But what does it all mean?
 

Over the past couple of weeks, give or take, we've looked at five, well, youngish poets, with interviews and often lively discussion. There have, perhaps, been some common threads among the five of us (though one might question whether this is a matter of the generation or the selection--five people is a very small sampling), as well as some real divergences. My question to all of you (interviewees, discussion participants, and those who've lurked off to the side) is roughly the one I raised at the beginning--does my era seem to be producing a "style" that is distinctive?

I thought of this particularly while leafing through the recent Swallow anthology David Yezzi put together, where, with the exception of Morri Creech and Erica Dawson (and maybe one or two others), the bulk of the authors range in age from a bit younger than Tim Murphy to fractionally older than David Rosenthal. You'd all know the names, many of whom are still lauded as the young ones at the various conferences--Williamson, Mehigan, Stallings, Yezzi himself, Downing, etc. And without rendering an aesthetic judgment on the anthology as a whole (I'm not even sure that's the most useful way to approach an anthology), some things did stand out. In large part, there was an aggregate tendency to play things a bit looser where the form was concerned, but even where the writers were not ensconced in universities, one often detects a fairly academic intelligence animating the poems. (Again, keep in mind that this is a broad generalization that applies a lot to Ben Downing, but a lot less to Erica Dawson.) What I mean is this--there's a certain airiness to the work that can work quite well, but it's not an especially visceral poetry.

If there are certain themes that have kept coming up in these discussions, they seem to include a sense of rootedness in--and perhaps loyalty to--things in one's own background that are not literary as such, a less "political" approach to form (though I'd argue were share that with our somewhat-elders), and, perhaps, a more visceral approach to the poems themselves, perhaps paradoxically combined, in some cases at least, with a more coherent "big picture." Again, this may well have something to do with the selection process (where, in essence, Jehanne and I picked according to our own tastes, Rolodexes, and time constraints), but on the other hand, not all of us have even met outside of cyberspace. We didn't all go to the same schools. Aaron and I both live in Brooklyn (though opposite ends of that borough), but aside from that, it's a reasonable geographic spread for five people. And we picked without having a coherent notion of "proving" anything to anybody.

So, any thoughts on the matter?

That's the main reason, surely? And Yezzi's preferences are reflected in his anthology.

Well, Rose, within certain constraints. Yezzi's anthology, for starters, is over 300 pages long and thus, necessarily, is more comprehensive, but on the other hand, Jehanne and I did try to get a spread of types here.

I think that human beings were ever thus. The fact that the judges picked work that meant something to them, combined with easy global communication and interaction, means that you can't deduce trends from this very fine selection of gifted poets and thinkers. Take any historical period and you will find distinct variations of character and style but from a historical distance you will recognise that they shared a common culture.

I am very happy to say that all I perceive from this selection is that the human mind is still functioning despite gloomy suspicions that it might not be so.

I haven't read the anthology Quincy mentions but I think that the greatest present danger to poetry is that the academy will dictate what is acceptable and that many good poets who fail to fit the new respectable stereotype will be undervalued. Education is a grand thing as long as it doesn't lead to careerism and conformity.

I'm not sure that the age of a poet is so important as when they came to poetry.

Personally didn't get started until I got to maybe 47 ish, and am doomed to always look backwards for anything worthwhile to say.

I envy people who come to poetry young, with a fresh eye (in their twenties maybe), for whom the present is eternally exciting and stimulating.

You get to a certain age it all looks like Hallmark reruns and that is a sad thing.

I particularly liked Jill Alexander Essbaum for that sense, which I shall never recapture, of it all being about NOW.

Life is a funny bugger.

P

I'm mostly going to hang back for a bit, but I do want to quickly clarify the use of the word "academic," as I did not intend it as pejorative at all. I meant more a particular way of approaching information and categorizing it, a strain that has run through poetry for a very long time and is not necessarily connected to universities--and I teach at one of those, you know.

Quincy, that's all true and respected. What I referred to was the "trained mind". A great writer I knew used to double up with laughter when he discovered anyone with one of those. It is a great danger and although a cultivated mind is an admirable asset a trained mind is a depressing dead end.

You all seem to have received privileged educations and the greatest compliment that I can pay to any and all of you is to say that they don't weigh any of you down. I find no excessive inhibition or politeness in the poems presented.

Does my era seem to be producing a "style" that is distinctive?

Based on these poems, of course not!

Individually distinctive at times, but not collectively distinctive.

But why limit your question to style?

In any case, I'm opposed to ageist groupings. Age (ie the age of the artist) is or should be irrelevant to discussions about art. (I'm willing to reconsider this statement if there is a persuasive argument against it.)

In any case, I'm opposed to ageist groupings. Age (ie the age of the artist) is or should be irrelevant to discussions about art.

Absolutely, Terese.

Age, gender, political affiliation - these only become important for those "artists" who do not place art first and foremost - that is, those for whom art is a secondary consideration, which is the essence of poetastry.

The true artist ALWAYS puts art first, and discounts the secondary elements.

Okay, I'm going to be a bit cross here.

No, I'm not suggesting in any way that generational concerns are the be-all and end-all of any art. A statement that sweeping would be a bit stupid. But surely, we do discuss eras in poetry, the currents in Elizabethan or Jacobean or Augustan or Romantic poetry, for example, even while recognizing that the struggle with the weight of tradition, even language itself, is an intensely personal one. And the notion that certain broad themes or concerns might arise from a group of writers of the same nationality rather close to one another in age, even while, yes, each retains a great deal of individuality strikes me as not being terribly far-fetched. I just saw too many questions from David Rosenthal, Chris Childers, and others revolving around these matters to think that the matter is irrelevant, that time and place have no effect on what one expresses and how one expresses it are of no moment. (And I agree with Philip that when one comes to the art in one's own life can be quite important, though I think that's a question of a somewhat different order.)

Why am I interested, Terese? Not because I think it will make a lick of difference in what I write next. But perhaps as a form of self-knowledge, or, in some way, a bit of understanding of what seems problematic, or worth exploring, to at least a few of us with at least a few things in common, even if our experiences--and how we react to them in poetry--are not identical.

The characteristics I've identified may well be off-base. But human beings, even those delicate, sylph-like creatures known as poets, are social creatures. And I'm rather surprised (or, perhaps, I wish I could be more surprised) that this point has been so controversial throughout this discussion.

Quincy

Quincy,
It all depends on one's own life and associates. Although I have lived a constant life with one partner many of my friends have been wildly liberated and free. My own group was into all sorts of experimental art, music and film and when possible, theatre. The only things that divide us are the more conservative attitudes of your generation which seem to be the result of the greater urgency to find employment and the way that things we had to fight for were taken for granted by the time you came along.

I could then list the technological advances in my life which, taken from my provincial New Zealand starting point, are immense. You are the generation that grew up watching television. That means that from some points of view you are much more heavily socialised than someone like me who was left to play alone in a garden and didn't see television until after I was married. Books were not optional. They were entertainment.

You all seem rather worldly, with the possible exception of Austin.

Quincy,

Surely eras are a different question from the age of the artist. Twenty or thirty years makes a difference in one's generation, but artists are aware of, and can work with and "in" (intellectually and/or artistically) as many eras as they choose to or are capable of.

You're asking whether others see what you, because you're within (?) your generation, can't? I'm not sure if that's an intimation here. I simply don't see any cohesive style (do we need a definition of "style"?) among these poets, and that seems hopeful.

Quincy,

I think you should take Terese up on this one. Of course it matters. I can't think of many things that matter more. What does Rimbaud say at the end of the drunken boat? It is necessary to be absolutely modern.

Now, I could tell you exactly what that statement meant in california in the 70's. I could go on and on. But I have no idea what it means now. Only you young whippersnappers can tell us.

Of course some of us are going to say that ageism is bad. That's because we're, um, age-y! With all that implies. But if you'd asked me in 1977 where poetry was going, and what it meant to be young and alive and a poet, you would have gotten a five page diatribe. ;)

So, where's yours? You guys have it in your power to change the landscape. And it's expected. Think of BLAST! Think of Marinetti.

Where's yours?

Thanks,

Bill

Well, I suppose it all depends whether you want to be a poet or write poems. And I wouldn't attend to much of what Rimbaud said - though he did write some great poems. After he turned eighteen he thought all poetry, including his own, was rubbish and spent the rest of his life as a criminal gun-runner. Didn't write a thing.

Probably Verlaine's fault. Poets? Huh!

I knew a terrific poet at uni Looked like a very pretty, and considerably taller, Bob Dylan, had a guitar which he c ould actually play (a bit) did all the poetic things, got the girls (probably got the boys as well). What a poet! Wrote reams of the stuff too some of it in French. All crap (well, I can't speak for the French).

Think of Marinetti and think of Fascism and think of machines that destroyed centuries of art and countless living humans. Where does that get you?

Maybe that is something in common: the lack of, and perhaps conscious avoidance of, or allergy to, any manifesto.

David R.

Is this about an age group or about a few like-minded people within an age group? Bill mentioned the Futurists. Wordsworth and Coleridge did Lyrical Ballads. A few sixteenth-century English poets imported the Italian sonnet.

Doesn’t sound “generational” to me so much as particular groups of sparks in a fire. Surely some of Wordsworth’s poetic peers were talking about something different from “writing in the real language of men.”

In retrospect, it’s the generation of the “Romantics.” But that is only after.

Quincy,

I haven't yet seen the anthology, so can't comment on the nature of the poems within. I will say that something interesting happened to a certain branch of my generation of poets, or the poets slightly older than me (Kim Addonizio, Dorianne Laux, Tony Hoagland, etc.)---they came up with a way of writing an emotionally intense, sexy, sometimes very funny, poetry that was wild as the Beats but that didn't rely on the old trick of rehashed Whitmanian anaphora.

Some of these visceral poets are interested (at least sometimes) in form---Kim Addonizio and Moira Egan, and Dorianne Laux, who is writing the occasional sonnet now. Tony Hoagland is still doing free verse, but I'd sure like to see what he would do if he put his hand to writing in form. Is B.H. Fairchild in the anthology? I think of him as a very intense poet.

In truth, the country is filled with far too many fine poets for one to talk of movements. There are currents, but the ocean is wide. An anthology provides a good way of defining such currents, and a good prompt for these discussions, but, again: taste. The nature of the canon will be defined by the exclusions/inclusions of the editor(s).

Speaking of academic environments, I need to go to sleep so I can teach Cavafy tomorrow. Now there was a formal poet with a visceral edge!

Be well,

Tony

Hmmm... I made no claim for movements, certainly not based on festivities here. But sorry, Bill, if I don't expound too much, as one of the recurrent themes in being younger, or at least less "established" (yes, it can happen when you're older, too--most of the poets with whom I associate on a day-to-day basis are Baby Boomers, after all), is that one gets taken remotely seriously... maybe half the time. Maybe.

And it gets a bit tiresome after a while. Oh, I'm not talking about rejections from magazines. Those happen, and in my case, the backlog is pretty slim at the moment. I mean more the condescension, the periodic attitude that seeps into a conversation or a correspondence that seems to say "you're really not worth my time--not that I've read a word you've written, but..." I mean, the correspondence unanswered because one apparently doesn't even merit a negative response. I've actually been told, as far as my own work is concerned, that good press in Ireland "doesn't count" given my present residence in the U.S., that my own work "is good enough" to read at an open mic by a host after I chose to read a poem by someone else one week (I've been doing public readings, mostly of my own stuff, for five years now!), and, in swear-word-laden messages from moderators (well, a moderator), that I don't have what it takes for the "Deep End." And I could go on.

This is, of course, par for the course, and perhaps relates tangentially to what Philip was saying, that the time at which one claws one's way in, the manner in which one does so, etc., are very important, too. And while no one's claiming that this is unique to the current crop of thirtysomethings... well... we're the ones (or some of them) who have to deal with it right now.

But in this case, you know what? Screw it. I'm just some over-earnest self-important whippersnapper talking out of his a$$.

Quincy

It's an interesting conversation, and what Quincy is saying largely mirrors my experiences in life, let alone poetry. When I was sixteen I used to be involved in a pro-technology group that had an emailing list (this was before forums...). I never made mention of my age, and thus all of my commentary amidst this fairly large think tank was taken on its own merit. A year or so later, I flew down to this organization's conference in San Jose, and I remember the shock on countless faces that I was who I was...and yes, I think it changed perception of me a bit. Nonetheless, four years later, when I was only twenty-one, I was the one who organized all the operations, speakers etc. for the same conference. Ultimately, my age played a factor in how I was perceived, but it didn't play a factor in how my work was received.

The same has been true of my poetry avocation. Now that I'm thirty, I don't feel as much stigma about admitting my age...but I still feel a bit squeamish about it, simply because it strikes me as irrelevant, while it may not strike others as irrelevant (on some level, conscious or no). I'd rather not be known as a "young poet", but rather be known as a "good poet" (hopefully), or just a "poet".

I've never been ashamed of my age, but I've certainly felt disinclined throughout my life to make a point of broadcasting it.

Don't worry, lads, there will come a day when you won't want to let on about your age because editors will think you are over the hill.

Maybe it is best to be dead. No, I take that back.

Anyhoo Quincy and Jehanne, it has been a lovely party--every day of it. You and the rest of the crew done yourselves proud. Thanks a bushel for wonderful discussions.

The grass is always greener. I have trouble seeing youth as anything but an asset - but then one's line of work may have something to do with it. Programmers are used to being outdone by youngsters who are naturally quicker to adapt. In academia you have tenure; when you're a contractor, you're only as good as your last project.

(deleted some long-winded boring stuff)

Anyway. What Janice said about you all having done a great job. Thank you.

Quincy and Jehanne,

"But what does it all mean?" seems an ironic way of putting a question, and it's only fitting that the question of groupings by age should have come up. But hey, you two have surpassed even the high expectations many of us had, and I for one am grateful for your choices of poems presented, your interviewing, and the discussions. Thank you!

This has been an exceptionally interesting and rewarding session. My thanks to all the participants.

My boring comment about youth? Well you never stop feeling young but the others stop thinking you are young. How does that affect your poetry?
Not much.

I don't see any unifying style or content among the featured young writers, but then I don't see any unifying style or content among formalists my own age, either. It is very encouraging to see a younger group of writers who are energized by the challenges and possibilities of form. If they are all going in their own individual directions, that is a good thing. No branch of writing needs to get any narrower.

Susan