Comments on: Bully for Them

By: Don Share

Don Share — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:55:13 +0000

It may be safe now to post a link to Herbert Leibowitz's review of the Collected Poems, which appeared in the New York Times of November 28, 1971.

By: Annie Finch

Annie Finch — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:58:18 +0000

Daisy,
Thanks for the clarification. It sounds as if this usage harks back to the 80’s when the neo was borrowed by analogy with the neo in “neoconservative.” Your definition is precise and useful, though I wonder how many people who read the term without the definition would infer this meaning. So many people use the term interchangeably with “formalist,” ignoring the political aspect of your definition. So often, specific contexts or ironies get lost in translation. I wonder how history will sort all this out.
Annie

By: Daisy

Daisy — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:19:43 +0000

Annie–
I use the term neoformalist when I want to describe critics and poets whose embrace of and use of traditional form is oppositional–to other kinds of writing, that is. It’s not necessarily pejorative, though I think it does describe a conservative tendency. (I think that many “experimental” writers are conservative in the same way.) The term is obviously not descriptive, then, of many, or most, writers who concern themselves with form.
Daisy

By: Annie Finch

Annie Finch — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:07:28 +0000

Since I write mostly in form, I want to question Daisy’s unexamined assumption in this NYT letter that a “neoformalist” (whatever that is) should be expected not to like O’Hara. O’Hara’s ear is fabulous, his early sonnets, btw, wonderful, and his control of diction, syntax, and tone against the restraint of both narrative and line are brilliant and aware enough to fully satisfy, at least, this form-writer; O’Hara has been on my own fave shortlist for 30 years.
Actually, I’m surprised at the way most people here are reading the review. Sure, Logan says O’Hara’s collected has a lot of weak poems, but that could be said of most poets; his main point throughout is really that he likes O’Hara in spite of himself. He contrasts O’Hara favorably with Ashbery, saying that he was already way ahead of Ashbery at the beginning and then moved beyond him; calls his work refreshing, says it’s hard not to smile in appreciation at it, says many of the poems are “wonderful” (again, which prolific poet’s collected does not show us wonderful poems drowned out by mediocrity? This is true of Frost, Yeats, and I’m sure of most of Logan’s favorite writers), and closes by saying O’Hara’s poems “give us as much of a life as poetry can.”
This is one of the most positive reviews I’ve seen by Logan—one where the expected curmudgeonly stance seems at worst a habitual tic, at best a decorative strategy. Maybe the people who are getting so bent out of shape haven’t seen Logan trash Rita Dove (”tries to fob the reader off with sentimental rubbish”) or Gary Snyder (” the disconnected thoughts of a man trying to make verse with magnets on a refrigerator door”). When I started reading the O’Hara review I expected so much worse; instead, Logan’s overall appreciation of O’Hara’s strengths increased my respect for Logan.

By: Emily Warn

Emily Warn — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:38:50 +0000

The NYTBR published Daisy Fried's letter about this review here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/books/review/Letters-t-2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=review&pagewanted=print

By: Curtis Faville

Curtis Faville — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:46:48 +0000

Logan’s review seemed tame to me. He appears to miss the best of what O’Hara had to offer, and not to comprehend what frequently makes his work so refreshing, and charming, though to be fair, he does tip his hat to Frank’s good cheer.
I tend to agree that O’Hara’s longer works do stretch and strain to contain banalities that don’t accomplish much beside “humanizing” their narrator.
The point, for me, is that reading second-rate “Quietist” poetry is always so much duller than reading frankly effusive or “in your face” poets. Crabbed, compromised rhyme and hackneyed formalities are so tiresome, but Logan keeps defending them. It’s the old Auden debate all over again. What Wystan liked in Ashbery was this very formality, yet it wasn’t what eventually made Ashbery a fascinating writer. O’Hara, too, in his youth, wrote sonnets and polite quatrains. Is Satie as good as Scarlatti?

By: Don

Don — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:18:19 +0000

This adds a little spice to the discussion: http://isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com/2008/06/logans-run.html Not completely on target, perhaps (for instance, Logan seems to be a semi-regular poetry reviewer for NYTBR these days) but certainly a number of points are well taken. Don @ Lilliput Review

By: Don

Don — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 12:14:56 +0000

Michael, I guess life is more interesting with William Logan around, as Kent points out. I always read his reviews when I see them because, though I may swear under my breath, I always learn something.
Perhaps I’m naive (god, at the ripe young age of 56), but I tend toward the Eastern sensibility in poetry: show, don’t tell. I believe honesty to be a prerequisite there. And this is the type of work I’m attracted to.
Of course, I can’t really have been around this long and been naive the whole time. Beside haiku and tanka, I love the work of Louise Glück, Gerald Stern, Whitman, Sexton, Atwood, Erdrich, Mary Oliver (who regularly takes her lumps), James Wright (& Franz), Dickinson … obviously I could go on and on, but that’s the idea. In the sense that much written in poetry is fictive (could we get more circumspect than Emily), I’ll yield to the idea of dishonesty.
But in the sense of intent, I’ll stand my ground when it comes to honesty in poetry. Perhaps I’ve come full circle back to naive. I think I understand better where you are coming from and I really appreciate the explanation. You’ll have me thinking about this for some time, no doubt.
best,
Don @ Lilliput Review

By: Kent Johnson

Kent Johnson — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:43:29 +0000

Don,
True, it seems I too-often forget to check my poetry pockets before putting my clothes in.
Unfortunately, lots of people know this, by now…. I wish more thought it endearing.
Really, though, I’m glad Logan is around. The mix is richer. Who, after all, wants to read yet another fawning review of the last recycled voicings of Jorie Graham, Charles Simic, or Dean Young?
Just FYI, my reply to Tony Towle and Andrew Epstein on the Frank O’Hara mystery concerning the true authorship of “A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island” will appear at John Latta’s blog, Isola di Riffiuti, this week on Thursday, July 10, the day that marks the 50th anniversary of the poem’s supposed composition.
Kent

By: Michael Robbins

Michael Robbins — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:29:56 +0000

Hi, New Don — Yeah, I respect & understand yr admiration of Kooser. & I agree that sneering at his (or, say, Billy Collins’s) verse is about as controversial as dissing Céline Dion. (Which reminds me of Carl Wilson’s great little book on Dion, subtitled “A Journey to the End of Taste” — which reminds me of Dave Hickey’s great observation that “Bad taste is real taste, of course, and good taste is the residue of someone else’s privilege.” (It seems like I’m saying you have bad taste, but that’s not my point.)) But I don’t think honesty is a useful criterion for poetry (though it may be for criticism) — isn’t poetry constitutionally dishonest (except for Philip Larkin)? Wilde said that all bad poetry is sincere. As Drive-By Truckers have it, “Rock & roll means well, but it can’t help telling young boys lies.”