[Maryann Corbett]

Let's see if I can post to this board successfully....

Elsewhere (on Accomplished Members) there's been both congratulation and complaint about the most recent issue of The Raintown Review. Some of us see especially strong poems by people we know from these boards; others of us see too many poems that treat the same subjects. It's clear there are differences of opinion, and they're not just differences about the worth of individual poem, but about balance and choice and what makes a good issue or grouping of poems.

I've been thinking about this lately because I just bought the 2007 offering in the Best American Poetry series, and I see that opinions are starting to be offered in public about it as well. For example, Choriamb led me to these two takes, one decidedly acid and one more detached and number-oriented:

Greatest Living Poet blog --scroll down to see the cartoons

Whimsy Speaks blog

While everybody seems to agree that nepotism and other favoritisms are nasty, other questions about the goodness or badness of a grouping are less clear. "Too much about the same subject" sounds like a valid complaint--yet we want unifying themes, both in magazine issues and in things like chapbooks.

What examples of really good issues or collections can you point to? What made them good? Can you point to examples that could have been good but had some identifiable flaw?

[Anne Bryant-Hamon]

Maryann

I guess I'm glad I wasn't published in the recent Rain Town. Not that I submitted

Some of the lengths people go to to be critical seem extreme to me (like that page with the silly cartoons). It just seems so childish. And makes me wonder how people find time for such sillyness. Think of it. There are over 6 billion people on the earth. Do we really have time to criticize and make fun of the reams of poetry that are written? I'd rather spend my time looking for poems that I enjoy and appreciating them while I still have time.

It's not that I don't have a sense of humor. It's just that it has to be an adult sense of humor. There's nothing funny to me about people acting like toddlers on a playground.

Anne

[Richard Wakefield]

My review of the current Best American Poetry volume appeared in this morning's Seattle Times. It's tough to review an anthology, almost impossible to generalize about a big batch of poems. So I read through and simply see how many I like -- not how many are awful or repeat worn out themes, but how many really move or delight me. If it's enough to justify the price of the volume (not for me, the reviewer, since it's free, but for the person who has to decide what to pay good money for), then I recommend it. Otherwise, not. I recommend the current collection.
There's so much of anything that's terrible that you can make youself seem terribly wise with very little effort simply by reaching into the vat and pulling out something vile, then explaining to everyone who'll listen why it's vile. Then, if you want to be a pundit, you can extrapolate from that piece of trash to everything. You'll always have plenty of evidence to support your condemnation. But that's a hell of a way to live. There are so many varieties of badness that we can spend a whole life cataloging them and condemning them. Then what?
If you really believe the world is going to hell, pick a more important topic than poetry. Then, having shown that it's going to hell, turn to poetry for consolation and community, and spread the word about the poems you find helpful and hopeful (I don't mean merely simplistically optimistic poems, but those that tell something true, no matter how humble). You can at least hope the examples of quality, no matter how rare, will have some healing and even inspirational effect.
Richard

[Anne Bryant-Hamon]

There's so much of anything that's terrible that you can make youself seem terribly wise with very little effort simply by reaching into the vat and pulling out something vile, then explaining to everyone who'll listen why it's vile. Then, if you want to be a pundit, you can extrapolate from that piece of trash to everything. You'll always have plenty of evidence to support your condemnation. But that's a hell of a way to live. There are so many varieties of badness that we can spend a whole life cataloging them and condemning them. Then what?
If you really believe the world is going to hell, pick a more important topic than poetry.

Richard - I'm certain I could not have said this better than you have. But your summation speaks for me. My dilemma is that I want my world of poetry to be a place to get away from the madness of the world - but certain people spoil that for me on a regular basis with the constant interruption of waht I would term "bitch-fests". There are always a few rotten apples to spoil the whole bag of fruit. Poetry spheres are no exception. Perhaps I'll become cloistered and sit and admire and contemplate the greatness of my own poetry exclusively If more people would do their despising of other's work quietly, it would be a much more peaceful world. But I'm not counting on that happening.

Anne

[Richard Wakefield]

Anne:
It does seem sometimes as if you find an enclave only to have the unholy prophets move in. It's as if there's always a Jeremiah standing up and calling down the wrath of his god on some hapless poet who has committed a few infelicitous words to paper. I don't understand why anyone would despise a poem or a poet -- dislike, or distaste, maybe in the extreme case disgust. But it's a mystery to me why the reaction is sometimes so out of proportion to the transgression. It's just a crappy poem, for crying out loud!
Well, my philosophy is "Don't step in it." Since in fact I often fail to live up to that rule, my backup philosophy is "Don't step in it again."
Richard

[Anne Bryant-Hamon]

Richard -

Thank you for an excellent piece of advice.

Anne, going to clean my right shoe...

[Maryann Corbett]

Richard, I absolutely agree that concentrating on what we enjoy in poetry is the goal, and that cutting everything down is too easy. It's useful to point to what is excellent. to show why it is, we might sometimes have to point also to what's less excellent, or less enjoyable to us, and say why.

So here's my example of a really great issue of a magazine: The Cortland Review, issue 34, which contained the sonnet feature. It contained an enlightening piece of prose about the situation of the modern sonnet and a variety of sonnets, using many different current definitions. That's not to say I approved of all the definitions or liked all the poems, but I was enlightened by the range.

The poem from the issue that has most stuck in my mind is Joyce Sutphen's "From the 6th Floor,"--and I confess that's partly because she's local and I loved her book Naming the Stars--but it's also because I was struck by the basic idea, being conscious that the building one is in was once not there, and because of the novelties of rhyme, like using "once was" as a rhyme with "was never."

What other good issues are people willing to show us?

[Janet Kenny]

Originally posted by Maryann Corbett:
Maryann,
Greatest Living Poet blog --scroll down to see the cartoons

Why do I feel I'm talking to Dr Whupass? Very funny.


I can't point to anything similar because Australian anthologies only appear about once every six or twelve years.

I have never found an entirely pleasing anthology. I don't even expect to.
I make do with poetry that pleases me while I wait for poetry that amazes me.

Interesting post.

A question. Are many American poetry journals on sale in city book stores?

Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited September 24, 2007).]

[Maryann Corbett]

Janet, to answer your question, bookstores in the Twin Cities do carry literary magazines. Among the ones I shop at, even the big chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble carry litmags. Just off the top of my head, B&N had Alaska Quarterly Review, New Criterion, and Poetry and about a dozen others--I just can't be sure which. Yesterday I was at Common Good Books (the little independent backed by Garrison Keillor) and saw Spout, Elysian Fields Quarterly, Bitch, Art Lies, and three or four others totally new to me.

[Maryann Corbett]

Ack! Richard, it has taken me until now to realize that Choriamb also picked up the Seattle Times review, which is here.

Because I didn't realize it was there--I thought that item was McHugh's own defense of her choices--I probably looked like I was agreeing with all the dumping on BAP 2007 in the other links. No so. I hope I redeem myself by linking to your review.