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  #41  
Unread 03-24-2012, 02:58 PM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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Burton won his first Eisteddfod prize as a boy soprano.
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  #42  
Unread 03-24-2012, 03:06 PM
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Ed Shacklee Ed Shacklee is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Christopher ONeill View Post
I think we need to normalise the notion of reading poetry (aloud, or at all) in any and every way available to us. I noticed that when I lived in Prague, if I carried a volume of a Peterloo Poet into a café, and began to read it - there was a good chance that a total stranger would sit down next to me and strike up a conversation about modern poetry. In London visibly carrying a Peterloo Poet volume has the same effect as clanking a bell and wailing 'Unclean'.

I can't think that anything which raises the profile of poetry is ever a bad thing. If folk don't like poems, they won't take to them.

This makes a lot of sense to me. As does pushing back against the government. Why not both at once?


Ed
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  #43  
Unread 03-24-2012, 09:01 PM
Charlotte Innes Charlotte Innes is offline
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Just to say.... Jenn's link (about the awfulness of the Poetry Out Loud selection) was to The Manhattan Institute, which I believe is a conservative think tank. (Link below again). Also the article originally appeared in a conservative newspaper, The Washington Times (founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon). There's some kind of weird irony in all this, I think, especially given Dana Gioia's GOP affiliation. (Over to you, Quincy.)

Also, just to say, there are about 750 plus poems listed on The Poetry Out Loud list. Of these about 200 are pre-20th century (link below).

Et voilà!
Charlotte

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems-a...nce/find-poems


http://www.manhattan-institute.org/h...le.htm?id=6769
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  #44  
Unread 03-25-2012, 12:54 AM
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Quincy Lehr Quincy Lehr is offline
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Per usual, I think I've been misunderstood multiply, except by perhaps Charlotte. A public agency with a partisan-appointed head is by its nature political, yet Gioia's policies only saw limited public discussion, save for hagiography or condemnation on the right end of the political spectrum. Which reflects rather badly on the left, methinks, ceding the cultural center of gravity. Certainly, I find little sympathy for the at least vaguely racist and misogynist Manhattan Institute critique, as I indicated above pretty clearly.

Jesus.

Quincy
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  #45  
Unread 03-25-2012, 01:57 AM
Charlotte Innes Charlotte Innes is offline
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Well, the old adage applies: the personal is political, and the selection of poetry is political too, even when it's simply (or especially!) a case of who edits an anthology; personal bias inevitably comes into play. I only have to look at the anthologies sitting on my shelves...

Quincy, you raise a good point about Dana. I'm not sure I've seen any discussion about his tenure. But I probably don't read widely enough.

I AM an avid reader of The Nation by the way (and have written for it periodically)--to go back to your point about poetry and "the left." There are often (or quite often) longish articles on poets. Here's a link that shows some of what's done there:

http://www.thenation.com/section/poetry

The Nation also publishes poems--one a week, as I recall--although I haven't much liked the selection lately.

But the lack of poetry in newspapers and most general interest magazines these days, well, it's appalling.

And yes, that Manhattan Institute critique was very biased, I have to agree.

As for POL overall, whatever the choices of poems, kids learning poems is a good thing. I have to add, though, that I wonder how much poetry is actually being taught in schools. I mean, really read and discussed and thought about--and written. I do my tiny bit where I teach. And I teach all forms, and have the kids write in form. But I'm not sure that's typical... I'd be curious to know...

Charlotte
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  #46  
Unread 03-25-2012, 01:59 AM
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John Whitworth John Whitworth is offline
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You're a bit bitey this morning, Michael. Do remember that our right, David Cameron, is your left, Barack Obama, hardly a cigarette paper between them, whereas our left, oh a chap called Ed Miliband who leads the Labour Party and whose father was a marxist intellectual, and yes very arrogant indeed, would very possibly be in jail over your side. Tony Blair was/is a conservative masquerading as a leftie, as can be clearly seen nowadays from the amount of money he makes. No British politician has ever got so stinking rich. Maggie had hardly a hundred thousand pounds to rub together - lucky her husband worked in oil, bless him.

Actually, I see that you know this. We are brothers. Your republicans are (nearly) as nutty as our lefties. Or they are now. Come next time they probably won't be.

And we don't count mormons as Christians. They are, as John Knox might have put it, in error.
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  #47  
Unread 03-25-2012, 06:17 AM
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Agreed, Charlotte (though when I subbed to The Nation, the poetry was mostly Calvin Trillin doggerel)--but look at the nature of the articles. Mostly reviews of individual, well-established poets. Darwish is one of the greats, to be sure, but as a whole, it reeks a bit of Liberal Establishment. Aside from an appeal for greater levels of arts funding at the beginning of the Obama administration (which went nowhere), I don't recall much discussion about the public role of art, which Gioia did address, albeit in my mind highly problematically, as NEA director--and one has to give him credit for that (even if many of his initiatives replicated things that already existed--e.g. the NFL's poetry recitiation contests).

Part of the problem is that while Limbaugh and his ilk vastly overestimate liberal (a bit)/left (almost none) influence in the media, government, religion, the schools, etc., the literary establishment is one of the few places where one will actually find the sort of smug, elitist "liberals" that the talk show shouters love to hate.

Another part of the story, though, and I'd want to think about this a bit more, has to do with the strange nature of American liberalism, which has its origins as a fractionally left-of-center alternative to the socialists, communists, etc., essentially as a merger between urban machine and early twentieth-entury Progressive politics. They took a lot of money from the CIA in the Cold War. (Indeed, Quadrant's CIA paymasters were repeatedly frustrated with how right-wing that jourbnal became very early.) But in a country like the U.S., where the socialist and anarchist left is miniscule, the liberals find themselves in the same position--except without being proper lefties. They are, in government, policy wonkish, technocratic, and ultimately loyal to the same broad institutions as conservatives in their less wackerdoodle moments. Which rather takes the edge off potential critiques.
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  #48  
Unread 03-25-2012, 04:53 PM
Charlotte Innes Charlotte Innes is offline
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Michael, John, you guys are so funny! (Don't go away.) You make good points too--although I don't necessarily always agree with you.

Quincy, when you say "subbed" do you mean subscribed? For minute, I was in England (thanks to John) where "subbed" means worked as a copy editor! (Or did, when I lived there.) Interesting, these cross-cultural currents. At any rate, The Nation is way beyond Calvin T. (whom I love--his doggerel makes me laugh--and his heart is right place). Sure they do "names," but also poets I've never heard of. Do you know these poets?

http://www.thenation.com/article/165...akis-and-ossip

Also, I'm curious, who would you like to see reviewed there? Oh maybe that's a stupid question on this site! Never mind....

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the "smug, elitist 'liberals'" of the "literary establishment," and what that means for poetry, and the public perception of poetry, and the education of children in poetry... That sounds like a long article in the making! But yes, American liberalism is a strange creature, much puzzled over by my socialist relatives in England who feel infiltrated!

Cheers,
Charlotte
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  #49  
Unread 03-25-2012, 06:25 PM
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W.F. Lantry W.F. Lantry is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John Whitworth View Post
What has 'the left' got to do with poetry, Quincy? In general they don't care for it.
John,

You're simply not hanging out in the proper circles. I went to a reading last week. One poet was an exile from Salvador, now living in California, another had a similar theme. The place was packed.

It's odd how the wingers sit around, talking about how wonderful they are, and how the left doesn't exist. They must be sitting in a dark room with the blinds drawn, so nothing invades their consciousness. These are the same people who compliment each other by saying "he writes as if the 20th century never happened..."

Maybe you just need to hang out in a different pub? Might put a little new froth on that old pint of Guinness!

Best,

Bill
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  #50  
Unread 03-25-2012, 08:39 PM
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Naw, Bill. It's different over here, believe me. You don't have a left at all. Be grateful you never experienced the Brown Terror. They came for you at dead of night, their Keynesian Economic Textbooks at the ready. Aaaargh! Tony Blair was lucky to escape with his life and his bags of gold.
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