[A. E. Stallings]

An interesting essay by Joan Houlihan over at Web del Sol on poets who churn out book after book. Any thoughts?


http://webdelsol.com/f-bostoncomment.htm

[SteveWal]

I've already read the article and found it quite stimulating. My only comment would be that it's not a new phenomenon. Look at the bulk of Wordsworth, for instance - how much dull, worthy poetry he produced. Poets can easily get into a rut, producing what worked before to less and less effect as time goes by. Sometimes the poet can't even see it. It took a couple of good friends to tell me what I needed to know when I was getting into one.

------------------
Steve Waling

[MEHope]

I'm reminded of William Stafford on his being asked why he waited so long to publish his first book he said "...it certainly wasn't a policy on my part...".

Maybe I should read the article first?

But is this a problem faced by a lot of poets?

------------------
~~Mary

[MacArthur]

Good article. Yeah...if you are going to be a poet you ABSOLUTELY need to have something else to do with your life-- something that doesn't require you to write or teach poetry.

[Richard Wakefield]

I've heard people criticize John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates for the huge amounts they publish -- but it always seems like a uselessly deductive argument: Anyone who publishes so much must be cranking it out carelessly, so this particular story-essay-poem must not be any good. But those two have a pretty good batting average. I suspect that anyone who devotes a lot of time to writing can produce far more than the market will absorb; if the market will, well, what writer is going to say, "Gee, I'm sorry but I just can't let you publish my book only six months after my last one"?
Of course, those of us who have few or no prospects of publishing a book of poems would be glad to see the honors spread a bit more widely...
Richard

[graywyvern]

let's just say the number of poets whose collected works strike me as tragically thin is not large.

g.

[MacArthur]

I agree with Richard that it's unlikely that any of these over-the-hill Pulitzer winners will ever voluntarily stop publishing (although they should...there are poems of mine, I'd feel embarassed to have run in the New Yorker).

It's the gate-keeper's job-- the critics, editors and publishers. It's understandable that no editor can tame Anne Rice-- at least people buy her books by the millions! and read them. Publishers put out poetry titles as a public service-- they should at least serve posterity better.

[Robert J. Clawson]

"It's the gate-keeper's job-- the critics, editors and publishers. It's understandable that no editor can tame Anne Rice-- at least people buy her books by the millions! and read them. Publishers put out poetry titles as a public service-- they should at least serve posterity better."

Mac, that's generally correct, but not always the case. When her editor got testy with a Sexton manuscript, Anne would reply, "But, Paul, I'm selling."

By the way, check out Joan Houlihan's publications: she's a superb poet. And for the least recognized, but maybe the best poet in America, check out Paula Tatarunis. You can track them down on that Stanford search engine, goobie.com (???). (I just came back from the woods where I forgot everything.)

Bob

[Julie]

The phenomenon of publishing too much is even more heightened by the internet, in which a determined poet can publish anything they've ever written.

I've seen too many announcements of "The new edition of Poetry Blah Blah Blah" with Poet X in the lineup, along with Poet Y.

It isn't fair, but I read those announcements, see the same old names, and really start to wonder what the heck I'm doing stumping around in an industry and a medium in which there is no value in self-limitation. It costs ezines no more to put up a hundred poems than to put up one, so why not accept the mediocre? After all, then the poets' families will at least give them a page hit.

Of course, by almost never reading any ezines at all I fail to support the ones that do exercise editorial control. I avoid having to say, "They published THIS?" and rarely get to say, "Ooh, I've never read THIS poet before."

Ms. Houlihan says that if certain poets would stop publishing, there would be more opportunity for those who are writing better things to get published. I would agree wholeheartedly, and add that if certain poets would stop publishing, perhaps some of us would be more likely to respect publishing credits.

Julie

[Len Krisak]

Dislike Tate intensely. Another fraud.
Oliver beyond endurance.
"Social passion" of Levine a euphemism
for socialist realism--and socialism. Phooey.

If you want someone else in the book-numbers
sweepstakes, try Ashbery--30 "poetry" volumes?
40? About 2 per year, I think, but the record
threatening to be eclipsed by Anne Carson, whose
latest is called (I think) "A fictive essay in
tangos." Whatever the hell that means.

David Slavitt is up to so many titles,
that a while back he called one volume
just by its Library of Congress No. or
its Dewey Decimal number, just as a joke.

The single highest percentage of lines by
any one poet in "The Stuffed Owl" belongs
to Wordsworth.