[Ed Shacklee]

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

I'm not equipped to see any value in the KG approach. I've always believe poets should be "makers," and the KG approach is just finding. But I also know there are holes in my theories.

Simply by talking about KG, though, we're probably producing the value he most wants: attention. That's why I think my response to it should be silence.

Yes, let's ignore Kenneth Goldsmith, the little brat. He can stick pigtails in inkwells and make farting noises with his underarms all he wants. Let's talk about poetics! Even though I really don't want to talk about that, I'm very inclined to listen.

I don't have anything as grand as a theory, but there's a line in 'Mercy of the Fallen,' a beautiful song by Dar Williams, that goes: 'There's the weak and the strong and the many stars to guide us. There are some of them inside us.' Here's a star of mine, a poem by Richard Wilbur:


At Moorditch

“Now,” said the voice of lock and window-bar,
“You must confront things as they truly are.
xxxOpen your eyes at last, and see
The desolateness of reality.”

“Things have,” I said, “a pallid, empty look,
Like pictures in an unused coloring book.”

“Now that the scales have fallen from your eyes,”
Said the sad hallways, “you must recognize
xxxHow childishly your former sight
Salted the world with glory and delight.”

“This cannot be the world,” I said. “Nor will it,
Till the heart’s crayon spangle and fulfill it.”

xxx- Richard Wilbur

[Shaun J. Russell]

You know why people like KG piss me off? It's because when they put their stuff across as "poetry", and get attention for doing so, the general public starts to equate that dreck with poetry in general, thus causing people to think, "Well if that's what poetry is, then clearly I don't like poetry."

There's a ridiculously small amount of people who can actually claim to "like" what KG "writes". But those same people somehow manage to maim the credibility of poetry as an art form.

In visual art, someone like Jackson Pollock could get away with splattering a canvas with paint and calling it "art". It was different, it was new, it was a statement. But fortunately for the state of visual art, the next fifty years wasn't full of other artists throwing paint at canvas -- there were some, to be sure, but it got old fast.

I think the dilution of accessibility is what has harmed poetry the most. Goldsmith's work isn't accessible. A lot of free verse poetry isn't accessible. Perhaps I'm a bigoted purist, but I know that when I read most formal poems, at least I know what's going on -- what the point is. So much poetry these days is at odds with that notion.

[Maryann Corbett]

Originally Posted by E. Shaun Russell

You know why people like KG piss me off? It's because when they put their stuff across as "poetry", and get attention for doing so, the general public starts to equate that dreck with poetry in general, thus causing people to think, "Well if that's what poetry is, then clearly I don't like poetry."

Shaun, I'm not sure this is as generally true as people fear.

The people who'll see KG's statements, I think, are the people who are already actively interested in poetry and poetics and in the trends, the hot stuff, the buzz. I really doubt that there's much crossover between the Garrison Keillor and Ted Kooser poetry readers (this is not intended as a putdown, just a quick classification) and those who will stumble across KG and be put off. The fact that Keillor and Kooser and YourDailyPoem and the like can come up with such poems every day suggests to me that there's no dearth of accessible poetry.

I like accessible poetry just fine, but I get impatient with rants about the inaccessible kind, because it takes a great deal more than accessibility for me to feel satisfied with a poem. Ed's example from Wilbur says a lot about what I seem to need. There has to be wisdom. And all the symbols have to work for me the same way they work for the poet; the situations and life-elements all have to mean to me what they mean to him. I get this in Wilbur, but I know that not everyone does. There are people who feel he's too privileged, too removed, too far above the grit of their real lives. It seems to be all about the attitude one finds in the poems, and whether or not one likes a person with that attitude.

There doesn't seem to be a clear conclusion here, but I'll stop.

[Mary Meriam]

I'm submitting my shopping list to POETRY

[Ed Shacklee]

Originally Posted by Mary Meriam

I'm submitting my shopping list to POETRY

I was about to do the same thing, Mary, till I realized there was an economy-sized jar of French's mustard on the list. That seems a little provincial, a little blue collar, doesn't it?

I used to have a shopping list from Whole Foods around somewhere; but though it would have more of a healthy, eco-friendly, upscale flair, would it make me seem too bourgeois? If it's too long, would I look pompous, or greedy? If it's too short, would I be derided as lower class? If it didn't contain all the letters of the alphabet, would I be doomed to the status of a minor poet? The rigors of Conceptual Art overwhelmed me in the end. Good luck with it.

Best,

Ed

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

...Never make stuff up rules out way too much other poetry for me, however well it works to produce his poems.

Dear Maryann,

You're quite right, it's troublesome. What would we do with Stevens? Or with Mallarme? Two of my favorites, and any general theory of poetry that excludes them would be useless.

So I think of this position statement, in spite of the imperative tense I so awkwardly used, as descriptive rather than prescriptive. And as purely pragmatic: it helps me keep moving when I'm stuck in the mud. Mostly...

Now, Steve seems upset, and wants me to explain myself. I certainly didn't mean to upset him. La Fontaine gets credit for "by the work, one knows the workman," but it's a much older idea. It's in Matthew 7:16 and Luke 6:44, and many other places besides. But there are a few problems with "by their fruit, you shall know them."

The first one is the separation of product and process. That may be fine for scholars and critics, but for practitioners it may be both troublesome and unhelpful. Worse is the problem of impression: if we bite into the apple, we have certain sensations: sweetness, texture, etc. We're not actually thinking about the apple at all, but rather our experience, what we make of it. In other words, by that point, we've slipped all the way from La Fontaine's fables to reader response theory, in three easy steps. And while I hope you'll forgive me most of my sins, I have very little sympathy for "The Dynamics of Literary Response."

But back to Maryann's point. The process *is* incredibly difficult, for all the reasons she stated. It's extremely hard to come up with something both accurate and pragmatic. And once you've done that, there are still three problems. First, it gives people something to aim at, and people always have their crossbows strung. Second there are unintended implications: I'm pretty sure Shaun doesn't mean to sound the way he does with his statements on Jackson Pollock, or imply a theory of painting some may infer from his words. But third, and worst of all, are the echoes.

I thank Ed for posting what he did, and I stand by my words in Now Culture. But look at just this short little snippet:

"through her, I have had an experience of something beyond time and space, something infinite and eternal. It changed everything I knew. Now, every poem I write is an attempt to do for the reader what she has done for me."

Do I believe that? Is it truly part of my core experience? Yes, and yes. But look at the echoes. I want Bergson and Heidegger, but that's not what it sounds like. It sounds like a christian conversion experience, followed by an evangelical fervor. And this coming from someone who thinks Paul fell off his horse because of a migraine, and that Ezekiel's Wheel was the result of a really bad headache. Darn it!

So maybe people are right to shy away from such statements. One simply cannot win. And yet, I persist in thinking they're useful, or at least the process is useful, and that we're only undefeated because we have gone on trying...

Thanks,

Bill

[Brian Watson]

Well slap my thigh and call me Susan:

Onions, eggs, milk, butter, newspaper

I'd defend that as poetry.

(The PDF study guide was the only source I could find for the image. The piece, about an arm span wide, is one of a series of text-photo diptychs by Ken Lum currently on display at the Vancouver Art Gallery).

[Janice D. Soderling]

Am I the only one who thinks that this discussion has veered from critique of conceptual writing (a.k.a. uncreative writing) into the shadow world of gobbledygook?

Crossposted with Brian.

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Brian Watson

Well slap my thigh and call me Susan:

See, there's the problem. I kinda like Ken Lum. Samples here. But check this one out:

[Stephen Collington]

Bill Lantry kinda likes Ken Lum!