn't It Grand, Boys?

Look at the coffin, with golden handles
Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody-well dead?

Let's not have a sniffle, let's have a bloody-good cry
And always remember: The longer you live
The sooner you'll bloody-well die

Look at the flowers, all bloody withered
Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody-well dead?

Let's not have a sniffle, let's have a bloody-good cry
And always remember: The longer you live
The sooner you'll bloody-well die.

Look at the mourners, bloody-great hypocrites
Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody-well dead?




From lsgrimes at stonegulch.com  Wed Feb  4 12:35:49 2009
From: lsgrimes at stonegulch.com (Linda Sue Grimes)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:35:49 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Housman and Metaphors
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><997098.69731.qm@web54110.mail.re2.yahoo.com><6768ac830902031614i67f5eccya8424341be2e10b9@mail.gmail.com>
	<4988E363.2080805@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <89710077C9264E45BB2F19348E662EC2@LindaSue>

No, Housman does not use many metaphors...most of his poems are narrative and quite literal...even when referring to the afterlife as in "Is my team ploughing," "Bredon Hill," and "To an athlete dying young"  

lsg
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bob Grumman 
  To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 6:37 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...


  I read/hear the poem working toward a climactic metaphor.  Again I ask, 
  is Housman one to use many metaphors in his poems?

  --Bob

  _______________________________________________
  New-Poetry mailing list
  New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
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From susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net  Wed Feb  4 12:37:06 2009
From: susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net (Susan Holahan)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 12:37:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com>
References: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC>
	<915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <458B69AE-09D2-4D85-9353-BCC890FE3F8F@sbcglobal.net>


On Feb 4, 2009, at 12:12 PM, Judy Prince wrote:

>
> And now to advance a nother odd [at least it used to be, to me]  
> English syntax which I'd never heard 'til recently, but which's  
> apparently used in some places in the USAmerican northeast.   
> Examples:  "Jane wants picked up at the train station" or "The  
> bedroom needs cleaned".  More typical in the USA for would be "Jane  
> wants TO BE picked up...." or "The bedroom needs CLEANING".
>
>


Judy, where on earth? I've lived in lots of places in the Northeast  
and never come across that bit of weirdness. "Jane wants picking  
up. . ." --or that style of thing-- I've heard from Brits, and New  
Yorker writers used to borrow Brit style. Otherwise. . .

In the hills of west-central Vermont, a handyman type, warning me  
about a project, would say, "That'll be very spendy." Not syntax, of  
course, just vocab. But sweet.

Susan H.


From susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net  Wed Feb  4 12:41:25 2009
From: susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net (Susan Holahan)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 12:41:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <D973CE5A57734ABC9D2C56C465A8EB7C@RobinPC>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net><FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC><7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com>
	<DDF71946-6883-4BB3-8F27-608145846424@sbcglobal.net>
	<D973CE5A57734ABC9D2C56C465A8EB7C@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <855B59AE-F006-4A99-83E1-428E1A1C5145@sbcglobal.net>

Gee. Composed by a post-modern laureate of whinge, no doubt. Thanks  
for sharing.

Crabbe, at least, fulfilled the destiny his name announced for him.

Susan H.



On Feb 4, 2009, at 12:31 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:

> From: Susan Holahan
>
> <<
> Cruel thing to say about AEH, anyway, after spending so much time on  
> him.
>>>
>
> There are variant versions of the traditional song, "Isn't It Grand,  
> Boys?", but while it post-dates Housman, it could have been composed  
> with him in mind.
>
> {I had a student once who coined the term "sentimental pessimism" to  
> dismiss George Crabbe.  Struck me at the time that it was even more  
> appropriate to Housman.}
>
> Follows a short version ...
>
> Robin
>
>       Isn't It Grand, Boys?
>
> Look at the coffin, with golden handles
> Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody-well dead?
>
> Let's not have a sniffle, let's have a bloody-good cry
> And always remember: The longer you live
> The sooner you'll bloody-well die
>
> Look at the flowers, all bloody withered
> Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody-well dead?
>
> Let's not have a sniffle, let's have a bloody-good cry
> And always remember: The longer you live
> The sooner you'll bloody-well die.
>
> Look at the mourners, bloody-great hypocrites
> Isn't it grand, boys, to be bloody-well dead?
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Feb  4 12:57:24 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 17:57:24 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <855B59AE-F006-4A99-83E1-428E1A1C5145@sbcglobal.net>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net><FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC><7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com><DDF71946-6883-4BB3-8F27-608145846424@sbcglobal.net><D973CE5A57734ABC9D2C56C465A8EB7C@RobinPC>
	<855B59AE-F006-4A99-83E1-428E1A1C5145@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <5AEF12F8004D4825AD002AF30578706F@RobinPC>

From: "Susan Holahan" <susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net>

> Gee. Composed by a post-modern laureate of whinge, no doubt.

Probably more music hall than post-modern.  The other resonant text which 
draws on the same tone is, "She Was Poor But Honest":

        "It's the same the whole world over,
        It's the poor what gets the blame,
        It's the rich what gets the pleasure,
        Isn't it a bloody shame?"

I'm not sure how the chronology runs, but this can be set beside Thomas 
Hardy's "The Ruined Maid":

        "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
        And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
        "My dear - a raw country girl, such as you be,
        Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.

Robin

*************************

                 She Was Poor But Honest


    She was poor but she was honest,
    Victim of a rich man's game.
    First he loved her, then he left her,
    And she lost her maiden name.

    Then she ran away to London
    For to hide her grief and shame.
    There she met an Army captain,
    And she lost her name again.

    "It's the same the whole world over.
    It's the poor that gets the blame.
    It's the rich that gets the pleasure.
    Ain't it all a bleeding shame?"

    See him riding in a carriage
    Past the gutter where she stands.
    He has made a stylish marriage,
    While she wrings her ringless hands.

    See him there at the theatre,
    In the front row with the best,
    While the girl that he has ruined
    Entertains a sordid guest.

    "It's the same the whole world over.
    It's the poor that gets the blame.
    It's the rich that gets the pleasure.
    Ain't it all a bleeding shame?"

    See her on the bridge at midnight,
    Crying "Farewell, blighted love".
    Then a scream, a splash, and . . Goodness!
    What is she a-doing of?

    When they dragged her from the river
    Water from her clothes they wrung.
    Though they thought that she was drownded,
    Still her corpse got up and sung:

    "It's the same the whole world over,
    It's the poor what gets the blame,
    It's the rich what gets the pleasure,
    Isn't it a blooming shame?"

****************************

Thomas Hardy: "The Ruined Maid"

        "O Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
        Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
        And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"
        "O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.

        "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
        Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
        And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"
        "Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.

        "At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
        And 'thik oon,' and 'the?s oon,'' and 't'other'; but now
        Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!"--
        "Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.

        "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
        But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
        And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!"
        "We never do work when we're ruined," said she.

        "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
        And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
        To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"
        "True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.

        "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
        And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
        "My dear - a raw country girl, such as you be,
        Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.





From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Feb  4 13:02:29 2009
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 18:02:29 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <027401c986ec$e49cb990$6501a8c0@ROCKY>
References: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC><915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com><7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com>
	<027401c986ec$e49cb990$6501a8c0@ROCKY>
Message-ID: <CBE71C2FB7F24764BBE37D3451736872@RobinPC>

<<
This particular syntax is Northern English, particularly Cumbria and 
Scottish, Dumfries and Galloway
(and Ayrshire? Robin?)
>>

I think throughout central Scotland, Roger, certainly Ayrshire and Glasgow.

Pretty much Received Standard Spoken Scots -- I was already quite old before 
I was forced to realise it wasn't also RSE.

Robin 




From editor at arrowheadpress.co.uk  Wed Feb  4 13:11:46 2009
From: editor at arrowheadpress.co.uk (Roger Collett)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 18:11:46 -0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
References: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC><915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com><7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com><027401c986ec$e49cb990$6501a8c0@ROCKY>
	<CBE71C2FB7F24764BBE37D3451736872@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <02a501c986f4$0c291150$6501a8c0@ROCKY>

Ah well, the Scots always did claim Carlisle as theirs.
Back to lurking. Just keeping an eye on what Judy's up to, as per instructions from Beijing.

Roger 




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robin Hamilton" <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 6:02 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...


> <<
> This particular syntax is Northern English, particularly Cumbria and 
> Scottish, Dumfries and Galloway
> (and Ayrshire? Robin?)
>>>
> 
> I think throughout central Scotland, Roger, certainly Ayrshire and Glasgow.
> 
> Pretty much Received Standard Spoken Scots -- I was already quite old before 
> I was forced to realise it wasn't also RSE.
> 
> Robin 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Wed Feb  4 14:24:21 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 14:24:21 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <02a501c986f4$0c291150$6501a8c0@ROCKY>
References: <332421DC0E8D4621B25B27FB9929FD11@RobinPC>
	<915188.31956.qm@web54105.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<7db1d01b0902040912n225ee9bet84eaf066e30fcff2@mail.gmail.com>
	<027401c986ec$e49cb990$6501a8c0@ROCKY>
	<CBE71C2FB7F24764BBE37D3451736872@RobinPC>
	<02a501c986f4$0c291150$6501a8c0@ROCKY>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902041124l65a072e0h22a2287e59fe195d@mail.gmail.com>

"I ain't been ruined", if that's wot you mean, Roger.  <g>  But must confess
that a recent Morrisey piccie in the Groan has certain fascinatin' um
rhythms........
Ah but then that's Irish, innit?  Not Scottish.

squirrulfoot

2009/2/4 Roger Collett <editor at arrowheadpress.co.uk>

> Ah well, the Scots always did claim Carlisle as theirs.
> Back to lurking. Just keeping an eye on what Judy's up to, as per
> instructions from Beijing.
>
> Roger
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robin Hamilton" <
> robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
> To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views" <
> new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 6:02 PM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
>
>
>  <<
>>
>> This particular syntax is Northern English, particularly Cumbria and
>> Scottish, Dumfries and Galloway
>> (and Ayrshire? Robin?)
>>
>>>
>>>>
>> I think throughout central Scotland, Roger, certainly Ayrshire and
>> Glasgow.
>>
>> Pretty much Received Standard Spoken Scots -- I was already quite old
>> before I was forced to realise it wasn't also RSE.
>>
>> Robin
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Wed Feb  4 15:20:51 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 21:20:51 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fan Ogilvie
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902041220l79f471b9lbd25249e84ada67f@mail.gmail.com>

I do recommend this book, dearly!
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/you-life----new-book/story.aspx?guid={9CD1E0EC-C8FC-465F-BEEE-CB93152C4B19}&dist=msr_2



-- 
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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From susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net  Wed Feb  4 19:54:38 2009
From: susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net (Susan Holahan)
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 19:54:38 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: one man's snow...
In-Reply-To: <5AEF12F8004D4825AD002AF30578706F@RobinPC>
References: <200902031700.n13H040N011090@wiz.cath.vt.edu><830C85DC-86F6-47CE-838C-1F1010BC3CF0@verizon.net><4988C060.4060602@nut-n-but.net><FCD4B404A0154AE796356894936752E7@RobinPC><7db1d01b0902040800h1c5c4e50y85116a35599f0e95@mail.gmail.com><DDF71946-6883-4BB3-8F27-608145846424@sbcglobal.net><D973CE5A57734ABC9D2C56C465A8EB7C@RobinPC>
	<855B59AE-F006-4A99-83E1-428E1A1C5145@sbcglobal.net>
	<5AEF12F8004D4825AD002AF30578706F@RobinPC>
Message-ID: <AC7843C3-E731-4C1C-BFF1-4E062C2FCE95@sbcglobal.net>

Who would part with the moment when the poor-but-honest one,  
apparently dead, rises to give us the chorus one more?

The Hardy is marvelously twisty, as he often is.

And your resources for discussion are remarkable.

Thanks.

Susan H.


On Feb 4, 2009, at 12:57 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:

> From: "Susan Holahan" <susan.holahan at sbcglobal.net>
>
>> Gee. Composed by a post-modern laureate of whinge, no doubt.
>
> Probably more music hall than post-modern.  The other resonant text  
> which draws on the same tone is, "She Was Poor But Honest":
>
>       "It's the same the whole world over,
>       It's the poor what gets the blame,
>       It's the rich what gets the pleasure,
>       Isn't it a bloody shame?"
>
> I'm not sure how the chronology runs, but this can be set beside  
> Thomas Hardy's "The Ruined Maid":
>
>       "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
>       And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
>       "My dear - a raw country girl, such as you be,
>       Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.
>
> Robin
>
> *************************
>
>                She Was Poor But Honest
>
>
>   She was poor but she was honest,
>   Victim of a rich man's game.
>   First he loved her, then he left her,
>   And she lost her maiden name.
>
>   Then she ran away to London
>   For to hide her grief and shame.
>   There she met an Army captain,
>   And she lost her name again.
>
>   "It's the same the whole world over.
>   It's the poor that gets the blame.
>   It's the rich that gets the pleasure.
>   Ain't it all a bleeding shame?"
>
>   See him riding in a carriage
>   Past the gutter where she stands.
>   He has made a stylish marriage,
>   While she wrings her ringless hands.
>
>   See him there at the theatre,
>   In the front row with the best,
>   While the girl that he has ruined
>   Entertains a sordid guest.
>
>   "It's the same the whole world over.
>   It's the poor that gets the blame.
>   It's the rich that gets the pleasure.
>   Ain't it all a bleeding shame?"
>
>   See her on the bridge at midnight,
>   Crying "Farewell, blighted love".
>   Then a scream, a splash, and . . Goodness!
>   What is she a-doing of?
>
>   When they dragged her from the river
>   Water from her clothes they wrung.
>   Though they thought that she was drownded,
>   Still her corpse got up and sung:
>
>   "It's the same the whole world over,
>   It's the poor what gets the blame,
>   It's the rich what gets the pleasure,
>   Isn't it a blooming shame?"
>
> ****************************
>
> Thomas Hardy: "The Ruined Maid"
>
>       "O Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
>       Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
>       And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"
>       "O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.
>
>       "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
>       Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
>       And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"
>       "Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.
>
>       "At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
>       And 'thik oon,' and 'the?s oon,'' and 't'other'; but now
>       Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!"--
>       "Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.
>
>       "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
>       But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
>       And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!"
>       "We never do work when we're ruined," said she.
>
>       "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
>       And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
>       To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"
>       "True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.
>
>       "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
>       And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
>       "My dear - a raw country girl, such as you be,
>       Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb  4 20:04:48 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:04:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] History of Flarf 
Message-ID: <8CB5544E0771331-110C-F73@MBLK-M22.sysops.aol.com>


http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/02/books/flarf-from-glory-days-to-glory-hole


?It was a full year-and-a-half before the next book, Drew Gardner?s Petroleum Hat (Roof, 2005), saw publication, and with it came the first serious Flarf blowback.


A glowing review of Gardner?s book by Joyelle McSweeny in the Constant Critic compared one of his poems, ?Chicks Dig War,? to Allen Ginsberg?s ?Howl?: ?More women than men are enjoying the war [?] Phallocentric chicks:/They dig guys with big wars.?


This did not go down so well with some poets, for whom Ginsberg is a kind of Christ figure. On a listserv based in North Carolina, one poet railed against ?Chicks Dig War,? likening Flarf, generally, to ?gang-bang pornos.?


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From jforjames at aol.com  Wed Feb  4 20:55:04 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:55:04 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] ursprache is 3
Message-ID: <8CB554BE5DAF204-110C-1213@MBLK-M22.sysops.aol.com>

Last week my blog had its third anniversary...
http://ursprache.blogspot.com/

A recent quote post...

Together with alliteration and formulaic phrasing, Old English poetry used patterns of repetition, echo, and interlacement to create powerfully resonant blocks of verse. There is an aesthetic quality to this poetry, a quality of intricate word weaving that moves the reader, or the listener, through the narrative or descriptive moment. In fact, one of the expressions used for making poetry in Old English was wordum wrixlan?to weave together words. There was a fabric of language for the Anglo-Saxons, a patterning of sounds and sense that matched the intricate patterning of their visual arts: serpentine designs and complex interlocking geometric forms in manuscript illumination or in metalwork are the visual equivalent of the interlocking patterns of the verse.

?Seth Lerer, ?Caedmon Learns to Sing,? Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language (Columbia University Press, 2007)

My m.o. is that you have read a handful of my aphoristic musings ars poetica?to get to a posted quote.
Finnegan


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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Wed Feb  4 23:39:30 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:39:30 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq,
	Doc Williams and old Walt...where's Ginsberg?
Message-ID: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org>

Among the inevitable roster of athletes and entertainers inducted into 
the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Monday, three literary luminaries were 
recognized by the state for their contributions. From a shortlist of 
nominees, New Jersey residents selected Pulitzer Prize?winning poet 
William Carlos Williams, who also served the community as a physician; 
Walt Whitman, who lived in Camden during the latter part of his life; 
and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who attended school in Hackensack.

Williams?s granddaughter, Daphne Fox-Williams, who lives in the poet?s 
hometown of Rutherford, told the /Star-Ledger /that the honor was 
anticipated. ?He contributed his life to New Jersey as much as anybody 
else who's ever lived here,? Fox-Williams said of her grandfather. ?The 
recognition is long overdue.?

The writers join astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and 
basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, as well as seven others, in the Hall 
of Fame's second round of inductions. Toni Morrison was among the first 
honorees in 2007. A formal induction ceremony will take place on May 3 
at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.

?This group of hall of famers embodies the spirit of New Jersey, a 
combination of drive, determination and creativity that has led them to 
greatness,? New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said in a statement. ?The 
New Jersey hall should serve as a reminder that the people of New Jersey 
strive for excellence and engage in myriad productive and rewarding 
activities that help society and give back to mankind.?

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb  5 01:39:46 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 07:39:46 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] ursprache is 3
In-Reply-To: <8CB554BE5DAF204-110C-1213@MBLK-M22.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB554BE5DAF204-110C-1213@MBLK-M22.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902042239x4552f34dvb4e5d890eca8e1d1@mail.gmail.com>

A poem by itself.

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 2:55 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Last week my blog had its third anniversary...
> http://ursprache.blogspot.com/
>
> A recent quote post...
>
> Together with alliteration and formulaic phrasing, Old English poetry used
> patterns of repetition, echo, and interlacement to create powerfully
> resonant blocks of verse. There is an aesthetic quality to this poetry, a
> quality of intricate word weaving that moves the reader, or the listener,
> through the narrative or descriptive moment. In fact, one of the expressions
> used for making poetry in Old English was *wordum wrixlan*?to weave
> together words. There was a fabric of language for the Anglo-Saxons, a
> patterning of sounds and sense that matched the intricate patterning of
> their visual arts: serpentine designs and complex interlocking geometric
> forms in manuscript illumination or in metalwork are the visual equivalent
> of the interlocking patterns of the verse.
>
> ?Seth Lerer, "Caedmon Learns to Sing," *Inventing English: A Portable
> History of the Language* (Columbia University Press, 2007)
>
> My m.o. is that you have read a handful of my aphoristic musings ars
> poetica to get to a posted quote.
> Finnegan
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? *Find
> out now!<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb  5 01:40:31 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 07:40:31 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] ursprache is 3
In-Reply-To: <8CB554BE5DAF204-110C-1213@MBLK-M22.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB554BE5DAF204-110C-1213@MBLK-M22.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902042240uc529a11l57125de82580adab@mail.gmail.com>

And Happiest Birthday to _ursprache_!

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 2:55 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> Last week my blog had its third anniversary...
> http://ursprache.blogspot.com/
>
> A recent quote post...
>
> Together with alliteration and formulaic phrasing, Old English poetry used
> patterns of repetition, echo, and interlacement to create powerfully
> resonant blocks of verse. There is an aesthetic quality to this poetry, a
> quality of intricate word weaving that moves the reader, or the listener,
> through the narrative or descriptive moment. In fact, one of the expressions
> used for making poetry in Old English was *wordum wrixlan*?to weave
> together words. There was a fabric of language for the Anglo-Saxons, a
> patterning of sounds and sense that matched the intricate patterning of
> their visual arts: serpentine designs and complex interlocking geometric
> forms in manuscript illumination or in metalwork are the visual equivalent
> of the interlocking patterns of the verse.
>
> ?Seth Lerer, "Caedmon Learns to Sing," *Inventing English: A Portable
> History of the Language* (Columbia University Press, 2007)
>
> My m.o. is that you have read a handful of my aphoristic musings ars
> poetica to get to a posted quote.
> Finnegan
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? *Find
> out now!<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>
> *
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb  5 09:27:48 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 09:27:48 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq,Doc Williams and old Walt...where's
	Ginsberg?
In-Reply-To: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org>
References: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> Among the inevitable roster of athletes and entertainers inducted into 
> the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Monday, three literary luminaries were 
> recognized by the state for their contributions. From a shortlist of 
> nominees, New Jersey residents selected Pulitzer Prize?winning poet 
> William Carlos Williams, who also served the community as a physician; 
> Walt Whitman, who lived in Camden during the latter part of his life; 
> and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who attended school in Hackensack.
>
> Williams?s granddaughter, Daphne Fox-Williams, who lives in the poet?s 
> hometown of Rutherford, told the /Star-Ledger /that the honor was 
> anticipated. ?He contributed his life to New Jersey as much as anybody 
> else who's ever lived here,? Fox-Williams said of her grandfather. 
> ?The recognition is long overdue.?
>
> The writers join astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and 
> basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, as well as seven others, in the 
> Hall of Fame's second round of inductions. Toni Morrison was among the 
> first honorees in 2007. A formal induction ceremony will take place on 
> May 3 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
>
> ?This group of hall of famers embodies the spirit of New Jersey, a 
> combination of drive, determination and creativity that has led them 
> to greatness,? New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said in a statement. 
> ?The New Jersey hall should serve as a reminder that the people of New 
> Jersey strive for excellence and engage in myriad productive and 
> rewarding activities that help society and give back to mankind.?
>
I understand David Graham has been invited to the presentation to do a 
reading of "The Red Wheelbarrow."

--Bob



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb  5 11:01:17 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:01:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq,Doc Williams and old Walt...where's
	Ginsberg?
In-Reply-To: <498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>
References: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org> <498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org>

Will they pay by the word?

Bob Grumman wrote:
> TheOldMole wrote:
>> Among the inevitable roster of athletes and entertainers inducted 
>> into the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Monday, three literary luminaries 
>> were recognized by the state for their contributions. From a 
>> shortlist of nominees, New Jersey residents selected Pulitzer 
>> Prize?winning poet William Carlos Williams, who also served the 
>> community as a physician; Walt Whitman, who lived in Camden during 
>> the latter part of his life; and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who attended 
>> school in Hackensack.
>>
>> Williams?s granddaughter, Daphne Fox-Williams, who lives in the 
>> poet?s hometown of Rutherford, told the /Star-Ledger /that the honor 
>> was anticipated. ?He contributed his life to New Jersey as much as 
>> anybody else who's ever lived here,? Fox-Williams said of her 
>> grandfather. ?The recognition is long overdue.?
>>
>> The writers join astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and 
>> basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, as well as seven others, in the 
>> Hall of Fame's second round of inductions. Toni Morrison was among 
>> the first honorees in 2007. A formal induction ceremony will take 
>> place on May 3 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
>>
>> ?This group of hall of famers embodies the spirit of New Jersey, a 
>> combination of drive, determination and creativity that has led them 
>> to greatness,? New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said in a statement. 
>> ?The New Jersey hall should serve as a reminder that the people of 
>> New Jersey strive for excellence and engage in myriad productive and 
>> rewarding activities that help society and give back to mankind.?
>>
> I understand David Graham has been invited to the presentation to do a 
> reading of "The Red Wheelbarrow."
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb  5 11:46:16 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 17:46:16 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq, Doc Williams and old Walt...where's 
	Ginsberg?
In-Reply-To: <498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org>
References: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org> <498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>
	<498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902050846i1e7ce557k62a87171477ab899@mail.gmail.com>

You terrible long tongues (as they say in Italy), I loved it instead, and I
think they should keep it up!


On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 5:01 PM, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:

> Will they pay by the word?
>
>
> Bob Grumman wrote:
>
>> TheOldMole wrote:
>>
>>> Among the inevitable roster of athletes and entertainers inducted into
>>> the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Monday, three literary luminaries were
>>> recognized by the state for their contributions. From a shortlist of
>>> nominees, New Jersey residents selected Pulitzer Prize?winning poet William
>>> Carlos Williams, who also served the community as a physician; Walt Whitman,
>>> who lived in Camden during the latter part of his life; and F. Scott
>>> Fitzgerald, who attended school in Hackensack.
>>>
>>> Williams's granddaughter, Daphne Fox-Williams, who lives in the poet's
>>> hometown of Rutherford, told the /Star-Ledger /that the honor was
>>> anticipated. "He contributed his life to New Jersey as much as anybody else
>>> who's ever lived here," Fox-Williams said of her grandfather. "The
>>> recognition is long overdue."
>>>
>>> The writers join astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and
>>> basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, as well as seven others, in the Hall of
>>> Fame's second round of inductions. Toni Morrison was among the first
>>> honorees in 2007. A formal induction ceremony will take place on May 3 at
>>> the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
>>>
>>> "This group of hall of famers embodies the spirit of New Jersey, a
>>> combination of drive, determination and creativity that has led them to
>>> greatness," New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said in a statement. "The New
>>> Jersey hall should serve as a reminder that the people of New Jersey strive
>>> for excellence and engage in myriad productive and rewarding activities that
>>> help society and give back to mankind."
>>>
>>>  I understand David Graham has been invited to the presentation to do a
>> reading of "The Red Wheelbarrow."
>>
>> --Bob
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
> --
> Tad Richards
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
> http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb  5 14:10:12 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:10:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq,
	Doc Williams and old Walt...where'sGinsberg?
In-Reply-To: <498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org>
References: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org> <498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>
	<498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498B3994.5030205@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> Will they pay by the word?
Well, I heard they offered David ten thousand, but but he turned it 
down, memorably saying that the poem was so good, he'd pay /them/ to let 
him read it.  So if we don't hear from him for a while, it'll be because 
he's practicing.

--Bob


>
> Bob Grumman wrote:
>> TheOldMole wrote:
>>> Among the inevitable roster of athletes and entertainers inducted 
>>> into the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Monday, three literary 
>>> luminaries were recognized by the state for their contributions. 
>>> From a shortlist of nominees, New Jersey residents selected Pulitzer 
>>> Prize?winning poet William Carlos Williams, who also served the 
>>> community as a physician; Walt Whitman, who lived in Camden during 
>>> the latter part of his life; and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who attended 
>>> school in Hackensack.
>>>
>>> Williams?s granddaughter, Daphne Fox-Williams, who lives in the 
>>> poet?s hometown of Rutherford, told the /Star-Ledger /that the honor 
>>> was anticipated. ?He contributed his life to New Jersey as much as 
>>> anybody else who's ever lived here,? Fox-Williams said of her 
>>> grandfather. ?The recognition is long overdue.?
>>>
>>> The writers join astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and 
>>> basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, as well as seven others, in the 
>>> Hall of Fame's second round of inductions. Toni Morrison was among 
>>> the first honorees in 2007. A formal induction ceremony will take 
>>> place on May 3 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
>>>
>>> ?This group of hall of famers embodies the spirit of New Jersey, a 
>>> combination of drive, determination and creativity that has led them 
>>> to greatness,? New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said in a statement. 
>>> ?The New Jersey hall should serve as a reminder that the people of 
>>> New Jersey strive for excellence and engage in myriad productive and 
>>> rewarding activities that help society and give back to mankind.?
>>>
>> I understand David Graham has been invited to the presentation to do 
>> a reading of "The Red Wheelbarrow."
>>
>> --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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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Thu Feb  5 14:11:18 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 13:11:18 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq,
	Doc Williams and old Walt...where'sGinsberg?
In-Reply-To: <498B3994.5030205@nut-n-but.net>
References: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org> <498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>
	<498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org> <498B3994.5030205@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <74DC637B-6600-4735-BEB1-0BCFB930EA61@ripon.edu>

Old joke about the famously laconic Calvin Coolidge:

Citizen:  "Mr. President, I've made a bet that I can get you to say  
more than two words.  What do you think of that?"

President Coolidge:  "You lose."


--------

William Carlos Williams?:  what a blabbermouth. . . .


========================================
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 Feb 5, 2009, at 1:10 PM, Bob Grumman wrote:

> TheOldMole wrote:
>>
>> Will they pay by the word?
> Well, I heard they offered David ten thousand, but but he turned it  
> down, memorably saying that the poem was so good, he'd pay them to  
> let him read it.  So if we don't hear from him for a while, it'll  
> be because he's practicing.
>
> --Bob

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From skip at louisiana.edu  Thu Feb  5 14:13:09 2009
From: skip at louisiana.edu (Skip Fox)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 13:13:09 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Payment for Poetry
In-Reply-To: <881193.31765.qm@web83308.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <8F79F9039A4D452692CE20D0047F1342@win.louisiana.edu>

What I often tell graduate students: "Hell, you damn near have to pay people
to read it* any more. That's why they invented creative writing in grad
school."

 

*poetry

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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb  5 14:20:46 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:20:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bon Jovi, Shaq,
	Doc Williams and old Walt...where'sGinsberg?
In-Reply-To: <498B3994.5030205@nut-n-but.net>
References: <498A6D82.2040309@opus40.org>
	<498AF764.3040109@nut-n-but.net>	<498B0D4D.5000903@opus40.org>
	<498B3994.5030205@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498B3C0E.5010801@opus40.org>

SO much depends....

so MUCH depends....

so much dePENDS....

ah, the agony of it!

Bob Grumman wrote:
> TheOldMole wrote:
>> Will they pay by the word?
> Well, I heard they offered David ten thousand, but but he turned it 
> down, memorably saying that the poem was so good, he'd pay /them/ to 
> let him read it.  So if we don't hear from him for a while, it'll be 
> because he's practicing.
>
> --Bob
>
>
>>
>> Bob Grumman wrote:
>>> TheOldMole wrote:
>>>> Among the inevitable roster of athletes and entertainers inducted 
>>>> into the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Monday, three literary 
>>>> luminaries were recognized by the state for their contributions. 
>>>> From a shortlist of nominees, New Jersey residents selected 
>>>> Pulitzer Prize?winning poet William Carlos Williams, who also 
>>>> served the community as a physician; Walt Whitman, who lived in 
>>>> Camden during the latter part of his life; and F. Scott Fitzgerald, 
>>>> who attended school in Hackensack.
>>>>
>>>> Williams?s granddaughter, Daphne Fox-Williams, who lives in the 
>>>> poet?s hometown of Rutherford, told the /Star-Ledger /that the 
>>>> honor was anticipated. ?He contributed his life to New Jersey as 
>>>> much as anybody else who's ever lived here,? Fox-Williams said of 
>>>> her grandfather. ?The recognition is long overdue.?
>>>>
>>>> The writers join astronomer Carl Sagan, musician Jon Bon Jovi, and 
>>>> basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, as well as seven others, in the 
>>>> Hall of Fame's second round of inductions. Toni Morrison was among 
>>>> the first honorees in 2007. A formal induction ceremony will take 
>>>> place on May 3 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
>>>>
>>>> ?This group of hall of famers embodies the spirit of New Jersey, a 
>>>> combination of drive, determination and creativity that has led 
>>>> them to greatness,? New Jersey governor Jon Corzine said in a 
>>>> statement. ?The New Jersey hall should serve as a reminder that the 
>>>> people of New Jersey strive for excellence and engage in myriad 
>>>> productive and rewarding activities that help society and give back 
>>>> to mankind.?
>>>>
>>> I understand David Graham has been invited to the presentation to do 
>>> a reading of "The Red Wheelbarrow."
>>>
>>> --Bob
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb  5 14:31:54 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:31:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Kevin Davies & the state of the art
Message-ID: <8CB55DF896C8E7A-15B8-170F@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com>


http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090223/davis

Happy Thoughts!: The Poetry of Kevin Davies By Jordan Davis
This article appeared in the February 23, 2009 edition of The Nation.

February 4, 2009


Since the decline of patronage and the rise of the English department, high-minded poets from Ezra Pound and Charles Olson on through the Language poets have spent much of the energy they might otherwise have devoted to vocables and sense to writing essays of noisy, semicomprehensible worry--about poetry's place in society, society's place in poetry, poetry's place in poetry. Davies's poetry is mercifully free of that kind of self-regard, which it has replaced with an even better, more archaic form of self-regard: alienation and self-loathing. This is actually a promising development. For all its proclaimed devotion to negativity, the poetic avant-garde has until now had no curmudgeon with the charm or persistence of a Philip Larkin or Dorothy Parker. 


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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Thu Feb  5 14:56:04 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 20:56:04 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Payment for Poetry
In-Reply-To: <8F79F9039A4D452692CE20D0047F1342@win.louisiana.edu>
References: <881193.31765.qm@web83308.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<8F79F9039A4D452692CE20D0047F1342@win.louisiana.edu>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902051156i4eb62d9chad4db8c7948fbecc@mail.gmail.com>

I often thought the same thing, and it also came out clearly when some
people did not want to read their poems

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 8:13 PM, Skip Fox <skip at louisiana.edu> wrote:

>  What I often tell graduate students: "Hell, you damn near have to pay
> people to read it* any more. That's why they invented creative writing in
> grad school."
>
>
>
> *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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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb  5 15:27:07 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:27:07 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book of note,
	plus various books on craft and writing poetry
Message-ID: <8CB55E73FD66716-15B8-1BB5@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com>


I just encountered this book on the WomPo list, I thought I'd pass it on...looks like it could be good:

Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry 
http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/BID1508.htm


Also, they had a thread going on craft books...here's the list compiled & posted by Joan Mazza:

Addonizio, Kim and Laux, Dorianne. The Poet?s Companion: A Guide to 
Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Norton. 1997


Allen, Donald. Poetics of the New American Poetry. Grove Press. 1974.


Arp, Thomas R. Perrine?s Sound and Sense. Harcourt Brace. 1997.


Behn, Robin. The Practice of Poetry. HarperPerennial. 1992


Bender, Sheila. Writing Personal Poetry: Creating Poems From Your Life 

Experiences. Writer?s Digest Books. 1998


Buckley, Christopher and Christopher Merrill, eds. What Will Suffice: 

Contemporary Poets on the Art of Poetry. Salt Lake City. 1995.


Bugeja, Michael J. The Art and Craft of Poetry. Writer?s Digest Books. 1994.

Bugeja, Michael J. Poet?s Guide: How to Publish and Perform Your Work. Story 
Line Press. 1995.


Citino, David. The Eye of the Poet: Six Views of the Art and Craft of 
Poetry. Oxford University Press. 2002


Cook, Jon, ed. Poetry in Theory: Anthology 1900 ? 2000. Wiley-Blackwell. 
2004.


Corn, Alfred. The Poem?s Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody. Story Line Press. 
2003.


Dobyns, Stephen. Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry. St. Martin?s 
Griffin. 1997.


Drake, Barbara. Writing Poetry. Harco
urt Brace. 1983.


Drury, John. Creating Poetry. Writer?s Digest Books. 1991

Drury, John. The Poetry Dictionary. Writer?s Digest Books. 1995.


Elledge, Jim. Sweet Nothings: An Anthology of Rock and Roll in American 
Poetry. Indiana University Press. 1994


Ellmann, Richard. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Norton. 1988


Ferguson, Margaret. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Norton. 1996


Finch, Annie, ed. A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary 
Women. Story Line Press. 1194


Fiske, Robert Hartwell and Laura Cherry, eds. Poem, Revised: 54 Poems, 
Revisions, Discussions. Marion Street Press. 2008


Fox, John. Finding What You Didn?t Lose: Expressing Your Truth and 
Creativity Through Poem-Making. Tarcher/Putnam. 1995.


Fox, John. Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making. Tarcher/Putnam. 
1997.


Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. McGraw-Hill. 1979.


Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. 
Shambhala. 1986.


Hall, Donald. Claims for Poetry. University of Michigan. 1982.


Hass, Robert. Twentieth Century Pleasures. W.W. Norton. 1985.


Hirsch, Edward. How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry. Harvest. 
1999.


Hirshfield, Jane. Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (Essays). 
HarperCollins. 1997.


Hollander, John. Rhyme?s Reason. Yale University Press. 1981.


Hugo, Richard. The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and 
Writing. Norton. 1979.


Kinzie, Mary. A Poet?s Guide to Poetry. T
he University of Chicago Press. 
1999.


Kooser, Ted. The Poetry Home Repair Manual. University of Nebraska Press. 
2005.


Kowit, Steve. In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet?s Portable Workshop. 
Norton. 1997.


Lammon, Martin. Written in Water, Written in Stone: Twenty Years of Poets on 
Poetry. University of Michigan. 1996.


Lehman, David. Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms: 65 Leading Contemporary 
Poets Select and Comment on Their Poems. Collier/Macmillan. 1987.


Longenbach, James. The Art of the Poetic Line. Graywolf. 2007.


Mayes, Frances. The Discovery of Poetry. Harvest/Harcourt. 2001.


Myers, Jack. The Portable Poetry Workshop. Thomson/Wadsworth. 2005.


Oliver, Mary. A Poetry Handbook. Harvest Original. 1995.

Oliver, Mary. Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading 
Metrical Verse. Mariner/Houghton Mifflin. 1998

Oliver, Mary. Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems. Mariner Books. 
2000.


Orr, Gregory. Poetry as Survival. University of Georgia Press. 2002

Orr, Gregory & Ellen Bryant Voigt. Poets Teaching Poets, Self, and the 
World. University of Michigan Press. 1996.


Packard, William. The Art of Poetry Writing. St. Martin?s Press. 1992


Padgett, Ron. Handbook of Poetic Forms. Teachers & Writers Collaborative. 
1987.


Paschen, Elise. Poetry Speaks: Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from 
Tennyson to Plath. Sourcebooks MediaFusion. 2001.


Reeves, Judy. A Writer?s Book of Days: A Spirited Companion and Lively Muse 
for the Writing Life. New World L
ibrary. 1999.


Richards, Mary Caroline. Centering in Pottery, Poetry and the Person. 
Wesleyan. 1989.


Roethke, Theodore. David Wagoner, Intro. Straw for the Fire: From the 
Notebooks of Theodore Roethke. Copper Canyon Press. 2006

Roethke, Theodore. On Poetry and Craft. Copper Canyon Press. 2001.


Rukeyser, Muriel. The Life of Poetry. Paris Press. 1996.


Snodgrass, W.D. De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Bad. Graywolf Press. 
2001.


Sontag, Kate and David Graham, eds. After Confession: Poetry as 
Autobiography. Graywolf Press. 2001


Stafford, William. Writing the Australian Crawl. University of Michigan 
Press. 1978.

Stafford, William. You Must Revise Your Life. University of Michigan Press. 
1987.

Stafford, William. Crossing Unmarked Snow. University of Michigan Press. 
1998.

Stafford, William. The Answers are Inside the Mountains. University of 
Michigan Press. 2003.


Sweeney, Matthew. Writing Poetry and Getting Published. NTC Publishing. 
1997.


Turco, Lewis. The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics. UPNE. 2000.


Wallace, Robert. Writing Poems. HarperCollinsCollegePublishers. 1996.


Webster?s Compact Rhyming Dictionary. Miriam-Webster, Inc. 1987


Woolridge, Susan G. Poemcrazy: freeing your life with words. Clarkson 
Potter. 1996.


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From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb  5 16:14:17 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:14:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] =?utf-8?q?Richard_Howard=E2=80=99s_Jewish_Roots?=
Message-ID: <8CB55EDD6DCCCC7-B78-CDF@WEBMAIL-MA17.sysops.aol.com>


Praising Sacred Places: Richard Howard?s Jewish Roots

By Benjamin Ivry
Tue. Feb 03, 2009


For a half-century, the poet, critic, and translator Richard Howard has been an expert investigator of artistic motivations and inspirations, yet his own roots, as a product of Cleveland?s Jewish middle class, have rarely been explored. On Feb 8, Howard will give a reading at New York?s Metropolitan Museum to introduce the new Pierre Bonnard exhibit, logically enough, since he translated ?Bonnard/Matisse: Letters Between Friends? (Abrams,1992), among hundreds of other books.

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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Thu Feb  5 16:26:19 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:26:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book of note, plus various books on craft and writing
	poetry
In-Reply-To: <8CB55E73FD66716-15B8-1BB5@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB55E73FD66716-15B8-1BB5@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498B597B.4050402@opus40.org>

50 Contemporary Poets: The Creative Process 
<http://www.amazon.com/50-Contemporary-Poets-Creative-Process/dp/0679303170/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233868699&sr=1-6>  
-Alberta Turner

jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> I just encountered this book on the WomPo list, I thought I'd pass it 
> on...looks like it could be good:
>
> Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry
> *http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/BID1508.htm*
>
>
> Also, they had a thread going on craft books...here's the list 
> compiled & posted by Joan Mazza:
>
> Addonizio, Kim and Laux, Dorianne. The Poet?s Companion: A Guide to
> Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Norton. 1997
>
> Allen, Donald. Poetics of the New American Poetry. Grove Press. 1974.
>
> Arp, Thomas R. Perrine?s Sound and Sense. Harcourt Brace. 1997.
>
> Behn, Robin. The Practice of Poetry. HarperPerennial. 1992
>
> Bender, Sheila. Writing Personal Poetry: Creating Poems From Your Life
>
> Experiences. Writer?s Digest Books. 1998
>
> Buckley, Christopher and Christopher Merrill, eds. What Will Suffice:
>
> Contemporary Poets on the Art of Poetry. Salt Lake City. 1995.
>
> Bugeja, Michael J. The Art and Craft of Poetry. Writer?s Digest Books. 
> 1994.
> Bugeja, Michael J. Poet?s Guide: How to Publish and Perform Your Work. 
> Story
> Line Press. 1995.
>
> Citino, David. The Eye of the Poet: Six Views of the Art and Craft of
> Poetry. Oxford Unive rsity Press. 2002
>
> Cook, Jon, ed. Poetry in Theory: Anthology 1900 ? 2000. Wiley-Blackwell.
> 2004.
>
> Corn, Alfred. The Poem?s Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody. Story Line 
> Press.
> 2003.
>
> Dobyns, Stephen. Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry. St. Martin?s
> Griffin. 1997.
>
> Drake, Barbara. Writing Poetry. Harcourt Brace. 1983.
>
> Drury, John. Creating Poetry. Writer?s Digest Books. 1991
> Drury, John. The Poetry Dictionary. Writer?s Digest Books. 1995.
>
> Elledge, Jim. Sweet Nothings: An Anthology of Rock and Roll in American
> Poetry. Indiana University Press. 1994
>
> Ellmann, Richard. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Norton. 1988
>
> Ferguson, Margaret. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Norton. 1996
>
> Finch, Annie, ed. A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary
> Women. Story Line Press. 1194
>
> Fiske, Robert Hartwell and Laura Cherry, eds. Poem, Revised: 54 Poems,
> Revisions, Discussions. Marion Street Press. 2008
>
> Fox, John. Finding What You Didn?t Lose: Expressing Your Truth and
> Creativity Through Poem-Making. Tarcher/Putnam. 1995.
>
> Fox, John. Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making. 
> Tarcher/Putnam.
> 1997.
>
> Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. McGraw-Hill. 1979.
>
> Goldberg, Natalie. Wr iting Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within.
> Shambhala. 1986.
>
> Hall, Donald. Claims for Poetry. University of Michigan. 1982.
>
> Hass, Robert. Twentieth Century Pleasures. W.W. Norton. 1985.
>
> Hirsch, Edward. How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry. Harvest.
> 1999.
>
> Hirshfield, Jane. Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (Essays).
> HarperCollins. 1997.
>
> Hollander, John. Rhyme?s Reason. Yale University Press. 1981.
>
> Hugo, Richard. The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and
> Writing. Norton. 1979.
>
> Kinzie, Mary. A Poet?s Guide to Poetry. The University of Chicago Press.
> 1999.
>
> Kooser, Ted. The Poetry Home Repair Manual. University of Nebraska Press.
> 2005.
>
> Kowit, Steve. In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet?s Portable Workshop.
> Norton. 1997.
>
> Lammon, Martin. Written in Water, Written in Stone: Twenty Years of 
> Poets on
> Poetry. University of Michigan. 1996.
>
> Lehman, David. Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms: 65 Leading 
> Contemporary
> Poets Select and Comment on Their Poems. Collier/Macmillan. 1987.
>
> Longenbach, James. The Art of the Poetic Line. Graywolf. 2007.
>
> Mayes, Frances. The Discovery of Poetry. Harvest/Harcourt. 2001.
>
> Myers, Jack. The Portable Poetry Workshop. Thomson/Wadsworth. 2005.
>
> Oliver, Mary. A Poetry Handbook. Harvest Original. 1995.
> Oliver, Mary. Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading
> Metrical Verse. Mariner/Houghton Mifflin. 1998
> Oliver, Mary. Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems. Mariner Books.
> 2000.
>
> Orr, Gregory. Poetry as Survival. University of Georgia Press. 2002
> Orr, Gregory & Ellen Bryant Voigt. Poets Teaching Poets, Self, and the
> World. University of Michigan Press. 1996.
>
> Packard, William. The Art of Poetry Writing. St. Martin?s Press. 1992
>
> Padgett, Ron. Handbook of Poetic Forms. Teachers & Writers Collaborative.
> 1987.
>
> Paschen, Elise. Poetry Speaks: Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from
> Tennyson to Plath. Sourcebooks MediaFusion. 2001.
>
> Reeves, Judy. A Writer?s Book of Days: A Spirited Companion and Lively 
> Muse
> for the Writing Life. New World Library. 1999.
>
> Richards, Mary Caroline. Centering in Pottery, Poetry and the Person.
> Wesleyan. 1989.
>
> Roethke, Theodore. David Wagoner, Intro. Straw for the Fire: From the
> Notebooks of Theodore Roethke. Copper Canyon Press. 2006
> Roethke, Theodore. On Poetry and Craft. Copper Canyon Press. 2001.
>
> Rukeyser, Muriel. The Life of Poetry. Paris Press. 1996.
>
> Snodgrass, W.D. De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Bad. Graywolf Press.
> 2001.
> 0A
>
> Sontag, Kate and David Graham, eds. After Confession: Poetry as
> Autobiography. Graywolf Press. 2001
>
> Stafford, William. Writing the Australian Crawl. University of Michigan
> Press. 1978.
> Stafford, William. You Must Revise Your Life. University of Michigan 
> Press.
> 1987.
> Stafford, William. Crossing Unmarked Snow. University of Michigan Press.
> 1998.
> Stafford, William. The Answers are Inside the Mountains. University of
> Michigan Press. 2003.
>
> Sweeney, Matthew. Writing Poetry and Getting Published. NTC Publishing.
> 1997.
>
> Turco, Lewis. The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics. UPNE. 2000.
>
> Wallace, Robert. Writing Poems. HarperCollinsCollegePublishers. 1996.
>
> Webster?s Compact Rhyming Dictionary. Miriam-Webster, Inc. 1987
>
> Woolridge, Susan G. Poemcrazy: freeing your life with words. Clarkson
> Potter. 1996.
>  
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? 
> *Find out now! 
> <http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>* 
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From editor at pavementsaw.org  Thu Feb  5 17:40:29 2009
From: editor at pavementsaw.org (David Baratier)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 14:40:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: History of Flarf 
In-Reply-To: <200902051700.n15H060N003134@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <25357.44874.qm@web45604.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

We published the first book of Flarf, Rodney Koeneke's Rouge State, which was followed by Mike Magee's MS (spuyten duyvil)and Kasey's Deer Head Nation (tougher disguises). Or the first pre-Flarf book of Flarf depending on your angle.

That one poet on a listserv based in North Carolina should stop spouting so much seed to gang-bang pornos to make metonomy about flarf. 
 
Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1




      



From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb  5 17:49:52 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:49:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Picasso and the Allure of Language
Message-ID: <8CB55FB312F5BDA-115C-1563@Webmail-mg16.sim.aol.com>

http://www.courant.com/entertainment/museums/galleries/hc-picasso.artfeb05,0,2972604.story

Picasso and the Allure of Language" draws on the university's rich collection of donated Picassos, now numbering more than 100 pieces. It's the first major show there to bring together the various holdings on campus ? from the art gallery as well as the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

It represents the first reunion of the Picasso works originally owned by Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo Stein in the gallery's collections, with materials from the Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas papers in the Beinecke Library, which range from postcards and letters to an audio recording of Stein reading her written accounts of Picasso.

http://artgallery.yale.edu/pages/info/renovations_upcoming.html
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From halvard at gmail.com  Thu Feb  5 18:03:51 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 17:03:51 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book of note, plus various books on craft and 
	writing poetry
In-Reply-To: <498B597B.4050402@opus40.org>
References: <8CB55E73FD66716-15B8-1BB5@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com>
	<498B597B.4050402@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902051503x6bd17841q89f9bf71a927500a@mail.gmail.com>

Oy, makes me drowsy just looking at that list.
Hal

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 3:26 PM, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:

> 50 Contemporary Poets: The Creative Process <
> http://www.amazon.com/50-Contemporary-Poets-Creative-Process/dp/0679303170/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233868699&sr=1-6>
>  -Alberta Turner
>
> jforjames at aol.com wrote:
>
>> I just encountered this book on the WomPo list, I thought I'd pass it
>> on...looks like it could be good:
>>
>> Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry
>> *http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/BID1508.htm*
>>
>>
>> Also, they had a thread going on craft books...here's the list compiled &
>> posted by Joan Mazza:
>>
>> Addonizio, Kim and Laux, Dorianne. The Poet's Companion: A Guide to
>> Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Norton. 1997
>>
>> Allen, Donald. Poetics of the New American Poetry. Grove Press. 1974.
>>
>> Arp, Thomas R. Perrine's Sound and Sense. Harcourt Brace. 1997.
>>
>> Behn, Robin. The Practice of Poetry. HarperPerennial. 1992
>>
>> Bender, Sheila. Writing Personal Poetry: Creating Poems From Your Life
>>
>> Experiences. Writer's Digest Books. 1998
>>
>> Buckley, Christopher and Christopher Merrill, eds. What Will Suffice:
>>
>> Contemporary Poets on the Art of Poetry. Salt Lake City. 1995.
>>
>> Bugeja, Michael J. The Art and Craft of Poetry. Writer's Digest Books.
>> 1994.
>> Bugeja, Michael J. Poet's Guide: How to Publish and Perform Your Work.
>> Story
>> Line Press. 1995.
>>
>> Citino, David. The Eye of the Poet: Six Views of the Art and Craft of
>> Poetry. Oxford Unive rsity Press. 2002
>>
>> Cook, Jon, ed. Poetry in Theory: Anthology 1900 ? 2000. Wiley-Blackwell.
>> 2004.
>>
>> Corn, Alfred. The Poem's Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody. Story Line Press.
>> 2003.
>>
>> Dobyns, Stephen. Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry. St. Martin's
>> Griffin. 1997.
>>
>> Drake, Barbara. Writing Poetry. Harcourt Brace. 1983.
>>
>> Drury, John. Creating Poetry. Writer's Digest Books. 1991
>> Drury, John. The Poetry Dictionary. Writer's Digest Books. 1995.
>>
>> Elledge, Jim. Sweet Nothings: An Anthology of Rock and Roll in American
>> Poetry. Indiana University Press. 1994
>>
>> Ellmann, Richard. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Norton. 1988
>>
>> Ferguson, Margaret. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Norton. 1996
>>
>> Finch, Annie, ed. A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary
>> Women. Story Line Press. 1194
>>
>> Fiske, Robert Hartwell and Laura Cherry, eds. Poem, Revised: 54 Poems,
>> Revisions, Discussions. Marion Street Press. 2008
>>
>> Fox, John. Finding What You Didn't Lose: Expressing Your Truth and
>> Creativity Through Poem-Making. Tarcher/Putnam. 1995.
>>
>> Fox, John. Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making.
>> Tarcher/Putnam.
>> 1997.
>>
>> Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. McGraw-Hill. 1979.
>>
>> Goldberg, Natalie. Wr iting Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within.
>> Shambhala. 1986.
>>
>> Hall, Donald. Claims for Poetry. University of Michigan. 1982.
>>
>> Hass, Robert. Twentieth Century Pleasures. W.W. Norton. 1985.
>>
>> Hirsch, Edward. How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry. Harvest.
>> 1999.
>>
>> Hirshfield, Jane. Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (Essays).
>> HarperCollins. 1997.
>>
>> Hollander, John. Rhyme's Reason. Yale University Press. 1981.
>>
>> Hugo, Richard. The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and
>> Writing. Norton. 1979.
>>
>> Kinzie, Mary. A Poet's Guide to Poetry. The University of Chicago Press.
>> 1999.
>>
>> Kooser, Ted. The Poetry Home Repair Manual. University of Nebraska Press.
>> 2005.
>>
>> Kowit, Steve. In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop.
>> Norton. 1997.
>>
>> Lammon, Martin. Written in Water, Written in Stone: Twenty Years of Poets
>> on
>> Poetry. University of Michigan. 1996.
>>
>> Lehman, David. Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms: 65 Leading
>> Contemporary
>> Poets Select and Comment on Their Poems. Collier/Macmillan. 1987.
>>
>> Longenbach, James. The Art of the Poetic Line. Graywolf. 2007.
>>
>> Mayes, Frances. The Discovery of Poetry. Harvest/Harcourt. 2001.
>>
>> Myers, Jack. The Portable Poetry Workshop. Thomson/Wadsworth. 2005.
>>
>> Oliver, Mary. A Poetry Handbook. Harvest Original. 1995.
>> Oliver, Mary. Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading
>> Metrical Verse. Mariner/Houghton Mifflin. 1998
>> Oliver, Mary. Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems. Mariner Books.
>> 2000.
>>
>> Orr, Gregory. Poetry as Survival. University of Georgia Press. 2002
>> Orr, Gregory & Ellen Bryant Voigt. Poets Teaching Poets, Self, and the
>> World. University of Michigan Press. 1996.
>>
>> Packard, William. The Art of Poetry Writing. St. Martin's Press. 1992
>>
>> Padgett, Ron. Handbook of Poetic Forms. Teachers & Writers Collaborative.
>> 1987.
>>
>> Paschen, Elise. Poetry Speaks: Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from
>> Tennyson to Plath. Sourcebooks MediaFusion. 2001.
>>
>> Reeves, Judy. A Writer's Book of Days: A Spirited Companion and Lively
>> Muse
>> for the Writing Life. New World Library. 1999.
>>
>> Richards, Mary Caroline. Centering in Pottery, Poetry and the Person.
>> Wesleyan. 1989.
>>
>> Roethke, Theodore. David Wagoner, Intro. Straw for the Fire: From the
>> Notebooks of Theodore Roethke. Copper Canyon Press. 2006
>> Roethke, Theodore. On Poetry and Craft. Copper Canyon Press. 2001.
>>
>> Rukeyser, Muriel. The Life of Poetry. Paris Press. 1996.
>>
>> Snodgrass, W.D. De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Bad. Graywolf Press.
>> 2001.
>> 0A
>>
>> Sontag, Kate and David Graham, eds. After Confession: Poetry as
>> Autobiography. Graywolf Press. 2001
>>
>> Stafford, William. Writing the Australian Crawl. University of Michigan
>> Press. 1978.
>> Stafford, William. You Must Revise Your Life. University of Michigan
>> Press.
>> 1987.
>> Stafford, William. Crossing Unmarked Snow. University of Michigan Press.
>> 1998.
>> Stafford, William. The Answers are Inside the Mountains. University of
>> Michigan Press. 2003.
>>
>> Sweeney, Matthew. Writing Poetry and Getting Published. NTC Publishing.
>> 1997.
>>
>> Turco, Lewis. The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics. UPNE. 2000.
>>
>> Wallace, Robert. Writing Poems. HarperCollinsCollegePublishers. 1996.
>>
>> Webster's Compact Rhyming Dictionary. Miriam-Webster, Inc. 1987
>>
>> Woolridge, Susan G. Poemcrazy: freeing your life with words. Clarkson
>> Potter. 1996.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? *Find
>> out now! <
>> http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>*
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>
>
> --
> Tad Richards
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
> http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb  5 18:41:41 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:41:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book of note, plus various books on craft and writing
	poetry
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902051503x6bd17841q89f9bf71a927500a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB55E73FD66716-15B8-1BB5@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com><498B597B.4050402@opus40.org>
	<f160a1210902051503x6bd17841q89f9bf71a927500a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498B7935.9030901@nut-n-but.net>

Funny, Jerry--thanks.

--Bob



From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb  5 18:41:47 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:41:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this virtual coil
	(at least for now)
Message-ID: <8CB560271A2357A-115C-1883@Webmail-mg16.sim.aol.com>


Having hit three years of blogging,?I got thinking about blogging and wondering whether or how long?I'd keep it up, 
and that got me thinking about some of the blogs on my blogroll that seem to be defunct:

Reginald Shepherd really did die. A stalwart blogger who will be missed...and yet his mate does continue to post now & again in his memory...
http://reginaldshepherd.blogspot.com/

Rachel Loden, who has popped up on?NewPoetry?from time to time, was an occasional blogger but she seemed to stop for good?after posting an?obit to another poet...
http://wordstrumpet.blogspot.com/

And Chris Lott, also of this list, says he's done...Maybe he'll say more about why he no longer feels the cyber magic?
http://www.cosmopoetica.com/blog/

Simon DeDeo, a frequent commentator on poetry/poetics, a poetry and science guy, fell into a black hole back in March...
http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/

Then there is Alfred Corn who announced he was finished with blogging, but retracted of late, saying he'd blog, but less...
http://alfredcornsweblog.blogspot.com/

Well, I guess new blogs will pop up?to fill the virtual voids left by the late and?dearly departed.

Finnegan

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb  5 19:34:09 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:34:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Book of note,
	plus various books on craft and writingpoetry
In-Reply-To: <498B7935.9030901@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB55E73FD66716-15B8-1BB5@WEBMAIL-DZ18.sysops.aol.com><498B597B.4050402@opus40.org><f160a1210902051503x6bd17841q89f9
	bf71a927500a@mail.gmail.com> <498B7935.9030901@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498B8581.3070508@nut-n-but.net>

Ooops, a misfire.

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Feb  5 19:36:58 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:36:58 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this virtual
	coil(at least for now)
In-Reply-To: <8CB560271A2357A-115C-1883@Webmail-mg16.sim.aol.com>
References: <8CB560271A2357A-115C-1883@Webmail-mg16.sim.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498B862A.1020200@nut-n-but.net>

I turned my blog off for three months this past summer after over three 
years of daily posts.  But I'm back to daily--and getting as many as 7 
customers at times.

--Bob



From jforjames at aol.com  Thu Feb  5 20:11:47 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:11:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Dirac's poetry
Message-ID: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/4316309/The-Strangest-Man-the-Hidden-Life-of-Paul-Dirac-by-Graham-Farmelo---review.html

?To draw its picture is like a blind man touching a snowflake,? he said. ?One touch and it?s gone.? 


The man behind the maths was something of a snowflake himself. Outwardly cold and untouchable. Nearly silent. Certainly unique.
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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 09:11:09 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:11:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
Message-ID: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>


http://media.www.gonzagabulletin.com/media/storage/paper375/news/2009/02/06/Entertainment/LiYoung.Lee.Exterminator.Restaurateur.And.Poet-3616895.shtml

Li-young Lee: exterminator, restaurateur and poet
Courtney Gullette


I am a fan of "The Daily Show," but I was surprised when John Stewart joked that Obama used poetry after the inauguration as a way of clearing the crowd off the Washington Mall. There seems to be the notion today that poetry is somehow an elitist art form, existing only for academics and those who wish to join them. 


The more than 400 students, professors and members of the Spokane community who attended Li-Young Lee's reading seem to undermine the idea that poetry has little place in our society. 


As an English major I thought I was the target audience for Gonzaga's Writers Series. I was half expecting to find a sparsely seated auditorium on Tuesday night. However I was astonished as the 400 chairs in Cataldo filled and Dr. Tod Marshall recruited students to set up even more for the horde standing in the back.
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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 09:14:08 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:14:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Tufts winners
Message-ID: <8CB567C4F2F85ED-500-27AE@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>


http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-etw-kingsleytufts-6,0,7553120.story

Poets named as winners of Kingsley Tufts Poetry Awards
By Lee Margulies, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 
February 5, 2009 


Matthea Harvey, a Brooklyn, N.Y., resident who teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, has won the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award from Claremont Graduate University.


The prize, established in 1992 to honor work by a mid-career poet, was given for her book "Modern Life."


Matthew Dickman, a Portland, Ore., writer, was selected by the Claremont judges to receive the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award for his book "All-American Poem."
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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 09:18:50 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:18:50 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Man in the Newspaper Hat 
Message-ID: <8CB567CF7A02EEF-500-280F@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>


http://broadwayworld.com/article/THE_MAN_IN_THE_NEWSPAPER_HAT_Begins_35_Runs_Thru_41_20090205


MANYTRACKS is pleased to announce the world premiere of THE MAN IN THE NEWSPAPER HAT by Hayley Heaton, directed by Katrin Hilbe. THE MAN IN THE NEWSPAPER HAT plays a three-week limited engagement at the 45th Street Theatre (345 W 45th St). Performances begin Thursday, March 5th and continue through Wednesday, April 1st.


The Man in the Newspaper Hat is a fictionalized portrayal of what went into the creation of Elizabeth Bishop's poem, "Visits to St. Elizabeths." Bishop wrote this poem during her visits with the controversial poet, Ezra Pound who was remanded to St. Elizabeths in 1946 after having stood trial for treason where a special jury found him incompetent. Each scene is built upon aspects of Bishop's poem and follows both characters as they come together, "poet to poet?.

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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 11:43:10 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:43:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] si(gh)ting: VisPo.com
Message-ID: <8CB5691211F6348-1F4-40A@WEBMAIL-DC08.sysops.aol.com>

http://vispo.com/
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From r_loden at sbcglobal.net  Fri Feb  6 12:27:28 2009
From: r_loden at sbcglobal.net (Rachel Loden)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 09:27:28 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this virtual coil
	(at least for now)
In-Reply-To: <8CB560271A2357A-115C-1883@Webmail-mg16.sim.aol.com>
Message-ID: <006801c98880$2fe29660$220110ac@GLASSCASTLE>

Hey Jim, 

As Dr. Henry Frankenstein observed back in 1931, "It's alive. It's alive...
It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive,
IT'S ALIVE!" 

Wordstrumpet will shudder to life again later this year -- as Dr. F. said,
"the brain of a dead man waiting to live again in a body I made with my own
hands!" 

Happy to be on your radar, in any case, even after my temporary demise

All best wishes,

Rachel

P.S. Now to read YOUR blog....

________________________________

	From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of jforjames at aol.com
	Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 3:42 PM
	To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
	Subject: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this
virtual coil(at least for now)
	
	
	Having hit three years of blogging, I got thinking about blogging
and wondering whether or how long I'd keep it up, 
	and that got me thinking about some of the blogs on my blogroll that
seem to be defunct:
	
	Reginald Shepherd really did die. A stalwart blogger who will be
missed...and yet his mate does continue to post now & again in his memory...
	http://reginaldshepherd.blogspot.com/
	
	Rachel Loden, who has popped up on NewPoetry from time to time, was
an occasional blogger but she seemed to stop for good after posting an obit
to another poet...
	http://wordstrumpet.blogspot.com/
	
	And Chris Lott, also of this list, says he's done...Maybe he'll say
more about why he no longer feels the cyber magic?
	http://www.cosmopoetica.com/blog/
	
	Simon DeDeo, a frequent commentator on poetry/poetics, a poetry and
science guy, fell into a black hole back in March...
	http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/
	
	Then there is Alfred Corn who announced he was finished with
blogging, but retracted of late, saying he'd blog, but less...
	http://alfredcornsweblog.blogspot.com/
	
	Well, I guess new blogs will pop up to fill the virtual voids left
by the late and dearly departed.
	
	Finnegan
	

	________________________________

	Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean?
Find out now!
<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCO
MMshopdrspwebf0001>  




From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 13:11:12 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:11:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this virtual coil
	(at least for now)
In-Reply-To: <006801c98880$2fe29660$220110ac@GLASSCASTLE>
Message-ID: <8CB569D6D82178B-11AC-3CC@WEBMAIL-DY33.sysops.aol.com>

Rachel,
Glad to hear you alive and thriving. It's impossible to do everything. And you have young son, right?

Jim Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: Rachel Loden <r_loden at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 12:27 pm
Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this virtual coil (at least for now)



Hey Jim, 

As Dr. Henry Frankenstein observed back in 1931, "It's alive. It's alive...
It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive,
IT'S ALIVE!" 

Wordstrumpet will shudder to life again later this year -- as Dr. F. said,
"the brain of a dead man waiting to live again in a body I made with my own
hands!" 

Happy to be on your radar, in any case, even after my temporary demise

All best wishes,

Rachel

P.S. Now to read YOUR blog....

________________________________

    From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of jforjames at aol.com
    Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 3:42 PM
    To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
    Subject: [New-Poetry] ubi sunt - blogs that shuffled off this
virtual coil(at least for now)
    
    
    Having hit three years of blogging, I got thinking about blogging
and wondering whether or how long I'd keep it up, 
    and that got me thinking about some of the blogs on my blogroll that
seem to be defunct:
    
    Reginald Shepherd really did die. A stalwart blogger who will be
missed...and yet his mate does continue to post now & again in his memory...
    http://reginaldshepherd.blogspot.com/
    
    Rachel Loden, who has popped up on NewPoetry from time to time, was
an occasional blogger but she seemed to stop for good after posting an obit
to another poet...
    http://wordstrumpet.blogspot.com/
    
    And Chris Lott, also of this list, says he's done...Maybe he'll say
more about why he no longer feels the cyber magic?
    http://www.cosmopoetica.com/blog/
    
    Simon DeDeo, a frequent commentator on poetry/poetics, a poetry and
science guy, fell into a black hole back in March...
    http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/
    
    Then there is Alfred Corn who announced he was finished with
blogging, but retracted of late, saying he'd blog, but less...
    http://alfredcornsweblog.blogspot.com/
    
    Well, I guess new blogs will pop up to fill the virtual voids left
by the late and dearly departed.
 
   
    Finnegan
    

    ________________________________

    Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean?
Find out now!
<http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCO
MMshopdrspwebf0001>  


_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb  6 15:08:27 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:08:27 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net>

I never heard of this guy, which is nothing new.  Can anyone tell me if 
he packs them in because of his poetry, as opposed to because of his 
Message?  I'm curious. 

--Bob G.



From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Fri Feb  6 15:34:17 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 15:34:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>
	<498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9dc6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com>

Bob,

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/291
http://www.blueflowerarts.com/li.html
http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Lee.html

Why not investigate?

Jeff

On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 3:08 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

> I never heard of this guy, which is nothing new.  Can anyone tell me if he
> packs them in because of his poetry, as opposed to because of his Message?
>  I'm curious.
> --Bob G.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



-- 
You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that
is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and
experience, from which each according to his own immediate and peculiar
needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden
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From cheekc at muohio.edu  Fri Feb  6 16:24:08 2009
From: cheekc at muohio.edu (cris cheek)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 16:24:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5C2888AE-0BC9-47A1-AC43-AC069ABA971D@muohio.edu>

Bunting IS in the best available anthology for 20th Century British &  
Irish Poetry, the Oxford; alongside several other poets that ought to  
be more widely discussed i the US . . . Brian Coffey, WS Graham, Lyn  
Robert . . .

go Jeff

Bunting's ear is a fine one

cris


On Feb 2, 2009, at 11:11 AM, Jeff Newberry wrote:

> I've been reading Keith Tuma's By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and  
> Postmodern British Poetry and American Readers and his Anthology of  
> Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry for my comprehensive  
> examinations.
>
> I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been  
> reading, poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading  
> for my exams.  So, forgive me if some of my questions of  
> observations seem elementary or self-evident.
>
> By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is Basil  
> Bunting, a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate and  
> graduate years as an English major.  I like Briggflats quite a lot,  
> though I'm still grappling with the poem.  Bunting's lines with  
> their heavy stresses and Anglo-saxon vocabulary remind me of  
> Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."  The poem itself is a  
> Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound immediately.
>
> But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with  
> Eliot's more "universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe  
> "far-reaching?") concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with  
> this place (his place?):  Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into  
> the landscape, carving itself into the land, not unlike the mason  
> carving stone in the poem's opening lines.  Despite his concern  
> with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in a dose of  
> mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves  
> through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved  
> notions--such as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.
>
> So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on  
> earth is he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me-- 
> I've not checked) in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.   
> Perhaps he's not ignored; perhaps I've just missed him.   
> Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a conversation about a  
> poet who really has my ear right now.
>
> Best,
> Jeff Newberry
>
> -- 
>
> <ATT00001.txt>

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From jeff.newberry at gmail.com  Fri Feb  6 16:28:58 2009
From: jeff.newberry at gmail.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 16:28:58 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <5C2888AE-0BC9-47A1-AC43-AC069ABA971D@muohio.edu>
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
	<5C2888AE-0BC9-47A1-AC43-AC069ABA971D@muohio.edu>
Message-ID: <731bb17a0902061328j2edc1010o2a7c9c8662873c8@mail.gmail.com>

Cris--

I agree.  The more I've read his work, the more I like it.  A few people
posted some psuedo-insults on the list, but I'm not deterred.

Did Keith Tuma edit the volume that you mention?

Best,
Jeff

On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 4:24 PM, cris cheek <cheekc at muohio.edu> wrote:

> Bunting IS in the best available anthology for 20th Century British & Irish
> Poetry, the Oxford; alongside several other poets that ought to be more
> widely discussed i the US . . . Brian Coffey, WS Graham, Lyn Robert . . .
> go Jeff
>
> Bunting's ear is a fine one
>
> cris
>
>
> On Feb 2, 2009, at 11:11 AM, Jeff Newberry wrote:
>
> I've been reading Keith Tuma's *By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and Postmodern
> British Poetry and American Readers* and his *Anthology of
> Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry* for my comprehensive
> examinations.
>
> I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been reading,
> poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading for my exams.  So,
> forgive me if some of my questions of observations seem elementary or
> self-evident.
>
> By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is Basil
> Bunting, a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate and graduate years
> as an English major.  I like *Briggflats* quite a lot, though I'm still
> grappling with the poem.  Bunting's lines with their heavy stresses and
> Anglo-saxon vocabulary remind me of Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."
> The poem itself is a Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound
> immediately.
>
> But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with Eliot's more
> "universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe "far-reaching?")
> concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with this place (his place?):
> Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into the landscape, carving itself into
> the land, not unlike the mason carving stone in the poem's opening lines.
> Despite his concern with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in
> a dose of mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves
> through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved notions--such
> as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.
>
> So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on earth is
> he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me--I've not checked)
> in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.  Perhaps he's not ignored;
> perhaps I've just missed him.  Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a
> conversation about a poet who really has my ear right now.
>
> Best,
> Jeff Newberry
>
> --
>
> <ATT00001.txt>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 
You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that
is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and
experience, from which each according to his own immediate and peculiar
needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb  6 17:36:00 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:36:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9dc6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com><498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net>
	<731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9dc6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net>

Jeff Newberry wrote:
> Bob,
>
> http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/291
> http://www.blueflowerarts.com/li.html
> http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Lee.html
>
> Why not investigate?
>
> Jeff
Gee, Jeff, for a minute I was going to thank you.  Sometimes I'm curious 
about something but not curious enough to "investigate."  So I use 
New-Poetry for what I believe one of its principal functions is--to get 
an answer from someone who might be able easily to provide it--the way I 
myself do at times.

--Bob



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Fri Feb  6 18:00:45 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:00:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Tufts winners
In-Reply-To: <8CB567C4F2F85ED-500-27AE@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>
References: <8CB567C4F2F85ED-500-27AE@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498CC11D.5060806@opus40.org>

By Matthea Harvey:

SETTING THE TABLE

To cut through night you'll need your sharpest scissors. Cut around the 
birch, the bump of the bird nest on its lowest limb. Then with your nail 
scissors, trim around the baby beaks waiting for worms fall from the 
sky. Snip around the lip of the mailbox and the pervert's shoe peeking 
out from behind the Chevy. Before dawn, rip the silhouette from the sky 
and drag it inside. Frame the long black stripe and hang it in the 
dining room. Sleep. When you wake, redo the scene as day in doily. Now 
you have a lacy fence, a huge cherry blossom of a holly bush, a birch 
sugared with snow. Frame the white version and hang it opposite the 
black. Get your dinner and eat it between the two scenes. Your food will 
taste just right.


by Matthew Dickman

SHOW US THE PLEIADES

 
If the snow does not fall
outside the hospital window
then cherry blossom
If the body does not float
above the hospital bed
then saline drip
Your kingdom drops away
from you like your very own
face, sloped. A king
transformed into a mountain.
Show us your brain
a blackberry
Show us your tumor
a lagoon
Heaven is a cup of teeth,
it shines. What island have we
washed upon where a man
must live in the pit of his own body
sending notes
to the rest of us on earth?
Christ walks down the hall. If
the snow does not fall outside
the sanatorium window
then rain drop
Christ with his fists dragging
and your name locked inside
His mouth.
If the body does not float above
the sanatorium bed
then electric shock-
a body coming down the wild hall forever.
And if cotton then gauze-
a young surgeon holding your brain
in his hands and chanting
over it-
the cerebral cortex
the cerebellum glowing
forever and ever amen
If not that story then this:
Lift the pillars of heaven off our tired shoulders.
If death then skyscraper.
Show us the Pleiades
Show us the Pleiades
burning
outside the hospice window.



jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-etw-kingsleytufts-6,0,7553120.story
> Poets named as winners of Kingsley Tufts Poetry Awards
> By Lee Margulies, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
> February 5, 2009
>
> Matthea Harvey, a Brooklyn, N.Y., resident who teaches at Sarah 
> Lawrence College, has won the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award 
> from Claremont Graduate University.
>
> The prize, established in 1992 to honor work by a mid-career poet, was 
> given for her book "Modern Life."
>
> Matthew Dickman, a Portland, Ore., writer, was selected by the 
> Claremont judges to receive the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award for 
> his book "All-American Poem."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Carnations mean admiration, Tulips mean love - what do Roses mean? 
> *Find out now! 
> <http://shopping.aol.com/articles/2009/02/02/flowers-by-meanings/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopdrspwebf0001>* 
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Fri Feb  6 18:38:09 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:38:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] My Examiner Valentine's Day Column: How to Write a
 Love Poem to Your Sweetie if You're Not a Poet
Message-ID: <498CC9E1.9060102@opus40.org>

Valentine's Day Examiner column: How to write a love poem for your 
sweetie if you're not a poet.

http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb  6 19:47:01 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:47:01 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] On the Excellence of Housman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>

A Rough Attempt At Rating Housman's Cherry Blossom Poem

                  II


    Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
    Is hung with bloom along the bough,
    And stands about the woodland ride
    Wearing white for Eastertide.

    Now, of my threescore years and ten,
    Twenty will not come again,
    And take from seventy springs a score,
    It only leaves me fifty more.

    And since to look at things in bloom
    Fifty springs are little room,
    About the woodlands I will go
    To see the cherry hung with snow.

    A. E. Housman


My paraphrase (with some metaparaphrasing in italics):

    Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
   
The boughs of the cherry trees, which are the most beautiful trees

    Is hung with bloom along the bough,

are laden with blossoms at this time

    And stands about the woodland ride

and line the trail through the woods

    Wearing white for Eastertide.

decked out in a white hue appropriate for Easter
(/which is the happiest time of the year/)

    Now, of my threescore years and ten,
    Twenty will not come again,

At this time, twenty of the seventy years (/the Bible suggests I'll have/)
are gone permanently.

    And take from seventy springs a score,

If you subtract twenty springtimes from seventy

    It only leaves me fifty more.

it will leave me just fifty more years of life

    And since to look at things in bloom
    Fifty springs are little room,

Because fifty years of springtimes don't give one much time
to enjoying looking at Nature's blossomings

    About the woodlands I will go

I'll proceed through the woods (right away)

    To see the cherry hung with snow.

To take in (as much as I can of) the beauty of the snow-like blossoms of 
the cherry tree.
The snow is metaphorical because:

(1) the speaker is going to "look at things in bloom."

(2) the speaker has be celebrating spring entirely to this point; 
nothing he's said indicates
that he's going to wait until winter comes, then go out and look at the 
snow on the cherry
trees (which, in any case, would be little different from the snow on 
other deciduous
trees); among other problems with the emotional logic of this, it 
suggests that he is
capable, after all his praise of them, of forgetting about the cherry 
blossoms out there for
him to enjoy right now.

(3)  I simply can't read the poem as not being about someone fully 
engaged in the moment-
-the speaker spends four lines speaking in the highest terms of the 
beauty of cherry
blossoms, then six indicating how little time he has to enjoy them (the 
blossoms) despite
his having fifty more years to live; this sets up his last two lines as 
close to the synthesis
of a standard syllogism: cherry blossoms are worth seeing; I haven't 
much time to see
them; therefore, I will--what? put on my snowshoes are go look at them 
when they have
snow on their branches?  Not for me.

(4) the argument has been made that "snow" as a metaphor comes out of 
nowhere--but
earlier in the poem, the trees are personified; that they are "hung" 
with blooms is
somewhat figurative, too, suggesting, as it does, not the sprouting of 
blooms, but
someone's going about decorating them.  In any case, the metaphor in 
line four is an
involved, important one--the trees aren't just wearing human apparel, 
they are celebrating
the season.
 
(5) if the poet wanted us to believe the speaker was going to look at 
the cherry trees in
winter, he could easily have changed the poem to tell us that 
explicitly: for instance, by
saying, "About the woods, I'll also go/ When blooms have been replaced 
by snow."  Or the
like.  Why would the poet not have made sure we saw the point if it was 
that?  Was he
some kind of devious Empsonian?  He doesn't seem so to me.

(6) I would add that "snow" as a metaphor gives the poem a nice climax 
that echoes what
I consider the main virtue of the poem, its contrasting light and dark, 
and the transient and
enduring.

(7) Even with its rhetoric, the poem seems to be speaking of blossoms as 
it ends, not of literal snow, because it ends with a near repeat of its 
second line.  This could be taken as a clever twist--first spring, then 
winter; but it seems too abrupt for me, and my other arguments are 
against it.  The final lines work far better for me as a satisfying 
complete return to its initial subject.

By my revised check-list, this poem qualifies as excellent because:

(1) it both expresses things importantly true and represents things 
centrally beautiful.

a. it expresses the joy of an individual thinking about and anticipating 
seeing the beauty of
cherry trees in bloom (an implied synecdoche for spring); it thus 
represents something
centrally beautiful: a human being's love for Nature and beauty

b. it expresses the belief that cherry trees in bloom and, implicitly, 
Nature (and existence) is
not only beautiful but, in human terms, inexhaustible because a full 
lifetime will barely, or
not, give us time fully to enjoy it; it thus expresses something that 
will seem to many
people imprtantly true--that existence's beauty makes life worthwhile; 
at the same time, the
poem accentuates the beauty of spring by contrasting it with winter at 
the end, and with
arithmetic in the middle.

c. blending in with a. and b. is what it suggests about the brevity of 
human life: we have
little time to enjoy its beauty, so we should make the most of what time 
we have--which is
so clearly importantly true that, stated in prose, it is a banality.  
Note, however, that
Housman gives this carpe diem them an amusing twist (in keeping with the 
high spirits of
the piece: the poem is not about making the most of the day but of one's 
lifetime.

d. in the meantime, in stating that--for its speaker, at any 
rate--looking at cherry trees
hung with blossoms is of first importance, it expresses something else 
that is importantly
true to non-utilitarians: that beauty is second to nothing else in value 
to a human life
Indeed, for the speaker, it is something to devote fifty springs to, not 
just a day--he isn't
thinking of a fling with Persephone but marriage to her.

e. at the same time, it suggests with a reference to easter, and 
references to spring, not to
mention its focus on cherry blossoms, the cyclic ongoingness of 
existence: however fragile
and transient Nature's cherry blossoms are, and--implicitly--human life, 
rebirth will occur;
it thus expresses a third thing importantly true for the religious, and 
even for those who
are not religious but believe in the kind of reincarnation Shelley and 
Nietzsche did (and I
do); for those who don't believe in reincarnation, it still expresses 
the important truth that
Nature itself will endure.

f. finally, the poem is itself an object of beauty due to its sounds, 
images and diction,
sufficiently so in my view for me to be able confidently to claim it 
represents something
which is centrally beautiful--itself, in particular, and poetry, in 
general. 

(2) it is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or 
something that makes
its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but 
eventually achieves Clarity;

Few, I think, would argue that Housman's poem is unclear.  But its full 
meaning takes time
to get to, it seems to me.  It also has a personification not brilliant 
but perfect for the poem
that complicates the poem just enough to provide what seems to me 
sufficient Thematic
Misdirection.  I say that because I believe all figures of speech do 
this--they are errors
generating confusion it takes a mind a few seconds to overcome.  
Metrical poetry also is
different enough from prose to slow a reader's journey toward 
understanding the poem in
whole.  This poem is far from having the thematic misdirection many 
poems have, but it
has enough, so gets a check here.

(3) it has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like 
which pulls its
elements reasonably close together; 

I presented my interpretation of the poem as a unified set of four 
consequential truths and a
closely inter-related representation of beauty.  Its packaging as a 
lyric poem of beauty
further unifies it.  So the poem scores well here.

(4) it contains few or no superfluous words;

All the poem's words seem necessary either to its meaning or its 
acoustics, and only rarely
not to both.  All metrical poems have occasional words that are there 
for the metrics or
rhyme almost entirely, or fall out of one or the other of those things 
to maintain meaning.
So the poem gets a check here, too.

(5) it boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems 
have such as
uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
art), and imagery;

To me the main special constituent this poem has that few of no other 
poems have is the
wry interruption from pure, almost too sweet lyric, into grade school 
arithmetic it takes--
with a Biblical allusion giving it ponderousness completely opposed to 
the lightness of
cherry blossoms, and delight in cherry blossoms.  This strikes me as a 
wonderful change of
tone: cerebral analysis versus emotional spontaneity, heaviness versus 
gaiety, play,
implicitly, versus duty.

I suspect but would not swear that the poem also has a melodiousness 
rare in poetry, a
melodiousness kept from excess by the speaker's drawn-out calculations.  
One other
triumph it achieves, although I would not call it uncommonly effective, 
is its
personification of the cherry trees as wearing white garments to 
celebrate Easter.  We're in
the archetypal here: Spring!  Rebirth!  Celebration!  Joy!  Universal 
Love of Existence!

(6) it avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery 
or thought; too
overt Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;

I give it a check here, too.  It uses a standard form, but it's one 
appropriate to a fairly
serious albeit happy work: pentameter and tetrameter (as opposed to 
Dickinson's more
jingly tetrameter and trimeter), with missing weak stresses at the 
beginning of several
lines, which enlivens the poem, to my ear.  Nothing brilliant about the 
rhymes, but they
work as well as the rhymes or just about any poem.  "Along the bough," 
for instance, is
pretty clearly in the poem for meter and rhyme since it's unneeded for 
the meaning--where
else would blooms be hung?  But it works so well melodationally, one 
can't reasonably
criticize it.  "Is hung with bloom along the bough" not only closes an 
end-rhyme, but
carries out a b- and an l-alliteration, and a g-consonance, and four 
open vowels combine
with the two l's and the w to liquify the line, the l's in particular 
carrying on the l-
alliteration that begins the poem, and continues into the third line.  
And the w's go on in
the rest of this stanza to form a 4-member alliteration.  The sound 
effects in the rest of the
poem are similarly effective.  And, as I mentioned in my brief against 
taking "snow" as
literal snow, the poem is a near-perfectly crafted little mechanism, 
with a theme stated at
its beginning, veered rather distantly from, then returned triumphantly to.


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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 20:33:00 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:33:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com><498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net><731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9dc6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com>
	<498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <8CB56DB255D7960-14C8-14B9@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>

Bob, I think this is a gotcha moment. You oft complain about our lack of attention to VisPoers & those
whose poetic practice is 'otherstream', and often you are right, but now, by acknowledging??
you don't?know nothin' about Li-Young Lee...that's like being under a VizPo rock for a decade or more.

Li-Young Lee has been a fixture of the contemporary scene for at least 10 years. His book
Rose is an all time best seller among contemporary poetry. It's probably not
too much a stretch to say that sales of Rose have kept Boa Editions in business.
http://www.boaeditions.org/bookstore/details.php?prodId=129
Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Sent: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 5:36 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in


Jeff Newberry wrote:?
> Bob,?
>?
> http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/291?
> http://www.blueflowerarts.com/li.html?
> http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Lee.html?
>?
> Why not investigate??
>?
> Jeff?
Gee, Jeff, for a minute I was going to thank you. Sometimes I'm curious about something but not curious enough to "investigate." So I use New-Poetry for what I believe one of its principal functions is--to get an answer from someone who might be able easily to provide it--the way I myself do at times.?
?
--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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From gejs1 at rochester.rr.com  Fri Feb  6 21:13:35 2009
From: gejs1 at rochester.rr.com (Gerald Schwartz)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 21:13:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com><498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net><731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9dc6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com><498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB56DB255D7960-14C8-14B9@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <5B4002C887344B9CA91AF4AF7C086772@yourae066c3a9b>

Li-Young Lee and Kim Addonizio
seem to be a matched set... both
at Boa...

... neither, however, ever did to
a crowd what Lux Interior did...
and then some--

Gerald S.


  Bob, I think this is a gotcha moment. You oft complain about our lack of attention to VisPoers & those
  whose poetic practice is 'otherstream', and often you are right, but now, by acknowledging  
  you don't know nothin' about Li-Young Lee...that's like being under a VizPo rock for a decade or more.

  Li-Young Lee has been a fixture of the contemporary scene for at least 10 years. His book
  Rose is an all time best seller among contemporary poetry. It's probably not
  too much a stretch to say that sales of Rose have kept Boa Editions in business.
  http://www.boaeditions.org/bookstore/details.php?prodId=129
  Finnegan


  -----Original Message-----
  From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
  Sent: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 5:36 pm
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in


  Jeff Newberry wrote: 
  > Bob, 
  > 
  > http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/291 
  > http://www.blueflowerarts.com/li.html 
  > http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Lee.html 
  > 
  > Why not investigate? 
  > 
  > Jeff 
  Gee, Jeff, for a minute I was going to thank you. Sometimes I'm curious about something but not curious enough to "investigate." So I use New-Poetry for what I believe one of its principal functions is--to get an answer from someone who might be able easily to provide it--the way I myself do at times. 
   
  --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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  New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
  http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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From jforjames at aol.com  Fri Feb  6 21:21:10 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:21:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <5B4002C887344B9CA91AF4AF7C086772@yourae066c3a9b>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com><498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net><731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9dc6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com><498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net><8CB56DB255D7960-14C8-14B9@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>
	<5B4002C887344B9CA91AF4AF7C086772@yourae066c3a9b>
Message-ID: <8CB56E1E069A1F4-14C8-169D@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>

You're Crampin' my style, man. 
Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald Schwartz <gejs1 at rochester.rr.com>
Sent: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 9:13 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in



Li-Young Lee and Kim Addonizio

seem to be a matched set... both

at Boa...

?

.... neither, however, ever did to

a crowd what Lux Interior did...

and then some--

?

Gerald S.




Bob, I think this is a gotcha moment. You oft complain about our lack of attention to VisPoers & those
whose poetic practice is 'otherstream', and often you are right, but now, by acknowledging??
you don't?know nothin' about Li-Young Lee...that's like being under a VizPo rock for a decade or more.

Li-Young Lee has been a fixture of the contemporary scene for at least 10 years. His book
Rose is an all time best seller among contemporary poetry. It's probably not
too much a stretch to say that sales of Rose have kept Boa Editions in business.
http://www.boaeditions.org/bookstore/details.php?prodId=129
Finnegan


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
Sent: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 5:36 pm
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in


Jeff Newberry wrote:?
> Bob,?
>?
> http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/291?
> http://www.blueflowerarts.com/li.html?
> http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Lee.html?
>?
> Why not investigate??
>?
> Jeff?
Gee, Jeff, for a minute I was going to thank you. Sometimes I'm curious about something but not curious enough to "investigate." So I use New-Poetry for what I believe one of its principal functions is--to get an answer from someone who might be able easily to provide it--the way I myself do at times.?
?
--Bob?
?
_______________________________________________?
New-Poetry mailing list?
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu?
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry?



Great Deals on Dell Laptops. Starting at $499. 




_______________________________________________
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

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Feb  6 21:30:41 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 21:30:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
Message-ID: <1fe5540520cb4ad2a12a9bccb3470523.bobgrumman@nut-n-but.net>





------- Original Message -------
>From    : Gerald Schwartz[mailto:gejs1 at rochester.rr.com]
Sent    : 2/6/2009 9:13:35 PM
To      : new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Cc      : 
Subject : RE: Re: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in

 
Li-Young Lee and Kim Addonizio
seem to be a matched set... both
at Boa...
 
... neither, however, ever did to
a crowd what Lux Interior did...
and then some--
 
Gerald S.


Bob, 
  I think this is a gotcha moment. You oft complain about our lack of attention 
  to VisPoers & those
whose poetic practice is 'otherstream', and often 
  you are right, but now, by acknowledging  
you don't know 
  nothin' about Li-Young Lee...that's like being under a VizPo rock for a decade 
  or more.

Li-Young Lee has been a fixture of the contemporary scene for 
  at least 10 years. His book
Rose is an all time best seller among 
  contemporary poetry. It's probably not
too much a stretch to say that sales 
  of Rose have kept Boa Editions in business.
http://www.boaeditions.org/bookstore/details.php?prodId=129
Finnegan


And I should have heard of one knownstreamer?  Why?  That's not ignoring a whole field of 
poetry.  There are good visual poets I've never heard of.

Now, is he popular because of his poetry or because of his message?

--Bob 






From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 07:44:17 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 13:44:17 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] My Examiner Valentine's Day Column: How to Write a 
	Love Poem to Your Sweetie if You're Not a Poet
In-Reply-To: <498CC9E1.9060102@opus40.org>
References: <498CC9E1.9060102@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902070444sf30fbc6qfbb8620aa76f3004@mail.gmail.com>

Interesting, will do ...

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 12:38 AM, TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org> wrote:

> Valentine's Day Examiner column: How to write a love poem for your sweetie
> if you're not a poet.
>
> http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner
>
> --
> Tad Richards
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
> http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sat Feb  7 07:58:34 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 07:58:34 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Marilyn Chin
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902070458y9c8d2d2me8ccf09ff9384c1b@mail.gmail.com>

A dear friend just sent me this excellent [Excellent] poem, Turtle Soup, by
Marilyn Chin.
Best,

Judy who enjoys Chin's humour as well as her other Excellent poetic bits

------------------------------

*Turtle Soup*

You go home one evening tired from work,
and your mother boils you turtle soup.
Twelve hours hunched over the hearth
(who knows what else is in that cauldron).

You say, "Ma, you've poached the symbol of long life;
that turtle lived four thousand years, swam
the Wet, up the Yellow, over the Yangtze.
Witnessed the Bronze Age, the High Tang,
grazed on splendid sericulture."
(So, she boils the life out of him.)

"All our ancestors have been fools.
Remember Uncle Wu who rode ten thousand miles
to kill a famous Manchu and ended up
with his head on a pole? Eat, child,
its liver will make you strong."

"Sometimes you're the life, sometimes the sacrifice."
Her sobbing is inconsolable.
So, you spread that gentle napkin
over your lap in decorous Pasadena.

Baby, some high priestess has got it wrong.
The golden decal on the green underbelly
says "Made in Hong Kong."

Is there nothing left but the shell
and humanity's strange inscriptions,
the songs, the rites, the oracles?

FOR BEN HUANG

Copyright (c) 1993 by Marilyn Chin, from *The Pheonix Gone, The Terrace Empty
*Online Source: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/m/mdherrin/turtle.html
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 08:30:29 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 14:30:29 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Marilyn Chin
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902070458y9c8d2d2me8ccf09ff9384c1b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7db1d01b0902070458y9c8d2d2me8ccf09ff9384c1b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902070530u7df360c2t42f0dd0234a6c47e@mail.gmail.com>

I know this poem.

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 1:58 PM, Judy Prince <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com>wrote:

> A dear friend just sent me this excellent [Excellent] poem, Turtle Soup, by
> Marilyn Chin.
> Best,
>
> Judy who enjoys Chin's humour as well as her other Excellent poetic bits
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *Turtle Soup*
>
> You go home one evening tired from work,
> and your mother boils you turtle soup.
> Twelve hours hunched over the hearth
> (who knows what else is in that cauldron).
>
> You say, "Ma, you've poached the symbol of long life;
> that turtle lived four thousand years, swam
> the Wet, up the Yellow, over the Yangtze.
> Witnessed the Bronze Age, the High Tang,
> grazed on splendid sericulture."
> (So, she boils the life out of him.)
>
> "All our ancestors have been fools.
> Remember Uncle Wu who rode ten thousand miles
> to kill a famous Manchu and ended up
> with his head on a pole? Eat, child,
> its liver will make you strong."
>
> "Sometimes you're the life, sometimes the sacrifice."
> Her sobbing is inconsolable.
> So, you spread that gentle napkin
> over your lap in decorous Pasadena.
>
> Baby, some high priestess has got it wrong.
> The golden decal on the green underbelly
> says "Made in Hong Kong."
>
> Is there nothing left but the shell
> and humanity's strange inscriptions,
> the songs, the rites, the oracles?
>
> FOR BEN HUANG
>
> Copyright (c) 1993 by Marilyn Chin, from *The Pheonix Gone, The Terrace
> Empty
> *Online Source: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/m/mdherrin/turtle.html
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From cheekc at muohio.edu  Sat Feb  7 08:38:27 2009
From: cheekc at muohio.edu (cris cheek)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 08:38:27 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Basil Bunting
In-Reply-To: <731bb17a0902061328j2edc1010o2a7c9c8662873c8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <731bb17a0902020811q40a021bcr4e817ff0664107ae@mail.gmail.com>
	<5C2888AE-0BC9-47A1-AC43-AC069ABA971D@muohio.edu>
	<731bb17a0902061328j2edc1010o2a7c9c8662873c8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <176A5F44-7006-4EC2-9E4A-EF04A45A92ED@muohio.edu>

Yes, the Oxford is Keith's work. It's going to stand in the way of  
contenders for some time yet. Not because it is perfect. No anthology  
could claim to be. Because it makes a great attempt to represent the  
full range of what's been going on on in British and Irish poetries  
throughout the 20th Century. And because the annotations, compiled by  
Nate Dorward are extremely fine.

Bunting's presence played an important role. Almost a reluctant one  
in that he did not seem to seek the limelight. The tale of Tom  
Pickard's encouragement is salutary.

Briggflatt's is simply "one" of the really great long poems written  
in England in the 20th Century.

cris


On Feb 6, 2009, at 4:28 PM, Jeff Newberry wrote:

> Cris--
>
> I agree.  The more I've read his work, the more I like it.  A few  
> people posted some psuedo-insults on the list, but I'm not deterred.
>
> Did Keith Tuma edit the volume that you mention?
>
> Best,
> Jeff
>
> On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 4:24 PM, cris cheek <cheekc at muohio.edu> wrote:
> Bunting IS in the best available anthology for 20th Century British  
> & Irish Poetry, the Oxford; alongside several other poets that  
> ought to be more widely discussed i the US . . . Brian Coffey, WS  
> Graham, Lyn Robert . . .
>
> go Jeff
>
> Bunting's ear is a fine one
>
> cris
>
>
> On Feb 2, 2009, at 11:11 AM, Jeff Newberry wrote:
>
>> I've been reading Keith Tuma's By Obstinate Isles:  Modern and  
>> Postmodern British Poetry and American Readers and his Anthology  
>> of Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry for my comprehensive  
>> examinations.
>>
>> I wanted to start a conversation about a few poets that I've been  
>> reading, poets who've not been on my radar until I started reading  
>> for my exams.  So, forgive me if some of my questions of  
>> observations seem elementary or self-evident.
>>
>> By far, one of the most fascinating poets I've come across is  
>> Basil Bunting, a name I'd never heard, despite my undergraduate  
>> and graduate years as an English major.  I like Briggflats quite a  
>> lot, though I'm still grappling with the poem.  Bunting's lines  
>> with their heavy stresses and Anglo-saxon vocabulary remind me of  
>> Pound's translation of "The Seafarer."  The poem itself is a  
>> Modernist epic (I think), so I think of Eliot and Pound immediately.
>>
>> But Bunting's concern with a particular place contrasts with  
>> Eliot's more "universal" (not quite the right word, I know--maybe  
>> "far-reaching?") concerns.  Bunting seems concerned primarily with  
>> this place (his place?):  Northumbria.  The poem burrows down into  
>> the landscape, carving itself into the land, not unlike the mason  
>> carving stone in the poem's opening lines.  Despite his concern  
>> with landscape, however, Bunting can't help bringing in a dose of  
>> mythology in a later part of the poem.  Indeed, the poem moves  
>> through seasons, cyclically, depending primarily on recieved  
>> notions--such as Spring being a time of rebirth and so on.
>>
>> So, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Bunting?  And why on  
>> earth is he so ignored?  He doesn't appear (a colleague tells me-- 
>> I've not checked) in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.   
>> Perhaps he's not ignored; perhaps I've just missed him.   
>> Nonetheless, I thought I'd try to open up a conversation about a  
>> poet who really has my ear right now.
>>
>> Best,
>> Jeff Newberry
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> <ATT00001.txt>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables;  
> and that is what art really is, particular stories of particular  
> people and experience, from which each according to his own  
> immediate and peculiar needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H.  
> Auden
>
> <ATT00001.txt>

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From editor at pavementsaw.org  Sat Feb  7 11:20:25 2009
From: editor at pavementsaw.org (David Baratier)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 08:20:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
Message-ID: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Gerry--

What is a Lux interior?

Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young Lee reading as proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best known US poets can only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves the opposite. 

Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1


      



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb  7 11:24:30 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:24:30 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] On the Excellence of Housman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>
	<498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498DB5BE.9010406@nut-n-but.net>

I forgot something when I posted my little essay: a thank you to 
New-Poetry for being here for me to post it to, and to all whose 
comments and ideas on excellence in poetry and on this poem in 
particular, including many opposed to mine, that I stole or bounced off 
of into enlargements or improvements of ones I already had.  I know I 
sound now like someone who just won a Tuft's Prize or something, but I 
consider my essay, still in progress though I'm sure it is, an important 
minor achievement for me, however others may view it.

--Bob



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sat Feb  7 11:29:02 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:29:02 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>

The writer, a college student, is saying that an audience of 400 
indicates that poetry is much more important on her campus than she 
might have supposed. If a popular lecture -- on the Darwin anniversary, 
let's say -- draws 15,000 on the same campus, then she's wrong. If it 
draws, say, 600, then she's still right.

David Baratier wrote:
> Gerry--
>
> What is a Lux interior?
>
> Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young Lee reading as proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best known US poets can only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves the opposite. 
>
> Be well
>
> David Baratier, Editor
>
> Pavement Saw Press
> 321 Empire Street
> Montpelier OH 43543
> http://pavementsaw.org
>
> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>
>
>       
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb  7 11:41:20 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:41:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <8CB56E1E069A1F4-14C8-169D@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com><498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net><731bb17a0902061234p4925e59cg1bf9d
	c6d7754d08a@mail.gmail.com><498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net><8CB56DB255D7960-14C8-14B9@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com><5B4002C88734
	4B9CA91AF4AF7C086772@yourae066c3a9b>
	<8CB56E1E069A1F4-14C8-169D@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <498DB9B0.3020309@nut-n-but.net>

Follow-up note.  My complaint is not with people who privately bother 
only with one kind of poetry, but with those who publish books of "the 
best" poem (of all kinds) of a year, or give out money or paid vacations 
to poets, or teach classes in contemporary poetry not devoted 
specifically to one poet or kind of poetry, or write criticism 
supposedly of poetry in general, and ignore important entire schools of 
it like visual poetry.  If if were chosen to do any of those things, I 
would make sure I got as good an idea as possible of what poetry was out 
there, including Lee's, including commercially-successful poetry (which 
I admit to knowing close to zero about since Bukowski kicked off and 
McKuen slipped out of fame)--because I would research it and ask for help.

My press has published poetry ranging from, yes, Iowa Plaintext Lyrics, 
to "asemic" poetry (which I refuse to accept as poetry but am willing to 
publish, anyway).  I've reviewed poetry of various contemporary schools 
for /American Book Review/--though its editors only let me review an 
otherstream poet once.  I will admit that I no longer keep up with 
poetry, and never did to a tenth of the extent people like David do.  
But if any of the many reporters who constantly interview me ever asks 
me to describe the State Of Contemporary American Poetry, I will 
forthrightly say that I lack the data to do an accurate job of that, but 
that THE &$##%!!@#ESTABLISHME NTHATESVISUALPOETRYBECA
US EOFHOWMUCHB ETTERTHAN--.  I mean, I will say that the only good poets 
current are those posting to New-Poetry . . .  except for that Anny woman.

--Bob
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From halvard at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 11:42:00 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 10:42:00 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498DB9B0.3020309@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>
	<498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net> <498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net>
	<8CB56DB255D7960-14C8-14B9@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>
	<8CB56E1E069A1F4-14C8-169D@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>
	<498DB9B0.3020309@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902070842q718fdfeflb3682c2cbca8de84@mail.gmail.com>

Keeping up with poetry! Now there's a concept.
Hal

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

>  Follow-up note.  My complaint is not with people who privately bother only
> with one kind of poetry, but with those who publish books of "the best" poem
> (of all kinds) of a year, or give out money or paid vacations to poets, or
> teach classes in contemporary poetry not devoted specifically to one poet or
> kind of poetry, or write criticism supposedly of poetry in general, and
> ignore important entire schools of it like visual poetry.  If if were chosen
> to do any of those things, I would make sure I got as good an idea as
> possible of what poetry was out there, including Lee's, including
> commercially-successful poetry (which I admit to knowing close to zero about
> since Bukowski kicked off and McKuen slipped out of fame)--because I would
> research it and ask for help.
>
> My press has published poetry ranging from, yes, Iowa Plaintext Lyrics, to
> "asemic" poetry (which I refuse to accept as poetry but am willing to
> publish, anyway).  I've reviewed poetry of various contemporary schools for
> *American Book Review*--though its editors only let me review an
> otherstream poet once.  I will admit that I no longer keep up with poetry,
> and never did to a tenth of the extent people like David do.  But if any of
> the many reporters who constantly interview me ever asks me to describe the
> State Of Contemporary American Poetry, I will forthrightly say that I lack
> the data to do an accurate job of that, but that THE &$##%!!@#ESTABLISHME
> NTHATESVISUALPOETRYBECA
> US EOFHOWMUCHB ETTERTHAN--.  I mean, I will say that the only good poets
> current are those posting to New-Poetry . . .  except for that Anny woman.
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sat Feb  7 11:46:24 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:46:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <f160a1210902070842q718fdfeflb3682c2cbca8de84@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB567BE49AB9F1-500-2773@Webmail-mg05.sim.aol.com>	<498C98BB.8010401@nut-n-but.net>
	<498CBB50.4060309@nut-n-but.net>	<8CB56DB255D7960-14C8-14B9@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>	<8CB56E1E069A1F4-14C8-169D@webmail-da07.sysops.aol.com>	<498DB9B0.3020309@nut-n-but.net>
	<f160a1210902070842q718fdfeflb3682c2cbca8de84@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498DBAE0.4030709@opus40.org>

I have enough trouble keeping up with the Johnsons.

Halvard Johnson wrote:
> Keeping up with poetry! Now there's a concept.
>
> Hal
>
> On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>> wrote:
>
>     Follow-up note.  My complaint is not with people who privately
>     bother only with one kind of poetry, but with those who publish
>     books of "the best" poem (of all kinds) of a year, or give out
>     money or paid vacations to poets, or teach classes in contemporary
>     poetry not devoted specifically to one poet or kind of poetry, or
>     write criticism supposedly of poetry in general, and ignore
>     important entire schools of it like visual poetry.  If if were
>     chosen to do any of those things, I would make sure I got as good
>     an idea as possible of what poetry was out there, including Lee's,
>     including commercially-successful poetry (which I admit to knowing
>     close to zero about since Bukowski kicked off and McKuen slipped
>     out of fame)--because I would research it and ask for help.
>
>     My press has published poetry ranging from, yes, Iowa Plaintext
>     Lyrics, to "asemic" poetry (which I refuse to accept as poetry but
>     am willing to publish, anyway).  I've reviewed poetry of various
>     contemporary schools for /American Book Review/--though its
>     editors only let me review an otherstream poet once.  I will admit
>     that I no longer keep up with poetry, and never did to a tenth of
>     the extent people like David do.  But if any of the many reporters
>     who constantly interview me ever asks me to describe the State Of
>     Contemporary American Poetry, I will forthrightly say that I lack
>     the data to do an accurate job of that, but that THE
>     &$##%!!@#ESTABLISHME NTHATESVISUALPOETRYBECA
>     US EOFHOWMUCHB ETTERTHAN--.  I mean, I will say that the only good
>     poets current are those posting to New-Poetry . . .  except for
>     that Anny woman.
>
>     --Bob
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     New-Poetry mailing list
>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> halvard at gmail.com <mailto:halvard at gmail.com>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html 
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/index.html>
> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html 
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/vidalocabooks.html>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb  7 11:50:28 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:50:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498DBBD4.2090302@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> The writer, a college student, is saying that an audience of 400 
> indicates that poetry is much more important on her campus than she 
> might have supposed. If a popular lecture -- on the Darwin 
> anniversary, let's say -- draws 15,000 on the same campus, then she's 
> wrong. If it draws, say, 600, then she's still right.
>
There is also the problem of why the poet is popular.  Is it due, I 
still want to know, to his poetry or his message?  If the Pope had a 
book of poems published and drew a crowd of 400 or 4000 to a reading, 
would it indicate poetry is popular?

--Bob G.


> David Baratier wrote:
>> Gerry--
>>
>> What is a Lux interior?
>>
>> Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young Lee reading as 
>> proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best known US poets 
>> can only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves the opposite.
>> Be well
>>
>> David Baratier, Editor
>>
>> Pavement Saw Press
>> 321 Empire Street
>> Montpelier OH 43543
>> http://pavementsaw.org
>>
>> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
>> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>>
>>
>>      
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
>>   
>




From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Feb  7 12:05:17 2009
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 11:05:17 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <40037250-979E-454F-BFB7-B5F13DA0EA4F@ripon.edu>

This argument really refuses to die a decent death, rising every so  
often from the ashes to totter around and scare poets anew and give  
highbrow journalists an easy topic to tut-tut about.  Usually in the  
absence of any facts beyond a couple flashy anecdotes.

Poetry's not as popular as bread & circuses, and never has been.

My guess is that at least as many Americans read a bit of poetry now  
and then as attend modern dance performances, but I can't prove that,  
and you probably can't disprove it, either.  It's apples-and-oranges  
and a distraction from all things important and holy anyway.

A given:  more people watch pro wrestling than read Li-Young Lee.    
But is that really the most interesting comparison to keep making,  
whether you're Edmund Wilson or Dana Gioia?

The curious matter is that poetry's death is such an old story.  Why,  
as Donald Hall asked in an essay many years back, do so many poets  
and others yearn to declare poetry dead?  Especially when there is  
rather a lot of evidence to the contrary.  Now *that's* a fascinating  
question.  See Hall's essays for what is still, to my knowledge, the  
best treatment of this issue.  "Death to the Death of Poetry" would  
be a decent place to start.

For my part, I've been attending poetry readings for more than 30  
years which were lively and packed with listeners, in many states  
across the land, on and off campus.  For decades now I've seen poets  
like Gwendolyn Brooks or Robert Bly routinely draw much bigger  
audiences than lectures on anthropology or the films of Ingmar  
Bergman, for instance.  A couple weeks ago on my college campus a  
poet even I've never heard of drew an audience of about 30 or 40 to a  
reading that no one was required to attend.  That's simply not  
unusual, in my experience.

Should I moan because, across town, Beyonce is filling a stadium?

In a world where even a poet as obscure as myself has read to  
audiences in the triple digits more than once, I believe that the  
notion of poetry's "popularity" is, at least, complicated.

Bob G is still fussing, I see, because no one will rise to his bait &  
declare that Li-Young Lee is or is not "popular" due to his  
"message."  That's probably because it *is* so obviously bait, and  
not indicative of a desire to know more about Li-Young Lee.  Jeff  
Newberry and Jim Finnegan already nailed him on that.  Bob's question  
is also, just incidentally, a nice example of the fallacy of  
bifurcation.  I mean, was Shakespeare popular "because" of his skill  
as a playwright, or because there are murders and lots of sex jokes  
in his plays?

For extra credit: what *was* the message in *Othello*, anyway?

========================================
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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From halvard at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 12:10:04 2009
From: halvard at gmail.com (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 11:10:04 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <40037250-979E-454F-BFB7-B5F13DA0EA4F@ripon.edu>
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>
	<40037250-979E-454F-BFB7-B5F13DA0EA4F@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <f160a1210902070910n44a42748g96f89c7f67f5a48a@mail.gmail.com>

Hey, even when that Yevtushenko guy used to fill soccer stadiums in the USSR
backin the good, old Cold War days, that was almost entirely because there
wasn't anything
good on TV.

Hal

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 11:05 AM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> This argument really refuses to die a decent death, rising every so often
> from the ashes to totter around and scare poets anew and give highbrow
> journalists an easy topic to tut-tut about.  Usually in the absence of any
> facts beyond a couple flashy anecdotes.
> Poetry's not as popular as bread & circuses, and never has been.
>
> My guess is that at least as many Americans read a bit of poetry now and
> then as attend modern dance performances, but I can't prove that, and you
> probably can't disprove it, either.  It's apples-and-oranges and a
> distraction from all things important and holy anyway.
>
> A given:  more people watch pro wrestling than read Li-Young Lee.   But is
> that really the most interesting comparison to keep making, whether you're
> Edmund Wilson or Dana Gioia?
>
> The curious matter is that poetry's death is such an old story.  Why, as
> Donald Hall asked in an essay many years back, do so many poets and others
> yearn to declare poetry dead?  Especially when there is rather a lot of
> evidence to the contrary.  Now *that's* a fascinating question.  See Hall's
> essays for what is still, to my knowledge, the best treatment of this issue.
>  "Death to the Death of Poetry" would be a decent place to start.
>
> For my part, I've been attending poetry readings for more than 30 years
> which were lively and packed with listeners, in many states across the land,
> on and off campus.  For decades now I've seen poets like Gwendolyn Brooks or
> Robert Bly routinely draw much bigger audiences than lectures on
> anthropology or the films of Ingmar Bergman, for instance.  A couple weeks
> ago on my college campus a poet even I've never heard of drew an audience of
> about 30 or 40 to a reading that no one was required to attend.  That's
> simply not unusual, in my experience.
>
> Should I moan because, across town, Beyonce is filling a stadium?
>
> In a world where even a poet as obscure as myself has read to audiences in
> the triple digits more than once, I believe that the notion of poetry's
> "popularity" is, at least, complicated.
>
> Bob G is still fussing, I see, because no one will rise to his bait &
> declare that Li-Young Lee is or is not "popular" due to his "message."
>  That's probably because it *is* so obviously bait, and not indicative of a
> desire to know more about Li-Young Lee.  Jeff Newberry and Jim Finnegan
> already nailed him on that.  Bob's question is also, just incidentally, a
> nice example of the fallacy of bifurcation.  I mean, was Shakespeare popular
> "because" of his skill as a playwright, or because there are murders and
> lots of sex jokes in his plays?
>
> For extra credit: what *was* the message in *Othello*, anyway?
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>


-- 

Halvard Johnson
================
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
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb  7 12:52:57 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:52:57 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <40037250-979E-454F-BFB7-B5F13DA0EA4F@ripon.edu>
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com><498DB6CE.9080603@opus40.org>
	<40037250-979E-454F-BFB7-B5F13DA0EA4F@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <498DCA79.6050409@nut-n-but.net>

Bob G is still fussing, I see, because no one will rise to his bait & 
declare that Li-Young Lee is or is not "popular" due to his "message." 
 That's probably because it *is* so obviously bait, and not indicative 
of a desire to know more about Li-Young Lee.

Right, David.  But I always answer your baited questions, and 
you--oddly--never respond to my answers.
>  Jeff Newberry and Jim Finnegan already nailed him on that.
And I revealed the weakness of their case--without rebuttal so far.

> Bob's question is also, just incidentally, a nice example of the 
> fallacy of bifurcation.  I mean, was Shakespeare popular "because" of 
> his skill as a playwright, or because there are murders and lots of 
> sex jokes in his plays?
Both, David.  My question was a casual one that I thought anyone reading 
it would take to be "is Lee's popularity based on his being some kind of 
new-age prophet,  as the text on him suggested to me he is, as well as a 
poet or is it based purely on what he does as a poet?  This is central 
to whether his popularity indicates that poetry as poetry is popular or 
not.  I truly don't know but I truly am not interested enough in popular 
poetry to find out on my own.
>  
>
> For extra credit: what *was* the message in *Othello*, anyway?
That jealousy is a bad thing.

--Bob G.



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 13:37:31 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 19:37:31 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Segantini and the bad mothers
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902071037y2636f01aiea84d1be24afa4a9@mail.gmail.com>

I am wondering, am I the only one who thinks that The Bad Mothers are simply
"bad mothers"?
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=2&id=30

My assumption starts from a very simple linguistic statement, that a mother
is a woman who has a child. A female human being who does not have a child
is defined a woman, a girl, a lady, ... but not a "mother".

I am specifically denying the following:

The Punishment of Lust belongs to a series of paintings produced between
1891-96 on the theme of bad mothers (cattive madri). Segantini was inspired
by Nirvana, a poem written by the 12th century monk Luigi Illica in
imitation of the Indian text Panghiavahli. Illica's poem contained the
phrase 'la Mala Madre' (the bad or wicked mother with an echo similar to 'la
mala femmina' or prostitute) to describe those women who refused the
responsibilities of motherhood.





-- 
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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From gejs1 at rochester.rr.com  Sat Feb  7 14:48:35 2009
From: gejs1 at rochester.rr.com (Gerald Schwartz)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 14:48:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <466B731155A74091AC4915CCB1EE197A@yourae066c3a9b>


Lux Interior, along with partner Poison Ivy,
fronted The Cramps...
He passed from this to a hotter coil the other
day.

'86 or '87 saw them @ the Q.

Same year as the Chilli Peppers... and Living
Colour, 247 Spyz...

Wasn't I using a Lee draw as proof, didn't mean
 to at least. (Was being haughty/ sarcastic... thinking
someone like Lux had so much more to put in front of

an audience than a Lee, etc.)
But, since Interior's death and Lee's "draw" entered into my
consciousness at the same time, decided something need be
(in a twisted-lime kinda way)said.

On a same note, I did see Sala in the late seventies, opening for
the Stooges, holding the stage with the best of them.

g.

> Gerry--
>
> What is a Lux interior?
>
> Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young Lee reading as 
> proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best known US poets can 
> only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves the opposite.
>
> Be well
>
> David Baratier, Editor
>
> Pavement Saw Press
> 321 Empire Street
> Montpelier OH 43543
> http://pavementsaw.org
>
> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From cervantes.james at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 17:42:47 2009
From: cervantes.james at gmail.com (James Cervantes)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 15:42:47 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <466B731155A74091AC4915CCB1EE197A@yourae066c3a9b>
References: <13548.38381.qm@web45601.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<466B731155A74091AC4915CCB1EE197A@yourae066c3a9b>
Message-ID: <648208b60902071442y46d9405ek2b0d08e752f89f68@mail.gmail.com>

Just reading the name/term "Lux Interior" was like lighting a sparkler
and I should have ridden one of the little comets and written a poem.
None of the little lights had anything to do with a punk group or
particular persona.  Now "Lux Interior" is tainted, so to speak.  Can
it be cleansed?

- Jim

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Gerald Schwartz <gejs1 at rochester.rr.com> wrote:
>
> Lux Interior, along with partner Poison Ivy,
> fronted The Cramps...
> He passed from this to a hotter coil the other
> day.
>
> '86 or '87 saw them @ the Q.
>
> Same year as the Chilli Peppers... and Living
> Colour, 247 Spyz...
>
> Wasn't I using a Lee draw as proof, didn't mean
> to at least. (Was being haughty/ sarcastic... thinking
> someone like Lux had so much more to put in front of
>
> an audience than a Lee, etc.)
> But, since Interior's death and Lee's "draw" entered into my
> consciousness at the same time, decided something need be
> (in a twisted-lime kinda way)said.
>
> On a same note, I did see Sala in the late seventies, opening for
> the Stooges, holding the stage with the best of them.
>
> g.
>
>> Gerry--
>>
>> What is a Lux interior?
>>
>> Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young Lee reading as
>> proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best known US poets can
>> only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves the opposite.
>>
>> Be well
>>
>> David Baratier, Editor
>>
>> Pavement Saw Press
>> 321 Empire Street
>> Montpelier OH 43543
>> http://pavementsaw.org
>>
>> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
>> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>>
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> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From amanda at surkont.com  Sat Feb  7 17:48:34 2009
From: amanda at surkont.com (Amanda Surkont)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 14:48:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <40037250-979E-454F-BFB7-B5F13DA0EA4F@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <917296.5697.qm@web1108.biz.mail.sk1.yahoo.com>

Because it makes them feel better about not getting paid for it... .best, manda

--- On Sat, 2/7/09, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote: <clipped in the interest of netiquette"


The curious matter is that poetry's death is such an old story. ?Why, as Donald Hall asked in an essay many years back, do so many poets and others yearn to declare poetry dead? ?Especially when there is rather a lot of evidence to the contrary. ?Now *that's* a fascinating question. ?
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From jbalizsprince at googlemail.com  Sat Feb  7 18:20:49 2009
From: jbalizsprince at googlemail.com (Judy Prince)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 18:20:49 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] On the Excellence of Housman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>
	<498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <7db1d01b0902071520u6004ab4bieddd8531d9ed41fb@mail.gmail.com>

What exercise for an exercise, Bob!  Good thing you only have to paraphrase
and evaluate next the 'Banana' poem.
Since what you're mainly doing is trying to refute Linda Sue Grimes, John
Jeffrey, and my interp that 'snow' means 'snow' in the last line, I'll go
ahead and carve a coupla hours out of my Saturday evening to refute your
attempt, interleaving below with ALL CAPS because we can't do colours.

Here goes:

2009/2/6 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

>  A Rough Attempt At Rating Housman's Cherry Blossom Poem
>
>                   II
>
>
>     Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>     Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>     And stands about the woodland ride
>     Wearing white for Eastertide.
>
>     Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>     Twenty will not come again,
>     And take from seventy springs a score,
>     It only leaves me fifty more.
>
>     And since to look at things in bloom
>     Fifty springs are little room,
>     About the woodlands I will go
>     To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
>     A. E. Housman
>
>
> My paraphrase (with some metaparaphrasing in italics):
>
>     Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>
> The boughs of the cherry trees, which are the most beautiful trees
>
>     Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>
> are laden with blossoms at this time
>
>     And stands about the woodland ride
>
> and line the trail through the woods
>
>     Wearing white for Eastertide.
>
> decked out in a white hue appropriate for Easter
> (*which is the happiest time of the year*)
>
>     Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>     Twenty will not come again,
>
> At this time, twenty of the seventy years (*the Bible suggests I'll have*)
>
> are gone permanently.
>
>     And take from seventy springs a score,
>
> If you subtract twenty springtimes from seventy
>
>     It only leaves me fifty more.
>
> it will leave me just fifty more years of life
>
>     And since to look at things in bloom
>     Fifty springs are little room,
>
> Because fifty years of springtimes don't give one much time
> to enjoying looking at Nature's blossomings
>
>     About the woodlands I will go
>
> I'll proceed through the woods (right away)
>
>     To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
> To take in (as much as I can of) the beauty of the snow-like blossoms of
> the cherry tree.
> The snow is metaphorical because:
>
> (1) the speaker is going to "look at things in bloom."  REASONABLE POINT IF
> YOU WANT TO STAY SUPER-LITERAL THROUGHOUT THE POEM, WHICH YOU DON'T.
>
> (2) the speaker has be celebrating spring entirely to this point; nothing
> he's said indicates
> that he's going to wait until winter comes, then go out and look at the
> snow on the cherry
> trees (which, in any case, would be little different from the snow on other
> deciduous
> trees); among other problems with the emotional logic of this, it suggests
> that he is
> capable, after all his praise of them, of forgetting about the cherry
> blossoms out there for
> him to enjoy right now.  YOU AND I AGREE THAT HE SAVES 'THE BEST', 'THE
> ZINGER', 'THE DECISIVE POINT' 'TIL HIS LAST LINE; WE DISAGREE ON WHETHER
> SNOW IS SNOW OR SNOW IS BLOSSOMS.  RE YOUR PARENTHETICAL POINT, HE WISHES TO
> FOCUS ON HIS FAVE TREE, THE CHERRY, SO IS WISE TO CONTINUE WITH IT.
>  FINALLY, BECAUSE HE LOVES MOST OF ALL THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS AND FIGURES HE
> HASN'T ENUFF SPRINGTIMES TO SEE THEM, HE WILL SEE ITS BOUGHS LADEN WITH
> WHITE IN THE 50 WINTERS HE THINKS HE HAS LEFT.
>
> (3)  I simply can't read the poem as not being about someone fully engaged
> in the moment-
> -the speaker spends four lines speaking in the highest terms of the beauty
> of cherry
> blossoms, then six indicating how little time he has to enjoy them (the
> blossoms) despite
> his having fifty more years to live; this sets up his last two lines as
> close to the synthesis
> of a standard syllogism: cherry blossoms are worth seeing; I haven't much
> time to see
> them; therefore, I will--what? put on my snowshoes are go look at them when
> they have
> snow on their branches?  Not for me.  AGAIN, WE DIFFER ONLY ON HIS
> DECISION, HOW HE DECIDES TO SEE BEAUTY AS OFTEN AS HE CAN.  YOU ASSUME THAT
> IF HE TRAMPS AROUND THE WOODS MORE [EACH SPRING] THAN HE HAS DONE, OR MORE
> THAN HE HAS JUST 'THIS' SPRING FINISHED DOING, HE WILL BE SATISFIED.  YOU
> MAY BE RIGHT; I THINK YOU'RE NOT.
>
> (4) the argument has been made that "snow" as a metaphor comes out of
> nowhere--but
> earlier in the poem, the trees are personified; that they are "hung" with
> blooms is
> somewhat figurative, too, suggesting, as it does, not the sprouting of
> blooms, but
> someone's going about decorating them.  In any case, the metaphor in line
> four is an
> involved, important one--the trees aren't just wearing human apparel, they
> are celebrating
> the season.  HOUSMAN'S LOW-LEVEL PERSONIFICATIONS IN THE FIRST STANZA
> PRETTY MUCH EXHAUST HIS FIGURATIVES FOR THE POEM.  'HUNG', 'STANDS', AND
> 'WEARING' TRY CLICHEDLY TO DESCRIBE WHAT HE LOVES, ARE LIMITED TO THE FIRST
> STANZA, AND APPEAR AFTER HE HAS ASSERTED WHAT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, TO HIM,
> THE BLOOMING CHERRY TREE.  THEREAFTER, HE LOGICS AND CONCLUDES WITHOUT
> FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
>


>
>
> (5) if the poet wanted us to believe the speaker was going to look at the
> cherry trees in
> winter, he could easily have changed the poem to tell us that explicitly:
> for instance, by
> saying, "About the woods, I'll also go/ When blooms have been replaced by
> snow."  Or the
> like.  Why would the poet not have made sure we saw the point if it was
> that?  Was he
> some kind of devious Empsonian?  He doesn't seem so to me.  THE BOTTOM HALF
> OF HIS LAST STANZA'S EXPLICIT TO ME AND OTHERS, AND MORE POETIC THAN YOUR
> REPLACEMENT, WHICH SEEMS TO ME UNNECESSARY.
>
> (6) I would add that "snow" as a metaphor gives the poem a nice climax that
> echoes what
> I consider the main virtue of the poem, its contrasting light and dark, and
> the transient and
> enduring.  A PROFOUND CONCLUSION LIVES IN HIS LITERAL LAST LINE.  IT IMPELS
> US TO LOOK FOR BEAUTY IN THE THINGS AND TIMES THAT WE TEND NOT TO EXPECT
> THEM.  FOR EXAMPLE, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, SO LET ME LOOK AT YOU MORE.....IS NOT
> PROFOUND.  YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL AT THIS MOMENT, AND I WILL SEE YOUR BEAUTY IN
> OTHER WAYS, AT THE STARKEST TIMES, EVEN WHEN ALL OTHERS WOULD SEE UGLINESS
> AND WANT.  THAT'S WISE, THOUGHT-PROVOKING, AND URGES SEEING THE SPIRITUAL IN
> THE TEMPORAL, THE SENSUAL.  THAT INTERPRETATION-EXPLANATION COVERS YOUR NEXT
> SEVERAL POINTS.
>


> BEST TO YOU, BEAUTIFUL BOB, FOR YOUR EFFORTS.  WE AWAIT YOUR 'BANANA'
> EVALUATION.
>

JUDY


>
> (7) Even with its rhetoric, the poem seems to be speaking of blossoms as it
> ends, not of literal snow, because it ends with a near repeat of its second
> line.  This could be taken as a clever twist--first spring, then winter; but
> it seems too abrupt for me, and my other arguments are against it.  The
> final lines work far better for me as a satisfying complete return to its
> initial subject.
>
> By my revised check-list, this poem qualifies as excellent because:
>
> (1) it both expresses things importantly true and represents things
> centrally beautiful.
>
> a. it expresses the joy of an individual thinking about and anticipating
> seeing the beauty of
> cherry trees in bloom (an implied synecdoche for spring); it thus
> represents something
> centrally beautiful: a human being's love for Nature and beauty
>
> b. it expresses the belief that cherry trees in bloom and, implicitly,
> Nature (and existence) is
> not only beautiful but, in human terms, inexhaustible because a full
> lifetime will barely, or
> not, give us time fully to enjoy it; it thus expresses something that will
> seem to many
> people imprtantly true--that existence's beauty makes life worthwhile; at
> the same time, the
> poem accentuates the beauty of spring by contrasting it with winter at the
> end, and with
> arithmetic in the middle.
>
> c. blending in with a. and b. is what it suggests about the brevity of
> human life: we have
> little time to enjoy its beauty, so we should make the most of what time we
> have--which is
> so clearly importantly true that, stated in prose, it is a banality.  Note,
> however, that
> Housman gives this carpe diem them an amusing twist (in keeping with the
> high spirits of
> the piece: the poem is not about making the most of the day but of one's
> lifetime.
>
> d. in the meantime, in stating that--for its speaker, at any rate--looking
> at cherry trees
> hung with blossoms is of first importance, it expresses something else that
> is importantly
> true to non-utilitarians: that beauty is second to nothing else in value to
> a human life
> Indeed, for the speaker, it is something to devote fifty springs to, not
> just a day--he isn't
> thinking of a fling with Persephone but marriage to her.
>
> e. at the same time, it suggests with a reference to easter, and references
> to spring, not to
> mention its focus on cherry blossoms, the cyclic ongoingness of existence:
> however fragile
> and transient Nature's cherry blossoms are, and--implicitly--human life,
> rebirth will occur;
> it thus expresses a third thing importantly true for the religious, and
> even for those who
> are not religious but believe in the kind of reincarnation Shelley and
> Nietzsche did (and I
> do); for those who don't believe in reincarnation, it still expresses the
> important truth that
> Nature itself will endure.
>
> f. finally, the poem is itself an object of beauty due to its sounds,
> images and diction,
> sufficiently so in my view for me to be able confidently to claim it
> represents something
> which is centrally beautiful--itself, in particular, and poetry, in
> general.
>
> (2) it is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or
> something that makes
> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
> eventually achieves Clarity;
>
> Few, I think, would argue that Housman's poem is unclear.  But its full
> meaning takes time
> to get to, it seems to me.  It also has a personification not brilliant but
> perfect for the poem
> that complicates the poem just enough to provide what seems to me
> sufficient Thematic
> Misdirection.  I say that because I believe all figures of speech do
> this--they are errors
> generating confusion it takes a mind a few seconds to overcome.  Metrical
> poetry also is
> different enough from prose to slow a reader's journey toward understanding
> the poem in
> whole.  This poem is far from having the thematic misdirection many poems
> have, but it
> has enough, so gets a check here.
>
> (3) it has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which
> pulls its
> elements reasonably close together;
>
> I presented my interpretation of the poem as a unified set of four
> consequential truths and a
> closely inter-related representation of beauty.  Its packaging as a lyric
> poem of beauty
> further unifies it.  So the poem scores well here.
>
> (4) it contains few or no superfluous words;
>
> All the poem's words seem necessary either to its meaning or its acoustics,
> and only rarely
> not to both.  All metrical poems have occasional words that are there for
> the metrics or
> rhyme almost entirely, or fall out of one or the other of those things to
> maintain meaning.
> So the poem gets a check here, too.
>
> (5) it boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have
> such as
> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
> art), and imagery;
>
> To me the main special constituent this poem has that few of no other poems
> have is the
> wry interruption from pure, almost too sweet lyric, into grade school
> arithmetic it takes--
> with a Biblical allusion giving it ponderousness completely opposed to the
> lightness of
> cherry blossoms, and delight in cherry blossoms.  This strikes me as a
> wonderful change of
> tone: cerebral analysis versus emotional spontaneity, heaviness versus
> gaiety, play,
> implicitly, versus duty.
>
> I suspect but would not swear that the poem also has a melodiousness rare
> in poetry, a
> melodiousness kept from excess by the speaker's drawn-out calculations.
> One other
> triumph it achieves, although I would not call it uncommonly effective, is
> its
> personification of the cherry trees as wearing white garments to celebrate
> Easter.  We're in
> the archetypal here: Spring!  Rebirth!  Celebration!  Joy!  Universal Love
> of Existence!
>
> (6) it avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or
> thought; too
> overt Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
> I give it a check here, too.  It uses a standard form, but it's one
> appropriate to a fairly
> serious albeit happy work: pentameter and tetrameter (as opposed to
> Dickinson's more
> jingly tetrameter and trimeter), with missing weak stresses at the
> beginning of several
> lines, which enlivens the poem, to my ear.  Nothing brilliant about the
> rhymes, but they
> work as well as the rhymes or just about any poem.  "Along the bough," for
> instance, is
> pretty clearly in the poem for meter and rhyme since it's unneeded for the
> meaning--where
> else would blooms be hung?  But it works so well melodationally, one can't
> reasonably
> criticize it.  "Is hung with bloom along the bough" not only closes an
> end-rhyme, but
> carries out a b- and an l-alliteration, and a g-consonance, and four open
> vowels combine
> with the two l's and the w to liquify the line, the l's in particular
> carrying on the l-
> alliteration that begins the poem, and continues into the third line.  And
> the w's go on in
> the rest of this stanza to form a 4-member alliteration.  The sound effects
> in the rest of the
> poem are similarly effective.  And, as I mentioned in my brief against
> taking "snow" as
> literal snow, the poem is a near-perfectly crafted little mechanism, with a
> theme stated at
> its beginning, veered rather distantly from, then returned triumphantly to.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sat Feb  7 19:44:29 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 19:44:29 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] On the Excellence of Housman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <7db1d01b0902071520u6004ab4bieddd8531d9ed41fb@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>	<498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
	<7db1d01b0902071520u6004ab4bieddd8531d9ed41fb@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498E2AED.9060309@opus40.org>

Re: AGAIN, WE DIFFER ONLY ON HIS DECISION, HOW HE DECIDES TO SEE BEAUTY 
AS OFTEN AS HE CAN.  YOU ASSUME THAT IF HE TRAMPS AROUND THE WOODS MORE 
[EACH SPRING] THAN HE HAS DONE, OR MORE THAN HE HAS JUST 'THIS' SPRING 
FINISHED DOING, HE WILL BE SATISFIED.  YOU MAY BE RIGHT; I THINK YOU'RE 
NOT. 

He doesn't do either. The poem is not written by a 70-year-old man 
reflecting on all the cherry blossoms he's seen, and/or all the snowy 
trees he's seen. This is an ecstatic burst by a 20-year-old. We have 
know way of knowing whether he'll follow through on it beyond that morning.


Judy Prince wrote:
> What exercise for an exercise, Bob!  Good thing you only have to 
> paraphrase and evaluate next the 'Banana' poem.  
>
> Since what you're mainly doing is trying to refute Linda Sue Grimes, 
> John Jeffrey, and my interp that 'snow' means 'snow' in the last line, 
> I'll go ahead and carve a coupla hours out of my Saturday evening to 
> refute your attempt, interleaving below with ALL CAPS because we can't 
> do colours.
>
> Here goes:
>
> 2009/2/6 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>>
>
>     A Rough Attempt At Rating Housman's Cherry Blossom Poem
>
>                       II
>
>
>         Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>         Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>         And stands about the woodland ride
>         Wearing white for Eastertide.
>
>         Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>         Twenty will not come again,
>         And take from seventy springs a score,
>         It only leaves me fifty more.
>
>         And since to look at things in bloom
>         Fifty springs are little room,
>         About the woodlands I will go
>         To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
>         A. E. Housman
>
>
>     My paraphrase (with some metaparaphrasing in italics):
>
>         Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>        
>     The boughs of the cherry trees, which are the most beautiful trees
>
>         Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>
>     are laden with blossoms at this time
>
>         And stands about the woodland ride
>
>     and line the trail through the woods
>
>         Wearing white for Eastertide.
>
>     decked out in a white hue appropriate for Easter
>     (/which is the happiest time of the year/)
>
>         Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>         Twenty will not come again,
>
>     At this time, twenty of the seventy years (/the Bible suggests
>     I'll have/)
>     are gone permanently.
>
>         And take from seventy springs a score,
>
>     If you subtract twenty springtimes from seventy
>
>         It only leaves me fifty more.
>
>     it will leave me just fifty more years of life
>
>         And since to look at things in bloom
>         Fifty springs are little room,
>
>     Because fifty years of springtimes don't give one much time
>     to enjoying looking at Nature's blossomings
>
>         About the woodlands I will go
>
>     I'll proceed through the woods (right away)
>
>         To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
>     To take in (as much as I can of) the beauty of the snow-like
>     blossoms of the cherry tree.
>     The snow is metaphorical because:
>
>     (1) the speaker is going to "look at things in bloom."  REASONABLE
>     POINT IF YOU WANT TO STAY SUPER-LITERAL THROUGHOUT THE POEM, WHICH
>     YOU DON'T.
>
>     (2) the speaker has be celebrating spring entirely to this point;
>     nothing he's said indicates
>     that he's going to wait until winter comes, then go out and look
>     at the snow on the cherry
>     trees (which, in any case, would be little different from the snow
>     on other deciduous
>     trees); among other problems with the emotional logic of this, it
>     suggests that he is
>     capable, after all his praise of them, of forgetting about the
>     cherry blossoms out there for
>     him to enjoy right now.  YOU AND I AGREE THAT HE SAVES 'THE BEST',
>     'THE ZINGER', 'THE DECISIVE POINT' 'TIL HIS LAST LINE; WE DISAGREE
>     ON WHETHER SNOW IS SNOW OR SNOW IS BLOSSOMS.  RE YOUR
>     PARENTHETICAL POINT, HE WISHES TO FOCUS ON HIS FAVE TREE, THE
>     CHERRY, SO IS WISE TO CONTINUE WITH IT.  FINALLY, BECAUSE HE LOVES
>     MOST OF ALL THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS AND FIGURES HE HASN'T ENUFF
>     SPRINGTIMES TO SEE THEM, HE WILL SEE ITS BOUGHS LADEN WITH WHITE
>     IN THE 50 WINTERS HE THINKS HE HAS LEFT.  
>
>     (3)  I simply can't read the poem as not being about someone fully
>     engaged in the moment-
>     -the speaker spends four lines speaking in the highest terms of
>     the beauty of cherry
>     blossoms, then six indicating how little time he has to enjoy them
>     (the blossoms) despite
>     his having fifty more years to live; this sets up his last two
>     lines as close to the synthesis
>     of a standard syllogism: cherry blossoms are worth seeing; I
>     haven't much time to see
>     them; therefore, I will--what? put on my snowshoes are go look at
>     them when they have
>     snow on their branches?  Not for me.  AGAIN, WE DIFFER ONLY ON HIS
>     DECISION, HOW HE DECIDES TO SEE BEAUTY AS OFTEN AS HE CAN.  YOU
>     ASSUME THAT IF HE TRAMPS AROUND THE WOODS MORE [EACH SPRING] THAN
>     HE HAS DONE, OR MORE THAN HE HAS JUST 'THIS' SPRING FINISHED
>     DOING, HE WILL BE SATISFIED.  YOU MAY BE RIGHT; I THINK YOU'RE NOT.  
>
>     (4) the argument has been made that "snow" as a metaphor comes out
>     of nowhere--but
>     earlier in the poem, the trees are personified; that they are
>     "hung" with blooms is
>     somewhat figurative, too, suggesting, as it does, not the
>     sprouting of blooms, but
>     someone's going about decorating them.  In any case, the metaphor
>     in line four is an
>     involved, important one--the trees aren't just wearing human
>     apparel, they are celebrating
>     the season.  HOUSMAN'S LOW-LEVEL PERSONIFICATIONS IN THE FIRST
>     STANZA PRETTY MUCH EXHAUST HIS FIGURATIVES FOR THE POEM.  'HUNG',
>     'STANDS', AND 'WEARING' TRY CLICHEDLY TO DESCRIBE WHAT HE LOVES,
>     ARE LIMITED TO THE FIRST STANZA, AND APPEAR AFTER HE HAS ASSERTED
>     WHAT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, TO HIM, THE BLOOMING CHERRY TREE.
>      THEREAFTER, HE LOGICS AND CONCLUDES WITHOUT FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
>
>  
>
>
>      
>     (5) if the poet wanted us to believe the speaker was going to look
>     at the cherry trees in
>     winter, he could easily have changed the poem to tell us that
>     explicitly: for instance, by
>     saying, "About the woods, I'll also go/ When blooms have been
>     replaced by snow."  Or the
>     like.  Why would the poet not have made sure we saw the point if
>     it was that?  Was he
>     some kind of devious Empsonian?  He doesn't seem so to me.  THE
>     BOTTOM HALF OF HIS LAST STANZA'S EXPLICIT TO ME AND OTHERS, AND
>     MORE POETIC THAN YOUR REPLACEMENT, WHICH SEEMS TO ME UNNECESSARY.
>
>     (6) I would add that "snow" as a metaphor gives the poem a nice
>     climax that echoes what
>     I consider the main virtue of the poem, its contrasting light and
>     dark, and the transient and
>     enduring.  A PROFOUND CONCLUSION LIVES IN HIS LITERAL LAST LINE.
>      IT IMPELS US TO LOOK FOR BEAUTY IN THE THINGS AND TIMES THAT WE
>     TEND NOT TO EXPECT THEM.  FOR EXAMPLE, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, SO LET
>     ME LOOK AT YOU MORE.....IS NOT PROFOUND.  YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL AT
>     THIS MOMENT, AND I WILL SEE YOUR BEAUTY IN OTHER WAYS, AT THE
>     STARKEST TIMES, EVEN WHEN ALL OTHERS WOULD SEE UGLINESS AND WANT.
>      THAT'S WISE, THOUGHT-PROVOKING, AND URGES SEEING THE SPIRITUAL IN
>     THE TEMPORAL, THE SENSUAL.  THAT INTERPRETATION-EXPLANATION COVERS
>     YOUR NEXT SEVERAL POINTS.
>
>  
>
>     BEST TO YOU, BEAUTIFUL BOB, FOR YOUR EFFORTS.  WE AWAIT YOUR
>     'BANANA' EVALUATION.  
>
>
> JUDY 
>
>
>
>     (7) Even with its rhetoric, the poem seems to be speaking of
>     blossoms as it ends, not of literal snow, because it ends with a
>     near repeat of its second line.  This could be taken as a clever
>     twist--first spring, then winter; but it seems too abrupt for me,
>     and my other arguments are against it.  The final lines work far
>     better for me as a satisfying complete return to its initial subject.
>
>     By my revised check-list, this poem qualifies as excellent because:
>
>     (1) it both expresses things importantly true and represents
>     things centrally beautiful.
>
>     a. it expresses the joy of an individual thinking about and
>     anticipating seeing the beauty of
>     cherry trees in bloom (an implied synecdoche for spring); it thus
>     represents something
>     centrally beautiful: a human being's love for Nature and beauty
>
>     b. it expresses the belief that cherry trees in bloom and,
>     implicitly, Nature (and existence) is
>     not only beautiful but, in human terms, inexhaustible because a
>     full lifetime will barely, or
>     not, give us time fully to enjoy it; it thus expresses something
>     that will seem to many
>     people imprtantly true--that existence's beauty makes life
>     worthwhile; at the same time, the
>     poem accentuates the beauty of spring by contrasting it with
>     winter at the end, and with
>     arithmetic in the middle.
>
>     c. blending in with a. and b. is what it suggests about the
>     brevity of human life: we have
>     little time to enjoy its beauty, so we should make the most of
>     what time we have--which is
>     so clearly importantly true that, stated in prose, it is a
>     banality.  Note, however, that
>     Housman gives this carpe diem them an amusing twist (in keeping
>     with the high spirits of
>     the piece: the poem is not about making the most of the day but of
>     one's lifetime.
>
>     d. in the meantime, in stating that--for its speaker, at any
>     rate--looking at cherry trees
>     hung with blossoms is of first importance, it expresses something
>     else that is importantly
>     true to non-utilitarians: that beauty is second to nothing else in
>     value to a human life
>     Indeed, for the speaker, it is something to devote fifty springs
>     to, not just a day--he isn't
>     thinking of a fling with Persephone but marriage to her.
>
>     e. at the same time, it suggests with a reference to easter, and
>     references to spring, not to
>     mention its focus on cherry blossoms, the cyclic ongoingness of
>     existence: however fragile
>     and transient Nature's cherry blossoms are, and--implicitly--human
>     life, rebirth will occur;
>     it thus expresses a third thing importantly true for the
>     religious, and even for those who
>     are not religious but believe in the kind of reincarnation Shelley
>     and Nietzsche did (and I
>     do); for those who don't believe in reincarnation, it still
>     expresses the important truth that
>     Nature itself will endure.
>
>     f. finally, the poem is itself an object of beauty due to its
>     sounds, images and diction,
>     sufficiently so in my view for me to be able confidently to claim
>     it represents something
>     which is centrally beautiful--itself, in particular, and poetry,
>     in general. 
>
>     (2) it is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection,
>     or something that makes
>     its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
>     eventually achieves Clarity;
>
>     Few, I think, would argue that Housman's poem is unclear.  But its
>     full meaning takes time
>     to get to, it seems to me.  It also has a personification not
>     brilliant but perfect for the poem
>     that complicates the poem just enough to provide what seems to me
>     sufficient Thematic
>     Misdirection.  I say that because I believe all figures of speech
>     do this--they are errors
>     generating confusion it takes a mind a few seconds to overcome. 
>     Metrical poetry also is
>     different enough from prose to slow a reader's journey toward
>     understanding the poem in
>     whole.  This poem is far from having the thematic misdirection
>     many poems have, but it
>     has enough, so gets a check here.
>
>     (3) it has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the
>     like which pulls its
>     elements reasonably close together; 
>
>     I presented my interpretation of the poem as a unified set of four
>     consequential truths and a
>     closely inter-related representation of beauty.  Its packaging as
>     a lyric poem of beauty
>     further unifies it.  So the poem scores well here.
>
>     (4) it contains few or no superfluous words;
>
>     All the poem's words seem necessary either to its meaning or its
>     acoustics, and only rarely
>     not to both.  All metrical poems have occasional words that are
>     there for the metrics or
>     rhyme almost entirely, or fall out of one or the other of those
>     things to maintain meaning.
>     So the poem gets a check here, too.
>
>     (5) it boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other
>     poems have such as
>     uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics,
>     visual
>     art), and imagery;
>
>     To me the main special constituent this poem has that few of no
>     other poems have is the
>     wry interruption from pure, almost too sweet lyric, into grade
>     school arithmetic it takes--
>     with a Biblical allusion giving it ponderousness completely
>     opposed to the lightness of
>     cherry blossoms, and delight in cherry blossoms.  This strikes me
>     as a wonderful change of
>     tone: cerebral analysis versus emotional spontaneity, heaviness
>     versus gaiety, play,
>     implicitly, versus duty.
>
>     I suspect but would not swear that the poem also has a
>     melodiousness rare in poetry, a
>     melodiousness kept from excess by the speaker's drawn-out
>     calculations.  One other
>     triumph it achieves, although I would not call it uncommonly
>     effective, is its
>     personification of the cherry trees as wearing white garments to
>     celebrate Easter.  We're in
>     the archetypal here: Spring!  Rebirth!  Celebration!  Joy! 
>     Universal Love of Existence!
>
>     (6) it avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction,
>     imagery or thought; too
>     overt Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
>     I give it a check here, too.  It uses a standard form, but it's
>     one appropriate to a fairly
>     serious albeit happy work: pentameter and tetrameter (as opposed
>     to Dickinson's more
>     jingly tetrameter and trimeter), with missing weak stresses at the
>     beginning of several
>     lines, which enlivens the poem, to my ear.  Nothing brilliant
>     about the rhymes, but they
>     work as well as the rhymes or just about any poem.  "Along the
>     bough," for instance, is
>     pretty clearly in the poem for meter and rhyme since it's unneeded
>     for the meaning--where
>     else would blooms be hung?  But it works so well melodationally,
>     one can't reasonably
>     criticize it.  "Is hung with bloom along the bough" not only
>     closes an end-rhyme, but
>     carries out a b- and an l-alliteration, and a g-consonance, and
>     four open vowels combine
>     with the two l's and the w to liquify the line, the l's in
>     particular carrying on the l-
>     alliteration that begins the poem, and continues into the third
>     line.  And the w's go on in
>     the rest of this stanza to form a 4-member alliteration.  The
>     sound effects in the rest of the
>     poem are similarly effective.  And, as I mentioned in my brief
>     against taking "snow" as
>     literal snow, the poem is a near-perfectly crafted little
>     mechanism, with a theme stated at
>     its beginning, veered rather distantly from, then returned
>     triumphantly to.
>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     New-Poetry mailing list
>     New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto: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
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Feb  7 21:57:59 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 21:57:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] On the Excellence of Housman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <498E2AED.9060309@opus40.org>
References: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>
	<498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net><7db1d01b0902071520u6004ab4bieddd8531d9ed41fb@mail.gmail.com>
	<498E2AED.9060309@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498E4A37.4080801@nut-n-but.net>

For some reason, Judy's post never reached my computer.


TheOldMole wrote:
> Re: AGAIN, WE DIFFER ONLY ON HIS DECISION, HOW HE DECIDES TO SEE 
> BEAUTY AS OFTEN AS HE CAN.  YOU ASSUME THAT IF HE TRAMPS AROUND THE 
> WOODS MORE [EACH SPRING] THAN HE HAS DONE, OR MORE THAN HE HAS JUST 
> 'THIS' SPRING FINISHED DOING, HE WILL BE SATISFIED.  YOU MAY BE RIGHT; 
> I THINK YOU'RE NOT.
> He doesn't do either. The poem is not written by a 70-year-old man 
> reflecting on all the cherry blossoms he's seen, and/or all the snowy 
> trees he's seen. This is an ecstatic burst by a 20-year-old. We have 
> know way of knowing whether he'll follow through on it beyond that 
> morning.

The Mole has it.
>
>
> Judy Prince wrote:
>> What exercise for an exercise, Bob!  Good thing you only have to 
>> paraphrase and evaluate next the 'Banana' poem. 
That will be harder.

>> Since what you're mainly doing is trying to refute Linda Sue Grimes, 
>> John Jeffrey, and my interp that 'snow' means 'snow' in the last 
>> line, I'll go ahead and carve a coupla hours out of my Saturday 
>> evening to refute your attempt, interleaving below with ALL CAPS 
>> because we can't do colours.
I was mainly trying to say why the poem seemed excellent to me, Judy, 
but felt I had to consider your reading.

>>
>>
>> Here goes:
>>
>> 2009/2/6 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net 
>> <mailto:bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>>
>>
>>     A Rough Attempt At Rating Housman's Cherry Blossom Poem
>>
>>                       II
>>
>>
>>         Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>>         Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>>         And stands about the woodland ride
>>         Wearing white for Eastertide.
>>
>>         Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>>         Twenty will not come again,
>>         And take from seventy springs a score,
>>         It only leaves me fifty more.
>>
>>         And since to look at things in bloom
>>         Fifty springs are little room,
>>         About the woodlands I will go
>>         To see the cherry hung with snow.
>>
>>         A. E. Housman
>>
>>
>>     My paraphrase (with some metaparaphrasing in italics):
>>
>>         Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>>            The boughs of the cherry trees, which are the most 
>> beautiful trees
>>
>>         Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>>
>>     are laden with blossoms at this time
>>
>>         And stands about the woodland ride
>>
>>     and line the trail through the woods
>>
>>         Wearing white for Eastertide.
>>
>>     decked out in a white hue appropriate for Easter
>>     (/which is the happiest time of the year/)
>>
>>         Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>>         Twenty will not come again,
>>
>>     At this time, twenty of the seventy years (/the Bible suggests
>>     I'll have/)
>>     are gone permanently.
>>
>>         And take from seventy springs a score,
>>
>>     If you subtract twenty springtimes from seventy
>>
>>         It only leaves me fifty more.
>>
>>     it will leave me just fifty more years of life
>>
>>         And since to look at things in bloom
>>         Fifty springs are little room,
>>
>>     Because fifty years of springtimes don't give one much time
>>     to enjoy looking at Nature's blossomings
>>
>>         About the woodlands I will go
>>
>>     I'll proceed through the woods (right away)
>>
>>         To see the cherry hung with snow.
>>
>>     To take in (as much as I can of) the beauty of the snow-like
>>     blossoms of the cherry tree.
>>     The snow is metaphorical because:
>>
>>     (1) the speaker is going to "look at things in bloom."  REASONABLE
>>     POINT IF YOU WANT TO STAY SUPER-LITERAL THROUGHOUT THE POEM, WHICH
>>     YOU DON'T.
I don't really follow you here, Judy.  All poems are sometimes literal, 
sometimes not.  Anyway, if the speaker says he wants to look at things 
in bloom, and has already spoken emphatically about how cherry trees are 
literally in bloom, then it makes sense to think the speaker means 
things in bloom.  Moreover, this is just one argument for my case.

>>
>>
>>     (2) the speaker has be celebrating spring entirely to this point;
>>     nothing he's said indicates
>>     that he's going to wait until winter comes, then go out and look
>>     at the snow on the cherry
>>     trees (which, in any case, would be little different from the snow
>>     on other deciduous
>>     trees); among other problems with the emotional logic of this, it
>>     suggests that he is
>>     capable, after all his praise of them, of forgetting about the
>>     cherry blossoms out there for
>>     him to enjoy right now.  YOU AND I AGREE THAT HE SAVES 'THE BEST',
>>     'THE ZINGER', 'THE DECISIVE POINT' 'TIL HIS LAST LINE;
Not quite.  I think the poem reaches a nice climax, but I'm not sure 
it's stronger than the first stanza.  And my climax happens in the last 
two lines--he's going to go about the woodlands to enjoy the cherry trees.



>> WE DISAGREE
>>     ON WHETHER SNOW IS SNOW OR SNOW IS BLOSSOMS.  RE YOUR
>>     PARENTHETICAL POINT, HE WISHES TO FOCUS ON HIS FAVE TREE, THE
>>     CHERRY, SO IS WISE TO CONTINUE WITH IT.  FINALLY, BECAUSE HE LOVES
>>     MOST OF ALL THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS AND FIGURES HE HASN'T ENUFF
>>     SPRINGTIMES TO SEE THEM, HE WILL SEE ITS BOUGHS LADEN WITH WHITE
>>     IN THE 50 WINTERS HE THINKS HE HAS LEFT. 
What about my point that he's eager to view the cherry trees?  Why would 
he tell us that he wants to view them, so will go view them six months 
from now?




>>     (3)  I simply can't read the poem as not being about someone fully
>>     engaged in the moment-
>>     -the speaker spends four lines speaking in the highest terms of
>>     the beauty of cherry
>>     blossoms, then six indicating how little time he has to enjoy them
>>     (the blossoms) despite
>>     his having fifty more years to live; this sets up his last two
>>     lines as close to the synthesis
>>     of a standard syllogism: cherry blossoms are worth seeing; I
>>     haven't much time to see
>>     them; therefore, I will--what? put on my snowshoes are go look at
>>     them when they have
>>     snow on their branches?  Not for me.  
Also, as I and Sam have asked, what's so great about cherry trees with 
snow on them?  How are they significantly different from any other 
deciduous trees with snow on them?



>> AGAIN, WE DIFFER ONLY ON HIS
>>     DECISION, HOW HE DECIDES TO SEE BEAUTY AS OFTEN AS HE CAN.  
Yes, but the poem, as I keep on saying, implies that he wants to enjoy 
that beauty NOW.


>> YOU
>>     ASSUME THAT IF HE TRAMPS AROUND THE WOODS MORE [EACH SPRING] THAN
>>     HE HAS DONE, OR MORE THAN HE HAS JUST 'THIS' SPRING FINISHED
>>     DOING, HE WILL BE SATISFIED.
Nothing in the poem says he's been looking at the trees.  And I don't 
find him just intending to increase his viewing time.  I read him as 
Mole does, thinking he'd better get out to the woodlands to enjoy THIS 
spring's cherry blossoms.  It's implied that he will feel the same way 
every spring.  But there's no search for a way of seeing more of the 
cherries, and the focus is on the blossoms, nothing else. 


>>   YOU MAY BE RIGHT; I THINK YOU'RE NOT. 
>>     (4) the argument has been made that "snow" as a metaphor comes out
>>     of nowhere--but
>>     earlier in the poem, the trees are personified; that they are
>>     "hung" with blooms is
>>     somewhat figurative, too, suggesting, as it does, not the
>>     sprouting of blooms, but
>>     someone's going about decorating them.  In any case, the metaphor
>>     in line four is an
>>     involved, important one--the trees aren't just wearing human
>>     apparel, they are celebrating
>>     the season.  


>> HOUSMAN'S LOW-LEVEL PERSONIFICATIONS IN THE FIRST
>>     STANZA PRETTY MUCH EXHAUST HIS FIGURATIVES FOR THE POEM.
I consider wearing white for Eastertide as high-level as 
personifications go, myself.  And it dominates the fist stanza of a 
three-stanza poem.  The second stanza is by obvious contrast 
non-metaphorical, anti-poetic, even.  And the third stanza, in my 
reading, ends like the first, with a figure of speech, a fairly good one.


>>   'HUNG',
>>     'STANDS', AND 'WEARING' TRY CLICHEDLY TO DESCRIBE WHAT HE LOVES,
>>     ARE LIMITED TO THE FIRST STANZA, AND APPEAR AFTER HE HAS ASSERTED
>>     WHAT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, TO HIM, THE BLOOMING CHERRY TREE.
>>      THEREAFTER, HE LOGICS AND CONCLUDES WITHOUT FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
in your opinion.
>>
>>  
>>
>>
>>          (5) if the poet wanted us to believe the speaker was going 
>> to look
>>     at the cherry trees in
>>     winter, he could easily have changed the poem to tell us that
>>     explicitly: for instance, by
>>     saying, "About the woods, I'll also go/ When blooms have been
>>     replaced by snow."  Or the
>>     like.  Why would the poet not have made sure we saw the point if
>>     it was that?  Was he
>>     some kind of devious Empsonian?  He doesn't seem so to me.
 
>>     THE BOTTOM HALF OF HIS LAST STANZA'S EXPLICIT TO ME AND OTHERS, AND
>>     MORE POETIC THAN YOUR REPLACEMENT, WHICH SEEMS TO ME UNNECESSARY.
The overwhelming majority of readers of the poem saw it as I do.  My 
point is that if he meant "snow" literally, he was not clear about it, 
and could have been--unless he wanted contradictory meanings, and he 
wasn't that sort of poet, I don't think.
>>
>>     (6) I would add that "snow" as a metaphor gives the poem a nice
>>     climax that echoes what
>>     I consider the main virtue of the poem, its contrasting light and
>>     dark, and the transient and
>>     enduring.  

>> A PROFOUND CONCLUSION LIVES IN HIS LITERAL LAST LINE.
>>      IT IMPELS US TO LOOK FOR BEAUTY IN THE THINGS AND TIMES THAT WE
>>     TEND NOT TO EXPECT THEM.  FOR EXAMPLE, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, SO LET
>>     ME LOOK AT YOU MORE.....IS NOT PROFOUND.
to you.  But that's not what I said the poem is saying.  It's saying you 
are beautiful so I'd better make sure I get as much of you as I can.  
Not profound, but poems aren't meant to say profound things, they are 
meant to be profoundly beautiful about unprofound things.

>>   YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL AT
>>     THIS MOMENT, AND I WILL SEE YOUR BEAUTY IN OTHER WAYS, AT THE
>>     STARKEST TIMES, EVEN WHEN ALL OTHERS WOULD SEE UGLINESS AND WANT.
>>      THAT'S WISE, THOUGHT-PROVOKING, AND URGES SEEING THE SPIRITUAL IN
>>     THE TEMPORAL, THE SENSUAL.  THAT INTERPRETATION-EXPLANATION COVERS
>>     YOUR NEXT SEVERAL POINTS.

To me it seems you like this sentiment so are imposing it on an 
expression of delighted hedonism. 
>>
>>  
>>
>>     BEST TO YOU, BEAUTIFUL BOB, FOR YOUR EFFORTS.  WE AWAIT YOUR
>>     'BANANA' EVALUATION. 
>>
>> JUDY
Thanks for popping back at me, Judy.  I hope I can do justice to the 
banana poem.  It will be interesting.  Not sure I'll recover from my 
bout with AE, though.  And I never really did the Emily, in my opinion.

--Bob



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sat Feb  7 22:11:06 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 04:11:06 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] On the Excellence of Housman's Poem
In-Reply-To: <498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <8CB560F048BB50F-1148-1312@WEBMAIL-DY35.sysops.aol.com>
	<498CDA05.3020206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902071911h3e4dff7ft7ccb7a3217e7e525@mail.gmail.com>

You did your homework.


On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 1:47 AM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

>  A Rough Attempt At Rating Housman's Cherry Blossom Poem
>
>                   II
>
>
>     Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>     Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>     And stands about the woodland ride
>     Wearing white for Eastertide.
>
>     Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>     Twenty will not come again,
>     And take from seventy springs a score,
>     It only leaves me fifty more.
>
>     And since to look at things in bloom
>     Fifty springs are little room,
>     About the woodlands I will go
>     To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
>     A. E. Housman
>
>
> My paraphrase (with some metaparaphrasing in italics):
>
>     Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
>
> The boughs of the cherry trees, which are the most beautiful trees
>
>     Is hung with bloom along the bough,
>
> are laden with blossoms at this time
>
>     And stands about the woodland ride
>
> and line the trail through the woods
>
>     Wearing white for Eastertide.
>
> decked out in a white hue appropriate for Easter
> (*which is the happiest time of the year*)
>
>     Now, of my threescore years and ten,
>     Twenty will not come again,
>
> At this time, twenty of the seventy years (*the Bible suggests I'll have*)
>
> are gone permanently.
>
>     And take from seventy springs a score,
>
> If you subtract twenty springtimes from seventy
>
>     It only leaves me fifty more.
>
> it will leave me just fifty more years of life
>
>     And since to look at things in bloom
>     Fifty springs are little room,
>
> Because fifty years of springtimes don't give one much time
> to enjoying looking at Nature's blossomings
>
>     About the woodlands I will go
>
> I'll proceed through the woods (right away)
>
>     To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
> To take in (as much as I can of) the beauty of the snow-like blossoms of
> the cherry tree.
> The snow is metaphorical because:
>
> (1) the speaker is going to "look at things in bloom."
>
> (2) the speaker has be celebrating spring entirely to this point; nothing
> he's said indicates
> that he's going to wait until winter comes, then go out and look at the
> snow on the cherry
> trees (which, in any case, would be little different from the snow on other
> deciduous
> trees); among other problems with the emotional logic of this, it suggests
> that he is
> capable, after all his praise of them, of forgetting about the cherry
> blossoms out there for
> him to enjoy right now.
>
> (3)  I simply can't read the poem as not being about someone fully engaged
> in the moment-
> -the speaker spends four lines speaking in the highest terms of the beauty
> of cherry
> blossoms, then six indicating how little time he has to enjoy them (the
> blossoms) despite
> his having fifty more years to live; this sets up his last two lines as
> close to the synthesis
> of a standard syllogism: cherry blossoms are worth seeing; I haven't much
> time to see
> them; therefore, I will--what? put on my snowshoes are go look at them when
> they have
> snow on their branches?  Not for me.
>
> (4) the argument has been made that "snow" as a metaphor comes out of
> nowhere--but
> earlier in the poem, the trees are personified; that they are "hung" with
> blooms is
> somewhat figurative, too, suggesting, as it does, not the sprouting of
> blooms, but
> someone's going about decorating them.  In any case, the metaphor in line
> four is an
> involved, important one--the trees aren't just wearing human apparel, they
> are celebrating
> the season.
>
> (5) if the poet wanted us to believe the speaker was going to look at the
> cherry trees in
> winter, he could easily have changed the poem to tell us that explicitly:
> for instance, by
> saying, "About the woods, I'll also go/ When blooms have been replaced by
> snow."  Or the
> like.  Why would the poet not have made sure we saw the point if it was
> that?  Was he
> some kind of devious Empsonian?  He doesn't seem so to me.
>
> (6) I would add that "snow" as a metaphor gives the poem a nice climax that
> echoes what
> I consider the main virtue of the poem, its contrasting light and dark, and
> the transient and
> enduring.
>
> (7) Even with its rhetoric, the poem seems to be speaking of blossoms as it
> ends, not of literal snow, because it ends with a near repeat of its second
> line.  This could be taken as a clever twist--first spring, then winter; but
> it seems too abrupt for me, and my other arguments are against it.  The
> final lines work far better for me as a satisfying complete return to its
> initial subject.
>
> By my revised check-list, this poem qualifies as excellent because:
>
> (1) it both expresses things importantly true and represents things
> centrally beautiful.
>
> a. it expresses the joy of an individual thinking about and anticipating
> seeing the beauty of
> cherry trees in bloom (an implied synecdoche for spring); it thus
> represents something
> centrally beautiful: a human being's love for Nature and beauty
>
> b. it expresses the belief that cherry trees in bloom and, implicitly,
> Nature (and existence) is
> not only beautiful but, in human terms, inexhaustible because a full
> lifetime will barely, or
> not, give us time fully to enjoy it; it thus expresses something that will
> seem to many
> people imprtantly true--that existence's beauty makes life worthwhile; at
> the same time, the
> poem accentuates the beauty of spring by contrasting it with winter at the
> end, and with
> arithmetic in the middle.
>
> c. blending in with a. and b. is what it suggests about the brevity of
> human life: we have
> little time to enjoy its beauty, so we should make the most of what time we
> have--which is
> so clearly importantly true that, stated in prose, it is a banality.  Note,
> however, that
> Housman gives this carpe diem them an amusing twist (in keeping with the
> high spirits of
> the piece: the poem is not about making the most of the day but of one's
> lifetime.
>
> d. in the meantime, in stating that--for its speaker, at any rate--looking
> at cherry trees
> hung with blossoms is of first importance, it expresses something else that
> is importantly
> true to non-utilitarians: that beauty is second to nothing else in value to
> a human life
> Indeed, for the speaker, it is something to devote fifty springs to, not
> just a day--he isn't
> thinking of a fling with Persephone but marriage to her.
>
> e. at the same time, it suggests with a reference to easter, and references
> to spring, not to
> mention its focus on cherry blossoms, the cyclic ongoingness of existence:
> however fragile
> and transient Nature's cherry blossoms are, and--implicitly--human life,
> rebirth will occur;
> it thus expresses a third thing importantly true for the religious, and
> even for those who
> are not religious but believe in the kind of reincarnation Shelley and
> Nietzsche did (and I
> do); for those who don't believe in reincarnation, it still expresses the
> important truth that
> Nature itself will endure.
>
> f. finally, the poem is itself an object of beauty due to its sounds,
> images and diction,
> sufficiently so in my view for me to be able confidently to claim it
> represents something
> which is centrally beautiful--itself, in particular, and poetry, in
> general.
>
> (2) it is at least somewhat complicated by Thematic Misdirection, or
> something that makes
> its ultimate meaning or effect difficult quickly to ascertain, but
> eventually achieves Clarity;
>
> Few, I think, would argue that Housman's poem is unclear.  But its full
> meaning takes time
> to get to, it seems to me.  It also has a personification not brilliant but
> perfect for the poem
> that complicates the poem just enough to provide what seems to me
> sufficient Thematic
> Misdirection.  I say that because I believe all figures of speech do
> this--they are errors
> generating confusion it takes a mind a few seconds to overcome.  Metrical
> poetry also is
> different enough from prose to slow a reader's journey toward understanding
> the poem in
> whole.  This poem is far from having the thematic misdirection many poems
> have, but it
> has enough, so gets a check here.
>
> (3) it has a Unifying Principal, or some meaning or image or the like which
> pulls its
> elements reasonably close together;
>
> I presented my interpretation of the poem as a unified set of four
> consequential truths and a
> closely inter-related representation of beauty.  Its packaging as a lyric
> poem of beauty
> further unifies it.  So the poem scores well here.
>
> (4) it contains few or no superfluous words;
>
> All the poem's words seem necessary either to its meaning or its acoustics,
> and only rarely
> not to both.  All metrical poems have occasional words that are there for
> the metrics or
> rhyme almost entirely, or fall out of one or the other of those things to
> maintain meaning.
> So the poem gets a check here, too.
>
> (5) it boasts some constituent of substance that few or no other poems have
> such as
> uncommon diction, grammar, expressive modality (e.g., mathematics, visual
> art), and imagery;
>
> To me the main special constituent this poem has that few of no other poems
> have is the
> wry interruption from pure, almost too sweet lyric, into grade school
> arithmetic it takes--
> with a Biblical allusion giving it ponderousness completely opposed to the
> lightness of
> cherry blossoms, and delight in cherry blossoms.  This strikes me as a
> wonderful change of
> tone: cerebral analysis versus emotional spontaneity, heaviness versus
> gaiety, play,
> implicitly, versus duty.
>
> I suspect but would not swear that the poem also has a melodiousness rare
> in poetry, a
> melodiousness kept from excess by the speaker's drawn-out calculations.
> One other
> triumph it achieves, although I would not call it uncommonly effective, is
> its
> personification of the cherry trees as wearing white garments to celebrate
> Easter.  We're in
> the archetypal here: Spring!  Rebirth!  Celebration!  Joy!  Universal Love
> of Existence!
>
> (6) it avoids excessive use of inappropriate Cliches of diction, imagery or
> thought; too
> overt Sentimentality and hackneyed use of some technique or form;
>
> I give it a check here, too.  It uses a standard form, but it's one
> appropriate to a fairly
> serious albeit happy work: pentameter and tetrameter (as opposed to
> Dickinson's more
> jingly tetrameter and trimeter), with missing weak stresses at the
> beginning of several
> lines, which enlivens the poem, to my ear.  Nothing brilliant about the
> rhymes, but they
> work as well as the rhymes or just about any poem.  "Along the bough," for
> instance, is
> pretty clearly in the poem for meter and rhyme since it's unneeded for the
> meaning--where
> else would blooms be hung?  But it works so well melodationally, one can't
> reasonably
> criticize it.  "Is hung with bloom along the bough" not only closes an
> end-rhyme, but
> carries out a b- and an l-alliteration, and a g-consonance, and four open
> vowels combine
> with the two l's and the w to liquify the line, the l's in particular
> carrying on the l-
> alliteration that begins the poem, and continues into the third line.  And
> the w's go on in
> the rest of this stanza to form a 4-member alliteration.  The sound effects
> in the rest of the
> poem are similarly effective.  And, as I mentioned in my brief against
> taking "snow" as
> literal snow, the poem is a near-perfectly crafted little mechanism, with a
> theme stated at
> its beginning, veered rather distantly from, then returned triumphantly to.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From editor at pavementsaw.org  Sat Feb  7 23:02:34 2009
From: editor at pavementsaw.org (David Baratier)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 20:02:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <466B731155A74091AC4915CCB1EE197A@yourae066c3a9b>
Message-ID: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Didn't know, out in nowhere
I hope that microphone eating perv stays sick on the other side
and haunts those retards from the Voice.

Is the other Jerome Sala?

Never was about the cramps, always held the Gories above them, just wasn't into the glitz more about the rockabily. 

Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1


--- On Sat, 2/7/09, Gerald Schwartz <gejs1 at rochester.rr.com> wrote:

> From: Gerald Schwartz <gejs1 at rochester.rr.com>
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
> To: editor at pavementsaw.org, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009, 7:48 PM
> Lux Interior, along with partner Poison Ivy,
> fronted The Cramps...
> He passed from this to a hotter coil the other
> day.
> 
> '86 or '87 saw them @ the Q.
> 
> Same year as the Chilli Peppers... and Living
> Colour, 247 Spyz...
> 
> Wasn't I using a Lee draw as proof, didn't mean
>  to at least. (Was being haughty/ sarcastic... thinking
> someone like Lux had so much more to put in front of
> 
> an audience than a Lee, etc.)
> But, since Interior's death and Lee's
> "draw" entered into my
> consciousness at the same time, decided something need be
> (in a twisted-lime kinda way)said.
> 
> On a same note, I did see Sala in the late seventies,
> opening for
> the Stooges, holding the stage with the best of them.
> 
> g.
> 
> > Gerry--
> >
> > What is a Lux interior?
> >
> > Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young
> Lee reading as 
> > proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best
> known US poets can 
> > only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves
> the opposite.
> >
> > Be well
> >
> > David Baratier, Editor
> >
> > Pavement Saw Press
> > 321 Empire Street
> > Montpelier OH 43543
> > http://pavementsaw.org
> >
> > Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
> > http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 03:21:58 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 09:21:58 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] university of baltimore
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902080021v2fd1c57boba4aa7c0b0e2fb25@mail.gmail.com>

is looking for submissions:
http://welter.ubalt.edu/welter/submissions.html



-- 
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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 04:28:50 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 10:28:50 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] roanoke marginal arts festival
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902080128n6aea1eb3q1d6e9946837aebb3@mail.gmail.com>

2009 roanoke marginal arts
festival<http://roanokemarginalartsfestival.blogspot.com/>

mail art, sound poetry, visual poetry,
ubu enchained, silent films scored
by live bands, power tool drag racing,
collab fests, a conceptual art auction,
a parade, readings, workshops, power
point presentations, boxing, bicycling,
exhibits, performances, lectures. dance
improv, an absurdist church service...

-- 
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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 07:35:39 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 13:35:39 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Umbrella
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902080435m75f9e926p68ab2e4eae841268@mail.gmail.com>

is accepting submission:
http://www.umbrellajournal.com/winter2008/editorial.html

C.E.Chaffin, member of the present list, is a contributing editor.
http://www.umbrellajournal.com/winter2008/editorial.html



-- 
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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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 07:46:15 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 07:46:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Baiting
In-Reply-To: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <498ED417.6060009@nut-n-but.net>

Sorry to keep a rather dumb and trivial tangent going, but on reflection 
I've decided that the first time I asked whether Lee was packing them in 
because of his message (/primarily/, as I guess I have to point out for 
the literalists) rather than his poetry, I was simply curious, as I 
said.  I was not trying to get into an argument about the otherstream 
versus the knownstream.  I won't deny that I /was/ also implicitly 
sniping yet again at bigtimers--but I was ready to be pleased with and 
for Lee if someone whose opinion I esteemed said his poetry was what 
what drawing crowds, or even that he message was drawing crowds but he 
was a good poet aside from that.

Evidence supporting my defense: I was going to post a rude reaction to 
the Tufts prize-winners but didn't--because I decided after a non-skim 
of the second poem that it was quite good (although flawed--I think the 
word "hospice" was too pathos-laden).  The non-poem that got the 
professor a hundred grand, though, was standard for that kind of 
stale-by-now thing.  Unless it's completely unrepresentative of the 
professor's work, I think her getting the loot a blow against poetry.

--Bob G.
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 07:52:44 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 07:52:44 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Excellence in Poetry--Andrews
In-Reply-To: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <498ED59C.9090209@nut-n-but.net>

I need a true copy of this poem--sorry to be nit-picking, but its words 
are not all it is--the page it's on is part of it (as it isn't in 
conventional poems).  Its context is important, too: we know it was in a 
magazine.  If anyone has it, I'd like to know what is said about the 
piece in the table of contents.  All this because the piece won't work 
without its being clearly recognized as a poem (or as at least a 
would-be poem).

--Bob



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 08:31:23 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:31:23 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Housman--I'm Still At It
In-Reply-To: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <498EDEAB.7000206@nut-n-but.net>

This argument of mine with Judy made me suddenly see something about the 
Housman
poem I hadn't seen before.  It explains a reason I've always 
automatically liked the poem.
What I now see is that the poem is a subtle chant:

line 2: "(the cherry) is hung with bloom"  rah rah

line 4: "(the cherry) is wearing white (blooms)"  rah rah

line 9: "look at things in bloom"  rah rah

line 12:  "see the cherry hung with (bloom the color as delicacy of) 
snow"  rah rah

Okay, call it just a sort of refrain.  The point is, the poem's speaker 
tells us about blooms
much more than he has to.  Once he's told us that the cherry trees are 
blossoming in line 2,
for instance, he needn't tell us they're wearing white--if conveying 
information was all the
poem was intending to do.  It seems to me unarguable that the poet is 
driving the cherry
blossom image into us--in a way almost like Stein's "rose is a rose is a 
rose."  His poetry
keeps the repetitionfrom being boring (for most of his readers).  If I'm 
right about this,
then the snow image at the end has to be a metaphor.

If I'm wrong, the poet has spent all of an eleven-line poem except its 
last word celebrating
cherry blossoms.  Would anyone reading the poem expect him to switch to 
winter
anywhere before the final word?  Is there any other successful poem that 
carries out such
an abrupt switch?

Here's a better, though still not Housmanian, rendering of the poem's 
third stanza as I
think it would have had to have been if the snow-as-snow reading were valid:

And since to look at lovely things
Requires more time than fifty springs
About the winter woods I'll go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

No good poet, in my opinion, sneaks a greatly altered meaning, however 
profound some
take it to be, into a poem at the very end.  The one suggested here, I 
would add, goes
against a main virtue of the poem: its expression of a buoyant love of 
cherry blossoms, a
love turned to a chant, and one demanding, it seems to me, immediate 
involvement with
the love-objects.

--Bob




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 08:54:42 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:54:42 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Segantini and the bad mothers
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902071037y2636f01aiea84d1be24afa4a9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4b65c2d70902071037y2636f01aiea84d1be24afa4a9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <498EE422.3080307@nut-n-but.net>

Anny Ballardini wrote:
> I am wondering, am I the only one who thinks that The Bad Mothers are 
> simply "bad mothers"?
> http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=2&id=30 
> <http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=2&id=30>
>
> My assumption starts from a very simple linguistic statement, that a 
> mother is a woman who has a child. A female human being who does not 
> have a child is defined a woman, a girl, a lady, ... but not a "mother".
>
> I am specifically denying the following:
>
> The Punishment of Lust belongs to a series of paintings produced 
> between 1891-96 on the theme of bad mothers (cattive madri). Segantini 
> was inspired by Nirvana, a poem written by the 12th century monk Luigi 
> Illica in imitation of the Indian text Panghiavahli. Illica's poem 
> contained the phrase 'la Mala Madre' (the bad or wicked mother with an 
> echo similar to 'la mala femmina' or prostitute) to describe those 
> women who refused the responsibilities of motherhood.
I'm coming into this with no background, Anny, but the paragraph above 
makes sense to me: a bad mother is a woman who has a child but neglects 
it--in this way refusing the responsibilities of motherhood.  She isn't 
refusing motherhood, as you seem to be thinking but the responsibilities 
that go with it..

Hey, I may not know what I'm talking about, but I'm not baiting you, honest!

--Bob
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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 09:20:07 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 15:20:07 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Segantini and the bad mothers
In-Reply-To: <498EE422.3080307@nut-n-but.net>
References: <4b65c2d70902071037y2636f01aiea84d1be24afa4a9@mail.gmail.com>
	<498EE422.3080307@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902080620u2fe2a8u667d8e107677a92b@mail.gmail.com>

Thank you very much Bob. I can feel the tone in your mail. I also need to
say that mine was a rhetorical statement. I have already made up my mind and
I'm just openly criticizing what many people in this field give for granted.

Have a nice Sunday. Already afternoon here, days off just disappear!

Anny

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 2:54 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>wrote:

>  Anny Ballardini wrote:
>
> I am wondering, am I the only one who thinks that The Bad Mothers are
> simply "bad mothers"?
>
> http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=2&id=30
>
> My assumption starts from a very simple linguistic statement, that a mother
> is a woman who has a child. A female human being who does not have a child
> is defined a woman, a girl, a lady, ... but not a "mother".
>
> I am specifically denying the following:
>
> The Punishment of Lust belongs to a series of paintings produced between
> 1891-96 on the theme of bad mothers (cattive madri). Segantini was inspired
> by Nirvana, a poem written by the 12th century monk Luigi Illica in
> imitation of the Indian text Panghiavahli. Illica's poem contained the
> phrase 'la Mala Madre' (the bad or wicked mother with an echo similar to 'la
> mala femmina' or prostitute) to describe those women who refused the
> responsibilities of motherhood.
>
> I'm coming into this with no background, Anny, but the paragraph above
> makes sense to me: a bad mother is a woman who has a child but neglects
> it--in this way refusing the responsibilities of motherhood.  She isn't
> refusing motherhood, as you seem to be thinking but the responsibilities
> that go with it..
>
> Hey, I may not know what I'm talking about, but I'm not baiting you,
> honest!
>
> --Bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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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From gejs1 at rochester.rr.com  Sun Feb  8 09:58:52 2009
From: gejs1 at rochester.rr.com (Gerald Schwartz)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 09:58:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <6324304097654F85A6DFFA28D2AD77EC@yourae066c3a9b>



> Didn't know, out in nowhere
> I hope that microphone eating perv stays sick on the other side
> and haunts those retards from the Voice.
>
> Is the other Jerome Sala?


Yep, That's him.

> Never was about the cramps, always held the Gories above them, just wasn't 
> into the glitz more about the rockabily.

I took it all in, especially spectacle, of which
music was one of the components of the mighty.
>
> Be well
>
> David Baratier, Editor
>
> Pavement Saw Press
> 321 Empire Street
> Montpelier OH 43543
> http://pavementsaw.org
>
> Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
> http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>
>
> --- On Sat, 2/7/09, Gerald Schwartz <gejs1 at rochester.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Gerald Schwartz <gejs1 at rochester.rr.com>
>> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
>> To: editor at pavementsaw.org, "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" 
>> <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>> Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009, 7:48 PM
>> Lux Interior, along with partner Poison Ivy,
>> fronted The Cramps...
>> He passed from this to a hotter coil the other
>> day.
>>
>> '86 or '87 saw them @ the Q.
>>
>> Same year as the Chilli Peppers... and Living
>> Colour, 247 Spyz...
>>
>> Wasn't I using a Lee draw as proof, didn't mean
>>  to at least. (Was being haughty/ sarcastic... thinking
>> someone like Lux had so much more to put in front of
>>
>> an audience than a Lee, etc.)
>> But, since Interior's death and Lee's
>> "draw" entered into my
>> consciousness at the same time, decided something need be
>> (in a twisted-lime kinda way)said.
>>
>> On a same note, I did see Sala in the late seventies,
>> opening for
>> the Stooges, holding the stage with the best of them.
>>
>> g.
>>
>> > Gerry--
>> >
>> > What is a Lux interior?
>> >
>> > Also there is a logic problem with using this Li Young
>> Lee reading as
>> > proof of the importance of poetry. If one of the best
>> known US poets can
>> > only muster an audience on his own of 400, it proves
>> the opposite.
>> >
>> > Be well
>> >
>> > David Baratier, Editor
>> >
>> > Pavement Saw Press
>> > 321 Empire Street
>> > Montpelier OH 43543
>> > http://pavementsaw.org
>> >
>> > Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
>> > http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > New-Poetry mailing list
>> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sun Feb  8 09:53:54 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:53:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Baiting
In-Reply-To: <498ED417.6060009@nut-n-but.net>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<498ED417.6060009@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498EF202.4060700@opus40.org>

Well, you know me, Bob -- I'll always rise to a challenge. But in this 
case I had nothing to say. I don't think message and technique exist 
locked away in separate rooms. In general, people are going to be more 
interested in reading stuff they're interested reading, and they're 
going to be interested in reading that stuff delivered by the best 
writers. This is true in every field, It's why horror fans read Stephen 
King more than they read some shlub, and romance readers are going to 
spring for Nora Roberts more often than Roberts-plagiarizer Cassie Edwards.

Bob Grumman wrote:
> Sorry to keep a rather dumb and trivial tangent going, but on 
> reflection I've decided that the first time I asked whether Lee was 
> packing them in because of his message (/primarily/, as I guess I have 
> to point out for the literalists) rather than his poetry, I was simply 
> curious, as I said.  I was not trying to get into an argument about 
> the otherstream versus the knownstream.  I won't deny that I /was/ 
> also implicitly sniping yet again at bigtimers--but I was ready to be 
> pleased with and for Lee if someone whose opinion I esteemed said his 
> poetry was what what drawing crowds, or even that he message was 
> drawing crowds but he was a good poet aside from that.
>
> Evidence supporting my defense: I was going to post a rude reaction to 
> the Tufts prize-winners but didn't--because I decided after a non-skim 
> of the second poem that it was quite good (although flawed--I think 
> the word "hospice" was too pathos-laden).  The non-poem that got the 
> professor a hundred grand, though, was standard for that kind of 
> stale-by-now thing.  Unless it's completely unrepresentative of the 
> professor's work, I think her getting the loot a blow against poetry.
>
> --Bob G.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sun Feb  8 10:04:53 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:04:53 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Housman--I'm Still At It
In-Reply-To: <498EDEAB.7000206@nut-n-but.net>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<498EDEAB.7000206@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498EF495.4030906@opus40.org>

He also tells more about the mathematics of life expectancy than he has 
to. This is all stuff that shouldn't work -- that we tell our freshman 
comp students not to do. Hey, I forgot to tell you this! And then he 
tells you the same thing over again. But here it works sublimely. It's 
not dissimilar to what I tell my beginning screenwriting students, after 
I show them The Bicycle Thief. Any of you could make this movie. You 
could get amateur actors, like DeSica did. You could take a hand-held 
camera and go out and shoot it in the streets of Poughkeepsie. You could 
even raise the money for it, since it's a shoestring budget. The only 
thing you'd need would be genius.

Bob Grumman wrote:
> This argument of mine with Judy made me suddenly see something about 
> the Housman
> poem I hadn't seen before.  It explains a reason I've always 
> automatically liked the poem.
> What I now see is that the poem is a subtle chant:
>
> line 2: "(the cherry) is hung with bloom"  rah rah
>
> line 4: "(the cherry) is wearing white (blooms)"  rah rah
>
> line 9: "look at things in bloom"  rah rah
>
> line 12:  "see the cherry hung with (bloom the color as delicacy of) 
> snow"  rah rah
>
> Okay, call it just a sort of refrain.  The point is, the poem's 
> speaker tells us about blooms
> much more than he has to.  Once he's told us that the cherry trees are 
> blossoming in line 2,
> for instance, he needn't tell us they're wearing white--if conveying 
> information was all the
> poem was intending to do.  It seems to me unarguable that the poet is 
> driving the cherry
> blossom image into us--in a way almost like Stein's "rose is a rose is 
> a rose."  His poetry
> keeps the repetitionfrom being boring (for most of his readers).  If 
> I'm right about this,
> then the snow image at the end has to be a metaphor.
>
> If I'm wrong, the poet has spent all of an eleven-line poem except its 
> last word celebrating
> cherry blossoms.  Would anyone reading the poem expect him to switch 
> to winter
> anywhere before the final word?  Is there any other successful poem 
> that carries out such
> an abrupt switch?
>
> Here's a better, though still not Housmanian, rendering of the poem's 
> third stanza as I
> think it would have had to have been if the snow-as-snow reading were 
> valid:
>
> And since to look at lovely things
> Requires more time than fifty springs
> About the winter woods I'll go
> To see the cherry hung with snow.
>
> No good poet, in my opinion, sneaks a greatly altered meaning, however 
> profound some
> take it to be, into a poem at the very end.  The one suggested here, I 
> would add, goes
> against a main virtue of the poem: its expression of a buoyant love of 
> cherry blossoms, a
> love turned to a chant, and one demanding, it seems to me, immediate 
> involvement with
> the love-objects.
>
> --Bob
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 10:25:51 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:25:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Baiting
In-Reply-To: <498EF202.4060700@opus40.org>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com><498ED417.6060009@nut-n-but.net>
	<498EF202.4060700@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498EF97F.6030203@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> Well, you know me, Bob -- I'll always rise to a challenge. But in this 
> case I had nothing to say. I don't think message and technique exist 
> locked away in separate rooms. 
Nor do I, but they both have an effect.  Take Obama's speeches: are they 
praised because they say what many people want to hear or are they 
praised because they are genuinely eloquent?  No baiting here: I haven't 
listened to any of them, so have no opinion, and don't care.  Just an 
example.  I can't think of any poets or other writers as good examples, 
but am sure there are many who said what people of their time liked but 
didn't last because they didn't say it lastingly. 

> In general, people are going to be more interested in reading stuff 
> they're interested reading, and they're going to be interested in 
> reading that stuff delivered by the best writers. This is true in 
> every field, It's why horror fans read Stephen King more than they 
> read some shlub, and romance readers are going to spring for Nora 
> Roberts more often than Roberts-plagiarizer Cassie Edwards.
I half-agree.  One problem is that when a really good writer writes a 
genre novel, it will be called a Serious Novel--and won't capture the 
audience a Stephen King novel will. 
I'm not sure the truly best genre novels are the most popular.  But 
maybe.  I think Rex Stout was terrific, for example, and his stuff was 
very popular.

--Bob













From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 10:42:29 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:42:29 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Housman--I'm Still At It
In-Reply-To: <498EF495.4030906@opus40.org>
References: <6877.65692.qm@web45615.mail.sp1.yahoo.com><498EDEAB.7000206@nut-n-but.net>
	<498EF495.4030906@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498EFD65.1080403@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> He also tells more about the mathematics of life expectancy than he 
> has to.
Yes!


> This is all stuff that shouldn't work -- that we tell our freshman 
> comp students not to do.
Exactly what I was thinking as I read it critically.
> Hey, I forgot to tell you this! And then he tells you the same thing 
> over again. But here it works sublimely. It's not dissimilar to what I 
> tell my beginning screenwriting students, after I show them The 
> Bicycle Thief. Any of you could make this movie. You could get amateur 
> actors, like DeSica did. You could take a hand-held camera and go out 
> and shoot it in the streets of Poughkeepsie. You could even raise the 
> money for it, since it's a shoestring budget. The only thing you'd 
> need would be genius.

What kind of baiting is this, Mole.  I agree with all of it.  Ah, but 
the fish you're after is that Judy person!

--Bob



From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 15:15:41 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 21:15:41 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: university of baltimore
In-Reply-To: <4b65c2d70902080021v2fd1c57boba4aa7c0b0e2fb25@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4b65c2d70902080021v2fd1c57boba4aa7c0b0e2fb25@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902081215k291bb048i6f79854f80e77ca2@mail.gmail.com>

Margarete Peterson adds:

If anyone from your list does end up getting printed in Welter, we
have a reading for all the contributors in April at the university.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 9:21 AM
Subject: university of baltimore
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp, Views" <
new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


is looking for submissions:
http://welter.ubalt.edu/welter/submissions.html



-- 
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!




-- 
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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From anny.ballardini at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 15:31:16 2009
From: anny.ballardini at gmail.com (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 21:31:16 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] SPRING
Message-ID: <4b65c2d70902081231x14d64d63x54feb4b2feb010f3@mail.gmail.com>

By honoring Ezra Pound and Olga Rudge who were instrumental in Vivaldi's
revival, I am forwarding the present call for poems for the Spring
collection.



You can find Autumn:

http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=318



and Winter:

http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=329



already on the Poets' Corner.



*La Primavera* *Spring*

*Allegro*
Giunt' ? la Primavera e festosetti
La Salutan gl' Augei con lieto canto,
E i fonti allo Spirar de' Zeffiretti
Con dolce mormorio Scorrono intanto:
Vengon' coprendo l' aer di nero amanto
E Lampi, e tuoni ad annuntiarla eletti
Indi tacendo questi, gl' Augelletti;
Tornan' di nuovo al lor canoro incanto:

*Largo*
E quindi sul fiorito ameno prato
Al caro mormorio di fronde e piante
Dorme 'l Caprar col fido can' ? lato.

*Allegro*
Di pastoral Zampogna al suon festante
Danzan Ninfe e Pastor nel tetto amato
Di primavera all' apparir brillante.



*Spring*

*Allegro*
Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over
heaven,
Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs
once more.

*Largo*
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the
goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.

*Allegro*
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly
dance beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.



* *

* *

>From Wikipedia under the Four Seasons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Seasons_(Vivaldi)<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Seasons_%28Vivaldi%29>



you can also listen to John Harrison's wonderful violin, you should so wish!

My best wishes,


Anny

-- 
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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From editor at pavementsaw.org  Sun Feb  8 18:16:46 2009
From: editor at pavementsaw.org (David Baratier)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 15:16:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
Message-ID: <59363.47734.qm@web45614.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Bob--
?
I understood your point ages ago. 
?
In the late eighties, I read for?the AIDS quilt which was brought to the New York State Museum in Albany. Many "poets," including one very famous one, read poems that were against AIDS. "AIDS is bad," "friends died," "boo for AIDS," "where is money for testing," I got to wear this rubber thing," etcetera. And people cheered. But the?superior writers (ie poets) used some other metaphor with no stated connection, one was about a medicine ball.
?
Why does someone have to prove to you that Li is a good poet, and not due to content? In fact, his subject matter is the opposite of what you want to hear, it gets tedious, the first two?collections and part of the third are "Dead Dad" books.?But he is the best known and living narrative "Dead Dad" writer there is.?
?


Be well

David Baratier, Editor

Pavement Saw Press
321 Empire Street
Montpelier OH 43543
http://pavementsaw.org

Subscribe to our e-mail listserv at
http://pavementsaw.org/list/?p=subscribe&id=1


      
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 19:39:12 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:39:12 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <59363.47734.qm@web45614.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <59363.47734.qm@web45614.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <498F7B30.6060601@nut-n-but.net>

David Baratier wrote:
> Bob--
>  
> I understood your point ages ago.
>  
> In the late eighties, I read for the AIDS quilt which was brought to 
> the New York State Museum in Albany. Many "poets," including one very 
> famous one, read poems that were against AIDS. "AIDS is bad," "friends 
> died," "boo for AIDS," "where is money for testing," I got to wear 
> this rubber thing," etcetera. And people cheered. But the superior 
> writers (ie poets) used some other metaphor with no stated connection, 
> one was about a medicine ball.
>  
> Why does someone have to prove to you that Li is a good poet, and not 
> due to content? In fact, his subject matter is the opposite of what 
> you want to hear, it gets tedious, the first two collections and part 
> of the third are "Dead Dad" books. But he is the best known and living 
> narrative "Dead Dad" writer there is. 
>  
>
I was asking for proof, David--I just wanted to know, basically, what 
kind of poetry he was writing that was drawing crowds--without reading 
it myself, which I don't have time to do.  And now, you've pretty much 
told me. 

thanks, Bob


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From Opus40-01 at opus40.org  Sun Feb  8 19:44:24 2009
From: Opus40-01 at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:44:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498F7B30.6060601@nut-n-but.net>
References: <59363.47734.qm@web45614.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<498F7B30.6060601@nut-n-but.net>
Message-ID: <498F7C68.6080206@opus40.org>

This took more time than reading it yourself would have.

Bob Grumman wrote:
> David Baratier wrote:
>> Bob--
>>  
>> I understood your point ages ago.
>>  
>> In the late eighties, I read for the AIDS quilt which was brought to 
>> the New York State Museum in Albany. Many "poets," including one very 
>> famous one, read poems that were against AIDS. "AIDS is bad," 
>> "friends died," "boo for AIDS," "where is money for testing," I got 
>> to wear this rubber thing," etcetera. And people cheered. But 
>> the superior writers (ie poets) used some other metaphor with no 
>> stated connection, one was about a medicine ball.
>>  
>> Why does someone have to prove to you that Li is a good poet, and not 
>> due to content? In fact, his subject matter is the opposite of what 
>> you want to hear, it gets tedious, the first two collections and part 
>> of the third are "Dead Dad" books. But he is the best known and 
>> living narrative "Dead Dad" writer there is. 
>>  
>>
> I was asking for proof, David--I just wanted to know, basically, what 
> kind of poetry he was writing that was drawing crowds--without reading 
> it myself, which I don't have time to do.  And now, you've pretty much 
> told me. 
>
> thanks, Bob
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to order your copy of FILM NOIR!
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2712239



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Feb  8 20:03:54 2009
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:03:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Li-Young Lee packs 'em in
In-Reply-To: <498F7C68.6080206@opus40.org>
References: <59363.47734.qm@web45614.mail.sp1.yahoo.com><498F7B30.6060601@nut-n-but.net>
	<498F7C68.6080206@opus40.org>
Message-ID: <498F80FA.5030609@nut-n-but.net>

TheOldMole wrote:
> This took more time than reading it yourself would have.
Haw, you're right, Mole--but I didn't think when I made my first post on 
the subject.

--Bob G.



From jforjames at aol.com  Sun Feb  8 20:37:36 2009
From: jforjames at aol.com (jforjames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:37:36 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Poem of the Week- B. H. Fairchild
In-Reply-To: <8FC4B31000A74E5F8003361482A479DE@Schlueter>
References: <8FC4B31000A74E5F8003361482A479DE@Schlueter>
Message-ID: <8CB586E1C809071-1730-4@WEBMAIL-DZ28.sysops.aol.com>


-----Original Message-----
From: PoemoftheWeek.org <andrewmcfadyenketchum at poemoftheweek.org>
To: Poem of theWeek <andrewmcfadyenketchum at poemoftheweek.org>
Sent: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 3:43 pm
Subject: Poem of the Week- B. H. Fairchild





Poem Of The Week?? 02-08-09?
?

????????????????????

B. H. Fairchild

?

?

?

Beauty



Therefore, 
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful. . . 
-James Wright, "Autumn Begins in Martin's Ferry, Ohio" 

I. 
We are at the Bargello in Florence, and she says, 
what are you thinking? and I say, beauty, thinking 
of how very far we are now from the machine shop
and the dry fields of Kansas, the treeless horizons 
of slate skies and the muted passions of roughnecks 
and scrabble farmers drunk and romantic enough 
to weep more or less silently at the darkened end 
of the bar out of, what else, loneliness, meaning 
the ache of thwarted desire, of, in a word, beauty, 
or rather its absence, and it occurs to me again 
that no male member of my family has ever used 
this word in my hearing or anyone else's except 
in reference, perhaps, to a new pickup or dead deer.
This insight, this backward vision, first came to me 
as a young man as some weirdness of the air waves 
slipped through the static of our new Motorola 
with a discussion of beauty between Robert Penn Warren 
and Paul Weiss at Yale College. We were in Kansas 
eating barbecue-flavored20potato chips and waiting 
for Father Knows Best to float up through the snow
of rural TV in 1963. I felt transported, stunned. 
Here are two grown men discussing "beauty" 
seriously and with dignity as if they and the topic 
were as normal as normal topics of discussion 
between men such as soybean prices or why 
the commodities market was a sucker's game 
or Oklahoma football or Gimpy Neiderland 
almost dying from his hemorrhoid operation. 
They were discussing beauty and tossing around 
allusions to Plato and Aristotle and someone 
named Pater, and they might be homosexuals. 
That would be a natural conclusion, of course, 
since here were two grown men talking about "beauty"
instead of scratching their crotches and cursing 
the goddamned government trying to run everybody's 
business. Not a beautiful thing, that. The government. 
Not beautiful, though a man would not use that word. 
One time my Uncle Ross from California called my mom's 
Sunday dinner centerpiece "lovely" and my father 
left the room, clearly troubled by the word "lovely" 
coupled probably with the very idea of California 
and the fact that my Uncle Ross liked to tap-dance. 
The light from the venetian blinds, the autumn, 
silver Kansas light laving the table that Sunday, 
is what I recall now because it was beautiful, 
though I of course would not have said so then, beautiful, 
as so many moments forgotten but later remembered 
come back to us in slants and pools and uprisings of light, 
beautiful in 
itself, but more beautiful mingled 
with memory, the light leaning across my mother's 
carefully set table, across the empty chair 
beside my Uncle Ross, the light filtering down 
from the green plastic slats in the roof of the machine shop 
where I worked with my father so many afternoons, 
standing or crouched in pools of light and sweat with men 
who knew the true meaning of labor and money and other 
hard, true things and did not, did not ever, use the word, beauty. 

II. 
Late November, shadows gather in the shop's north end, 
and I'm watching Bobby Sudduth do piece work on the Hobbs. 
He fouls another cut, motherfucker, fucking bitch machine, 
and starts over, sloppy, slow, about two joints away 
from being fired, but he just doesn't give a shit. 
He sets the bit again, white wrists flashing in the lamplight 
and showing botched, blurred tattoos, both from a night 
in Tijuana, and continues his sexual autobiography, 
that's right, fucked my own sister, and I'll tell you, bud, 
it wasn't bad. Later, in the Phillipines, the clap: 
as far as I'm concerned, any man who hasn't had V.D. 
just isn't a man. I walk away, knowing I have just heard 
the dumbest remark ever uttered by man or animal. 
The air around me hums in a dark metallic bass, 
light spilling like grails of milk as someone opens 
the mammoth shop door. A shrill, sullen truculence 
blows in like dust devils, the hot wind nagging 
my blousy overalls, and in the sideyard the winch truck 
b
ackfires and stalls. The sky yellows. Barn sparrows cry 
in the rafters. That afternoon in Dallas Kennedy is shot. 

Two weeks later sitting around on rotary tables 
and traveling blocks whose bearings litter the shop floor 
like huge eggs, we close our lunch boxes and lean back 
with cigarettes and watch smoke and dust motes rise and drift 
into sunlight. All of us have seen the newscasts, 
photographs from Life, have sat there in our cavernous rooms, 
assassinations and crowds flickering over our faces, 
some of us have even dreamed it, sleeping through 
the TV's drone and flutter, seen her arm reaching 
across the lank body, black suits rushing in like moths, 
and the long snake of the motorcade come to rest, 
then the announcer's voice as we wake astonished in the dark. 
We think of it now, staring at the tin ceiling like a giant screen, 
what a strange goddamned country, as Bobby Sudduth 
arches a wadded Fritos bag at the time clock and says, 
Oswald, from that far, you got to admit, that shot was a beauty. 

III. 
The following summer. A black Corvette gleams like a slice 
of onyx in the sideyard, driven there by two young men 
who look like Marlon Brando and mention Hollywood 
when Bobby asks where they're from. The foreman, my father, 
has hired them because we're backed up with work, both shop 
and yard strewn with rig parts, flat-bed haulers rumbling 
in each day lugging damaged drawworks, and we are desperate. 
The noise is awful, a gang of rou
ghnecks from a rig 
on down-time shouting orders, our floor hands knee-deep 
in the drawwork's gears heating the frozen sleeves and bushings 
with cutting torches until they can be hammered loose. 
The iron shell bangs back like a drum-head. Looking 
for some peace, I walk onto the pipe rack for a quick smoke, 
and this is the way it begins for me, this memory, 
this strangest of all memories of the shop and the men 
who worked there, because the silence has come upon me 
like the shadow of cranes flying overhead as they would 
each autumn, like the quiet and imperceptible turning 
of a season, the shop has grown suddenly still here 
in the middle of the workday, and I turn to look 
through the tall doors where the machinist stand now 
with their backs to me, the lathes whining down together,
and in the shop's center I see them standing in a square 
of light, the two men from California, as the welders 
lift their black masks, looking up, and I see their faces first, 
the expressions of children at a zoo, perhaps, 
or after a first snow, as the two men stand naked, 
their clothes in little piles on the floor as if they 
are about to go swimming, and I recall how fragile 
and pale their bodies seemed against the iron and steel 
of the drill presses and milling machines and lathes. 
I did not know the word, exhibitionist, then, and so 
for a moment it seemed only a problem of memory, 
that they had forgotten somehow where they were, 
that this
 was not the locker room after the game, 
that they were not taking a shower, that this was not 
the appropriate place, and they would then remember, 
and suddenly embarrassed, begin shyly to dress again. 
But they did not, and in memory they stand frozen 
and poised as two models in a drawing class, 
of whom the finished sketch might be said, though not by me 
nor any man I knew, to be beautiful, they stand there 
forever, with the time clock ticking behind them, 
time running on but not moving, like the white tunnel 
of silence between the snap of the ball and the thunderclap 
of shoulder pads that never seems to come and then 
there it is, and I hear a quick intake of breath 
on my right behind the Hobbs and it is Bobby Sudduth 
with what I think now was not just anger but a kind 
of terror on his face, an animal wildness 
in the eyes and the jaw tight, making ropes in his neck 
while in a long blur with his left hand raised and gripping 
an iron file he is moving toward the men who wait 
attentive and motionless as deer trembling in a clearing, 
and instantly there is my father between Bobby 
and the men as if he were waking them after a long sleep, 
reaching out to touch the shoulder of the blonde one 
as he says in a voice almost terrible in its gentleness, 
its discretion, you boys will have to leave now. 
He takes one look at Bobby who is shrinking back 
into the shadows of the Hobbs, then walks quickly back 
to=2
0his office at the front of the shop, and soon 
the black Corvette with the orange California plates 
is squealing onto Highway 54 heading west into the sun. 

IV. 
So there they are, as I will always remember them, 
the men who were once fullbacks or tackles or guards 
in their three-point stances knuckling into the mud, 
hungry for highschool glory and the pride of their fathers, 
eager to gallop terribly against each other's bodies, 
each man in his body looking out now at the nakedness 
of a body like his, men who each autumn had followed 
their fathers into the pheasant-rich fields of Kansas 
and as boys had climbed down from the Allis-Chalmers 
after plowing their first straight furrow, licking the dirt 
from their lips, the hand of the father resting lightly 
upon their shoulder, men who in the oven-warm winter 
kitchens of Baptist households saw after a bath the body 
of the father and felt diminished by it, who that same 
winter in the abandoned schoolyard felt the odd intimacy 
of their fist against the larger boy's cheekbone 
but kept hitting, ferociously, and walked away 
feeling for the first time the strength, the abundance, 
of their own bodies. And I imagine the men 
that evening after the strangest day of their lives, 
after they have left the shop without speaking 
and made the long drive home alone in their pickups,
I see them in their little white frame houses on the edge 
of town adrift in the long silence of the evening turning 
finall
y to their wives, touching without speaking the hair 
which she has learned to let fall about her shoulders 
at this hour of the night, lifting the white nightgown 
from her body as she in turn unbuttons his work shirt 
heavy with the sweat and grease of the day's labor until 
they stand naked before each other and begin to touch 
in a slow choreography of familiar gestures their bodies, 
she touching his chest, his hand brushing her breasts, 
and he does not say the word "beautiful" because 
he cannot and never has, and she does not say it 
because it would embarrass him or any other man 
she has ever known, though it is precisely the word 
I am thinking now as I stand before Donatello's David 
with my wife touching my sleeve, what are you thinking? 
and I think of the letter from my father years ago 
describing the death of Bobby Sudduth, a single shot 
from a twelve-gauge which he held against his chest, 
the death of the heart, I suppose, a kind of terrible beauty, 
as someone said of the death of Hart Crane, though that is 
surely a perverse use of the word, and I was stunned then, 
thinking of the damage men will visit upon their bodies, 
what are you thinking? she asks again, and so I begin 
to tell her about a strange afternoon in Kansas, 
about something I have never spoken of, and we walk 
to a window where the shifting light spreads a sheen 
along the casement, and looking out, we see the city 
blazing like miles of uncut wh
eat, the farthest buildings 
taken in their turn, and the great dome, the way 
the metal roof of the machine shop, I tell her, 
would break into flame late on an autumn day, with such beauty. 

??????????????????????? -from The Art of the Lathe

?
?
?

?

Author and poet B.H. Fairchild's first published book was a critical study of another poet. Such Holy Song: Music as Idea, Form, and Image in the Poetry of William Blake, which saw print in 1980, looked at the influence of music on the work of the famed late eighteenth-century poet who pioneered Romanticism and created such masterpieces as Songs of Innocence and of Experience and The Four Zoas. In fact, it is primarily these two sets of poems by Blake that Fairchild uses to assert his premise that music is supremely important to Blake's poetic creations. As Brian Wilke pointed out in the Rocky Mountain Review, Such Holy Song itself "has a kind of simple ABA sonata form." The critic explained that chapter one provides a framework for the rest of the book. The next three chapters explore "the theoretical and mythic meaning of music for Blake," "melos" in the Songs of Innocence and of Experience, and the "sound effects, ... musico-dramatic form, and ... musical imagery" in The Four Zoas. The last chapter sums up the book. Fairchild also asserts that melody, in Blake's creative realm, is likened "to the visual ... and the poetic line, ...
 representing the right, healthy form of imagination. ..." In addition, the author includes information about Blake's living conditions, which included a home near "pleasure gardens" where music was frequently performed. 

Critical response to Such Holy Song was generally positive. Wilke noted that the chapter dealing with The Four Zoas is "the best part of the book." Wilke particularly appreciated the explanation "of the poem's sound effects, which Fairchild brings excitingly alive." A Choice contributor noted that Fairchild explores his subject matter and proves his points "clearly and effectively," and declared the volume to be "the first direct attempt to render as accurately as possible the musicality" of Blake's poetry. 

Fairchild has also published volumes of his own poetry, including 1985's The Arrival of the Future, with illustrations by Ross Zirkle, and a volume titled Local Knowledge, which a Publishers Weekly reviewer noted for its "obvious strength." His collection of poems titled The Art of the Lathe: Poems was called "thoughtful and delicately crafted" by Poetry contributor John Taylor. The reviewer went on to note: "His images haunt with a sort of silent metaphysical immobility." Vince Gotera, writing in the North American Review, commented that the author provides "impeccably precise and fresh insight." 

Fairchild received wide recognition and critical praise for his volume of poetry titled Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest. Writing in Poetry, Bill Christophersen noted that the author "continues to mine 
the experience of growing up in various hardscrabble towns of Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas during the Fifties and Sixties." Christophersen went on to write: "Many of these poems, like their predecessors ... are free verse narratives distinguished by their blue-collar settings and crisp detail." A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that "fans of Fairchild's comforting excursions to the familiar isolated territory of machinists won't be disappointed." In a review in the New York Times, Michael Hainey wrote: "This is the American voice at its best." 

?

B.H. Fairchild was born in Houston, Texas and grew up there and in small towns in west Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. He attended the University of Kansas and University of Tulsa and now lives with his wife and daughter in Claremont, California. His awards include the Arthur Rense Poetry Prize, a NEA Fellowship in Poetry, a California Arts Grant, a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship to the Sewanee Writers Conference, a National Writers? Union First Prize, and an AWP Anniversary Award. His poetry collections include Local Knowledge, The System of Which the Body Is One Part, and Flight. He is also the author of Such Holy Song, a study of William Blake. His poems have appeared in Southern Review, Poetry, Triquarterly, Hudson Review, Salmagundi, Sewanee Review and other journals.

?
?
?

A Conversation with B. H. Fairchild, by Paul Mariani

?. . . even then, before the dust would thin
from Kansas skies and we would take the rags
from the windows and20breathe again,
even then, I could turn with Seton's bear
at the gateway to the last canyon
as the Angel of the Wild Things waited,
as the fumes rose like night's warm quilt,
as the hunters crept closer slowly, slowly.
?????? from "Ernest Thompson Seton's Biography of a Grizzly" 

?

Image: Much of your work is firmly planted in your Texas and Kansas years, the years you spent in your father's machine shop, working a lathe, living in a world very much like that portrayed in Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 film, The Last Picture Show. Often this Midwestern experience is refracted through the lens of what we used to call high art ? Texas and Kansas refracted through the lenses of Cicero, Augustine, Rilke, and Ren? Char. Your long poem "Beauty," for example, takes place in the Bargello in Florence, where you are looking at the paintings on the Renaissance palace walls in company with your wife, before you circle back to your youth in Kansas in the late 1950s and early 1960s, remembering what the word beauty meant in a context of violence, boredom, and fear. Like William Carlos Williams, James Wright, and James Dickey, all writing in the American grain, you insist on the beauty to be found in what seems to be a desolate landscape. Would you comment?

B.H. Fairchild: Thank you for mentioning The Last Picture Show, which is probably the best visual and dramatic representation ever of the kind of small towns in which I grew up. I saw, or tried to see, that movi
e when it was first released, and after the first two minutes I had to get up and leave. I later saw the whole film, but that first look ? tumbleweeds blowing across the main street, dirt in the air, the absence of trees ? was hard to take. "Refracted through... the lens of high art" is an interesting and useful phrase, though I'm not sure it quite describes what is happening in my poems when high art appears shoulder to shoulder with physical labor or popular culture ? in the title poem of The Art of the Lathe, for instance, when Mozart and Patsy Cline are mentioned together, or the machine shop is compared with the drawing of the blacksmith's shop in Diderot's encyclopedia or with a cathedral such as Suger's Saint-Denis.

I resent the way blue-collar labor is often stereotyped as being utterly divorced from high culture, as if it were performed only by men and women whose lives are a cycle of beer drinking, Monday night football, and NASCAR, and who have never read or wanted to read The Brothers Karamazov or Anna Karenina. I have a cousin, for instance, who is a machinist and comes in and sets the parameters on the lathe (they're computerized now), then leans back and reads Heidegger. Maybe that's exceptional, but I also have a poem, "Toban's Precision Machine Shop," that resulted from walking into a very old shop in San Bernardino (so old the lathes were driven by belts connected to an overhead shaft) where a Mahler symphony was flooding the air.

A large part o
f my intent in The Art of the Lathe was to blur the line between craft and art. The men in those shops, including my father, were highly skilled laborers who performed tasks whose intellectual complexity was at least equal to if not more demanding than those performed by academic intellectuals. Take a good look at Machinery's Handbook if you don't believe me. Maybe lathe work is not an art, though it is certainly a craft, but as a child my first sense of beauty may have been lamplight reflecting from the blue spiral of iron as it peeled off of a threaded end of drill pipe.

One of the most important transitions for me, psychological or otherwise, was the gradual, halting movement out of the physical world of work into the world of art and literature and ideas. Very often, especially in my later teens and early twenties, I was existing in both worlds at the same time, watching a welder lay down a perfect seam while Madame Bovary was walking around in my head, or observing the gleam of a freshly shaped and honed piece of stock while remembering the arc of a Brancusi sculpture. I don't "insist" upon beauty being found in strange, overlooked places; that's just the way it seems to emerge in many of my poems.

Nobody could be more surprised at this than I am. I did not have a talent for machine work and could not wait to escape that little town, at least for nine months, to the world of the university. But that town is where my mind seems to locate the startling fact of beaut
y. And the stranger the circumstances or source of beauty, the more authentic it seems to me.

Image: I wonder if you might talk a bit about your own long, solitary apprenticeship to poetry. Let's start with how you came to compose your first book, The Arrival of the Future, which originally appeared in 1985, when you were forty-three.

BHF: The Arrival of the Future is simply a selection from everything I had written since the early seventies. The delay in the book's appearance had less to do with my development as a poet than it did with the poetry situation then and now. These days, if you have a manuscript of merit, are outside the MFA bureaucracy, and have no one of influence to recommend you, you are limited to entering competitions in order to have a book published. If the manuscript has real value, it will likely be a runner-up or finalist many times before it is actually selected. If it takes you five years to write the book, it may well take five more years before it wins publication.

This makes it so important that the competitions are run fairly. A couple of years ago, I read at a university with a prestigious poetry book series, and two of the professors there ? very nice folks and fine poets ? asked me whether I remembered submitting a manuscript to them some fifteen years before. I didn't, because I had been submitting to so many contests then. They confessed that they had chosen my manuscript as the winner, but the final judge insisted on giving the20prize to his student. I'm glad that they didn't tell me at the time, because I may well have thrown in the towel.

Image: How have you been able to write while teaching all those literature and composition classes, year after year, without any real time off? This had to take away from your ability to sit down and write with the leisure one needs to produce good work.

BHF: Everyone struggles with this. Everything ultimately seems to circle around economics, and someone somewhere is surely writing a book on poetry and money, or they should be. I might still be working on Early Occult Memory Systems if it weren't for the awards given to The Art of the Lathe. With the money from those awards and some generosity from my school, I was able to buy myself a year off from teaching. I had never in my life had a year off to write, and it's amazing how much you can produce when you have the time.

I could never seem to land the good job, though God knows I'm lucky to have any job at all. I've taught eight to ten classes a year at state universities my whole career and had to wedge the writing in whenever I could. The worst part is not the constant awareness of what you're not writing but rather the guilt you feel for the time you're taking away from your family. But other writers who, like me, teach in the Cal State system have been impressively productive: my colleague the novelist James Brown, Tim Steele, Ron Koertge, Charles Harper Webb. The work gets done, somehow.

Image
: How long did it take to, as they say, find your voice?

BHF: I was never very concerned with this when I was trying to teach myself the art of poetry. I was working in almost complete isolation, had never taken a poetry writing class or workshop, and therefore did not hear the phrase used much. Furthermore, I don't think I quite believed in it. I was trying to find my mind more than my voice. Also, because I had once been an aspiring jazz musician, I was trying to teach myself the way such a musician does: reading the best poets, trying to analyze what they did, then trying to do it myself, the way in those days a kid would listen to Charlie Parker or Sonny Stitt or Art Pepper to pick up their technique and ideas. I would also practice each day, giving myself little exercises in image, metaphor, syntax, or form, the way a pianist does five-finger exercises. Instead of trying to find my voice, I thought about precision of technique.

Something of a breakthrough came for me sitting in on a class in prosody taught by the poet Don Welch at Kearney State College, where I taught briefly. It opened up the interior life of the poem for me. Another lucky event was taking a class from Winston Weathers at the University of Tulsa, where he taught a sort of modernized version of classical rhetoric, mostly tropes and schemes.

Image: Who were some of your models? James Agee in prose? James Wright and William Stafford in poetry? Who else? What about European influences?

BHF: Some of=2
0the early influences included prose writers who were doing interesting things with syntax: Hemingway, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, and yes, James Agee, mostly the prose-poem preface to A Death in the Family, a small portion of which I used as the epigraph for my fourth book. I later read his poems, reviews, and Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

Remember, I did not come from a literary background. Some Frost and Whitman excited me in high school, but college was a huge intellectual adventure, and each writer ? Keats, Shakespeare, all the big ones ? was a great discovery. Poetry itself, truly understood as an art form, was a great discovery. As I began to write poems myself, Bill Stafford, James Wright, and Richard Hugo became very important to me because they validated my subject matter. I had grown up in small towns in the oil fields, and I had thought that poems needed to be about Grecian urns and unrequited love and nightingales. Those three poets made it immediately clear that I could write about my own experiences.

Later, in graduate school, I read Anthony Hecht's The Hard Hours, and it impressed me in every possible way. I was as attracted to his sound ? I mean his complex phonemic textures ? as I was to those in Robert Lowell's Lord Weary's Castle and in Sylvia Plath. I'm not sure how all of this plays out in terms of actual influence. As for European or other influences: as you can see from the epigraphs in The Arrival of the Future, I was readi
ng W. S. Merwin's translation of Osip Mandelstam and Cesare Pavese's Hard Labor in the later stages of my manuscript, and they made a deep impression on me.

Image: Can you talk a bit about the shape of this first book, and why you chose the cover you did, your friend Don Van Radke's The Wasp Killers (1977)?

BHF: It's difficult for me to remember now how I constructed the book out of the poems I had then. The title poem, with its epigraph from the theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg, I knew I wanted as the closing poem, and the book is roughly divided into three parts, but it is not a tightly, intricately structured book such as I would later try to do.

The cover I can be more specific about. I made the acquaintance of the painter Don Van Radke when I was putting together Arrival of the Future, saw The Wasp Killers on the wall of his house, and recognized it immediately as a visual translation of the phrase "the arrival of the future." I knew I wanted it on the cover, and when the book finally won a competition, I arranged it with the publisher. But the publisher (a brave, noble, small poetry publisher, like so many) was going out of business even as the book was being produced, so a less expensive cover was substituted, and I was very disappointed. Later, after The Art of the Lathe, Alice James agreed to republish the book the way I originally wanted it, and I thank them for that.

Image: Can you talk about the cross-fertilization process between narrative and lyrical stru
ctures ? the vertical heightening of the lyric, as well as the insistence, if you will, on the more horizontal fidelity to the quotidian?

BHF: It seems obvious that most poems these days are lyric/narrative hybrids. I think of pure lyric as being a vertical movement within a moment of time ? sometimes an infinitely small moment ? and pure narrative as being a horizontal movement in time. I think you can have pure lyric, such as Rilke's "Rose, oh pure contradiction," but that it's almost impossible to have pure narrative, at least in poetry. In fact, I think a narrative poem always has to be a hybrid, even though it's closer to the horizontal axis, because a poem must have at least some lyric depth. Beginning as far back as "In Czechoslovakia" in my second book, Local Knowledge, I became interested in this problem of writing a narrative that sustains momentum without sacrificing lyric depth.

Image: You speak of your first book as a miscellany, but certainly your last two books are finely honed and highly structured. Would you comment on this development? By extension, where do you see your new work going?

BHF: Thank you for the compliment and observation. Yes, it was certainly my intent to make The Art of the Lathe and Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest more than just collections, especially the latter, though it is probably immodest to say so, there being such a gulf between intent and execution. But I at least wanted more of a thematic consistency in The 
Art of the Lathe; I hoped that there would be a development between the strangeness, even forbiddenness, of the idea of beauty in the first poem and the location and celebration of it in the work itself (that is, the machine work) in the title poem which closes the book.

Early Occult Memory Systems has two memory systems and two centers. One, the subject of the first poem, the title poem, I invented for myself as a child. It is about not only memory but memory's desire: to forget nothing, to hold on to everything as if one were going to live forever. The other memory system is the one that was so important to Renaissance intellectuals such as Giordano Bruno, whose wonderful memory theater really derived from classical rhetoricians (thus the Renaissance habit of referring to such systems as "occult," meaning simply pre-Christian or pagan).

One center of the book occurs in the middle of the long poem, "The Blue Buick," when Roy Garcia, having taught the boy-narrator Bruno's system, says that the boy would then forget nothing and "everything would be imprinted on his soul." The other center is "The Deposition," in which the eyes of the dead Christ twice say to the persona, "I know who you are." Here is the idea that one can never know oneself truly, that a finite mind can only be fully comprehended by an infinite one. This poem lies between the epigraph from James Agee that ends in the child's voice, "these [the adults] receive me... but will not ever tell me who I am," and the very la
st sentence of the final poem of the book, "The Memory Palace": "and still you do not know who you are." In that final poem, the two centers merge: the boy from "The Blue Buick," now an old man in the final moments of dying, uses Bruno's memory system to remember everything that he loved. He wants to achieve memory's desire, the same desire he had as a child, to forget nothing, to hold on to everything forever.

Image: There's not a great deal in your poems about your wife and children; that is, there's no self-portrait of yourself as husband and father. Instead, the focus is on you as a young man in the working world of Kansas. Would you care to say something about your parents as shapers? Your father is everywhere, your mother less so, except perhaps in The Memory Palace. Why is this?

BHF: There are perfectly natural reasons, including the usual psychological ones, for family, especially parents, to appear in one's poems. However, in my case they were also playing out a quintessentially American story, though I became conscious of that only in retrospect. Like so many of their generation, they grew up on small, homestead farms, and ? subsistence farming being an extremely hard life ? migrated to towns and cities, learned a trade, struggled through the depression of the thirties, then World War II, and finally came upon that slim opportunity, like the light seeping through a crack in the door, to pull themselves up into the middle class through unrelenting work and sacrifice and
 a little luck.

My father had to quit high school in the tenth grade to help support his family ? a fairly common story in those days ? but he was smart, strong, and, like my mom, could work harder than any human being I had ever seen. I much preferred the years when he was a wage-earning lathe machinist in Texas to later, when he risked everything they had saved to own a small piece of a machine shop in Kansas. That shop was built on rumors about the Hugoton gas field that never played out, sank entirely into the red in its first few years, looked every day like it was going under, and exacted a huge toll on the emotional life of our family and on my parents' marriage. My father was the most exploited worker in the shop. He frequently worked sixteen-hour days, often worked at night (he once stood over a lathe for forty-eight hours straight), never had weekends, and brought home, it seemed, nothing but worry and despair about losing everything. In the early years in Texas, from a child's point of view, life was wonderful; in fact, you could say I was, in William Matthews's phrase, the victim of a happy childhood.

If your father had come home from World War II ? and that's a very big if ? growing up in the late forties in a blue-collar neighborhood could be paradise.

There were fathers in undershirts at twilight, home from work, watering their lawns, hose in one hand, beer in the other, mothers talking on front porches, kids screaming and runn
ing through the yards, playing stickball in the street, all of this until dark. This was before the great narcotic, television, came along to pull everyone inside and turn neighborhoods into cemeteries. There was the occasional weekend fishing trip to the beach in Galveston. But then came the move to Kansas, exile from paradise, and that constant, unvarying cycle of work/eat/sleep that made less and less sense to me until it made no sense at all.

For reasons that are fairly evident if you read the poems, I have written more about my father than my mother. But my mother made me the obsessive reader I became, by putting books in my hands at an early age so that I was reading pretty well by the age of four. I was sick a lot as a kid, and for me being sick was almost pleasurable, because she would always place a stack o