I have only one day left on Harriet (though they have asked we who are leaving to keep posting occasionally, and I will look forward to that). I’ve been rationing posts, but I’ve nearly run out. There were a lot gestating. One about food poetry. One about finishing the ms. of a book that includes pretty much everything I’ve ever learned about how to write poetry, and that strange tome-like closure. One about how learning Anglo-Saxon changed my life long ago. One called “What I Have Learned from Susun Weed” about my time with this herbalist, and the amazing things she teaches, and a related one called “Sprouts and Murmurs” about gardening and how I was bitching at the mint for spreading so much when I realized it was spreading to be generous and it wanted me to cut a huge bunch of it down and make delicious tea out of it which I did, and there was an insight about writing poetry there. One shouting out to some of my favorite earlier Harriet posts, such as Patricia Smith’s about “MFA Girl” or A.E. Stallings’ farewell post, about the blog as a pet.
One about the challenge and delight of writing poems celebrating my husband and particularly his body without objectifying him, and whether or not objectification is such a bad thing, and how I feel about the plethora of poems by men that mention women in passing as if it is inadvertent. One (related?) about how I can’t figure out how to write about children once they can talk, so whenever mine are at one of my readings, I keep reading poems about when they were nursing infants ( I spent, I recently calculated, four years nursing the two of them, and it made for some good poetry-writing time).
One about two talented and interesting young poets from UT Austin I met at the West Chester Poetry Conference, Jill Essbaum and Jessica Piazza, who are excited about rhyme and meter, respectively, and in new ways. One in profound appreciation of Edmund Spenser. One about rapturous contemporary poets such as Margo Berdeshevsky and Oleana Kalytiak Davis, and their roots and branches. One about why there is so much wonderful modern Greek poetry. One called “Flowers for Algernon,” that began with an anecdote about Charles Bernstein and myself both owning the complete Swinburne, an anecdote posted for five minutes on a thread here before I took it down, so that I think only Don Share saw it.
One about the experience of putting together the Multiformalisms anthology I recently edited with Susan Schultz and how the formalism/language poetry are not at all the opposed forces people imagine they are but are practically in cahoots. One about lyric, tracing the contrast between the historical, contextualized attitude of scholars like Virginia Jackson, author of a great book Don recommended to me called Dickinson’s Misery, with Jonathan Culler’s call for a renewed appreciation for pure lyric in an essay in a recent PMLA.
One about Patricia Monaghan’s descriptions of the role of the bard in the Celtic tradition. One about our convention of writing from left to right and up to down and what that says and does about poetry. One about Japanese languge and metaphor, and one about Japanese language and dactyls. One about my visit to Robert Bly’s Great Mother poetry conference and how the cult of personality affects poetry. One about epic, from the Kalevala to Notley. One about Donald Green, who sold me a handwritten book of his poetry from a card table on lower Fifth Avenue as I walked home from an Academy of American Poets event (I have spoken about this for a podcast about Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, here).
One called “Time and Detail” about home decorating and poetry, how in each of them, detail is the trace both of love and of time spent. One about amphibrachs, following up on an earlier essay. One about how I adored translating Louise Labe’s poetry but could not make myself translate the women troubadours. One about the year I spent reading versification texts and what weird books they are. One comparing koans and kennings. One about the meaning of “craft.”
One on the tragedy of the ambitious Renaissance poet Amelia Lanier, who was only brought to light in the 1970s because someone thought she was Shakespeare’s Dark Lady, and how immensely productive she was only during the one brief period when she had a (female) patron. One about verse drama and opera.
There are posts for summer solstice or Beltane, or both, and one called “On Being a Holy Fool: Good Fences” about how boundaries in poetry and life encourage rhapsody. And there’s one on how blogging at Harriet has been so enjoyable, with a tribute to the energy and erudition of the commenters and a gratitude for how this site has provided such a safe and exciting place to change and grow as a poet. But this is that post. Thank you.
And this is also a promised post about some wonderful books of poetry in translation that have crossed my desk recently—Fady Jouhah’s translation from the Arabic of the great Mahmoud Darwish; Susan Stewart’s translation from the Italian of Alda Merini; Juri Talvet and H.L. Hix’s translation of the most important poet in Estonian, the nineteenth-century poet Juhan Liiv, who wrote:
HOME
What made me glad at home,
What made me sad at home:
I don’t know, I don’t understand—
My mother loved me.
What made me glad at home,
What made me sad at home,
Made me sad, made me glad:
My mother loved me.
Thanks very much Annie for being such a good sport. When i first read your posts, they coincided with my own coming onto the blog, and as it was all new and i was still getting my bearings i was wondering if this blog was going to be like so many others round the world were the *above liners* were here just for themselves, but you proved to be the most popular in respect of getting in the comment box and showing a human face and the longer you were here, the more relaxed you got and so it rubbed off on the other above line poets as they copped on that being remote is self-defeating.
I like your natural no-frills humanity, you don’t act superior, and have acquited yourself well, shown that you are just a true lover of poetry.
And i think it is a testament that this gaffe, the most prestigious in the online world of its kind, has the least amount of frostiness. In effect it’s about the poetry and not the personalities, and when the lore gets written, your tenure here will be remembered as representing a significant juncture when the blog really kicked off because you connected with the posters on a human level.
The first to talk about feminism without being dogmatic, a great and generous presence, whose posts have given many of us, not least of all myself, many opportunities to tease out and edge towards clarifying the poetic swirl within.
thanks very much.
Posted By: Desmond Swords on June 30, 2009 at 3:02 amReport this comment
I can’t say it as well as Desmond but since he’s 6 hours closer to you, Annie, than I am, I guess it’s my turn.
So one about privacy, about giving so much of yourself without ever giving yourself away, about having such strong opinions about everything you write about without ever assuming you’re right, about drawing others on with your unfailing interest and encouragement in them without ever patronizing them or giving them that little pat on the back or the leg-up, about letting it all hang out while remaining essentially and profoundly reserved.
We come from the culture of the room of one’s own (by no means the norm in the world!), and as in all cultures if you want to know what can go most seriously wrong look at what is most seriously valued. Privacy like property is our bane and our boon, and in the intellectual life the blog is our current wild west. We step out of our own little rooms and all hell breaks loose, we become so unprivate, so uncensored, so upfront, so knowledgeable and fiendishly frank. Of course it all comes unstuck right away and we duck for cover and run. In and out.
Annie, you have huge verbal, poetic and intellectual resources, but it’s your reserve that’s your best. Your an old world girl.
And thanks for being that, Christopher
Posted By: Christopher Woodman on June 30, 2009 at 4:49 amReport this comment
Oh, thanks to you both. This is so sweet. I have some tears in my eyes. . .
Posted By: Annie Finch on June 30, 2009 at 10:21 amThe way I see it, those of us who are crazy about poetry are lucky to know be on the trail of something so much bigger than we are, so infinite and demanding and surprising and discerning that it is always more important to talk about than whatever the swirl brings up. I am truly lucky to have had such worthy companions of the poetry trail as I’ve had here on Harriet these 18 weeks.
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I’ve only been hanging here about a month, so I missed so many of your fascinating pieces. You could turn them into a book.
Language and formalism in cahoots! Conspiracy theorists vindicated! Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?
Thank you, Annie.
Posted By: John Oliver Simon on June 30, 2009 at 10:11 amReport this comment
Well done Annie.I enjoy reading what you write. You have a gift.
Posted By: Marinela on June 30, 2009 at 10:54 amReport this comment
Oh Annie….
It was more than a pleasure to meet you! Thanks for the kind words and generosity.
Also, like some of the previous commenters, I do find myself wishing you’d write these glimmers of posts into their full light. I’d certainly read them, for one, and it seems like a bunch of other wonder-starved poets like me would, too.
(As for your Charles Bernstein anecdote, now defunct, it made me wonder what other small bits and pieces of goodness our friend Don Share is privy to that the rest of the world never gets to see. Lucky man.)
Thank you, again!
All my best,
Posted By: Jessica Piazza on June 30, 2009 at 11:11 amJessica
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Thanks, Jessica. I will! (and I’m sure he is. As is Cathy Halley. . .and Travis Nichols . .. ).
Posted By: Annie Finch on June 30, 2009 at 11:59 amReport this comment
I’m new to your blog, Annie. I took some interest in your long list of wonderful subjects, but ran out of gas about half way. May we have a paragraph break or two, please (A request we could make of a great many writers these days, so don’t take it too personally)?
David
Posted By: David Kosub on June 30, 2009 at 11:25 amReport this comment
Done. If you’ll go back to my other posts, David, you’ll see that this one was the exception, an expressive variation on a day that began in the wee hours with tumultuous closure—but after I edited this morning to add a few more, I lost the original proportions of the post.
Making the paragraphs added another dimension, not only of a random flood but of connections and was creatively fun, as paragraphing often is. Thanks for your comment. I hope you like the paragraphing in my other blogposts, which you can see here
Posted By: Annie Finch on June 30, 2009 at 12:06 pmReport this comment
Wish I could post images of roots and branches here, Annie; they fill my eye so often. Will back channel you some roots; and may the metaphoric branches reach for light – for us all, and each.
with thanks, & care,
Posted By: Margo Berdeshevsky on June 30, 2009 at 12:27 pmmargo
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block that metaphor
Posted By: noah freed on June 30, 2009 at 12:51 pmReport this comment
but i think of them filling it the way they fill a pool with reflections. I think that’s the only way roots and branches can fill an eye. If you were walking in the woods and they were scratching your eye, they wouldn’t fill it at all . . .
good to see you hear, Noah.
Posted By: Annie Finch on June 30, 2009 at 2:19 pmReport this comment
yes, annie, reflections, certainly. and a wide angle lens. wide angle brain.
Posted By: Margo Berdeshevsky on July 1, 2009 at 1:07 amm
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Thank you John–it was good to meet you here– and Marinela–it’s nice to hear from people who haven’t been commenting, to know you were there.
Posted By: Annie Finch on June 30, 2009 at 12:12 pmReport this comment
Annie,
I second what Desmond and Christopher said so eloquently.
You made Harriet a happy, democratic, profound place for me.
You were always kind, even when I acted like a brat (which is most of the time).
It was great to briefly meet your mother, and I LOVED her poem.
Reading about your father was very moving. I liked the anecdote of him copying a Paul Engle book for you, when you moved near Iowa City. I worked for Paul when I was in Iowa City. The poetry world is small and it’s nice to discover these little connections. You mention your father taking you to Horace Gregory’s house, a figure who popped up in my recent research on Millay and the Modernists.
One more connection: reading last night a book I purchased some time ago called ‘The Ghost of Tradition’ by Kevin Walzer, and seeing you in there, and the poem you wrote to Andrew Marvell…
I hope you continue to make Harriet a home…
Thomas
Posted By: thomas brady on June 30, 2009 at 1:19 pmReport this comment
Thank you Thomas! Nice to know of the connections with Engel, Gregory, etc. I wonder if Engel was the way I imagine him—-kind, quiet? I liked one of his sonnets in American Child, I think the book was called, very much. BTW, I believe Mike Chasar, who edits the fascinating blog Poetry and Popular Culture and was a student of mine at one point, is interested in Engel.
I’ll look forward to seeing you again on Harriet, and good luck with your research. I hope to see it in published form someday.
Posted By: Annie Finch on June 30, 2009 at 2:23 pmReport this comment
Annie,
“I wonder if Engel was the way I imagine him—-kind, quiet?”
Well, no, he actually had a loud, glad-handing, back-slapping, mover-and-shaker type of personality. I remember him saying to me once with great emphasis, “William Butler Yeats said, ‘if poetry doesn’t sing, it doesn’t talk!’”
When I told him I had been to a Donald Justice reading, he seemed disappointed and said “I hate to say this, but Don reads rather like a frog!”
Paul had tremendous energy, and made the International Writing Program at Iowa a well-funded, thrill-a-minute, literary fete. The IWP was a far more exciting a place to be than his old Poetry Workshop, and knowing Paul, this was partially an act of revenge.
Had I known as much then as I know now, I would have picked his brain on Tate, Ransom and the Fugitives (one of their circle picked Paul for his Yale Younger) and his teacher, Edmund Blunden, at Oxford, when Paul was a Rhodes Scholar (Blunden knew Robert Graves, etc), but I’m glad I knew him in the little way I did.
Thomas
Posted By: thomas brady on June 30, 2009 at 4:15 pmReport this comment
wow, wonderful stuff!!! Thanks so much. All gems. It is a shame how often, when we are young enough to be able to have contact with certain people, we are too young to understand what we should ask them. Maybe the moments when this habit of life’s is broken are those moments when real new traditions can best be built. . .
Posted By: Annie Finch on June 30, 2009 at 4:35 pmReport this comment
One more observation, if I may, Annie,
One poet I met who was very quiet was Cid Corman, a guest one year of the IWP; I think he was there because he translated Japanese poetry (though I don’t think he knew any Japanese); he was a crusty old guy who seemed far older than his years, no personality to speak of, very aloof, didn’t party with anyone. Maybe he was going through a mid-life crisis, I don’t know… To me, he represented perfectly the rather dull little poems of his School.
But Paul Engle, oh, he was quite the opposite. Paul filled up a room, or a literary party at a Iowa City bank… I agree with you that Paul’s poems don’t really reflect that kind of personality…
Posted By: thomas brady on June 30, 2009 at 4:39 pmReport this comment
Annie Finch says: “The way I see it, those of us who are crazy about poetry are lucky to know be on the trail of something so much bigger than we are, so infinite and demanding and surprising and discerning that it is always more important to talk about than whatever the swirl brings up.”
This is the sense, the instinctive thing, I got from the first post of yours I read. It is why I’ve been inclined to follow your posts. Your comment strikes the same note as does something Whitman said about how large is poetry’s house and with room for all. The kind of poetry comprehension you express is, well, it is just rare.
Man, I wish you had gotten around to that Beltane post!
Terreson
Posted By: Terreson on June 30, 2009 at 6:44 pmReport this comment
Annie,
“Sure gonna miss ya when you go!” (B. Dylan)
Best wishes,
Colin
We’ve come to where eternity
begins, its gateway arched.
Another drop flows out to sea
and leaves the land more parched.
-o-
Posted By: Colin Ward on June 30, 2009 at 7:11 pmReport this comment