[Andrew Mandelbaum]

His poetry does not reflect violence in the world. It is cropped. It reflects only the violent.

Celan responded to Adorno: ‘No poem after Auschwitz: what sort of an idea of a “Poem” is being implied here? The arrogance of the man who hypothetically and speculatively has the audacity to observe or report on Auschwitz from the perspective of nightingales and song thrushes.’ It is interesting that *Adorno never cornered the barbarism of philosophy into quiet the same pause.


Siedel merely exchanges the perspective of the thrush for the jackass. His isn't Barbaric fire as much Empiric rot.

It is the instrumentality of violence that says what poetry does is very little. Of course it would say that. I imagine writers who have died for it like Mandelstam would be surprised to find out how sleight a thing they held after all. But I can't speak for the dead. All I can do is compare the fruit of the trees. And maybe the trees themselves.

His poetry isn't saying anything about friendship and complicity, at least not in the way expressed here. You are saying that for him. At least that is how it seems to me. I have seen the Jew as marshmallow poem. We are way apart here. I have been working all week through some various commentaries and dialogues about the Armenian genocide. I didn't recognize any use or relevance for Mr. Delicious. The universal complicity was palpable in the distance our words and questions were drowning in. But I don't see anything courageous in Siedel's laying down in it and rolling about.

*(I am aware that Adorno revised the original claim, which was more complex.)

[R. S. Gwynn]

I reviewed My Tokyo back in 1993. I really disliked the ethos of the poet--jet-setting, club-hopping, Bugatti-riding--work that gave "privilege" a whole new meaning. The technique, with all those loose lines and end-stopped rhymes, wasn't impressive either. Later, he had a poem each month, titled with the name of the month, in the WSJ. A friend, an established editor, would clip them and send them. They seemed pretty vacant to me. I'll admit that he presented a type of persona--the poet as well-heeled flaneur--that was original in American poetry: the poet as Richie Rich. Nevertheless, he has managed to stick around, so maybe I'll order the selected ($2.93+shipping at Amazon) and give him another look. Maybe his brief chronicles and abstracts of the times will strike me differently this time. After all, we're pretty obsessed with the lives of the idle rich, so there's one good reason to explore the poetry further.

[Ian Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Andrew Mandelbaum

His poetry does not reflect violence in the world. It is cropped. It reflects only the violent.

I'll need you to unpack that a bit more in order for me to understand what you mean.

Celan responded to Adorno: ‘No poem after Auschwitz: what sort of an idea of a “Poem” is being implied here? The arrogance of the man who hypothetically and speculatively has the audacity to observe or report on Auschwitz from the perspective of nightingales and song thrushes.’ It is interesting that *Adorno never cornered the barbarism of philosophy into quiet the same pause.

Absolutely agree with Celan's analysis of what Adorno meant; disagree with your interpretation of what Seidel is doing. I'd say, by contrast, that Celan's poetry (not to knock him--I'm not well-versed enough in it for a full-on analysis) is more "nightingales and song thrushes" to me—dense, obfuscating, and difficult. The sort of poetry that is non-relatable, that is irrelevant, that is old. To make Auschwitz (my grandpa was in Auschwitz, by the way) something so holy that we cannot even poke a little fun at it, as Seidel does in "Mr. Delicious", is to a do a disservice to the reality of the spectacle. For me, the lines about the sex sounds Germans make in "Mr. Delicious" ring more viscerally true than all the strange compound words Celan makes up in his works (or those I've read).

It is the instrumentality of violence that says what poetry does is very little. Of course it would say that. I imagine writers who have died for it like Mandelstam would be surprised to find out how sleight a thing they held after all. But I can't speak for the dead. All I can do is compare the fruit of the trees. And maybe the trees themselves.

It's fascinating then that Seidel is a devotee of Mandelstam; read his earlier work and references and dedications abound. I don't say poetry doesn't "do" anything; I just say that the world is violent and brutal and a poetry that acknowledges that, that even revels in it at times and doesn't hide behind obscurity or conventions of "beauty" is valuable for the way it exposes the dark & light of human nature.

His poetry isn't saying anything about friendship and complicity, at least not in the way expressed here. You are saying that for him. At least that is how it seems to me. I have seen the Jew as marshmallow poem. We are way apart here. I have been working all week through some various commentaries and dialogues about the Armenian genocide. I didn't recognize any use or relevance for Mr. Delicious. The universal complicity was palpable in the distance our words and questions were drowning in. But I don't see anything courageous in Siedel's laying down in it and rolling about.

I disagree that Seidel's poetry isn't about friendship and complicity: if you read his works and not just scattered poems, you'll find that the only time he melts into something like "sentiment" is when discussing his actual friends, his "real life", and not the obscure, politicised world of public opinion and "atrocity". That's why a poem like "Pain Management" melts into the lines "Art throws the dog a bone / I am ashamed of my poem" or a poem like "Me" ends with the realisation that

There was that time in Stockholm when, so strangely,
Outside a restaurant, in blinding daylight, a tiny bird
Circled forever around us and then without a word
Lightly, lightly landed on my head and settled there
And you burst into tears. I was unaware
That ten years before the same thing had happened just
After your young daughter died and now it must
Have been Maria come back from the dead a second time to speak
And receive the recognition we all seek.

It's why even "Miami in the Arctic Circle," which I mentioned above, is a sort of sick paean for a lost world (it ends "This is the end./ Testing, one two three, this is a test") of "The Hollow Men" when the world might actually end instead of drag painfully and meaninglessly on. (That's my interpretation, at least.)

Sure, these are not happy or pretty poems. But I find them moving and important, on the whole (there are some duds, of course).

Originally Posted by R. S. Gwynn

After all, we're pretty obsessed with the lives of the idle rich, so there's one good reason to explore the poetry further.

I think that sells Seidel's verse drastically short: sure, he's rich, and he writes from his perspective, as he said in an interview with NYTMag, "unapologetically" (or something like that); but the themes are, of course, much broader, as with all good writing.

If you do order it, I hope you like it.

[R. S. Gwynn]

a tiny bird
Circled forever around us and then without a word
Lightly, lightly landed on my head and settled there

This is sloppy, rhyme-forced writing. Birds don't talk unless they're ravens or parrots.

But I have ordered the book.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

I dunno. I thought that one was alright actually. Of course birds speak. Everything does.

[Ian Hoffman]

Originally Posted by R. S. Gwynn

a tiny bird
Circled forever around us and then without a word
Lightly, lightly landed on my head and settled there

This is sloppy, rhyme-forced writing. Birds don't talk unless they're ravens or parrots.

Again I disagree... and I'll try to explain why.

I think Seidel has two (major) modes: the ironising and the confessional. This is an example of his confessional mode.

I'd argue Seidel is a cynic who wants to confess and be "cleansed" and "good", whatever that means. Thus, his poetry oscillates between a cynical attack on the very possibility of confession or "forgiveness" and an enacted attempt to obtain such "grace". I'm not sure what side of the line I, or he, falls on ultimately.

Seidel's ironising mode is generally end-stopped and curt. It doesn't take itself quite seriously.

However, under the weight of such irony, his poems often devolve into a sort of confession... as "Me" does. Then, they become "conversational" and attempt to mimic "natural" speech patterns as much as poetry, which is by its nature artificial, can while still retaining formal weight. Thus, where you see sloppy rhymes, I see conversational speech made to mimic the formal patterns of "serious" poetry, showing that, yes, this is a "serious" emotion.

Seidel is a serious poet. I have to give him that.