[David Landrum]

Originally posted by nyctom:
So Landrum any poetry not a part of the Whitmanesque tradition you find anemic and unmemorable? If that is the case, I'm sorry. You're missing a lot of good stuff.

But hey--de gustibus and all that jazz.

I'd be interested, nytcom, to read some of the poets you like who don't follow the general strategies I've discussed. Give me some names or titles.

I teach poems like "Thank You" by Heather Nagami, an ethnic poem that does not draw on metrics in any way. And while it is good, I think the text doesn't give it enough of a dynamic for it to endure as a work of art for very long. It is admirable but not enduring and many poems are like this. I like to think it is the lack of poetic dynamic, the lack of poetic energy in the poem, that does this. And I can't help but think the Whitmanesque tradition provides more poetic language than just the poetry of flat statement.

[David Landrum]

Here's a link to the Nagami poem:

http://www.janet.org/~livingja/poetry/thank_you_hn.html

[nyctom]

Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, TS Eliot, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Mark Strand, Gregory Orr, James Wright, Mark Doty, Lucille Clifton, ntozake shange, Stephen Dobyns, Judy Grahn, Joan Larkin, Robert Creeley, Louise Gluck, Stanley Kunitz, John Logan, alta, Sharon Olds, Alice Fulton, Tony Hoagland, Li-Young Lee, Gerald Stern, Marge Piercy, Kim Addonizio, Cathy Song, Kay Ryan, Ai, Ted Kooser, Denise Levertov, James Weldon Johnson, Linda Pastan, Billy Collins, Faye Kicknosway, Judith Minty, Amy Gerstler, Denise Duhamel, Eleanor Lerman, Bob Hicok, Joel Brouwer, Margaret Atwood, Dorianne Laux...and that's just from the first half of the top two shelves of my poetry bookcase (I can't reach or see the rest at the moment; residual effects of renovations).

Some of these poets write metrical verse as well as free verse (it's not a distinction that matters a damn to me), and some of them may write the occasional "KJV-esque/Whitman-esque" poem, but I think the point I am trying to make is that there are many streams to draw from water from; Whitman and the KJV are just one tributary among many.

[David Landrum]

Nytcom, I think we are talking at cross-purposes here. I like many of those poets (have not read them all). What I would ask is, How do they write free verse? I think, especially in the earlier poets like Eliot and Bishop, the cadenced stresses are evidence that they fall into the categories of which I speak--which is to say, they don't simply chop of up prose or rely on merely the idea but use pacing, cadence, repetition, stress, and other poetic devices to create music and poetical quality. And think the traditions that have influenced many of them do have some roots in the Psalms (Gioia's point) and in the appropriation of Whitman and other early practitioners of free verse who were influenced by the KJV. At least to an extent.

[Janet Kenny]

What about Shakespeare and Dante?

[Quincy Lehr]

Janet--

I'm sure you're making a good point, but could you connect a few more dots for us?

Quincy

[Janet Kenny]

Quincy,
My point is that Dante and Shakespeare were established influences before the KJV was absorbed. If it matters.
Influences on whom is the next question?
If American free verse is the topic then I shouldn't have joined in though I'm sure the roll of Shakespearean dialogue has entered the bloodstream of most English cultures.

Janet



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited March 14, 2007).]