Thoughts?
 

Greatest poet of our time, man.

Not a particularly compelling outline.

Seidel is actually a pretty amazing, dumb-founding, and offensive poet, though. I'm not sure about this current poem; it seems drafty, but I usually like his work. And it would be drafty, considering the speed of these events. At least he's willing to offend.

I think it is supremely difficult to make good art out of current political events, but I applaud a serious effort, and I think this is a serious effort. It engages with some enormous issues of our time (drones, the NSA, Ferguson and all that it entails); it makes a few compelling observations and seems to me, in part, an attempt to jostle us out of complacency and stupor. I don’t follow it all (esp. the zipper and the angel, can someone help?), but for me, it was a worthwhile read. I’d like to see more art engaging worthily with these issues, which I find very, very troubling.

Coincidentally, just today NYT critic A.O. Scott has a piece questioning whether today’s art is adequate to “the challenges of our time”:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/ar....html?ref=arts

I didn't find either Seidel poem particularly moving. To me, both poems seem strangely cold and detached--as distant as Mars, both of them. Which is the same problem I've always had with Theater of the Absurd, too: most of what happens seems so removed from reality that none of it really matters.

I guess my own experience of anger and frustration and bewilderment is more visceral than Seidel's is. That's why I find poems like Rose Kelleher's, which keep things personal, more effective and cathartic. Cf. her "On the Suicide of a Moroccan Girl Forced to Marry Her Rapist" and "Enlightenment." (Probably her poem most relevant to Ferguson is "Maggot," from her book Native Species. Well worth buying.)

I particularly like Rose's (non-)references to Demeter and Persephone in "On the Suicide...," because injustices aren't grand, mythical events, played out on some remote plane of existence; they are happening in the real world, to real people like us, by real people like us. Trying to view such things from a dispassionate distance, as if they are abstractions that don't have much to do with either the poet or readers, but which about which we are obliged to spend a few moments in thought, intentionally diminishes their impact. This philosophical distance may be necessary for some people to be able to deal with such overwhelming subjects at all, but it still diminishes their impact, even while apparently honoring them with a more grandiose-sounding, momentous treatment.

If I'm reading Seidel all wrong, I'm sure someone here will tell me. I suspect it's a matter of personal taste, though.

He and Michael Robbins seem to be mutual bad influences, though Seidel was great once. Or at least interesting.

For me, Seidel has always been full of seid moves, slipping around any subject like someone running an obstacle course. His class presumptions--with expensive vehicles, friendships, and general ambiance--also strike me negatively. They probably wouldn't if he could just write.

I'm rather blown away. I love a good ultra-talk and this could be a favourite poem, for awhile. I can't say you are reading it wrong, Julie; it's always a matter of taste, as you say. But I think he gets very personal and in your face at times. There's a weave here though: he goes distance, tells one of his tall tales, then blammo, goes 2nd person and addresses the reader directly. I find his style fascinating and very affecting.

Jeanne

I think you guys are all totally selling Seidel (and Robbins, who also kicks ass) short. They're powerful poets because they refuse to write poems that are "about" their subject; instead, their poems address art itself as it addresses a traumatic, terrifying topic. Rose's poems aren't bad, but they're so simple, it seems like they don't say enough (to me). Seidel admits (I don't know about in this poem, but in others) his detachment, and he doesn't blame himself, or his reader, for being detached. Instead, it's just a normal reaction to the modern world. He's immoral (at times). He's not on a pedestal. He does just write, too, or at least he can write un-finicky poems, if for some messed up reason that's the only kind of poetry you like:

See? Six sonnets.