http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2008/05/questions-for-fady-joudah/ A blog from the Poetry Foundation where contemporary poets debate classic and contemporary poetry from America and around the world. Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:24:02 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2008/05/questions-for-fady-joudah/#comment-3558 Daisy Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:48:51 +0000 http://pf/harriet/?p=823#comment-3558 Don--Thanks for the quibble. Just back from Paris or I would have answered earlier. Well he did say something like what I say above that he said, if a) my memory serves me right, b) another audience member I consulted's memory serves him right. But I paraphrase and no doubt have simplified what was probably a more nuanced response. Not sure the question of influence/tradition is identical to the question of producing greatness, though obviously the subjects overlap. In any case, when he said it, I immediately thought, "but imperialist America produced Willem DeKooning and Jackson Pollock..." But I'd also argue (as do many) that writing from a position of power isn't likely to produce art that's as good/great/interesting as writing from a position of weakness. Not saying, of course, that oppression produces excellence. Probably it doesn't. Daisy Don–Thanks for the quibble. Just back from Paris or I would have answered earlier. Well he did say something like what I say above that he said, if a) my memory serves me right, b) another audience member I consulted’s memory serves him right. But I paraphrase and no doubt have simplified what was probably a more nuanced response. Not sure the question of influence/tradition is identical to the question of producing greatness, though obviously the subjects overlap. In any case, when he said it, I immediately thought, “but imperialist America produced Willem DeKooning and Jackson Pollock…” But I’d also argue (as do many) that writing from a position of power isn’t likely to produce art that’s as good/great/interesting as writing from a position of weakness. Not saying, of course, that oppression produces excellence. Probably it doesn’t. Daisy

]]> http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2008/05/questions-for-fady-joudah/#comment-3557 Don Share Wed, 14 May 2008 13:47:43 +0000 http://pf/harriet/?p=823#comment-3557 Great interview, Daisy: thanks! A quibble about Walcott - he talks often about his grateful immersion in the British literary tradition, so I doubt he's claimed that great art can't come from an imperial tradition. (You can see in his work the immense debt to Auden and Lowell, as well as to the anonymous ballads from the <i>Oxford Book of English Verse</i> and beyond.) He distinguishes, though, between this inheritence and being seduced by or submitting to the yoke of imperialism. It's a nuanced view, as you can see in this quote from his Nobel lecture: "There is the buried language and there is the individual vocabulary, and the process of poetry is one of excavation and of self-discovery. Tonally the individual voice is a dialect; it shapes its own accent, its own vocabulary and melody in defiance of an imperial concept of language, the language of Ozymandias, libraries and dictionaries, law courts and critics, and churches, universities, political dogma, the diction of institutions. Poetry is an island that breaks away from the main." All for what it's worth, and not to detract from this excellent interview with a fine poet/translator/human being! Great interview, Daisy: thanks!
A quibble about Walcott – he talks often about his grateful immersion in the British literary tradition, so I doubt he’s claimed that great art can’t come from an imperial tradition. (You can see in his work the immense debt to Auden and Lowell, as well as to the anonymous ballads from the Oxford Book of English Verse and beyond.) He distinguishes, though, between this inheritence and being seduced by or submitting to the yoke of imperialism. It’s a nuanced view, as you can see in this quote from his Nobel lecture:
“There is the buried language and there is the individual vocabulary, and the process of poetry is one of excavation and of self-discovery. Tonally the individual voice is a dialect; it shapes its own accent, its own vocabulary and melody in defiance of an imperial concept of language, the language of Ozymandias, libraries and dictionaries, law courts and critics, and churches, universities, political dogma, the diction of institutions. Poetry is an island that breaks away from the main.”
All for what it’s worth, and not to detract from this excellent interview with a fine poet/translator/human being!

]]>