The Boston Review's 20 most read poems of 2013
 

So!

Are you/we writing poetry that will be read and re-read by the vanguard and aficionados during 2014 and forward?

Here is a little litmus test. The Boston Review's most read poems of 2013.

http://bostonreview.net/blog/boston-...medium=e mail

Do you know these poets (and the other 12), or have you been sitting all last year with your head in the comfy cloud of your choice?

Catherine Blauvelt, Roberto Bolaño, Anne Carson, Andrew Durbin, (...) Alice Notley, Cherry Pickman, Jordan Windholtz, Justin Wymer

And because conceptualism has been mightily discussed in the Eratospherian hollowed halls, here is an essay on the subject.

http://www.bostonreview.net/poetry/a...-conceptualism

Silly post on my part. .

I'm a Boston guy of sorts - live within an hour by car or train - and would you believe it - I don't know any of the individuals listed, didn't like any poem (about ten) I looked at, and am fairly certain that I will never, ever, be published by The Boston Review.

Plum Island!
Good to see your words, believe it or not.

Sigh...that's my only response...sigh...

Well, I have nearly 500 pages of Bolaño, his La universidad desconocida, albeit in Swedish translation.

I have two books by the Canadian Anne Carson: one, The Beauty of the Husband (also in Swedish translation) and in English a collection of lyrical prose titled Eros; The Bittersweet.

I am familiar with some of the other names while yet others only have recognition value for me and some I am reading for the first time.

Although we cannot, any of us, stay ajour with all the poets and schools, and though it is true (in my world) that flarf might sometimes be a funny gimmick even if my imagination won't stretch far enough to call it a school, my point is nonetheless that it doesn't hurt to remove one's head from one's cloud of choice (such as our beloved DIY forum) and look at what is going on atop other clouds.

It might give a jump-start to find new ways to be formal. Or it might not. It might be like wearing lot of metal on my lips. I see a lot of people are doing it but I'm not encouraged to join them.

That said, both Bolaño and Carson are grounded in the traditions and both can write both poetry and prose.

Nope. I've never heard of any of them. I much prefer the poems of Michael Cantor.

It's not that I object to trying very different stuff--I'm playing with some prose poetry translation now--but I just don't think this Boston Review material is even defensible for the most part.

I've seen Anne Carson's work elsewhere and have a vague recognition that most of it is not as laughable as her entry here.

Oh, no, not Anne Carson. Again. :eek:

It pays to be published earlier in the year, but some of the disadvantaged did make the cut.

It's just silly to put poems into such a contest.

Personally, I prefer Sam Gwynn's translation of Anne Carson from the Canadian, faithfully rendered into English verse:

Anne Carson: And Reason Remains Undaunted

From the Canadian

Searching for things sublime I went
Into big, muddy, windy hills
Where, past the town, trees plied and bent
According to their wills.

One saw a lot of moving green--
Over, under, above, across--
So the condensed and fanning scene
Made one’s eyeballs cross,

Each leaf a single, living cell
(Furious, nettle-streaked, unmowed)
It made me think of Milton’s Hell,
A sensory overload.

These trees were scattered through the heart
Like food upon a sumptuous table--
Green, strongly gloomier than a dart
Flung from the tower of Babel.

And, carrying secrets of their own,
They seemed to shake and shiver, crownly,
Not like the spring leaves I had known--
Not greenly; rather, brownly.

I thought, how juster than a shot,
Was the dark idol, king of terrors,
How many lines were snot, were not
Entirely free from errors.

Though architectural, scorned and clean
With blazing nostrils’ forceful blast,
I was no servant, and the scene
Went by not fast, fast, fast.

Searching for things sublime I walked up into the muddy windy big hills

behind the town where trees riot according to their own laws and



one may



observe so many methods of moving green—under, over, around, across,

up the back, higher, fanning, condensing, rifled, flat in the eyes, as if

pacing a



cell, like a litter of grand objects, minutely, absorbed, one leaf at a time,

ocean-furious, nettle-streaked, roping along, unmowed, fresh out of pools,



clear as Babel,



such a tower, scattered through the heart, green in the strong sense, dart-

shook, crownly, carrying the secrets of its own heightening on



up, juster than a shot, gloomier than Milton or even his king of terrors,

idol in its dark parts, as a word coined to mean “storm” (of love) or



“waving lines”



(architectural), scorned, clean, with blazing nostrils, not a servant, not

rapid, rapid.

EDIT: I still crack myself up imitating Sam attempting to read the original poem with a straight face, as if it made sense.

Chris,

Where's the GUFFAW smiley when you need it?


C.