Comments on: Quick Review 05

By: Ange

Ange — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:53:53 +0000

I’m not sure Boully invented the form. In 2001, Burning Deck published a chapbook by Jennifer Martenson (you can see it here) that pioneered the footnotes-without-a-body idea. It’s a bit harder edged than Boully, though dealing with a tangential topic: not “the body” but “the gay gene.”
Martenson is quite unique — and quite awol. She has disappeared from view, like many a talented poet who can wisely separate the work from the career.

By: Don Share

Don Share — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:07:35 +0000

Folks might like to check out our handy-dandy archive feature on Winters here. As for Donald Davie, one of my favorite things of his is the introduction he wrote to the Penguin Classics volume, Psalms in English... and I also love John Peck's sometimes overlooked Poems and Translations of Hi-Lo; there's an interview with Peck about Winters and other things here.

By: Archambeau

Archambeau — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:35:45 +0000

Although I’d had hopes for the book (called Laureates and Heretics) to come out this fall, it looks like it will be on Notre Dame’s spring list. No fault of theirs: I’ve been too busy on a new book to do all of the loose-end tie-ups on a timely basis.
I’m a fan of all the poets in the book: Winters, Hass, Pinsky, McMichael, Peck, and Matthias. The range of talent is quite diverse, though, and I imagine very few people who read the book will be fans of all of the poets. Most Peck readers aren’t that interested in Pinsky; most Pinsky readers haven’t heard of Peck. And I have a feeling some acolyte of Winters will have at me in a review for praising the young, modernist Winters as well as the older, anti-modernist Winters. But all press is good press, right?
That said, I do think John Matthias is the jewel in the crown of Stanford poetry. That more people in the US don’t know about him is probably a product of his having spent so many years in England, and his avoidance of the poetry reading circuit: you don’t get famous in South Bend. (I always thought that should be the city’s motto).

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:53:04 +0000

Robert Archambeau, are you reading this blog this week? Can you tell us if your book has a pub date? I'm looking forward to it soon. Francisco, are you reading Robert's blog? On the rest of those five poets (did all of them study with Davie?), you might check out Robert von Hallberg's earlier book. Though now we're rather far away from Boully...

By: Francisco Aragon

Francisco Aragon — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:45:11 +0000

Adding to the chorus:
I had the privilege of having Jenny as a classmate at Notre Dame a few years back, during which she published The Body and remember relishing the collection in manuscript. I can also attest to how interesting her forthcoming book will be as I heard her read generous selections from it at conference on avant-garde poetics at Notre Dame shortly after she finished there.
And a tad more:
I think Jenny would agree with me if I ventured to say probably one her most influential mentors at Notre Dame is also one of American Poetry’s most under-appreciated figures. While the mainstream poetry world seems to be wrapped up with recent publication of Time and Materials (which I do look forward to reading), also recent and no less important, in my view, is the publication of Kedging: New Poems (Salt Modern Poets) by John Matthias, who taught Jenny Boully at Notre Dame and, in many respects, has been a huge influence on her work. Matthias was at Stanford during the same years as the more well-knwn former US poet laureates. But I’ve long come to the conclusion that he’s the most interesting of his group for greater range and scope. He’s that rare poet who can work well out of more than one strand of American verse: the one coming out of the more fashionable lyric/narrative mode, but also out of the more innovative mode. And he’s also an accomplished translator.
I think, and hope his work will become more appreciated once Robert Archambeau’s book on the “Stanford five” (Matthais, Hass, Peck, Pinsky, McMichael) gets published by Notre Dame Press soon.

By: Rigoberto

Rigoberto — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 08:03:45 +0000

I too am a huge fan of Jenny Boully and am looking forward to her newest project, a collection of essays–though who knows how this artist will subvert, reinterpret and reimagine that concept–coming out next month with Sarabande. It’s called THE BOOK OF BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS. Boully is a superb writer.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 02:04:54 +0000

It’s a good book. A fun book, too. The individual parts are often as inventive as the overall form.