[New-Poetry] hate

Mon Jun 8 02:44:11 EDT 2009

I agree with the most of them. Touchee' by the picture with the bookcase
behind (I do have one circulating) and by the air blown up, due to the wind
in a sunny but windy day sent to me by a student, a picture I particularly
liked and uploaded on Facebook. And whatever you write about the readings,
could apply to me. I have always said that I do not like readings. I might
improve one day, hopefully. My recent MFA requires a further explanation. I
teach high school kids, regularly read my bunch, correct, and read further.
I thought I was well off, which was not true. I like to say that I have
never studied that much, which is a lie, because when I studied I always
never studied that much, and this is the truth.

What I hate most about the new kind of poetry that is circulating these days
are some buffoons on poetry lists, whichever way they manifest:

- Be them speaking in super-serious tones, all Mater Dolorosa of the heavy
duty taken upon their frail shoulders to carry on the light of Poetry
together with lengthy descriptions of what 'They' personally and deeply and
emotionally think of Poetry;

- Be them gangsters of the word to disrupt any serious attempt at
confrontation [too much work all this seriousness is and anyhow I want to
shine].

- Some smarties that have guessed how and what to write to win, the
fundamental guidelines, turned over and over again.

- Other smarties that live comfortably on grants upon grants [peer
connections, they call them].

I would like to underline that my parodies, like *Scarlet and the soldier*and
*Morning Masquerade*, target the very same poets I have in mind while
writing the present.

On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 2:00 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> The recent plaint posted by Eileen Myles on the Harriet blog (
> http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/05/i-hate-poetry/), provoked
> me to create a list of the kinds of things related to 'a life in poetry'
> that tend to exasperate and to vex us to point of angering us against
> poetry. This is a provisional list, feel free to add on...
>
> Being ignored by and large by the larger culture. The obscurity of the
> poet.
>
> The meager amounts poets can make from publishing work. The payment often
> being in copies of the mag. The inability to admit, “I’m a poet,” to friends
> and family.
>
> The anonymity of published poems. Hundreds of magazines in print or online,
> chockfull of poetry that almost no one sees. The contributing poet opens the
> journal, scans the contents page for familiar names, in hopes their work has
> been published shoulder to shoulder with reputable company. He only reads
> his own poem (ever concerned about the mar of typo) and then he sets his
> contributor’s copy aside and never looks at it again.
>
> Staid journals that always seem to be named Review or Quarterly. Edgy
> journals with names like Paisley Smile or Underpass. Graduate students
> screening submissions, determining what work gets passed on to the editor.
>
> Rejection slips that are pre-printed and unsigned. Rejection slips that try
> to cheer you up with a witticism. Rejection notes via email are easier;
> their sting transitory in the moment of click DELETE.
>
> The shear number of practicing poets. Thousands of competent poets pressing
> out more and more poetry, new ones constantly ‘emerging’ onto the scene. The
> suspicion that if there were fewer publishing poets one's work would have a
> better chance of coming to the fore.
>
> Gripes about the quality of poetry published in high-visibility magazines,
> particularly *The New Yorker; *similar complaints lodged against work
> appearing in *American Poetry Review* and *Poetry* magazine.
>
> The polemics of school v. school. Perjorative nomenclature like “School of
> Quietude.” The suspicion that one group or the other is getting all the
> plums of academic appointments, grants and fellowships, major readings and
> conference invitation.
>
> Poets’ pictures that are ten years younger than they are. Beautiful poets
> with voluminous hair. Poets who lean forward on bended e lbows with a hands
> holding up their sagging chins. Poets posed with bookcases in the
> background. Poets caught in profile staring into space.
>
> The increased ‘professionalization’ of poetry, the proliferation of MFA
> programs, where the granting of a terminal degree is seen as necessary
> credential for a young poet. The dismal job prospects for the graduates.
>
> Poetry readings that start late. Poetry readings where the poet comes in
> late with an entourage of aging professors and eager-to-please young
> graduate students. Poetry readings in which the poet reads for over an hour.
> Poetry readings where the poet reads in monotone or with that regular
> cadence of rise & fall, affecting the way poems are supposed to be read,
> with every third word getting leaned on hard as if it were important.Poets
> who over-explain their work before reading i t. Poets who strain to
> entertain with lame jokes; who couldn't hack in stand-up.
>
> Formalists who believe that poetry written without regular meter and
> traditional forms is somehow lazy or merely ‘chopped prose’. Patting
> themselves on their backs for their well-turned rhymes.
>
> The clique of the avant garde. Or the geezer avant garde still claiming
> their relevancy after 60. The lot of them self-serving in their praise.
> Always circling the wagons. Nary a negative word about any among their
> number. The enemy without attacked, while they decay within.
>
> Poets who believe poetry is ‘beautiful writing’. Poets who don’t read; and
> make a point of not wanting to be influenced. When only influence could save
> their sorry offerings.
> Poets who show up at open mikes and read beyond their time limit. So sure
> the world is hungering for their work. Those who give a bad name to amateur
> (when the name’s root is really ‘one who loves’).
>
> Poets who are inordinately fond of landscapes that will stimulate their
> creativity. Who don’t seem to be able to write without the space of a
> residency: “This book would not have been possible without Yaddo,” etc.
>
> The proliferation of publishing through manuscripts contests. Socialized
> self-publication.And the subversion of manuscript contests,
> teacher-student log-rolling and other kinds of insidious back-scratching,
> all exposed so well by Foetry.com.
>
> Post-modernism that’s so self-unaware it is impossible to embarrass itself.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
> Sent: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 3:55 am
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] hate
>
> My question was logically referring to the thread that James Finnegan
> opened on this list. I'd say that if she is not on this list, she seized the
> idea quite smartly. And I agree completely with James' point, having raised
> the same objections several times which triggered violent reactions that
> spanned from feminism to women's rights to Rights to Hypertights and the
> Hell that ensued. To cut a nightmare short, Never Again.
> But I am happy to see that I am not the only one. And on the other hand the
> free submissions to the Corner daily teach me that there are many other
> people who share the same idea. Less visible and 'screaming' people who with
> Van Gogh are able to make of a couple of potatoes a dinner for four.
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 3:41 AM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> Anny, I can symphathize with Myles' frustrations. We all have our moments.
>> But I have to say her plaint is somewhat scattershot.
>> It makes me think that sometimes we ask too much from our art, poetry in
>> this case. Is poetry not giving us what we expected,
>> or, at times, do we expect too much from it? What were we promised other
>> than a few touchstone poems that we can carry with us through time,
>> and the feeling that, once in great while, something we wrote rubbed
>> against those magic momuments.
>>
>> Posted this to my blog
>> http://ursprache.blogspot.com/
>> thinking about what Myles had to say...
>>
>> It was not important that [the poems] surv ive.
>> What mattered was that they should bear
>> Some lineament or character,
>>
>> Some affluence, if only half-perceived,
>> In the poverty of their words,
>> Of the planet of which they were part.
>>
>>
>> —Wallace Stevens, from “The Planet On The Table”
>>
>> --
>> Finnegan
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at gmail.com>
>> Sent: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 8:02 am
>> Subject: [New-Poetry] hate
>>
>> I am wondering, is Eileen Myles on this list? She write on :
>> I hate poetry @ Harriet's
>> http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/05/i-hate-poetry/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Anny Ballardini
> http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
> http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
> http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
> I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
> star!
> Friedrich Nietzsche
>
>
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-- 
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
Friedrich Nietzsche
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