Comments on: In Memoriam Alvin Feinman, 1929-2008

By: Robin Leder

Robin Leder — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:20:59 +0000

Dear Terry, Will you please send me an E-mail with your
address. I saved Marc and am so sorry that he died.

Love, Robin

I have to go put away 4 loads of laundry so I can’t think of anything else to say…………………………

By: Robin Leder

Robin Leder — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:41:01 +0000

TERRY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MADRID???????
LOVE, ROBIN LEDER
I’M ON PROBATION IN PENNSYLVANIA. YUK

By: raphael rubinstein

raphael rubinstein — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:44:33 +0000

Mary, if you can get beyond the offensive title, you will see that the poem in question is written in–yes–iambic pentameter. It is also, as you will see, a sonnet that, by its own admission, stops one line short. Marc knew what he was doing, maybe even when he knocked over that podium. But isn’t it the poems, not the anecdotes, that finally count?
Marc and I designed that issue of Silo with the intention of trashing all the decorum of previous issues. It was 10 years after 1968, and we wanted to mark that moment, as well as include as much good writing as possible. There are several of your poems in that issue, chosen, as I recall, my me and Marc.
It’s good to hear this account of AF’s teaching from Terry Berne, now of Madrid, himself another ex-Feinman student, who created the web site devioted to Marc’s life and work.

By: Mary Meriam

Mary Meriam — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:18:22 +0000

In 1978, Marc Penka preceded me at our poetry thesis reading. I didn’t much care for the way he violently and deliberately knocked over the podium – or whatever it was that was passing for a podium. That kind of “radicalism” is not really radical, because there’s nothing original about it. Now I just looked at the poetry on his website, and the first poem is “Damn the Iambic.” Well, that’s enough of a statement to completely offend me – I’m devoted to the iambic. Raf, I just read your memorial on his site. I was rather alarmed by the format of that issue of Silo. Was I a co-editor, too? I think so. Anyhow, I’m sorry Marc died.

By: Terry Berne

Terry Berne — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:36:10 +0000

Marc Penka wrote his creative thesis at Bennington under Alvin’s auspices. Several of those poems can be read at the marcpenka.com website. Marc’s relationship with Alvin was characterized by mutual respect and friendly conflict. Marc argued that poetry was both revolutionary and apocalyptic, both notions that Alvin was little disposed to accept. I followed the drama through weekly reports from Marc. Alvin really forced Marc to justify every word of every poem he wrote, and the results show, as Marc’s poetry is both radical and elegant, not an easy combination to pull off. When after two years Marc finally fished the final draft of poems making up his thesis, Alvin, who had argued bitterly with him over Marc’s syntactic innovations, finally and humbly offered Marc his highest esteem. With the distance of years, it’s now easy to see how close they really were in poetic temprament and even aims. Marc owed a lot to Alvin, and I think Alvin owed something to his dialogue with his more radical student. The poets they admired most formed the same visionary lineage. Alvin is underknown, and now the same is happening to his brilliant, charasmatic student. Poetry recently turned down his work. But many will remember his wonderful, rollicking readings at Bennington and at St. Marks.

By: Raphael rubinstein

Raphael rubinstein — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 01:09:46 +0000

Hi Mary,
I remember you and your poems. (let’s find each other outside this blog…)I guess we are some of many writers inspired by AF’s teaching. For anyone interested in another ex-Feinman student, check out marcpenka.com. Marc was a brilliant poet and literary scholar who died far too young. In one of Feinman’s classes he asked us each to bring in our favorite poem: Marc brought in Ashbery’s “Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape” and I one of Berryman’s last poems. Somewhere I read a piece by Susan Wheelr about her experience of this class. I think we were all puzzled amd intrigued by AF’s long silence, after such an auspicious beginning. Was he the poetic equivalent of a one-hit wonder?

By: Mary Meriam

Mary Meriam — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:21:43 +0000

Rebecca Wolff! How really nice to see you here. I’ve been reading the latest FENCE – the Rosenthal essay is great. Everyone at Harriet should read that essay.
The first time I saw Alvin – from a distance – even from a distance, he seemed monumental – I knew he was the reason I was at Bennington. I studied with him the whole time, though I never cried, except over my typewriter.

By: Rebecca Wolff

Rebecca Wolff — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:07:46 +0000

I studied with Alvin when I was 17, a freshman at Bennington. He must have been so troubled by me, as I would simply weep at his critiques of my poems. Any critique at all, I would just weep. Strange to realize how young he was then; to me he looked like a creature of antiquity.

By: Mary Meriam

Mary Meriam — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:25:54 +0000

Raf? (or Rafe?) Is that you? I was the one singing (screeching) the Queen of the NIght’s song in her dorm room. You were the one who asked me to shut up. You were the one in the poetry workshop who asked Alvin, after I commented on a poem, “Nihilistic?” Alvin was the one striding across the field, deep in conversation with Harold Bloom. I was there 75-78. I think you were there, too. You were the tall, dark, handsome, brilliant one with the gorgeous girlfriend.

By: raphael rubinstein

raphael rubinstein — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:39:01 +0000

I also remember Alvin Feinman as a fantastic teacher, whose style often seemed to consist of long silences during which he puffed on a cigarette as he pondered his students’ efforts. Somehow this conveyed more than words ever could, though I have never forgotten some of his comments. He once explained (circa 1976) the influence of John Ashbery with the pithy phrase “about is out.”