Comments on: Of course we did! http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2008/11/of-course-we-did/ Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:40:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Henry Gould http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2008/11/of-course-we-did/#comment-5956 Henry Gould Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:32:37 +0000 http://pf/harriet/?p=1134#comment-5956 I'm sorry Joseph Hutchinson finds my comments so pointless. He is equally dismissive of "laws" (= sausage). I'm not sure he actually heard what I was trying to say. I didn't offer a "vague condemnation" of citizen-poets : I was rather expressing the hope of trying to find some at work today. Nor was my aim to promote the "Canon". I do believe that various periods in literary history display contrasting strengths and weaknesses, and I was suggesting that if we want a more civic poetry today, we could learn something from the Renaissance era. We could also learn something from the Neoclassical/Restoration period - Pope, Dryden, & so on. It's no accicent that WH Auden, a 20th-cen. poet noted for his capacious social and political discourse, looked to these periods, rather than to the Romantics or Symbolists. But again, this kind of thing is passe for Joseph Hutchinson - it's just the malignant Canon, still wheezing along. Joseph would rather look down, with Shelley, from the Olympian heights of Romantic vision, upon the sad vista, the pathetic plain of human civic affairs below. This is what I meant by contemporary American poets miming the antique roles of previous eras, mourning/celebrating their alienation, etc. etc. The civic poet, as I understand the beast, does not think of him or herself as a special being, set apart from ordinary citizenry. Civic poetry examines particular occasions, events, manners, crises, problems, in the ordinary civic world we share. The ethical compass which serves as a basis for this inquiry may indeed have some kind of visionary or spiritual ground; but the work of the poem is not to preach but to SHOW, to give evidence, to provide examples, to offer a record of actuality and truth..... No, I don't offer any specific examples of contemporary civic or non-civic poetry. Not here, anyway. I'm registering a sense of absence. Certainly I could be wrong. Prove me wrong. Show me some poems that do not wear their passions & opinions on their sleeves; that present a clear but at the same time ambiguous representation of a civic, public, political situation - integrating opposing perspectives and different dimensions (Marvell's "Horatian Ode" on Cromwell has for a long time ben a benchmark for this kind of poetry). I’m sorry Joseph Hutchinson finds my comments so pointless. He is equally dismissive of “laws” (= sausage). I’m not sure he actually heard what I was trying to say. I didn’t offer a “vague condemnation” of citizen-poets : I was rather expressing the hope of trying to find some at work today.
Nor was my aim to promote the “Canon”. I do believe that various periods in literary history display contrasting strengths and weaknesses, and I was suggesting that if we want a more civic poetry today, we could learn something from the Renaissance era. We could also learn something from the Neoclassical/Restoration period – Pope, Dryden, & so on. It’s no accicent that WH Auden, a 20th-cen. poet noted for his capacious social and political discourse, looked to these periods, rather than to the Romantics or Symbolists.
But again, this kind of thing is passe for Joseph Hutchinson – it’s just the malignant Canon, still wheezing along. Joseph would rather look down, with Shelley, from the Olympian heights of Romantic vision, upon the sad vista, the pathetic plain of human civic affairs below. This is what I meant by contemporary American poets miming the antique roles of previous eras, mourning/celebrating their alienation, etc. etc.
The civic poet, as I understand the beast, does not think of him or herself as a special being, set apart from ordinary citizenry. Civic poetry examines particular occasions, events, manners, crises, problems, in the ordinary civic world we share. The ethical compass which serves as a basis for this inquiry may indeed have some kind of visionary or spiritual ground; but the work of the poem is not to preach but to SHOW, to give evidence, to provide examples, to offer a record of actuality and truth…..
No, I don’t offer any specific examples of contemporary civic or non-civic poetry. Not here, anyway. I’m registering a sense of absence. Certainly I could be wrong. Prove me wrong. Show me some poems that do not wear their passions & opinions on their sleeves; that present a clear but at the same time ambiguous representation of a civic, public, political situation – integrating opposing perspectives and different dimensions (Marvell’s “Horatian Ode” on Cromwell has for a long time ben a benchmark for this kind of poetry).
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]]> By: Philip Metres http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2008/11/of-course-we-did/#comment-5955 Philip Metres Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:45:44 +0000 http://pf/harriet/?p=1134#comment-5955 The problem with this discussion, thus far, is that it's not really defining its terms--"politics" is such a broad term, particularly when used as an adjective, that it loses any specificity. Most often, it is used to mark partisan poetry, rather than something called "political"--which I would prefer to define as poetry that is marked by a kind of social temperament, a responsiveness to the polis and to community. Similarly, when one speaks of "audience," there really isn't much in the way of defining the term. Does one mean: "those who read my poem"? "Those who I imagine read my poem?" "Those who would read my poem if they realized my genius"? etc. I am increasingly interested in poetry that has a relationship to specific communities--I've long been tracking poetry's relationship to the peace movement--and to the wider communities of which those are a part (the nation, the globe, etc.). One of my favorite recent formulations about poetry and politics is from Susan Schultz, who, when discussing the travesty of considering Don Rumsfeld's speeches "poetry," wrote that "Rumsfeld wants to get people off his scent so he can do things. The poetry in Tinfish [her journal and press] is the scent, you could say — it's really trying to get you deep into a cultural moment or political moment, or just into how language works. That's why I find Rumsfeld so spooky, and why I think Tinfish is so necessary." The problem with this discussion, thus far, is that it’s not really defining its terms–”politics” is such a broad term, particularly when used as an adjective, that it loses any specificity. Most often, it is used to mark partisan poetry, rather than something called “political”–which I would prefer to define as poetry that is marked by a kind of social temperament, a responsiveness to the polis and to community. Similarly, when one speaks of “audience,” there really isn’t much in the way of defining the term. Does one mean: “those who read my poem”? “Those who I imagine read my poem?” “Those who would read my poem if they realized my genius”? etc. I am increasingly interested in poetry that has a relationship to specific communities–I’ve long been tracking poetry’s relationship to the peace movement–and to the wider communities of which those are a part (the nation, the globe, etc.).
One of my favorite recent formulations about poetry and politics is from Susan Schultz, who, when discussing the travesty of considering Don Rumsfeld’s speeches “poetry,” wrote that “Rumsfeld wants to get people off his scent so he can do things. The poetry in Tinfish [her journal and press] is the scent, you could say — it’s really trying to get you deep into a cultural moment or political moment, or just into how language works. That’s why I find Rumsfeld so spooky, and why I think Tinfish is so necessary.”
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]]> By: Joseph Hutchison http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2008/11/of-course-we-did/#comment-5954 Joseph Hutchison Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:47:28 +0000 http://pf/harriet/?p=1134#comment-5954 I think it's worth going back to Shelley, whose "unacknowledged legislators" is often cited but not often understood. At the end of "<a href="http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html" rel="nofollow">A Defense of Poetry</a>," he writes: <blockquote>The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The person in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, that power which is seated on the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.</blockquote> If this is so, and I think it is, poets are not "legislators" in the sense that they create laws (those compromised tubes of sausage), but in the sense that they register shifts in thought and feeling and perception that are in the process of emerging in their culture. The particular political commitments of individual poets are expressions of citizenship, not the Muse—and the nature of those commitments is, whether "safe" or not, is irrelevant to their poetry. (Kent Johnson's sneer is safe in itself: he doesn't bother to say what poets with leftist sympathies <i>should</i> be doing. And Henry Gould's comments are equally pointless, offering nothing but sound-bite clichés about the Canon and a vague condemnation of "American citizen-poets" put forward without a shred of evidence. They might be more convincing if they bothered to name names and suggest alternatives.) On the other hand, poetry that fails to do what Shelley describes is frankly useless, regardless of its authors' politics. In the end, we can't know which of our contemporaries are mirroring "the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present." If history is any indication, they are as likely to include little-published poets with highly local audiences as they are to include today's lionized figures. History also hints that the mass of poets—who, as Don accurately notes, are "far more like each other than the noise of their ideological axe-grinding suggests"—will be forgotten sooner rather than later. The poets who end up mattering to later generations are almost always those who are very <i>unlike</i> their contemporaries; poets whose <i>real</i> cause is not <i>just</i> political or <i>just</i> theoretical, but spiritual (in the broadest, non-religious sense: see <a href="http://www.bpf.org/chicago/html/pdf/Loy_3PoisonsUnity.pdf" rel="nofollow">this essay</a> by David R. Loy to see what I mean). Poets like Joshua Clover can trot out Wittgenstein to their hearts' content, and write all the "non-communicative" poems they want, but they should not kid themselves that these activities are political. They are not political because they are not spiritual; they are not even usefully <i>theoretical</i> for the same reason. But let me lay a few cards on the table, at least. Let me name names of poets (all, last I looked, still living) whose work, in my humble estimation, rises to the level Shelley describes: <blockquote>Robert Bly Ingrid de Kok Hans Magnus Enzensberger Frank X. Gaspar Linda Gregg Li-Young Lee Bill Knott Yusef Komunyaaka Philip Levine W. S. Merwin Adrienne Rich Shuntaro Tanikawa Tomas Tranströmer</blockquote>There are more, older and younger, American and not, but these are poets I go back to often, especially when I lay aside yet another depressingly limited collection full of poems that float away like scraps of paper on the sea.... I think it’s worth going back to Shelley, whose “unacknowledged legislators” is often cited but not often understood. At the end of “A Defense of Poetry,” he writes:

The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The person in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, that power which is seated on the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

If this is so, and I think it is, poets are not “legislators” in the sense that they create laws (those compromised tubes of sausage), but in the sense that they register shifts in thought and feeling and perception that are in the process of emerging in their culture. The particular political commitments of individual poets are expressions of citizenship, not the Muse—and the nature of those commitments is, whether “safe” or not, is irrelevant to their poetry. (Kent Johnson’s sneer is safe in itself: he doesn’t bother to say what poets with leftist sympathies should be doing. And Henry Gould’s comments are equally pointless, offering nothing but sound-bite clichés about the Canon and a vague condemnation of “American citizen-poets” put forward without a shred of evidence. They might be more convincing if they bothered to name names and suggest alternatives.) On the other hand, poetry that fails to do what Shelley describes is frankly useless, regardless of its authors’ politics.
In the end, we can’t know which of our contemporaries are mirroring “the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.” If history is any indication, they are as likely to include little-published poets with highly local audiences as they are to include today’s lionized figures. History also hints that the mass of poets—who, as Don accurately notes, are “far more like each other than the noise of their ideological axe-grinding suggests”—will be forgotten sooner rather than later. The poets who end up mattering to later generations are almost always those who are very unlike their contemporaries; poets whose real cause is not just political or just theoretical, but spiritual (in the broadest, non-religious sense: see this essay by David R. Loy to see what I mean). Poets like Joshua Clover can trot out Wittgenstein to their hearts’ content, and write all the “non-communicative” poems they want, but they should not kid themselves that these activities are political. They are not political because they are not spiritual; they are not even usefully theoretical for the same reason.
But let me lay a few cards on the table, at least. Let me name names of poets (all, last I looked, still living) whose work, in my humble estimation, rises to the level Shelley describes:

Robert Bly
Ingrid de Kok
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Frank X. Gaspar
Linda Gregg
Li-Young Lee
Bill Knott
Yusef Komunyaaka
Philip Levine
W. S. Merwin
Adrienne Rich
Shuntaro Tanikawa
Tomas Tranströmer

There are more, older and younger, American and not, but these are poets I go back to often, especially when I lay aside yet another depressingly limited collection full of poems that float away like scraps of paper on the sea….
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]]> By: Marty Elwell http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2008/11/of-course-we-did/#comment-5953 Marty Elwell Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:19:11 +0000 http://pf/harriet/?p=1134#comment-5953 Hey Don, I'm a former (reformed?) Republican, never a Democrat, and as often as possible a poet. Some of my views are too left for Republicans or Democrats, and others would be deemed conservative. I can't label myself a moderate, because most of my opinions are either far left or far right. For the record, I hate the "two party" system and never found any one candidate that shared the majority of my views during this whole process. I appreciate your post's recognition of exceptions to the leftist labeling of poets. I laughed a little at the quote from Perillo generalizing left leaning folk as "humanistic intellectuals". What does this say about the other side of the spectrum? I would package this generalization as "spoken like a true leftist". I know a lot of folks on both sides of the line, and I think all are compassionate intelligent individuals. I would certainly not a label any of them as the opposite of "humanistic intellectuals". You once gave me feedback that a polemic or preachy poem runs the risk of alienating the reader. I think this is partly the reason we don't see more successful political poetry. I believe effective political literature/poetry needs to engage the reader, regardless of their point of view, and make them rethink their current position. Too much of what is put out in print and on-line today screams "I'm right why won't you just listen". This type of message only appeals to those who already agree. I do have to admit, I had no idea what I was voting for when it came to the circuit court judges in Illinois...and what's with voting for the coroner? Why would I care about the coroner's political persuasions if I'm dead? Hey Don,
I’m a former (reformed?) Republican, never a Democrat, and as often as possible a poet. Some of my views are too left for Republicans or Democrats, and others would be deemed conservative. I can’t label myself a moderate, because most of my opinions are either far left or far right. For the record, I hate the “two party” system and never found any one candidate that shared the majority of my views during this whole process.
I appreciate your post’s recognition of exceptions to the leftist labeling of poets. I laughed a little at the quote from Perillo generalizing left leaning folk as “humanistic intellectuals”. What does this say about the other side of the spectrum? I would package this generalization as “spoken like a true leftist”. I know a lot of folks on both sides of the line, and I think all are compassionate intelligent individuals. I would certainly not a label any of them as the opposite of “humanistic intellectuals”.
You once gave me feedback that a polemic or preachy poem runs the risk of alienating the reader. I think this is partly the reason we don’t see more successful political poetry. I believe effective political literature/poetry needs to engage the reader, regardless of their point of view, and make them rethink their current position.
Too much of what is put out in print and on-line today screams “I’m right why won’t you just listen”. This type of message only appeals to those who already agree.
I do have to admit, I had no idea what I was voting for when it came to the circuit court judges in Illinois…and what’s with voting for the coroner? Why would I care about the coroner’s political persuasions if I’m dead?
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