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Symposium Homepage
The Symposium
West Chester
Poetics
Formalism
Translation
Form and Narrative
Humor
Book Publication
Closing Thoughts
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Panelist
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Topic Discussions
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Alex
Pepple |
1. Most poets write poetry as a side activity, alongside a day job for
sustenance. Interestingly, I received for the first time at West Chester,
business cards with the occupational designation, "Poet". Who
among you considers yourself a professional Poet?
(Italics mine.)
2. How did you become a poet and who was your biggest influence along
the way?
3. Can you make a general commentary on the state of poetry today and
where you think it is headed?
4. In what ways can poetry be steered for the better
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Mark
Jarman |
The first poet who was important to me was Theodore Roethke, in part
because I discovered him for myself. His example remains preeminent,
because he worked successfully in traditional English verse and in free
verse. His green house poems also showed me that the unique experiences of
his childhood, growing up among his father's and uncle's greenhouses in
Saginaw, Michigan, were a fit subject for poetry. He moved easily between
metrical and non-metrical verse; however, I think he was most original in
the latter form. He had a musical gift for free verse which I see very few
contemporary practitioners trying to emulate. I wish they did.
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Rachel
Hadas |
My influences are many, from ee cummings, whom I read in 9th grade, to
Sylvia Plath, James Merrill, Catullus, Vergil...The trick is to read,
read, read, and operate both by pastiche and by bricolage as well as by
outright homage and unconscious borrowing.
I started writing poetry at 8 or 9 and sensed my commitment to the art
by 13 or 14, but when did I "become" or begin to call myself a
poet? Later, later. One gets humbler year by year, or should. Auden says
somewhere no poet who isn't writing a poem, working on one, RIGHT NOW,
feels bona fide; I find that's true. Yet one also learns that one has
written and published too much. Editing, revising, weeding are skills that
come with years.
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Mark
Jarman |
Programs might be proposed that would steer poetry for the better, but I
doubt if they would work, and I wonder actually if poetry needs to be made
better. The direction of any art is clear only in hindsight. At any given
time it is hard to tell innovators from what Ezra Pound called "the
starters of crazes." Knowing the tradition is important, knowing it
as far back as you can is important. But it is hard to say how that
knowledge should be reflected in the poetry you write. I have been struck
lately by references to the Modernist tradition. Exactly how that
tradition is defined is unclear, but those who make the references tend to
be arguing for radical disruption of language and meaning, as if that were
the only legacy of Modernism. Life is too short to have to read such
writing, even if it is justified by the Modernist tradition. So this is a
rather longwinded way of saying that I think a long view of tradition,
past the 20th century, ought to give us a poetry that can reflect the
realities of our time in
forms and language that Shakespeare or Milton or Keats or Emily Dickinson
or Marianne Moore would understand.
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A. E.
Stallings |
Well, I'm not sure I like the adjective "professional," though I
have no other employment at present. And I agree with Rachel Hadas'
quotation from Auden—I don't feel like a poet unless I am actually
writing a poem.I suppose I became a poet—and remain one—by a strong and stubborn
desire to write poems. I guess it just seemed like something I could do.
Rather hubristic, in retrospect. Maybe my first "poem"—at nine
or so—resulted from a strong desire to have written Blake's "Tyger,
Tyger" myself. And so I composed an imitation (in the same meter, on
the same topic), which I thought was original at the time. As for
influences—that's difficult. My favorite poet, the one I turn
to most often, is Housman, but I'm not sure he is actually that much of an
influence. One of the most important encounters I've had is with Catullus.
It was during a Catullus seminar in college that I realized that his work
seemed more modern to me than that of the Modernists, and certainly than
most contemporary poets. He was able to be colloquial, witty, sublime,
obscene, to write on any topic from stolen napkins to dead sparrows—and
all in exquisite, almost architectural, form. It was a revelation.
As for the state of poetry today, it seems very healthy and diverse to
me. There is a lot of good poetry being written. The infrastructure of the
poetry establishment may be a different matter, but that has little to do
with the state of poetry itself.
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Diane
Thiel |
I’ve never termed myself a “professional” poet. Maybe it's the way
the words sound together. In most circles, I’ve shied away from even
calling myself a “poet,” although I always liked it when people
introduced me as one, especially when I had not yet published widely.
I’ve had other full-time employment all my adult life for support
(mostly
teaching — at the University level and working with children), but poetry
remained a constant — a calling. I was glad to see that some people could
see how much it was a primary identity for me.
I can’t remember *not* writing poetry, truly. My earliest influences
were my German grandmother (I elaborate on this in the “translation” topic) and my
mother (who made up rhymes daily for her children, many with our
names...like Sam’s famed 1999 West Chester clerihews!)
So many poets have been vital for me — but I’ll name a few major
influences: Yeats, Jeffers, Frost, Bishop, Auden, Rilke, Hayden, Bogan,
Dickinson. But I also admit, I appreciate what I have learned from all the
“schools” — one way of thinking often “charges” another for me.
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R. S.
Gwynn |
A poet is a professional if he or she gets paid for the effort. At least
this is what the IRS leads me to believe on the subject. I am happy to
have a day job—automotive repair can be quite lucrative. And the poetry
feeds off it. When I get my hands on a good, greasy carburetor I can feel
those iambs beginning to pump. Brake shoes always start sonnets for me. I
can't explain it—the Muse is in those shoes.
The first poets I saw in the flesh are the recently departed A. D. Hope
and Richard Wilbur. I was impressed. I'm afraid my influences haven't
ranged very far since then. I didn't write poetry until my undergraduate
days, having taken a stab at fiction first. I felt there was too much
punctuation in fiction to make it a viable alternative for me, and, being
fundamentally lazy, the idea of compression was really appealing. If they
call you a genius for fourteen lines why write 4000 words? Is there
something of the con-artist in most poets? Possibly.
Of course, the main appeal of the thing is that it's fun. There's
nothing better than the feeling one gets when it's really humming along
and it's 2 a.m. and that final line just falls into place. Beside this,
all else is dross.
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