|
|
Symposium Homepage
The Symposium
West Chester
Poetics
Formalism
Translation
Form and Narrative
Humor
Book Publication
Closing Thoughts
|
|
|
Panelist
|
Topic Discussions
|
Alex
Pepple |
The West Chester Conference that has just concluded was my first one and I
thought it was the formalist haven it had been billed as. It is good that
all the panel members attended the conference and can thus provide a
first-hand commentary about it:
1. How has the conference changed if at all, and how does this year’s
edition compare to the previous ones?
2. To those who have participated in the conference in various roles
(attendee, guest, faculty ….), how different was the experience in these
roles?
3. How is this conference similar to or different from the many other
conferences, and what’s the key to its success?
4. How can it be improved?
5. What is your most memorable experience from the conference?
|
Mark
Jarman |
My most memorable experience of this year's Exploring Form and Narrative
Conference was giving a brief paper on Louis Simpson's recent work and
hearing Louis Simpson read. I think it was important that Louis Simpson, a
poet who does most of his work in free verse now, be honored at the West
Chester Conference because it is an implicit recognition that narrative
itself is a poetic form. A narrative poem need not be metrical, in other
words. At least, I hope that recognition is implicit. However, until this
year, at least with respect to the poets who have been honored at West
Chester, the emphasis has been on poets who write in traditional verse,
and the assumption seems to have been that narrative poetry must also be
in meter. If we are going to explore form and narrative, as the title of
the conference implies, then I think we're going to have to examine why
our definitions of them are so narrow.
|
Rachel
Hadas |
I liked the serious yet enthusiastic atmosphere at West Chester; the students were highly motivated and very talented, and their work was
sufficiently varied (that of faculty also) that the whole did not feel
excessively in-house.
One of the most memorable experiences at the Conference for me was hearing
X.J. Kennedy, Nancy Willard, and Peter Benton on children’s poetry, an
old and great love of mine which is much too often neglected at ANY kind
of literary event.
Other standouts: the celebration of Fred Morgan's work, which elicited
such remarkably various tributes which said, perhaps, as much about the
tribute-bestowers as the splendid and multifaceted oeuvre itself! and, of
the readings, perhaps Mark Jarman's searing Sonnets.
|
A. E.
Stallings |
First—just want to say that it is an honor to be included among such a
distinguished panel.
This year was my first at West Chester, and only the second writers'
conference I've attended (the first being Sewanee last summer). Sewanee is
much, much longer and multi-genre, so it would be hard to compare the two.
West Chester struck me as quite well organized, with an impressive and
diverse faculty. I confess that "form and narrative" seems a
rather arbitrary yoking to me, but both aspects were well represented.
The event that I most enjoyed was, I think, the award ceremony and
conversation with T. V. F. Brogan. It was fascinating to hear how he had
gone about his work, his passion and single-minded dedication to prosody.
|
Diane
Thiel |
I
agree with Mark — West Chester did seem to address narrative more
individually this year. An interesting shift of the conference. I became
interested in the conference some years ago, because using
"form" and telling stories were two things I found myself doing
in my poetry, often simultaneously, but not always. I enjoyed the great
wealth of wonderful readings this year (by all of my fellow panelists!) —
among many other highlights, several of which have been mentioned. And,
personally, I very much enjoyed co-teaching Dana Gioia's class on
“Teaching Form” (along with Kymberly Taylor and Kathrine Varnes) and
having the opportunity to try out and further develop some of the
exercises from Writing Your Rhythm (my book of exercises which Story Line
will bring out in 2001). We’re developing a “new” (or return to the
old?) way of introducing and teaching form early on — an experiental,
performative, emulative approach, before analysis.
|
Mark
Jarman |
I want to second Rachel's remarks about the panel on children's poetry at
West Chester. My children grew up with the poetry of Nancy Willard and X.
J. Kennedy, and to hear the two poets read their work aloud in person was
a great pleasure. But it also made me reflect on the rightness of that
kind of verse, how precisely right it is when it works, and you know it
works often by a kind of abandonment and joy in your response—the way you
laugh. (I was sitting behind Rachel and I know we both guffawed and
chortled at many of the same things.) I also thought, with a little
chagrin, that for all the poetry we heard at West Chester, these were the
things that were going to last. In fact, they had already demonstrated
their staying power. I'd read some of the same poems by Willard and
Kennedy to my children nearly 20 years ago, and here I was delighted by
them again.
|
R.
S. Gwynn |
I am always in such a state of shock before, during, and after West
Chester that I have little sense of how things are going on. Conferences
take precedence over panels, and I regret that I hear so few of them. I
especially wanted to hear the Kennedy/Willard one, dammit.
I was glad to get the dramatic monologue on the course list for this
year, and I hope it will become a regular feature. The alliance of the d.m.
and meter is an old and honorable one.
|
|
|
|
