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12-22-2020, 12:49 PM
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pandemic anthology opinions?
Amit Majmudar is one of the few poets who come in for a good word in this charmingly forthright pan of a new pandemic poetry anthology.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/b...ice-quinn.html
Has anyone here seen Sudden Strangeness? I haven't, but I remember all the bad 9/11 poems, so I'm prepared to believe the worst about such a collection.
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12-22-2020, 01:41 PM
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Here's George Green's poem, up today on the Best American Poetry blog, so you can judge whether you agree with the reviewer's praise.
Full disclosure: I haven't bought the book and can't pronounce on it as a whole. But I'm glad some reviewers have the gumption to say what they don't like as well as what they do.
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12-23-2020, 12:53 PM
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Thank you, Maryann. So we know there's at least one Sudden Strangeness poem that isn't just another trite, earnest exercise in topical ululation. The book probably has other good poems as well, even if there's no shortage of "vapid observations,/declining into bathetic metaphysical suppositions"
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12-23-2020, 03:36 PM
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"... Much of the tepid free verse is about flowers. Or birds. Or trees..."
...Doesn't make me want to rush and spend a tenner plus postage on a book to add to my collection, Chris...
(I do like buying my friends' poetry books though!)
Jayne
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12-23-2020, 05:10 PM
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Quote:
A few of these poems evoke the realities of blue-collar life, but mostly they’ve been written as if by comfortable indoor cats.
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This pandemic has been experienced very differently by different segments of society. I can imagine that if the majority of contributors to this anthology live in the same (relatively comfortable) segment, experiencing the pandemic mostly from a similar perspective and a similar distance, then the resulting acts of witness might not exactly grab one by the throat, collectively.
But most poetry anthologies and magazines have the same problem, perennially, don't they?
Last edited by Julie Steiner; 12-23-2020 at 05:16 PM.
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12-23-2020, 06:19 PM
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But there are millions of comfortable indoor cats, and why shouldn't they write poetry about their experience? Do all poems have to be from the perspective of the least fortunate?
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12-23-2020, 06:29 PM
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True, Roger, but then one wonders why they are in this anthology, purportedly about the pandemic. If the majority of contributors' experiences are barely different from non-pandemic life, what really is the purpose?
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12-24-2020, 10:54 AM
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Roger, I'm not sure how deeply your tongue is in your cheek. I'm sure it is, to some degree.
But I'm confident that if you were curating a war anthology, you wouldn't want to devote most of it to pondering the inconveniences and fears of poets whose closest connection to the action is friend-of-a-friend.
Quote:
Three poems talk about senior hours at the supermarket. Others consider Netflix, pesto, almond tarts, tidying up the pantry, going for a drive, owning six boxes of penne that is gluten-free.
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Granted, this IS the pandemic experience of a great many established poets, and poems on those topics WILL speak directly to the pandemic experiences of a great many fans of poetry. But what proportion of poems in an anthology about a disease that has now caused 1.47 million deaths (and counting) worldwide might it be reasonable to expect to be able to bear direct, firsthand witness to that disease?
Is 10% too much to ask?
Can you imagine a cancer anthology in which fewer than 10% of the poems engage directly with cancer?
So I think that's a legitimate criticism, regardless of how wonderful the poems are.
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12-24-2020, 11:12 AM
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Well, my tongue was partially in my cheek, and certainly the greater focus should be on those who are most unfortunately affected, but I also don't think we should necessarily ignore the experience of children who cannot attend school (including millions of special needs children), their parents who cannot go to work, weddings that have to be canceled, families that are separated, relatives who have not yet met a newborn, working families that no longer have an income, and business owners who have to close up shop. And I wouldn't object in principle to a poem or two about positive things people are doing in an effort to cope with the pandemic, though whining about the death of a jar of sourdough starter might be pushing it a bit. But I haven't seen the anthology, so I can't comment on whether it strikes the proper balance or whether the poems do justice to the subject matter.
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12-24-2020, 01:15 PM
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Ten years too soon. I think a collected anthology, over time, would bring talent and perspective to it. Instead of poets swarming an easy target, which is nauseating to me, at least in this instance.
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