[W.F. Lantry]

Uche,

I respect your position. Who can forget the euphoria, and subsequent disappointment, over advances in AI? In spite of those setbacks, I still have an optimistic view. I guess we'll find out. By the way, did you catch the Tupac concert the other night?

Michael, thanks for your kind words. Interesting sidenote: I recently discovered some new categories one can add to one's google news page. There's even one which will give you lots of news concerning poets and poetry. There's also a literature news section, art, contemporary art, too many to list. Let me know if you need some assistance tweaking your settings. That's a nice webpage you put up for your book, by the way...

Best,

Bill

[Pedro Poitevin]

I like the guy. Hey, look at this tweet of his, in which he links to a little sonnet I wrote. I posted on the Sphere some time ago, but many here thought it sounded cranky. I'm glad Christian saw the humor in it. It's an homage!

Pedro.

[Janice D. Soderling]

That is a real sonnet, Pedro. How can one not like it?

[G. M. Palmer]

I thought "ego-less surrealism" juxtaposed with Bok was awfully funny.

Uche,

Thanks for your perspective. Perhaps it's just confirmation bias but I enjoy hearing someone else who doesn't think that magic people bots are on the horizon. I don't even think they're in the gravity well.

Bok, et al exist because they've tapped into the money well of poetry--that is, teaching and speaking engagements. They get them because they're good looking, well-dressed, and well-spoken--not because they're great writers. But this is (to an extent) what happens when a group of poets becomes insulated but still retains patronage--introverted, impossible verse.

[Orwn Acra]

I wonder have many here have actually read Eunoia. It's a fantastic work and definitely formalist -- more constraints than a sonnet, certainly. I've met Bok and he's very nice and told me I had great style, so I suppose I'm biased. Here's an excerpt from Eunoia's A chapter:

Hassan can watch can-can gals cha-cha-cha, as brass bands blat jazz razzmatazz (what a class act). Rapt fans at a bandstand can watch jazzbands that scat a waltz and a samba. Fans clap as a fat-cat jazzman and a bad-ass bassman blab gangsta rap -- a gangland fad that attacks what Brahms and Franck call art: a Balkan czardas, a Tartar tandava (sarabands that can charm a saltant chap at a danza). Bach can craft a Catalan sardana that attracts l'Afghan chantant a l'amant dansant. A sax drawls tantaras (all A-flats and an A-sharp): fa-la-la-la-la.

You'd have to be deaf to not hear all the internal rhymes and shifting rhythms word play. And it's far too ridiculous and funny ("that attacks what Brahms and Franck call art" takes jabs at all the people dismissing Bok's work) to be "introverted, impossible verse" to quote a critic below.

[Nicholas F.]

I haven't read Eunoia yet, but it seems like the stand-out example of that sort of formalism. What I have little time for is the Goldsmith shtick (Day, for example). I can't blame Bok for writing constraint-based poetry (as most of us here do).

Nick

[Susan McLean]

No one has to write a sonnet ever again. Those who do it do it because they like it. No one has to read a sonnet ever again. Those who do it do it because they like it. Some enjoy reading conceptual constructs and some enjoy reading sonnets. I don't foresee that changing in the future, but probably the ones who like sonnets are less likely to enjoy conceptual poetry and vice versa. Trying to persuade one side to like its opposite is just counterproductive. I don't rule out that there may be some who can get equal pleasure from both. I just think they are rare.

Susan

[G. M. Palmer]

And Bok called me a troll in print, so I suppose there's bias there, too.

At any rate,

Hassan can watch can-can gals cha-cha-cha, as brass bands blat jazz razzmatazz (what a class act). Rapt fans at a bandstand can watch jazzbands that scat a waltz and a samba. Fans clap as a fat-cat jazzman and a bad-ass bassman blab gangsta rap -- a gangland fad that attacks what Brahms and Franck call art: a Balkan czardas, a Tartar tandava (sarabands that can charm a saltant chap at a danza). Bach can craft a Catalan sardana that attracts l'Afghan chantant a l'amant dansant. A sax drawls tantaras (all A-flats and an A-sharp): fa-la-la-la-la.

Is nothing not done by Joyce or Stein. The problem with the avant-garde (unlike, say, a sonnet) is that once it's been done then it's instantly boring; everything is derivative. A sonnet you can come back to and make it your own--you can make it new.

[Jesse Anger]

Annoya is brilliant, but no less annoying for it. The constraints he places on his writing are rigid, but to what end, the form does not support the content, it doesn't do anything, except make it a schtick. We all have our own stances and biases, to me, Bok does not write poems, these are exercises, word games, linguistic tricks and sometimes senseless prattling.

He is a wonderful public speaker though, beware.

[Orwn Acra]

Originally Posted by G. M. Palmer

Is nothing not done by Joyce or Stein. The problem with the avant-garde (unlike, say, a sonnet) is that once it's been done then it's instantly boring; everything is derivative. A sonnet you can come back to and make it your own--you can make it new.

But neither Stein nor Joyce wrote lipograms. Anyway, Eunoia is much more comprehensible than Finnegans Wake and Stein's skittering syntactical experiments. I'm not even sure why you're lumping them together.

There are plenty of undiscovered, novel ways to use lipograms. Compare Perec's A Void to Eunoia -- totally different in tone, style, and scope. Telling me that it can't be done just shows your lack of imagination.