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Author Topic:   Do you read contemporary free verse? Quincy Lehr Member Posts: 3177 From:Brooklyn, NY, USA Registered: Jan 2005 posted August 27, 2008 03:39 PM Perhaps as a sidebar to Tim's "Critical Errors", what was the last free verse collection or anthology you've read--and we're taking new ones here (published, say, since 2005), so pulling For the Union Dead off the shelf doesn't count. In my case, it was the Uphook Press anthology of New York performing poets--the day before yesterday. Uneven, but some very good stuff therein. I suppose I mostly ask because I'm curious as to whether formalist types largely read other formalists, or if thir poetry reading where contemporary stuff is concerned goes broader. (The last new metrical collection I read, by the way, was Erica Dawson's Big-Eyed Afraid.) Quincy Andrew Frisardi Member Posts: 802 From:Orvieto, Italy Registered: Nov 2003 posted August 27, 2008 03:45 PM That'd be Richard Burns, Book with No Back Cover (David Paul, 2003). OK, two years too soon but still "contemporary." Quincy Lehr Member Posts: 3177 From:Brooklyn, NY, USA Registered: Jan 2005 posted August 27, 2008 03:48 PM Yeah, 2003 is contemporary enough. Tim Murphy Lariat Emeritus Posts: 9648 From:Fargo ND, USA Registered: Oct 2000 posted August 27, 2008 03:53 PM Merwin's A Carrier of Ladders, 1969 Quincy Lehr Member Posts: 3177 From:Brooklyn, NY, USA Registered: Jan 2005 posted August 27, 2008 03:54 PM At the time, or recently, Tim? Susan McLean Member Posts: 2892 From:Iowa City, IA, USA Registered: Jul 2001 posted August 27, 2008 04:06 PM I read more formalist poets than free verse poets, but I have a number of favorite poets who write only or mainly free verse and I tend to keep up with everything they put out. Recent books include Barbara Hamby, Babel David Kirby, The House on Boulevard Street Linda Pastan, Queen of a Rainy Country Sharon Olds, Strike Sparks Andrew Hudgins, Ecstatic in the Poison Louise Gluck, Averno Susan Mike Slippkauskas Member Posts: 734 From:NYC, NY, USA Registered: Oct 2005 posted August 27, 2008 04:07 PM Frederick Seidel's Ooga-Booga (for reasons you might remember), although parts of it are written in an ironical nursery-rhyme metric or, conversely, in unmetrical though rhyming Nashian. Spencer Reece's Clerk's Tale has some entertaining poems. Peter Coghill Member Posts: 311 From:Sydney/NSW/Australia Registered: Oct 2005 posted August 27, 2008 04:32 PM Judith Bishop, Event, published by Salt in 2008. Though there is the odd metrical poem, and metrical segment of poems, it is overwhelmingly free verse. I liked it so much I wrote a review! Maryann Corbett Administrator Posts: 3451 From:Saint Paul, MN Registered: Feb 2006 posted August 27, 2008 04:40 PM Michael Dohaghy's Safest is a mixture and Philip Schultz's Failure is all FV. Like Susan, I also enjoyed Pastan's Queen of a Rainy Country. Janice D. Soderling Moderator Posts: 1834 From:Sweden Registered: Aug 2007 posted August 27, 2008 04:50 PM Look We Have Coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra. It was a nominated for a Guardian First Book Award 2007 (published 2007) but I'd read the title poem in some magazine. I spotted it while browsing in an Edinburgh bookstore last fall and bought it immediately. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/jul/26/forwardprizeforpoetry2004.forwardprize forpoetry4 Language is always renewed when a sufficient number of immigrants enter a country and adopt the language as their own. Or when a language is exported to a country with colonial status. Or in this case, both. Glad to see this thread with lots of new (for me) titles and authors. Editing in. I just noticed on the back flap that this poem won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem 2004. The front flap says that Nagra's parents came to England from the Punjab in the fifties. Mary Meriam Member Posts: 2185 From: Registered: Nov 2005 posted August 27, 2008 05:19 PM I've been reading Anne Sexton's Transformations. I also read the intro to Sexton's collected: "How It Was: Maxine Kumin on Anne Sexton" here are some quotes -- quote: In addition to the strong feelings Anne’s work aroused, there was the undeniable fact of her physical beauty. Her presence on the platform dazzled with its staginess, its props of water glass, cigarettes, and ashtray. ... During this period, all of us wrote and revised prolifically, competitively, as if all the wolves of the world were at our backs...There was no more determined reviser than Sexton, who would willingly push a poem through twenty or more drafts. She had an unparalleled tenacity in those early days and only abandoned a “failed” poem with regret, if not downright anger, after dozens of attempts to make it come right. ... As a result of this experience, Anne came to believe in the value of the workshop. She loved growing in this way... .... Initially, however, she worked quite strictly in traditional forms, believing in the value of their rigor as a forcing agent, believing that the hardest truths would come to light if they were made to fit a stanzaic pattern, a rhyme scheme, a prevailing meter. .... But for all the sought-after and hard-won poems Anne wrote.. a number were almost totally “given” ones... the poem itself came quite cleanly and easily, as if written out in the air beforehand and then transcribed onto the page with very few alterations. Mike Slippkauskas Member Posts: 734 From:NYC, NY, USA Registered: Oct 2005 posted August 27, 2008 05:29 PM Mary, I can almost feel the collective groan and Sexton does get more than her share of the abuse for being a "confessional" but I think she's a better writer than Plath. I also think their influence on each other was about equal. "All My Pretty Ones" (for one) is a very good poem indeed and if you can find the sound file (I can't or Id post it) you'll find she was a very good reciter. Best, Slipp Quincy Lehr Member Posts: 3177 From:Brooklyn, NY, USA Registered: Jan 2005 posted August 27, 2008 06:21 PM Okay... why I specified "contemporary"... Most of us have at least some notion of what Merwin's like or Anne Sexton, or whomever, but I'm a bit more interested in whether or not--in regards to what's happening in poetry now, Sphereans pay much attention to the free-verse side of things (and even that's a misnomer of sorts--C. K. Williams, Lynn Heijinian, Jorie Graham, Mark Strand, and Dennis O'Driscoll all write free verse, but are very diverse). Mark Allinson Member Posts: 4444 From:New South Wales, Australia Registered: Dec 2003 posted August 27, 2008 06:33 PM I read almost nothing new these days - FV or metrical. If it isn't on the web, I won't see it. Mary, I like this quote from your post: "Initially, however, she worked quite strictly in traditional forms, believing in the value of their rigor as a forcing agent ..." This is what I miss in writing fv - there is no pressure to force the unexpected word or line. I like Heaney's idea of the stanza as "artesian pump", drawing up hidden connections and meaning from the unconscious. And ain't this the truth: "But for all the sought-after and hard-won poems Anne wrote.. a number were almost totally “given” ones... the poem itself came quite cleanly and easily, as if written out in the air beforehand and then transcribed onto the page with very few alterations." Some come flying out like greasy squeezed olive pips - but others need the forceps and an epidural. Janice D. Soderling Moderator Posts: 1834 From:Sweden Registered: Aug 2007 posted August 27, 2008 06:38 PM quote: This is what I miss in writing fv - there is no pressure to force the unexpected word or line. Oh, there is pressure all right, or ought to be, but that is the subject for another thread--soon! I'll get back to you on that one, Mark. (Forgive me Quincy for digressing, I earned some charity points with mine, didn't I? FV, less than a year old, exotic. LOL) Quincy Lehr Member Posts: 3177 From:Brooklyn, NY, USA Registered: Jan 2005 posted August 27, 2008 06:40 PM (No problem, Janice.) Jehanne Dubrow New Member Posts: 19 From:Lincoln, NE, USA Registered: Feb 2006 posted August 27, 2008 06:50 PM Great question, Quincy. I couldn't resist contributing. For the advanced poetry workshop that I'm teaching this semester, we're only reading collections that have been published in the past two years. All the books are debut, prize-winning collections, and most are free verse: Sandra Beasley's THEORIES OF FALLING, Janice Harrington's EVEN THE HOLLOW MY BODY MADE IS GONE, Fady Joudah's THE EARTH IN THE ATTIC, Matthew Lippman's THE NEW YEAR OF YELLOW, Lynne Thompson's BEG NO PARDON, and Sally Van Doren's SEX AT NOON TAXES. We're also reading Lorna Knowles-Blakes PERMANENT ADDRESS and Ciaran Berry's THE SPHERE OF BIRDS, both of which are quite formal. I know that not everyone feels this way, but I think it's very important to read contemporary poetry (of all aesthetic bents), particularly if you teach creative writing or if you submit your own work to presses and literary journals. If nothing else, it's a matter of staying informed and in touch with current trends. Call it research. Janice D. Soderling Moderator Posts: 1834 From:Sweden Registered: Aug 2007 posted August 27, 2008 06:56 PM Jehanne's post reminded me of another that falls within the deadline. Five Terraces Ann Fisher-Wirth pub. 2005. Thx Jehanne for more new authors and titles (new to me anyway) Tim Murphy Lariat Emeritus Posts: 9648 From:Fargo ND, USA Registered: Oct 2000 posted August 27, 2008 08:48 PM Quincy: then. Of course I see a great deal of free verse in mixed collections. Pete Fairchild plays so fast and free with the meters I don't regard him as a formal poet at all, though he does. I love his books. Quincy Lehr Member Posts: 3177 From:Brooklyn, NY, USA Registered: Jan 2005 posted August 27, 2008 08:51 PM As far as mixed collections go, I'd add Gerry Hanberry, a Galwegian poet, into the mix. Read his second collection about six months and was quite impressed. Mostly free verse, but the periodic sonnet or something. James Wilk Member Posts: 397 From:Denver, Colorado, USA Registered: May 2007 posted August 27, 2008 08:55 PM Sure I read lots of contemporary FV. Most recent reads: Human Dark With Sugar, by Brenda Shaughnessy (2008) Sex at Noon Taxes, by Sally Van Doren (2008) Here Bullet, by Brian Turner (2005) shattered sonnets love cards and other off and back handed importunities, by Olena Kalytiak Davis (2003) I also regularly read the journals: Colorado Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, The Denver Quarterly and whatever contributor's copies and stray journals I can get my hands on. How else is one supposed to keep up on what's happening in the poetry world? Quincy Lehr Member Posts: 3177 From:Brooklyn, NY, USA Registered: Jan 2005 posted August 27, 2008 08:57 PM Here, Bullet was a really strong collection, I thought, regardless of its timeliness. And David Harsent's Legion--a few years old now--is worth noting as pretty much free verse, but quite metrically informed. Julie Kane Member Posts: 118 From:Natchitoches, LA, USA Registered: Jun 2005 posted August 27, 2008 11:13 PM Can anyone imagine a classical violinist refusing to listen to a New Orleans brass band marching by on the street, or a country singer sneering at the blues? What's wrong with us poets, anyhow, that we can't be as generous of spirit as our musical counterparts toward subgenres outside of our own? Yes, I read a great deal of contemporary free verse--and I may well go back to it myself, one day, if this two-decade-long fascination with formal constraints and challenges in my own work ever runs dry--who knows? Some of my favorite recent f.v. reads, in no particular order, are Let It Be a Dark Roux: New and Selected Poems, by Sheryl St. Germain (2007); My Brother is Getting Arrested Again, by Daisy Fried (2006); What Narcissism Means to Me, by Tony Hoagland (2003); Beholding Eye (2006) and Retreats & Recognitions (2007), by Grace Bauer; Here, Bullet, by Brian Turner (2005); Averno, by Louise Gluck (2006); Late Wife, by Claudia Emerson (2005); Habitat, by Brendan Galvin (2005); the Collected Poems of Lynda Hull (2006); Big Muddy River of Stars, by Alison Pelegrin (2007); Jack and Other Poems, by Maxine Kumin (2005)--and that's not even counting books that mix formal and free verse, like Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard (2006) or Gerry Cambridge's Madame FiFi's Farewell (2003) or Wendy Cope's Two Cures for Love (2008)--and I know I am leaving out a whole lot of other good stuff that I will feel remorseful about as soon as I hit the "submit reply" button . . . . Quincy Lehr Member Posts: 3177 From:Brooklyn, NY, USA Registered: Jan 2005 posted August 27, 2008 11:27 PM I'm actually really relieved to read the responses thus far, which indicate that at least a good portion of the board reads pretty widely, if the responses are representative. Robert J. Clawson Moderator Posts: 3310 From:Massachusetts Registered: Sep 2000 posted August 27, 2008 11:55 PM I also enjoyed SEX AT NOON TAXES, lovely word play and, of course, sexy. Her title, a palindrome, reminded me that Sexton loved the magic of palindromes: RATS LIVE ON NO EVIL STAR. Martha Collins' BLUE FRONT is an extraordinary book dealing with a lynching that her father witnessed. I read all of Bruce Weigl's books. I also enjoy Thomas Lux. Each of these poets knows well traditional form and meters, but they find their rhythms and cadences in fresh voices, fresh song, something, I suppose, closer to jazz. Speaking of jazz, Yusef Komunyakaa is strongly influenced by jazz. He's a fine, disciplined poet. Bob Henry Quince Member Posts: 1702 From:Australia Registered: Aug 2002 posted August 28, 2008 12:53 AM I haven't read ANY free-verse collections in years. And I say that brazenly and shamelessly. OK, the last FV or mainly FV book I recall reading was Such Sweet Thunder by Australian Peter Nicholson, who writes in a variety of modes but mostly FV -- or so it it seems to me; some of them he might claim as formal. I don't mean to put down FV. I occasionally try to write in that mode myself. And I sometimes admire FV poems (a small minority of them, admittedly) that I see in print magazines and anthologies, or at online venues. I just don't see the need to keep up with trends, unless -- like you, Quincy -- you're a reviewer of contemporary work and want the context, or you just happen to be interested. I can't see it as professionally necessary (which I'm picking up as somehow implied in the question) for a writer working mainly in other styles to "keep up" with FV by reading recent collections. Finding out what YOU can do and trying to do it well is surely more important than keeping tabs on -- or trying to fit in with -- trends. Who was it said "Every author must create the taste by which he or she is to be appreciated"? Katy Evans-Bush Member Posts: 2098 From:London Registered: Sep 2004 posted August 28, 2008 01:13 AM I'm not a formalist; I read everything. The question itself seems so divisive - & I sense that some of the answers, eg Tim's, are a little bit political (with a small p! before anyone does an eratospherean leap upon that word!) Someone cited Donaghy's Safest as being "mixed", which would surely qualify him to be on Tim's list! I've been reading (and loving) DA Powell, & earlier in the year I also read & loved Katia Kapovich. I spent an intense afternoon reading all the bits I hadn't read in poor Tom Disch's blog. Lately it's just some some things I'm reviewing, and Hecht (for an essay). I took Ooga Booga away with me for the weekend but then didn't read it. Also took Gjertrud Schnackenberg, The Lamplit Answer, and read one poem in it... Wendy Cope is certainly regarded as a formal poet, ie, someone who writes predominantly in rhyming etc. She is so dextrous that she writes in ALL forms, including free verse - and, to be honest, some of her "free verse" poems are based on organising principles at least as rigorous as mere rhyme and metre! She is a virtuoso in that regard. I second Janice's endorsement of Daljit's book. Very fresh, very bright. I worry that the people at Faber made him take out all nis non-Punjabi poems - he himself used the word "blackface, both in a poem and in an interview in the Guardian - but his linguistic inventiveness and his ear, and the wide-ranging influences (Browning, Arnold, Muldoon and more), are so strong that his talent is clear. I asked him in the pub, having this conversation shortly after the book came out, what are your biggest influences? & he said, well you could never say this to an interviewer, but Shakespeare and Milton! My book has a several, or even many, "formal" pieces in it - i.e., things that would pass, or are based on an organising principle to do with metre or rhyme - although I've never taken anything on the Deep End without being slated for it. Poetic form seems like a sliding scale - like a trombone - or, better yet, like a three-dimensional star, shooting off in all directions - there is not a simple division between "formal" and "FV" (itself an abbreviation I've never seen anywhere but on this site). There are many, many ways of structuring a poem, and some of them show more than others. Some of the most intricate ones don't show. Some of the ones that don't show so much are incredibly hard to do. So when I read, in the context of this board, that someone "only likes formal poetry," and that means "metrically even, usually straight-rhymed, often on a rhyme scheme", it just looks to me like they're only seeing one colour of the spectrum. And to be honest, if you say of a poet that you don't consider him formal "but he probably would," all you're showing is your blinkers. Not only that, but you're truing "formal" into a value-loaded word, whereas all it is is a descriptor relating to structural issues. I real formal virtuoso, I'd imagine, would see form everywhere, would discern the form in all things, would pick up patterns all over the place and be excited by them. Oh, and the great Les Murray, I've been reading him a bit lately. I mean I can't imagine anyone thinking he was a bit way out there, or slapdash, or not aesthetically rigorous. amacrae Member Posts: 478 From:Cortland, New York Registered: Jun 2003 posted August 28, 2008 05:45 PM Brooks Haxtons' Nakedness, Death, and the Number Zero is an interesting mix of formal-ish and free-verse pieces (primarily the latter). [This message has been edited by amacrae (edited August 28, 2008).] Janice D. Soderling Moderator Posts: 1834 From:Sweden Registered: Aug 2007 posted August 28, 2008 06:28 PM Here is another one I forgot. A translation, but that counts too, I daresay. It by Inger Christensen ("It" is the title, translated by Susanna Nied 2006). Christensen is a Danish poet, I'm sure Duncan is familiar with her work. I have her "Alphabet" (same translator) and the Swedish translation. This is based on Fibonacci's sequence. There is an English-language poet who has done this too (used Fibonacci), maybe several. Somebody here knows and will pop up to tell us. Christensen is experimental and won much acclaim for a book-long sonnet sequence. I don't have it, but I think it was Butterfly Valley. Duncan will know, or maybe Wiley C. can tell us. Jill Domschot Member Posts: 87 From:Socorro, NM, USA Registered: Jul 2008 posted August 28, 2008 11:06 PM Just to add a southwest flavor -- for free verse, I'm a big fan of Pat Mora. The sounds in her poems are delicious. Jill Charles Albert Member Posts: 747 From:San Jose, CA Registered: Nov 2000 posted August 28, 2008 11:11 PM I generally have a lower opinion of free verse, but I 've become quite enamored with Billy Collins. I wish I could write with his humor, even if it doesn't scan! Alan Wickes Member Posts: 307 From:Buxton, England Registered: Apr 2003 posted August 29, 2008 05:45 PM From a UK perspective - I subscribe to Envoi which always has an interesting range of fv - Joan Hewitt, Estill Pollock and Roger Elkin all contributing interesting poems in the 150th 'Gala' Issue published in June. I know it's from 2002 - but we are a cultural backwater here - I've enjoyed grappling with Jorie Graham's 'Never'. Technically it's the antithesis of how I write - and it's good for the creative juices to read things which are entirely different to your own preferences. I'd not come across Elizabeth Alexander previously - her Bloodaxe Anthology from 2006 came as a bit of a revelation to this white middleclass Englishman. Fugue has one of the most memorable opening sentences I've come across in a while: Virginia Woolf, incested through her childhood, wrote that she imagined herself growing up inside a grape. I don't see that it's sensible to limit yourself to reading one sort of poetry - I enjoy reading free verse; any attempts I've made to write it have been truly inept. Alan Chris Hanson Member Posts: 280 From:Australia Registered: Sep 2006 posted August 29, 2008 08:45 PM If it's print, I'm more likely to read an anthology with a good mix of free and metered verse. When I have the time, I occasionally go to one of the FV workshops (including here) just to see what's being written at the minute.