just wondering ...
 

Just wondering what everyone thinks about Edward Hirsch's poem/book Gabriel. Wondering what you think about its form and language, and whether these match the impact of its subject matter. There's a conversation going on on Amazon (you can view a sample portion of the book), which I'm involved in. Thanks, all, in advance, for any input. Elise

Elise,

It's a tough one. Given the nature of internet discourse, I figured some uncharitable things might be said, but even I was surprised by the vehemence of at least one of the amazon reviews I read. The 'review' was distasteful, in a shocking way, as it tried unsuccessfully to make some minor point about poetics. Predictable, but saddening nonetheless.

Full disclosure: Ed signed my doctoral dissertation. So perhaps I'm unable to give a disinterested view. I may be informed, but certainly not objective. Is there a discussion beyond the public reviews?

Best,

Bill

Hey, Bill. What was distasteful, and why was the point about poetics unsuccessful?

I haven't seen the discussion you mention, Elise, but I read a New Yorker article about the book with a number of quotations, and I found it quite attractive, and certainly understandable that he felt he must write it.

Impossible to make a judgement unless you buy the book, the sample was only few short stanzas. The book is 97 pages and the poem may start off understated and slowly build.

I read an excerpt only - I liked what I read. But I don't know if others are comparing this work with his past work or...? I liked it, that's all I really know.

Well, let me see if I can go at this one, especially since I'm working through similar issues right now (my own brother died, less than a year ago, under terrible circumstances).

First, does one write a poem at all? Yes, we make poetry out of our lives, especially the meaningful moments. All that. It's what we do. But there's something difficult about it as well... using suffering for aesthetic advantage feels somehow wrong. I'm in the minority on this one, believing that poetry should teach, please, move, *and* be life-affirming and uplifting. What could be less life-affirming than making verse out of horrific things? Others can do it, but I question both my own motives and abilities.

So say you decide you should? What should it look like? One falls back on Dylan Thomas: "I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth..."
Beautiful metaphors, in this case? Lovely scansion? High levels of skill? What could be more inappropriate? Better, perhaps, honest, direct statement. Clearly. But now, is it still art? And if not, why not?

Then, should you publish it? Why? Would you even put it in a workshop, exposing it to the kind of nightmare treatment one so often sees in workshops? Isn't that, in itself, wrong- supplying those critiquers with an occasion to sin? And putting it out in the world for driveby reviewers? It's like dragging a corpse through the streets, and inviting onlookers to do their worst. You know some of them will.

And they did. On Amazon. Without embarrassment. And they were convinced they were right to do so.

Best,

Bill

Very, very sorry to hear about your brother, Bill.

I'm not quite sure how to respond to your response. It seems that the Amazon conversation is about pure subject matter versus poetics. Is it wrong or cruel to critique a poem about death? If critiquing is taboo in the case of a father's poem about the loss of his son, it means we can all write something about someone who died and have equally good work; it means we can all be up for a National Book Award. The comments against critique, as far as I can tell, have all been about subject matter -- nothing about writing quality.

I've always found Ed's poetry pretty flat. He once said to me, re. Richard Wilbur, "I wish I had an idiom like his." I haven't read [i]Gabriel[i] except for the bits and pieces in the NYer and on Amazon. Trying to critique a poem on such a subject is well nigh impossible; a prose memoir might have been a better medium, though. And I'm teaching "Lycidas" tomorrow.

"Beautiful metaphors, in this case? Lovely scansion? High levels of skill? What could be more inappropriate?"

Boy, you're saying a mouthful here, Bill. I believe it also applies to the other end of the skill curve. Bad poets are people too, or dang it they should be.

I come across poems up here and elsewhere from time to time that are impossibly painful and almost certainly personal. Yes of course, it's a workshop but in those instances a greater reticence seems the appropriate human response. I find myself taking greater pains to address the N as opposed to the poet him or herself, simply out of respect for their perceived hurt and in order to sustain what I suspect is their mirage of 'anonymity'. I often wonder too what exactly they seek with such posts. Critique? A sympathetic audience? Maybe they don't know themselves.

Many, many years ago on this forum a poem appeared from a first-and-only writer. It read to me like an abysmally written cry for help. The usual snarks of that era (there are snarks in every era) went to work with malicious glee. Yet, they had to see the poem for what it was first and foremost, which was not a badly rendered aethetic object (it was that) but a desperate, human reaching-out. Who knows, maybe in his or her depleted condition, the poster had not properly studied the guidelines. As some are quick to remind the occasional stray wanderer, this is no place for amateurs. I mean, can't you read, dumb ass!? Perhaps there should be a warning to the clinically despondent as well.

Anyway I often wondered what happened to that person.

Basic humanity and poetry? Should they mix or is the latter best kept in an arid container?