[Julie Steiner]

I've been thinking about those three lines some more, Michael, and wondering if there might be a hint of the rhyme-punctuated cadences stereotypical of black preachers in there....

I've been thinking about that "slipperiness," too, since the subject is certainly a slippery one. My conjectures above are only conjectures, and I still don't know what Seidel thinks of the events going on in his old stomping grounds. Maybe even Seidel doesn't know what he thinks, and the poem was an expression of that.

Again, I hope the conversation will continue, and I will not be at all insulted if people don't share my opinions or interpretations, and say so. I've misread plenty of poems workshopped here, so it's doubtful that I've suddenly attained infallibility in Seidel's case.

[Jeanne G]

Terms like slippery and baggyness suit well enough. Yet look what that sly old fox did to us, Julie, he gives us just enough to intrigue and has us reading this over and over trying to uncover the poem's secrets. I haven't been so obsessed w/ sleuthing a poem since my last good Dean Young piece. If he'd laid it out more simply and eloquently, we'd have read the poem a few times, thought how touching a tribute and moved on. I first read it not knowing the specifics of the continuing tragedies in Ferguson, though I know of the general issues, so the poem seemed timeless enough to me. That fox had me up until 5 am digging up the news on it and trying to tie it all in.

You thought the poem too dated and before your time and I thought it went back to draw in all the names and events leading up to now and how they intertwine. These names and events are still very much in the public mind, I'd even guess most of it to the younger generation. Even more so if you're black. The writer is white-bred, for sure, but there's inclusiveness. (I'm 47 and will choose to call myself middle aged into my 60's, just because I want to. Pretty sure.) So the conversation continues and will some more...

Ian, You're a big Seidel fan, hope you'll roll up your sleeves and wade in too.

Michael, Liked your point about those lines being profoundly true and profoundly false. I agree.

Jeanne

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Jeanne G

And I always think of you as the nice mod w/ the great hair - um, just sayin'.

Jeanne,

The good hair part is true. For the rest of it, I don't know. I do know that race is the third rail of american poetics... no-one can touch it without getting jolted. Try having a civilized discussion about Berryman or Eliot or Pound or Lowell. All of those have poems I wouldn't dare teach to my students. It would be fun to do Vachel Lindsay's Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan in class, but one of the good students would be sure to look up one of his other poems, and we'd spend the next two weeks cleaning up the damage.

And you can imagine the arguments white people would make: 'children of their times, need to study the period, no censorship,' etc., etc. It's like the 'white people get death threats' argument. Well, yeah, they do, but they're not taught, constantly, that their lives don't matter, that the system doesn't protect them, that it's a war zone out there.

Does it matter that someone wrote and published an incredibly cynical and shockingly unethical poem? No, probably not. Does it matter that a bunch of white people jumped to his defense? Again, probably not. Everyone remembers Auden's line that says 'poetry makes nothing happen,' but they're misreading, or rather, they're not reading far enough. A few lines later, he finishes by saying 'it is a way of happening.' And this week, we've seen again how this stuff happens in poetry. This is what I told my students, who were concerned, and furious, and worried: I believe in progress, and yet the same stuff keeps happening, over and over and over.

Best,

Bill

[Jeanne G]

Bill,

I'm just not seeing that. Cynical, maybe, I see it more as pragmatism, but I see a lot of heart in that poem, also fearlessness to tackle really complex issues. I'd like to know what you find "shockingly unethical" in this poem?

I think he's attempting to fairly represent both sides, but even if you see it as a polemic, I'd also be ok if I saw it that way too. That's a thing that is disappearing from our consciousness, if there isn't fairness for both sides (to speak freely) then the equality that decent people long for isn't happening. I hate this division of us and them, it doesn't exist in Canada like it does in the US. It's hard to get my head around. No one is giving me hell, trying to make me feel guilty for being white or having a "white-siding" opinion up here. Though anyone who knows me, has experienced emphatically it is not the case. But when I wade into American issues, there it is. If I shared that poem w/ my friend Sheila, who so happens to be black, [based on all I know of her and her taste in poetry, I'm pretty sure] she'd love it and after some 10 reads get it at least similar to how I am. But she's fair, and though she's experienced things I never have to because I'm white, she doesn't talk to me as if my opinion or view counts less, or like she should have the right to speak more freely than me because of the race card. It's not often I do, but if she should catch me the rare time mincing words, talking around something ethnically charged, she'll call me on my sh*t and needle it out of me. She has an excellent bullsh*t meter and bleeding heart liberalism doesn't work well for her either. That's fairness, that's equality, when both sides get to speak freely.

This is what I told my students, who were concerned, and furious, and worried: I believe in progress, and yet the same stuff keeps happening, over and over and over.

I'd also add that as long as gangster rap is blaring from people's stereos for any kids to hear, then this poem deserves its place in whatever venue admires it enough to scoop it up. Again, that's fairness, that's equality.

Jeanne

[Julie Steiner]

You feel so comfortable characterizing your black friend's views of a poem, and so entitled to speak on her behalf, that it's not even necessary for her to read the poem before you do so.

Interesting.

Yes, I can see why you might feel that it's perfectly okay for The Paris Review to make the sole, definitive voice on this controversial topic an old white guy's, because you "think he's attempting to fairly represent both sides."

That's fairness, that's equality, when both sides get to speak freely.

A warm Eratosphere welcome to Sheila, then.

[Orwn Acra]

Why don't you actually give Sheila the poem, Jeanne, and then tell us her reactions, instead of telling us what you think she'd think. Because all of the people of color I know who have read and reacted to the poem have not reacted to it positively. If you go back to my last post, whose points you have conveniently ignored, you will find a link to a person who explains all of her problems with the poem and The Paris Review.

[Jeanne G]

Bit of a boner move to presume that I know for sure, so I changed it to "pretty sure". After so many several hour convos where we both get hoarse and hungry and still keep talking, I know her pretty well though. And the rest stands. Fairness needs to go both ways, for all issues. No one, no matter what their life experience has the right to say you can't speak about this issue because you are white, or black, or a woman, or a man, or Christian or Muslim and on it goes. Any one that wants to support divisiveness is free to do it. It saddens me when I see it. It's holding us back. We need to be speaking up for each other.

Jeanne

[Orwn Acra]

It is not that he is white. It is that he wrote a flippant poem about Ferguson that the Paris Review deemed worthy of publishing as their so far only reaction to the event, and that his flippancy is possible because he is white and lives in Manhattan and Ferguson's reality is not his reality. He can write whatever he wants about whatever he wants. In fact, I rather dislike art that needs historical or social context to appreciate. But the poem he wrote is not a good one for reasons previously stated.

[Ian Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Orwn Acra

It is not that he is white. It is that he wrote a flippant poem about Ferguson that the Paris Review deemed worthy of publishing as their so far only reaction to the event, and that his flippancy is possible because he is white and lives in Manhattan and Ferguson's reality is not his reality. He can write whatever he wants about whatever he wants. In fact, I rather dislike art that needs historical or social context to appreciate. But the poem he wrote is not a good one for reasons previously stated.

I'm glad you're so sure about it, but I'm not. Were you equally offended by all of Seidel's poems about events in the Middle East? About terrorism? About sex? His poem definitely is not one of deep, public grieving, as far as I can tell, but that doesn't mean it's not a thought-out response. It doesn't mean it's flippant. Look, you don't know him. You only know the poem. I don't really understand the poem, so I'm not trying to say you're wrong, but I don't really understand either how the poem is automatically so flippant or terrible. People say it hurts them — OK. But that wasn't my reaction.

[Jeanne G]

Originally Posted by Julie Stoner

Again, I hope the conversation will continue, and I will not be at all insulted if people don't share my opinions or interpretations, and say so. I've misread plenty of poems workshopped here, so it's doubtful that I've suddenly attained infallibility in Seidel's case.

My bad for believing that.

If you, or someone else said they knew their mom, sister, or close friend would love some WCW poem it's doubtful anyone would question you or jump on you for it. But deflection can be an effective strategy to ignore a person's larger point. I'd love to be able to pass that on to Sheila, but I can't. And before someone goes implying something else nasty, I miss her very much, so I wouldn't go there.

Jeanne