http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/10/panel-4-drawing-from-the-pastbreaking-from-the-past/ Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:40:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/10/panel-4-drawing-from-the-pastbreaking-from-the-past/#comment-1316 Simon DeDeo Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:43:05 +0000 http://pf/harriet/?p=467#comment-1316 Vendler has a great piece on Dove's poetics (I forget the title of the book, I think it's about poetic maturation? -- ah I thought it was in Breaking of Style, but actually it's an essay in Soul Says.) I don't know if it's too blah to mention, but I think Harold Bloom really has the number when he talks about the kind of misreading that poets do. The idea that one "transcends" tradition I think is not correct; poets do their best work when they wrestle with a powerful, oppositional force -- one that provokes. It's not a friendly action. I think poets react to events and texts that exercise power illegitimately. It's the response to that illegitimate event that counts -- and it's a response that rests crucially on the assertion of original illegitimacy. Poets are a bit like the dynamos on the Hoover dam. I suppose that's why I'm left non-plussed by the connection to the canon debates in the academy, which seem to be about something else entirely. Poets make implicit political statements all the time, but rarely by their choice of wrestling partners. Indeed, Rita Dove's reaction -- I'll challenge who I want -- is one I've heard many times by writers who are also minorities (I remember a great talk by Anthony Appiah), although of course that reaction has been co-opted by conservatives. PS: When I was a kid I (and my British accent) moved to the States and discovered that there was some Saturday Night Live skit that involved a song about Simon? People would come up to me and sing it like they were the first person to think of doing so. Now that my accent is gone, the song has been replaced by references to Whitman's astronomer! Vendler has a great piece on Dove’s poetics (I forget the title of the book, I think it’s about poetic maturation? — ah I thought it was in Breaking of Style, but actually it’s an essay in Soul Says.) I don’t know if it’s too blah to mention, but I think Harold Bloom really has the number when he talks about the kind of misreading that poets do. The idea that one “transcends” tradition I think is not correct; poets do their best work when they wrestle with a powerful, oppositional force — one that provokes. It’s not a friendly action.
I think poets react to events and texts that exercise power illegitimately. It’s the response to that illegitimate event that counts — and it’s a response that rests crucially on the assertion of original illegitimacy.
Poets are a bit like the dynamos on the Hoover dam.
I suppose that’s why I’m left non-plussed by the connection to the canon debates in the academy, which seem to be about something else entirely. Poets make implicit political statements all the time, but rarely by their choice of wrestling partners. Indeed, Rita Dove’s reaction — I’ll challenge who I want — is one I’ve heard many times by writers who are also minorities (I remember a great talk by Anthony Appiah), although of course that reaction has been co-opted by conservatives.
PS: When I was a kid I (and my British accent) moved to the States and discovered that there was some Saturday Night Live skit that involved a song about Simon? People would come up to me and sing it like they were the first person to think of doing so. Now that my accent is gone, the song has been replaced by references to Whitman’s astronomer!
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