I am judging a poetry contest. I’m not going to say which one. And I didn’t know I was judging it until after the deadline so it wasn’t like I could say hey I’m judging so you should send your manuscript in. I was a little glad I was judging it. I mean it was flattering. But then of course then the giant box of manuscripts arrived the drycleaners where I receive packages. Uhnnnh. I don’t have to tell you that I work really hard. You work hard too. I know that. I’m still cleaning up this and that from the work I didn’t finish before I got here (MacDowell) which is to say I’m not yet working on a novel or some incredible piece of prose. And I’m not putting a new manuscript of poems together which seemed so easy when it was all on my computer or hard drive and now its scattered on scraps in the nice black boxes from the container store I store my poem scraps in. It’s in notebooks. So I could spend the month organizing scraps and notebooks hauling that baby, the new manuscript of poems out of chaos and into the light but I’m sufficiently superstitious that I think that when something different happens (and yes it’s modest of me to refer to losing my computer and hard drive and three netflix DVDs as just “something different”) you should probably make a different plan. I’ve not made that plan yet but I will and meanwhile I’m finishing up a little business, editing a long interview with another poet, and when I finish that then doing something on Friday night, well then I will begin something new. I’m dying for the gust of new, the leap into the unknown - beginning a new project and you know I’m only here at MacDowell for a few more weeks so the only thing between me and that leap is that giant box of manuscripts sitting there from the poetry contest. What if I just stuck my hand in with my eyes closed and acted like it was a fishbowl and my MacDowell studio was a stage and I was a spokes model in an orange evening gown and a big hairdo with a blindfold across my eyes and gracefully I’ pull a poetry manuscript out from the box on the floor and the audience grows silent and I beam my famous smile and say and the winner is: and surely it would be some pretty good poet who deserved it right. I don’t think this is a slush pile. Or what if it is. What if everything is. I mean ultimately. Do you believe in excellence. Think of some of the terrible people who win contests and get big grants. Are those great poets. Well sometimes they are. But often they are not. How does this happen. Surely the judges read all the submissions, hey?
What about some of those places poets aspire to publish in. Poetry magazine, the New Yorker, what else. The Nation? Conjunctions? Chicago Review. Granta. What is Granta? A British grain that helps with constipation? How about American Poetry Review. That should move things along. More importantly what about all the truly little poetry magazines in the world, the funky ones, the cool ones, experimental ones, the one offs. Bi-lingual journals. Webzines. Throw all of them up in the air. Who chooses what goes into any these journals. Do editors read the poems really. Or do they get someone to help them who’s hot. What would you do. I take my responsibility very seriously the editor might say. But does it matter. Do we care. Does the editor have good taste. Which editor. I’m just suggesting that whatever the editor thinks and feels, whatever the judges do there’s still such a high percentage of randomness (or corruption) in the mix that what if she or he instead just picked every eighth one or cut the pile in half and then cut that in half and then asked a perfect stranger walking down the hall to pick one from that pile and another from this. The idea of “knowing” is so massively influential in these decisions, these realms – either knowing the poets personally, knowing someone that recommended them, or knowing that THIS kind of poetry sucks and this kind is what MATTERS…something deep in me that really wants do my own writing (that most random thing of all) thinks the fishbowl method is probably good and fair. I am leaning over the weightiness of this decision. In my beautiful dress, in my blind blind mind. I wonder what we will do.
Interesting post, Eileen. But, I wonder: why not actually judge the contest in the way you suggest? Wouldn’t such “random” judging (though, be careful: real randomness is very difficult to come by), in fact, be bold and interesting? John Cage not as artist, but as critic…
Of course, to make this experiment work, you’d need to reveal your methods–otherwise, people would think the winner actually deserves the prize. And this of course would cause lots of problems for lots of people (I figure many contest entrants would ask the contest organizers for their money back), but, hey, it could be worth it: such judging could, ironically, draw a lot of critical attention to the contest, the prize, the judge, the poet, the book… It’d be a phenomenon–not bad for what I imagine would be 15 minutes of work!
However you judge this contest, I hope you’ll write a follow-up post to tell us how you made your decision: randomly, or with some sense of what poetic excellence in fact is, and, if the later, what you think such excellence consists of.
This is such a good post, Eileen, like all your other posts here. I’m thinking my next new thing to write could be an ode to Eileen. Anyhow, if I were judging the contest, I’d know by skimming each manuscript whether I wanted to read more. Maybe I wouldn’t rely completely on the first line or the first poem, but I’d start there, and that would be pretty important. Reading the first line of each manuscript shouldn’t take too long. Yeah, I’m sure I’d know even by first lines. I’m fascinated by this idea of judging. I hope you let us know how it goes.
I was thinking the same, first line of every manuscript. Maybe last line too. At least to separate them in to piles.
I judged a contest last spring (won’t say which one) and started out reading every line of every poem. Ended up skimming. Of course focused in deeply when we got down to the finalists.
And that’s before the politicking on the committee starts!
I’m tempted by the idea of picking contest winners randomly, like the ancient Greek system of picking rulers by lottery. This is how wikipedia describes the Greek system. Think of it as applying to poetry editing, with “elections” (decision by editorial judgment) inevitably resulting simply in favoring editorial biases toward the fashionable and “well-known”: “Selection by lottery was the standard means as it was regarded as the more democratic: elections would favour those who were rich, noble, eloquent and well-known, while allotment [lottery] spread the work … throughout the whole citizen body ….”
I know : I thought of poetry slams which at the beginning of the moment seemed wonderful because the judges were picked pretty wildly from the audience and so it wasn’t the regular politics and quality encounter, it was people responding in a quick gut fashion. It made poetry raise a bump for a moment. I was thinking Cagean too about the now. I am just a filter, not a judge.
The last time I judged a contest, they sent me a big pile that had been pre-screeened, cut about in half (I think it was 150 chosen from 300 or something like that). When I read through the batch, they were SO much alike in terms of style that I finally figured maybe the screening had been done by a group of grad students from the same writing program who were, consciously or unconsciously, favoring their own aesthetic.
So I asked to see the other 150 manuscripts also (I was not using MacDowell time for this!). As it turned out, though there were a small handful of interesting ones, maybe 5 or 6, in the discarded batch (one of which ended up getting one of the honorable mentions), basically the screening process had been done objectively; the discarded half, as a whole, simply weren’t finished or accomplished enough.
Reassuring in a way, as far as contests are concerned–but it also left me feeling freaked me out that virtually everyone submitting to this big national contest was writing in the exact same kind of style. For the record, it was a kind of dissociative, heady, postmodernism-influenced free verse. Different from the period style of the 80s, when I first began to notice period styles, but just as pervasive.
Eileen, I guess you can use this anecdote as support for your impulse to pick one out of a hat, assuming they’ve been pre-screened well. . . ( :
At first I thought this said, “The last time I judged a contest, they sent me a big pie,” & I was, like, mmm, pie …
Well, it is rather yummy to get a big batch of poetry mss. to read, isn’t it?
That would be totally great to get a pie and sit down and have a piece and then spacily high dip your paw into the box and grab one. Maybe that’s what’s missing from the process is pie.
Or they sent me a big π…
(pi, if harriet can’t reproduce the symbol)
it may be an urban legend, but maybe somebody can make a poem out of the information that the Indiana State Legislature once voted to set the value of Pi at 3.00…
Eileen:
This reminds of my first participation in running such an event, decades ago. I was given the role of Trustee in a short story contest: pick two judges, deliver the entries to them, then announce the winners. Easy. I suspect I was chosen for the job because people figured this was something that even I couldn’t screw up. I sure showed them!
In the interest of fairness, I started by deciding to get as much variety as I could in the two judges. My “conservative” judge was an elderly lady who authored nurses’ manuals. My “liberal” judge was my young, hard-drinking editor. When I told the Authors Association secretary what I’d done he looked at me like he was checking for lobotomy scars.
“You did what???”
Shock of shocks, the two judges did have something in common: each despised the other. Neither could pronounce the other’s name so “that illiterate moron” was how both identified their counterpart. Because the conditions of contest didn’t require two copies of each submission (oops!) I had to ferry the entries back and forth across town; the judges refused to do so because they couldn’t stand the sight of each other.
When they couldn’t agree on winners–big surprise!–I suggested they compose a list of their ten favorites, give it to me and I’d take the top three entries that appeared on both lists. Guess how many of the 150 manuscripts showed up on both lists? Yup. Zero. Back to square one.
Eventually we tossed a coin and my editor got to pick the winning entry while the other judge chose #2 and #3. (None of us dared to suggest Honorable Mentions!) End of problem, right?
Umm…no.
The awards ceremony traditionally involved a judge reading the winning entry to the audience. Naturally, the judge who’d picked it was too drunk to show up. Naturally, the other judge refused to fill in. So, naturally, I had to read aloud a story I’d barely seen before. Now, I’ve been told I have the perfect face for radio and the perfect voice for mime so, naturally, this was not a crowd-pleasing performance. Nevertheless, amid the polite applause from the hundreds in attendance, I turned to the Association secretary and said with as much dignity and chutzpah as I could muster: “See? And you thought this would be a fiasco!”
Oddly, the Association never asked me to reprise my role as Trustee.
I’m betting your experience will go smoother than mine, Eileen.
Best regards,
Colin
Since I’m home getting over the flu instead of schmoozing at the SF International Poetry Festival monster reading at the Palace of Fine Arts — but two of my students, 12-year-old Mario and 13-year-old Caroline, read at a tiny branch library earlier in the day — I thought I’d give a shout out for an on-line interview with Eileen.
link:
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/07/poetry/eileen-myles-with-jeremy-sigler
Annie Finch’s experience seems to suggest there still may be a problem in the contests—there are so many submissions that sound as if they’ve all come from one source. So that remains a problem. Alan Cordle proved that in the past some very important slush piles were never winnowed, and that a whole lot of packets never even got opened! But that was not the worst effect of the fixed Contest, it seems to me, not just the betrayal of the submitters. It was something much deeper, the fact that the books that began winning the contests started sounding all the same—good but all on distinctly one note.
One of the reasons that those contests that did get caught didn’t get caught earlier was that the false winners were generally excellent—all but a handful of the abused submitters simply weren’t good enough, I admit that, even if we felt betrayed by the methods. Indeed, that was why even a serial offender like the Contemporary Poetry Series continued to be respected for so long, and even now has its defenders—as recently as November 2007 the worst of the serial offenders was defended as a “great editor” by one of our most respected critics in Poets & Writers. Hard to believe, but obviously at that time not everyone had got the message.
For the real crime, of course, is the artificial stimulation of fashions. If the same type of poetry is selected year after year in a competition, then that type of poetry becomes a fixture—which indeed has happened. A significant number of influential faculty members in a significant number of MFA programs have had a leg-up of some sort by the mentors and teachers who trained them, all mostly from just a few schools. No, it’s not that the winners aren’t good enough, or that those got-a-leg-uppers haven’t been satisfactory teachers or critics, or have unpleasant personalities. It’s that the gene pool of American poetry is so reduced we’re now dealing with significant malformations!
Christopher
A little more detail on my last post in preparation for my main point below:
In her much debated letter in the Nov 2007 issue of P & W Magazine, Joan Houlihan accused those who had exposed the recent contest scandals as “bullies,” and called their accusations “sensaltionalist.” “A willful misunderstanding of the whole process of editing and publishing poetry” is how she described Alan Cordle’s activities — whereas looking back on what he did now I think everyone would agree how right he was, and how much American poetry is indebted to his courage and persistence. In a new book he’s now writing, indeed almost completed, Alan Cordle explores in detail the whole 3 year struggle, episode by episode, so we will soon be able to go back and re-evaluate what happened step by step — including my own humble efforts both with regard to the contests I was involved in and my efforts to get more publicity in various poetry forums on-line.
My own feeling is that Alan Cordle has already emerged as poetry’s Frank Serpico. Just think how the latter was detested by everyone at the NYPDC, and how savagely he was hounded. Yet who today would doubt Frank Serico’s probity or his social value? Indeed, I doubt you could find one single NYPD officer in the whole Force today who doesn’t regard Frank Serpico as a hero.
And the main point? Morals. Poetry and morality. Think Shelley and you’ll not be far off.
Here’s the bottom line for me, post Cordle. Like a teacher, a priest or an elected representative, an editor, contest related or otherwise, has an almost sacred responsibility to the public, especially in the high art of poetry. The tainted editors were in a position to help American poetry to evolve honestly and naturally, and instead they foisted upon us a claustrophobic, hothouse variety.
And why couldn’t those editors/publishers/critics/poets and, yes, teachers have figured that out without getting caught? I mean, what happened?
Christopher
“…I think everyone would agree how right he was, and how much American poetry is indebted to his courage and persistence.”
This is hilarious.
Um, guess again, my friend.
I once attended a Christmas party at which a long-haired gentleman with a rat on his shoulder showed up and caused quite a stir. Turns out the guy with the pet rat was Serpico.
Fashions are usually organic?
Yes, Jordan, and the very best argument against GMOs. The taste for huge red, spherical, tasteless, barbie tomatoes is American, and indeed the only thing they’re really good for is advertising supermarkets and throwing at people. Like American pie.
I like American pie, by the way, and miss it inordinately. I just hate the metaphor.
I also hate the way certain purveyors of junk food artificially stimulate the fashion in Asia by a.) advertising that the stuff is nutritious, b.) offering young waiters scholarships to junk food unversities in Texas, and c.) placing the outlets in the richest part of town so that the people who can’t yet afford to eat junk food associate it with success!
That’s a true story, and though there may be no other examples of the artificial stimulation of fashions to create organic modifications in behavior and substantial gain, I think I can rest my case.
The big food corporations were so successful in their campaign to sell powdered milk in Asia that when I arrived there in 1994 it was considered not only disgusting to nurse your own baby but irresponsible. Powdered milk was not only cleaner and more nutritious, but would raise the IQ of your child.
These beliefs got grafted on to the early Christian Missionaries’ teaching that the breast was the temptation of the devil. Up until a century ago Thailand was a bare-breasted culture as the early black-and-white photos so beautifully show–Thai women are so unfairly endowed. Now the culture is so obsessed with the bra Thai women even sleep in them!
Your question is not clever, Jordan, or in any way helpful. Indeed, it just makes me wonder what you’re all so afraid of!
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“As an old foetry.com pro…”
You say that like it’s something to be proud of.
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I thought there was a whiff of sulfur about you. Now I know why.
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Christopher,
Following your advice, I came across this old thread on Foetry:
“Fulcrum’s Self-Love Includes Monday Love”
http://foetry.com/forum/index.php?topic=840.0
According to night_owl, one of the posters in the thread, Monday Love wrote a review in which he praised his wife’s poems without mentioning she was his wife. I don’t know if there is any truth to the claim, and there is a difference in degree between judging a contest and writing a review. If the claim is true, however, and I hope it isn’t, it makes me wonder if Thomas Brady is the best person to comment on the topic of “Judging Poetry and Integrity.”
Just to clarify: I think any process, for example, that allows a poetry contest judge to award the prize to her fiance is sleazy and unethical. If Foetry, Cordle and Brady are responsible for exposing these kind of scams, then good on them.
>>How many witches have not been hunted down with such innuendoes?
Um, all of them?
>>How many lives have not been wrecked by such fantasies: fabricated covens, secret memberships, icons concealed in the cellar?
All of them.
>>And how recently has such a movement not terrorized our own society, and compromised some of our best writers and artists?
Zzzzzz … oh, sorry, what? Look: you’re writing shite, you always write shite. If you really think that telling Thomas Fucking Brady to shut the hell up is equivalent to Nazism & witch hunts then you need to spend some time in a rehabilitation camp. Why not compare your notes to reality before you subject this blog’s readers to more of your idiot blathering?
Better to reign in po-biz…
Better to reign in some of the commenters here.
Bar the barbs of Harr,
Call the Censor Czar,
Get feathers, tar,
Cancel moon, erase star.
The Ballad of the Children of the Czar
by Delmore Schwartz
1
The children of the Czar
Played with a bouncing ball
In the May morning, in the Czar’s garden,
Tossing it back and forth.
It fell among the flowerbeds
Or fled to the north gate.
A daylight moon hung up
In the Western sky, bald white.
Like Papa’s face, said Sister,
Hurling the white ball forth.
2
While I ate a baked potato
Six thousand miles apart,
In Brooklyn, in 1916,
Aged two, irrational.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt
Was an Arrow Collar ad.
O Nicholas! Alas! Alas!
My grandfather coughed in your army,
Hid in a wine-stinking barrel,
For three days in Bucharest
Then left for America
To become a king himself.
3
I am my father’s father,
You are your children’s guilt.
In history’s pity and terror
The child is Aeneas again;
Troy is in the nursery,
The rocking horse is on fire.
Child labor! The child must carry
His fathers on his back.
But seeing that so much is past
And that history has no ruth
For the individual,
Who drinks tea, who catches cold,
Let anger be general:
I hate an abstract thing.
4
Brother and sister bounced
The bounding, unbroken ball,
The shattering sun fell down
Like swords upon their play,
Moving eastward among the stars
Toward February and October.
But the Maywind brushed their cheeks
Like a mother watching sleep,
And if for a moment they fight
Over the bouncing ball
And sister pinches brother
And brother kicks her shins,
Well! The heart of man is known:
It is a cactus bloom.
5
The ground on which the ball bounces
Is another bouncing ball.
The wheeling, whirling world
Makes no will glad.
Spinning in its spotlight darkness,
It is too big for their hands.
A pitiless, purposeless Thing,
Arbitrary and unspent,
Made for no play, for no children,
But chasing only itself.
The innocent are overtaken,
They are not innocent.
They are their father’s fathers,
The past is inevitable.
6
Now, in another October
Of this tragic star,
I see my second year,
I eat my baked potato.
It is my buttered world,
But, poked by my unlearned hand,
It falls from the highchair down
And I begin to howl.
And I see the ball roll under
The iron gate which is locked.
Sister is screaming, brother is howling,
The ball has evaded their will.
Even a bouncing ball
Is uncontrollable,
And is under the garden wall.
I am overtaken by terror
Thinking of my father’s fathers,
And of my own will.
A deeply moving poem, Don, delivered at an appropriate and moving moment. How petty are our squabbles, but how painful and irreversible our rivalries. Even among poets — or especially, I fear, at least in our times.
My hope, more my dream, is that each contest should yield one single manuscript so unforgettable and obvious that it would not be a question of choosing it but rather of liberating it from the pile. Like “The Ballad of the Children of the Czar” in the clutter of this thread — it rises up out of the potential brawl like a new dawn, and I for one feel hopeful again.
So why can’t we keep our eye on that? Why does it have to be so messy?
I rest my case with my final exhibit, Noah Freed.
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I thought it was the Four Noble Truths, which have to do with suffering. This list is completely different. I’m confused.
By the way, just so I’m clear, are you accusing people of committing rape? What do you mean by sexual misconduct?
You’re quite right, Matt–I’m really slipping badly now. I live with these things every day and still I get it wrong. Sort of like life, I guess.
Vb>The Four Noble Truths
The Five Precepts
The Fifth is the hardest of the Five Precepts for westerners to grasp because we’ve passed through Rousseau and Freud and arrived at the conclusion that any suppression of our gut feelings is a hang up. Not so in Asia.
All five of the Precepts are expressed as behavior we should “refrain from,” in other words try not to do — the Buddha is always a realist, and fully aware that any injunction to Like or Dislike anything at all is going to lead to moral hypocrisy and abuse. Human beings can’t live without hurting others, their birth being the most poignant witness to the inevitability of the suffering we cause by just being here.
What the Buddha is interested in is not the moral superiority of vegans, for example, or pacifists, or virgins, but the way seizing anything at all for oneself is a selfish activity. That’s obvious when it comes to killing and stealing, but it’s not so obvious with lying. What the Buddha is interested in is the way lying recreates the world in our own image, so to speak — and by so doing leaves us isolated, ignorant, and a potential tyrrant. Intoxicants by and large do the same, even coffee, even food, or certainly too much of it, or too little, or too salty or rich. “Try to refrain” is all the Buddha is saying. Stay awake.
And he’s no fool about sex either, Matt, and neither are we. There are numerous aspects of sex beside the most violent expression of it we might want to refrain from. I always found sex with my students a ravishing temptation, and very satisfying because we both liked it so much. Refrain! Ditto too much sex, even with someone legitimate — there’s no activity more debilitating or meaningless than doing it over and over and over again. Or casual sex, just because you can, or anonymous, or unfaithful, or paid for. Refrain if you can. Etc.
Forgive me if I decline to take Buddhist wisdom from someone who can’t even separate his Noble Truths from his Precepts.
What any of this has to do with poetry contests I still have no idea.
Oh, and there’s no such thing as too much sex. Unless chafing starts to occur. But hey, you just need some decent lube and you’re good to go.
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“I suggest anyone who is infuriated by suggestions that the poetry establishment, which includes MFA profs, editors, publishers, contest sponsors, panel discussion organizers, among others, is not submerged in the status quo…”
Do you mean “is submerged”?
I think the ads for those contests usually say “final judge: [famous poet name]“. The key word being “final”. If people aren’t smart enough to figure out what that means, too bad. Nobody put a gun to their heads and told them to enter a contest anyway.
Where the hell are you getting mail fraud out of this?
Good point, Matt–and that is most certainly what the contests say now, a most important legacy of Alan Cordle’s efforts. Indeed, there are all sorts of other modifications as well which are now taken for granted in the contests. Most contests now make it clear that students, family and colleagues are not eligible, for example, and that all manuscripts will be read by at least two readers before the final group is presented to the judge. Such declarations are specifically to protect contests from being taken to court for mail fraud.
But there is still a way to go, and we must remain vigilant. In one of the most celebrated cases, a well-known editor and publisher promised in a fee paying ($35.00) ‘Open Reading’ certain perks for his next competition, a bye through the first cut and a deadline extension in exchange for purchasing a complete makeover of your m.s. from him personally. The purveyor of this deal then refused to excuse himself as the judge from his next contest just two months later with an additional $25.00 fee, a blatant conflict of interest. (I complained personally, and I never heard a word from him.)
In another celebrated case, a much respected competition got stung for the fact that a large proprtion of the finalists were all from the same university as the judge. The interesting point with that one is that the judge, a poet of great integrity, swore she had nothing to do with the indiscretion, and I believe her. I’m also willing to consider the possibility that the grad students and others who winnowed the slush pile may have ended up with such an unbalanced list of finalists almost unconsciously. At that point most contests assumed that the duty of the winnowers was to serve the judge, not the hopefuls in the pile. Also, students of the judge were expected to rush in to subscribe in the hope of a favor, and thus swell the number of entries at $25.00 each, the assumption being that the winner would of course be out of her stable.
No more today — though obviously a lot of students aren’t happy that the stable doors are closed now, and horses can’t join in what used to be a simple fixed race that would guarantee their futures in the business.
Finally, during Foetry’s hey-day everybody involved in the status quo shouted their heads off in disgust, but nobody ever took Alan Cordle to court. Not once. Also the rule that prevents cronyism and special interests is universally known now as ‘The Jorie Graham Rule,” the Contemporary Poetry Series has closed down, been cleaned out, and reopened under new management, and we’re getting almost to the point where we can talk about it. Not quite, obviously — as this thread shows pretty dramatically.
“It a Federal crime or offense for anyone to use the United States mails in carrying out a scheme to defraud. In order to be proven guilty of mail fraud, it must be shown that the person knowingly and willfully devised a scheme to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false pretenses, representations or promises and that such acts were carried out by means of use of the U.S. Postal Service. Obtaining a payment in response to a fraudulent offer or making a fraudulent offer through the mail is sufficient to claim an offense of mail fraud.”
I dunno, if you advertise a contest with: ’send in 30 bucks to our contest, judged by X,’ and X does not judge ALL those who sent you their manuscripts with 30 dollars,
OR the judge doesn’t really ‘judge’ the contest at all, but awards the prize to a friend,
don’t these sort of fit the definition above? I’m not a lawyer, but…
Once again, you missed my point about the word “final”.
You’re right that contests should be judged anonymously. But why should the final judge be expected to personally review every single submission, of which there might be thousands? Why is the idea of delegating the work of sorting out the slush so upsetting to you?
Go ahead and sue someone. I’m pretty sure it would be what they call a frivolous lawsuit.
Matt,
You’re answering well but forget how much things have changed since Alan Cordle. I posted a answer to you drawing attention to this even before Thomas Brady’s reply above. I do hope you’ll take the time to scroll back and have a look at what I tried to say.
There were certain assumptions about contests before the Contemporary Poetry Series debacle that have now been examined and readjusted. The Tupelo Press Dorset Prize competition in 2007 was advertised as “anonymous,” for example, even though some of the manuscripts from the Tupelo Press ‘Open Reading’ 4 months before that had been read and even, for an additional fee, been improved by the judge himself were allowed to enter. There was no law suit at the time, but there were certainly a lot of hard feelings.
That would never happen today given the new, more informed submitters and the new, more demanding regulations.
Matt,
Not all of them say ‘final,’ though, do they?
Why get so hot, bothered and defensive about it?
Geez…
Making the issue clear and fair for everyone…
Well, how do you do, what a concept!
Thomas
It’s common sense. Why worry about a few careless flyers and ads? People should be able to figure it out regardless of what the ads say.
And no, I’m not sexually aroused about it. (That’s what “hot and bothered” means, I’m pretty sure…)
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AT HIS LAST GIG
At his last gig in horrid Amsterdam–
City to which Camus consigned the fallen–
Ben Webster, Uncle Ben, then on the lam
From Denmark, escaping as always, swollen
And rheumy-eyed, spoke in a somewhat sullen
And more than somewhat smashed voice to the jam
Out front. It was his first speech, and a melan-
choly occasion. “You’re growing and–” ham
That he was “–I’m going,” he said. No scam,
However commonplace, wherever stolen;
He said it and he died, and no flim-flam.
But it was obnoxious. He was a felon,
A brute, a drunk, a sob-sister. Yet song
Was his in paradox his whole life long.
– Hayden Carruth
Hope no one minds if I throw a Hayden Carruth poem in here now and then.
Like a lot of white guy poets of a certain age, Carruth liked to write about jazz, as here.
W.S. Di Piero, Wm. Matthews come to mind….
Not just white guy poets wrote or write about jazz, of course. Amiri Baraka, Ntozake Shange, Jayne Cortez, Nathaniel Mackey . . .
Just occurred to me: Can anybody think of poets writing about 20th century classical music with the same critical rapture as 19th century poets on Wagner, or 20th century poets on jazz?
Does anybody take Wagner’s poetry seriously as poetry?
I love it how the students of sound poetry include jazz scat singing.
“I see Chano Pozo . . . “
Also Michael S. Harper, once we leave the whiteguy precincts. Forgot to mention O’Hara, earlier.
Re poets writing about 20th century class. mus. -
THE BELIEVER: I’ve heard that you’re interested in twentieth-century classical music, which often isn’t linear. I wonder how much that informs your writing?
JOHN ASHBERY: Probably a lot, because I was very attracted to Schoenberg and serial music when I first started writing, thanks to Frank O’Hara, actually, who discovered a lot of things before I did, a lot of things I might not have gotten to or thought worthy of taking in. I was taken with the idea that the tone row is a fixed thing that goes into music, that the music is organized around it, that the composer is not free to improvise, though of course a lot of them do, not taking it literally. That was sort of interesting to me at the same time I first tried to write a sestina, because there you’re thwarted every time you try to write the next line. The form is always there, menacing you. But I don’t like just that kind of music. I also like more conservative twentieth-century music… I guess my poetry is indebted to music because it’s something that unfolds in a linear way and it’s not something that can be taken in immediately, like a painting.
And, “On Rachmaninoff’s Birthday,” of course!
Thanks Don.
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Found it! Hayden Carruth’s “At His Last Gig” does appear in a BAP; not the first or second one, ‘88/’89, but the 1993 volume, guest-edited by Louise Gluck; it’s the only genuine piece of rhyming verse in the whole volume. Anyway, sorry to be flitting from topic to topic, but this is one rich thread!
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Better than Mozart’s music is a very high bar and tilting at it is a fool’s game. Sulfur, I love it.
Here’s a humble and serious Mozart poem, however, from an Argentine poet, Alberto Szpunberg (born 1940). My English translation follows the Spanish. It was published by Nimrod, more than 25 years ago. I met the poet once, at a reading in Buenos Aires, and pronounced his last name correctly, in Spanish, which he said was a rare occasion.
Interesting (untranslatable) that he addresses Mozart as Usted rarther than Tú. The usual caveats about Harriets long-line line-breaks.
Carta a Mozart
A veces, sobre todo de noche, suelo pensar que si no fuera usted el que está muerto, tendría que estarlo yo, sin más remedio,
pues siempre el tiempo, esta chorrera de memorias, o ese océano de por medio,
impiden que podamos compartir la misma mesa, la misma madrugada,
la misma caminata junto a un río, este río, cualquier río,
ya sea el Rhin que no conozco o el de la Plata, el más ancho del mundo,
donde a veces tiro mis líneas para sacar bagres oscuros y pobres como todo lo nuestro.
Creo que hay diferencias entre nosotros que mejor dejarlas como están:
usted jamás sobreviviría a este clima, en fin, este verano,
y la humedad, que es lo que aquí mata, nunca le inspiraría el menor divertimiento.
Por mi parte, aunque emocionado por sus mejores oboes, flautas y violines,
yo no dejo de sospechar que sólo en el fondo del río y nunca en su corriente,
usted podría encontrar el silencio necesario para que sus condes y marquesas le hagan audiencia, tosan con disimulo, se abaniquen quedamente.
Nosotros, en cambio, del fondo del río sólo rescatamos bagres y bogas,
digamos que a veces con las manos atadas a la espalda y los ojos hinchados de terror.
Por eso, quizás por eso mis amigos y yo somos tan fieramente animales
que ni siquiera sus infinitas sinfonías nos amansan.
Somos resentidos, Herr Wolfgang, y nadie de estas tierras podrá perdonarle
que a los cuatro años usted definiera su vida sentándose al piano para siempre.
Sostén mi corazón, hierba que creces, hormiga incansable, pájaro cualquiera,
sostén mi corazón, aire de la tarde, aire que sostienes el pájaro, aire en la siesta.
Nubes, destino de las nubes con las últimas luces en sus bordes, nubes,
viento que se levanta, sostén mi corazón, aún suspiro, aún casi no viento,
mi corazón, susténganlo tus miradas, tus pestañas curvadas por qué recuerdo, graves, levísimo parpadeo, sostén mi corazón, sosténganlo,
anídenlo tus pechos, entíbienlo tus mejillas, contágienlo tus pálpitos,
guárdenlo en la noche como si fuera en la tierra, este otro cuerpo, esta otra carne,
boccada cerrada en la que sólo entran raíces, lluvias y muertos, entrañables muertos.
Letter to Mozart
Sometimes, at night especially, I think that if it weren’t you who were dead, it would have to be me, no help for it,
because time, this stream of memories, or ocean in between,
always keeps us from sharing the same table, the same darkness before dawn,
the same walk by a river, this river, any river,
whether the Rhine I’ve never seen or this la Plata, the widest in the world,
where I cast my lines only to come up with catfish as poor and dark as everything of ours.
There are differences between us and I believe we should leave them that way:
you would never survive in this climate, at least in the summer,
and the killing humidity wouldn’t inspire you to the least divertimento.
For my part, although I’m moved by your superb oboes, flutes and violins,
I still suspect that not in the current but in the depth of the river
you’ll find the silence that would allow those Counts and Duchesses to pay attention to you, hide their coughing, fan themselves quietly.
On the other hand, all we pull up from the bottom of the river are catfish and crabs,
though sometimes they have their hands tied behind them and their eyes swollen with terror.
That may be why my friends and I are so fiercely animal
that not even your infinite symphonies can tame us.
We’re resentful, Herr Wolfgang, and nobody from these countries can forgive you
that you defined your life at the age of four by sitting down at the piano forever.
Sustain my heart, growing grass, untiring ant, any bird,
sustain my heart, afternoon air, air that sustains the bird, siesta air.
Clouds, fate of the clouds with the last light along their edges, clouds,
rising wind, sustain my heart, I sigh, still barely a wind:
my heart, sustain it looking, curve of your eyelashes, why do I remember, serious, barely blinking, sustain my heart, sustain it,
make a nest with your breasts for it, warm it with your cheeks, infect it with your touch,
keep it in the night as if it were on earth, this other flesh, this other body,
closed mouth which only roots can enter, and the rain, and the dead, and the dearest dead.
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Upthread a poster says this:
“Christopher,
Following your advice, I came across this old thread on Foetry:
“Fulcrum’s Self-Love Includes Monday Love”
http://foetry.com/forum/index.php?topic=840.0
According to night_owl, one of the posters in the thread, Monday Love wrote a review in which he praised his wife’s poems without mentioning she was his wife. I don’t know if there is any truth to the claim, and there is a difference in degree between judging a contest and writing a review. If the claim is true, however, and I hope it isn’t, it makes me wonder if Thomas Brady is the best person to comment on the topic of “Judging Poetry and Integrity.”
I damn near missed the information and the link, it getting buried in the exchange. Could this really be true?
Terreson
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Seen grá LP broom Cubarta rat:
TAZZ
Sometimes, at night the same darkness shares the same table
we pull this swollen current across: this river, this stream and ocean
of memory where lines cast as if, not by you who keeps us barely
breathing at dawn, but this climate, always the same warm wind by a river
and walking this river, or any river, whether the Rhine or la Plata, a depth
wisest in the widest dark of the world, closed where dearest
only the dead can enter: not even untiring infinite time can label
tame, and everything in silence, life defines in symphonies as the payment of attention to what differences between us refined
what belief we leave behind when the way in that is ours, in summer
at least, would inspire us into killing on the slightest pretext, humanity.
You and me, at least, up from the bottom of the river’s race
our hands and face fiercely tied; press into a serious curve and divertimento making nest
with our cheek touching the other raining flesh, dead
mouths in body’s night, breast and head, infecting with it; with propaganda
our touch kept quietly in the night as if it were terror on earth, this
other body: the reigning dead who move superb in oboe and violin,
flute not in hiding – who’ll find, would we allow it, those coughing counts
that fan themselves in error; may be why friends in the election gang –
are nobody from here: from this country, in orange rags at the age
of four squatting in a cave, forever in scream, sustaining any heart
in any growing bird, grass afternoon air, animal and siesta cloud of fate
fallen with the last light along what rising edge of that wind I sighed forgives,
our heart still, barely ours, who care not to remember.
Rachel,
You wrote,
“According to night_owl, one of the posters in the thread, Monday Love wrote a review in which he praised his wife’s poems without mentioning she was his wife. I don’t know if there is any truth to the claim, and there is a difference in degree between judging a contest and writing a review. If the claim is true, however, and I hope it isn’t, it makes me wonder if Thomas Brady is the best person to comment on the topic of ‘Judging Poetry and Integrity.’”
I don’t think Robert Penn Warren should have published critical essays & textbooks praising his friends. Professors and textbooks should be held to a much higher standard than the rest of us.
People will say ‘this poet is good’ from now ’til doomsday, and what harm is there in that? Would you, Rachel, tell the world, especially if you were as famous as Monday Love, ‘my partner is a bad poet?’ I don’t think anyone has ever done that. Can you think of an instance? Life at home would never be the same, I assure you. My wife is fine with po-biz. She’s not writing “songs, post-foetry.” She also believes an asterisk should not be placed next to her beloved Red Sox–and who am I to argue?
Thomas
Notice how Mr. “Brady” shifts the objection. He cannot defend his outrageous breach of reviewing protocol, the failure to identify himself as the husband of the person whose book was under review (”full disclosure,” they call this).
Ah, but when we are in our graves, Tom will still be there, in midst of other woe than ours, shouting at the top of his voice to the rocks of the perfidy of anyone but him.
I wonder if Mr. “Freed” can tell us what “book” I was “reviewing?” If Mr. “Freed” requires more facts, I’ll be happy to give ‘em.
Monday Love wrote a review in which he praised his wife’s poems without mentioning she was his wife.
All I need to know—book, poems, whatevs. No need to be so grave.
it wasn’t a book review nor was i judging her in a contest nor was i giving her a prize, yea, whatevs is right. i just pulled fulcrum no. 5 down off the shelf again, good articles by andrew epstein (emerson & w. james & modernism) raymond barfield (socrates) and her poems i praised still please me…charming…not at all pretentious…and, it goes out with saying, i would never judge them in a contest…that would be wrong…or put them in my anthology if she put me in her anthology…or blurb them…that would feel really tacky…but yea, by all means, slap an asterisk on what i did if you want to, i got no prob with that…
Thomas,
I have no problem with you praising your wife’s work in your review. “Tacky” is the word that comes to mind, however, for the way you praised her poems without disclosing the fact that she is your wife. I already acknowledged that there is a difference between awarding a contest prize and writing a review, but, as I also stated, I think the difference is one of degree not of kind.
Rachel,
I would never ‘officially’ praise my wife’s work, nor would I attack it anonymously in an under-handed way to generate sympathy and publicity.
Where do we draw the line in tricking the public to get them to read (favorably) poetry we like?
I thought my remarks were rather casual. I do think her poems are the best in that entire issue, but this, of course, is what ‘we can’t talk about,’ the fact that her poems are good, and I understand why, but I do find the whole thing fascinating for that reason.
An added factor is that I knew the people who published her and I knew they knew that I knew they did so, and I also knew she published their first book, and they turned out to be my accuser–which is fine, I have no problem with that, though I do think it was a bit cowardly when they told her she couldn’t read at the reading for the issue in question simply because of the very minor controversy; it was some tit for tat thing, but it was a very, very minor issue; if I know X who publishes me, that shouldn’t be such a bid deal, but I guess I don’t understand the secrecy and the defensiveness; so my wife was barred from the public reading by them for reasons that were no fault of her own; I do think we can all be a bit more honest and open about these things, but I understand how poets don’t like to have certain things known. But that’s all behind us now–we’re all still friends and I don’t want to stir things up again; it’s petty and it’s not worth it. God forbid we invade each other’s privacy, but simple literary connections don’t have to be hidden, do they?
The worst offense, by far, is what Robert Penn Warren did, his Pultizer Prizes be damned, publishing and praising his living friends in an influential school text book for young people–I find that inexcusable, and rotten poetry, too. That’s what I want to focus on. Of course it wasn’t just Robert Penn Warren; his associates and colleagues were doing it, too, and he was just going with the flow. It was the system that was to blame, finally.
The “Jorie Graham Rule” is important, but there’s a fascinating history to this, and getting indignant and riled up about it gives me pleasure; it’s the most important thing in poetry right now, in my opinion.
Thomas
Please allow the correction. Mr Woodman says:
“For those of you who don’t know who he is, Terreson is the Moderator who resigned from the Poets.org Forum as a protest against what he saw as major flaws in the management of Poetry Forums in general. He pioneered poetry activism, in that sense, and is the author of “The Pee in the Pool of On-line Poetry” at Clattery MacHinery, a text which has become one of the touchstones for the movement he started.”
While it is true I dropped my membership with Poets.org for the reason mentioned I was not a moderator on the forum. It was another poetry board, and again for the same reason, from which I stepped down as moderator. A pioneer? Thanks but I don’t think so. Many people have spoken up. Sadly, many more have voted with their feet.
Terreson
At first I figured the blogger was speaking tongue in cheek. Then I thought perhaps Eileen Myles was overwhelmed by something. Perhaps by her own life’s exigencies or by the number of poems she was required to read through in her capacity as poetry judge. But my sense of Eileen’s blog says otherwise. I think she is serious when she suggests poetry contests should be treated as if slips of paper get dropped into a fishbowl and the winners get picked at random.
I too have served as a poetry contest judge. I too was flattered the first time by being invited. But also, that first time, something hit me between the eyes. How can I judge fairly if I don’t judge each poem according to a kind of criteria, a schema representing all the elements of what, in my view, make for good poetry? At best judging poetry is a subjective matter. But it seemed to me that if I make the schematic inclusive enough it would be possible to take on all poetry, closed or open in verse form, Romantic or Classical in inclination, Western, Eastern (or somewhere in between) in orientation.
And so I wrote out a laundry list of the elements of good poetry I look for when reading it. The list is kind of long. Image impact, authenticity of language, metrical patterning, these are a few items in my list. Then I came onto something I call the holy trinity. Cajun cuisine has this thing of a holy trinity: green peppers, onions, and celery. All of which you find in everything from jambalaya to crawfish stew. I’ve decided that in poetry there is a holy trinity too, no matter the form, idiom, manner, or stylistic conceit. Does the poem have gestalt? Does it have kinetic energy? And does it have organic unity?
This is how I approached the job of judging. I confess I find Eileen’s approach nihilistic. The fish bowl approach is kind of like saying what everyone is always telling poets, that poetry doesn’t matter. And I guess I choose to disagree.
Terreson
Agreeing with your disagreement, Terreson. Have felt very uncomfortable with this thread, but I’ve bit my tongue, thinking, is it possible all of these folks who are participating in the “judging” system which has, true, overtaken the majority of poetry’s publication in our time–is it possible they all feel so put upon, so wearied at the thought of doing it? Then why do it? Then, I remembered the adage, “not to choose is to choose.” And oddly, that comforts me. Knowing. I’d rather know. I’d rather know where the nihilism you mention, dwells–and then choose to–or not–dwell beside it.
As for who knows who–the poetry world is small. Small. Small. Everyone knows everyone, at least by the 6 degrees. We know that, or, we be ostriches.
margo
“I’ve decided that in poetry there is a holy trinity too, no matter the form, idiom, manner, or stylistic conceit. Does the poem have gestalt? Does it have kinetic energy? And does it have organic unity?” –Terreson
Terreson,
I think I’d prefer the fishbowl approach to a judge who is looking for ‘organic unity.’ And don’t 1. ‘gestalt’ and 3. ‘organic unity’ mean the same thing? Look ‘em up. They do.
And ‘kinetic energy?’ What the fuck does that mean? I suppose ‘kinetic energy’ can’t exist unless there’s an ‘organic unity,’ for the ‘kinetic energy’ to properly zap about in, so there, you may as well as call your ‘trinity’ the ‘one,’ the One Godhead: Pretentious Wooly-headedness whirling about in its great oneness. Don’t get me wrong. As a beginning theosophy, one could do much worse, but for poetry…?
The problem here is that poems which attempt unity and fail are always better than poems which don’t attempt a unity at all; yet these latter inevitably are mistaken for poems with very high rankings of ‘organic unity’ by judges besotted with this vague idea, simply on account that they (the poems) stop and the judge is left, when they do stop, with the horrifying feeling that he hasn’t the least fucking idea what just happened in the poem that just stopped, and in order not to come face to face with his inability to comprehend the deep organic depth of what he has just read, he decides it would be better for his reputation as poet and critic to approve of the bloody thing.
This is merely nonconformist/spiritualist/poet-as-god blather from Emerson feeding into scribbler’s vanity in a cloud of pot smoke.
Not that I’m calling for a ’scientific’ approach; even the pompously ’scientific’ New Critics were quick to point out that poetry is not H2-O, but ‘the moving waters at their priestlike task/of pure ablution round earth’s human shores.’ Even the New Critics, who were a small cadre of Modernists taking their orders from Emerson, ultimately, sagaciously informed us that a poem is more like a plant than a machine.
And so has Modernism enlightened us all. Reality makes no sense, so why should poems? The slipperiness of language and the slipperiness of truth are equated. To the Moderns, language and truth are one. Derrida’s enemy was Plato; Derrida is defined by his hatred of the Socratic soul.
I like the random approach to picking contest winners, simply because po-biz today is so awfully stupid, and pure randomness might begin to crack the logjam; I say fuck it, let’s worship Fortuna. Forget right now everything we know. I don’t mean ‘get out the booze and have a ball’ or any of those zany solutions–not Dionysius; not even Apollo (let’s stop trying to be smart)– but Fortuna.
Or, poetry contests should be held as public auctions. A poem is read and the audience bids actual money amounts and when the bidding is over on a particular poem, that poem collects money from the purchaser. When all the submissions are read, the poem that has sold for the most money wins the contest. God knows how it will be decided which poems get into such a contest and why people would pay for poems they don’t really own, but the idea is to tie poetry to money; that will save it; those with buying power will control the art; wouldn’t it be good to allow poetry an attachment to real wealth? Think of all the strange items that sell for a great deal of money, why shouldn’t living poetry get some of that pie? Poetry would be successful again; the only caveat would be a small loss in intellectual vanity (which is hurting poetry anyway) as wealthy patrons might enjoy poems that are ‘accessible’ but then eggheads can make anything seem ‘deep,’ and intellectuals will yet be necessary, only they will be followers, rather than leaders; after poem x makes a spectacular debut at the latest contest/gala on Madison Avenue, or at Harvard, the critics will jockey in an intellectual frenzy for or against the wealthy status quo; it will be a good time for all. I am not joking; this is not satire. I am sincere in this idea.
The New Critics railed against both the Intentional Fallacy and the Affective Fallacy; ‘we must not let the poem disappear!’ they cried, always the poem, keep the eyes on the workings of the poem, the poem, poem.
But I say ‘who’ wrote the poem and what it does to ‘me’ is all that matters. To hell with *the poem.* Let it disappear. After it’s dones its job, that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do. If the poem is still hanging around while the poet and reader’s minds are going on a date, why then that poem is only a nuisance.
We must give some respect back to the wealthy patron and take some from ‘the poem.’ The poem? It’s not all about the poem.
It’s no coincidence that Ransom and Williams and Penn Warren’s power-grab saw the usurpers–as they took over the academy, teaching each other and giving prizes to each other–crying, ‘Pay attention to the poem! The poem only! Don’t look at us! Look at the poem!’
This is just another reason why Socrates was right; philosophy is the superior poetry to mere poetry, not just ideally, but in the world; we worship ‘the poem’ at our peril. And damned, especially, if we worship poetry prizes…
The soul of poetry is the poet.
Poetry is not the clown, wearing his suit of iambs, it is not the critic declaiming on ‘organic unity…’
Poetry is my suspicion of it.
Thomas
Once again Mr. Brady demonstrates how dangerous a little knowledge can be. To the first (19th C.) Gestaltists in psychology gestalt (shape or form) “emphasized ‘wholes’ and structures which could not be broken down into elements.” From a dictionary: A physical, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from its parts. In biology gestalt indicates the innate, unlearned recognition of certain shapes and forms. On the other hand anyone who has parsed a sonnet, say, demonstrates that a thing with organic unity can, in fact, still have its parts separated out from its properties, can get broken down into its elements. While the distinction may be too nuanced for some it is cardinal. In my view a poem with gestalt is that rarest of things, the bodied out thing, the production of which cannot be learned.
As for this: “And ‘kinetic energy?’ What the fuck does that mean?” Well it is sort of like what I heard an unhappy wife say to her husband once when he asked what was wrong: if you got to ask you don’t get it.
Anyway, I am weary of mr. Brady’s usual tirades.
Terreson
Whoops. I meant to post that Carruth poem in the Carruth thread.
This is getting a little confusing.
Sorry.
I thought it was brilliant timing and positioning on your part, Joel–indeed part of the same delicate strategy as Don Share when he posted “The Ballad of the Children of the Czar” — which helped such a lot at another dangerous moment. I had never seen such spite before on Harriet, and was grateful to you both for the distraction.
And the poems you both chose were spot on as well–and of course we needed that detour about music.
Joel,
I thought you were making some complex, gritty, we’re-all-going-to-die, public-minded response to the contest issue with Carruth’s poem, but I couldn’t quite get my mind around it…and immediately I thought, I’ve seen that poem before…in a BAP…and so I stole away an off-topic into another off-topic…
I’m really sorry…
Thomas
You overestimate me, Thomas. Not to worry. Happens quite a lot.
Thomas Brady said:
“Even the New Critics, who were a small cadre of Modernists taking their orders from Emerson, ultimately, sagaciously informed us that a poem is more like a plant than a machine.”
I wrote this poem in 1973 when I was twenty-one years old. I don’t believe I’d ever even heard of the ‘New Critics’ back then. Maybe they were on to something after all. This is from my book ‘Evolving – Poems 1965-2005’.
.
Just in case anyone should ever wonder,
. . . .I don’t write a poem
like an architect builds a bridge, but rather
. . . .like a patch of earth
. . . .builds a flower.
.
Gary
.
P.S. I know I swore off posting here but, like Mark Twain said: “ It’s easy to quit smoking…I’ve done it a thousand times. “
.
Gary,
I didn’t mean to imply the New Critics came up with the poem as plant–that goes back at least as far as Coleridge; but anyway, it doesn’t matter that you hadn’t heard of the New Critics in 1973, this is what I’ve been trying to tell you, the New Critics had won by then, their textbook, “Understanding Poetry” was being read by all the GIs coming back from the war on the GI Bill, and just as creative writing programs were springing up–they weren’t sitting around in those seminars talking Shakespeare or Shelley or Poe, it was the Modernists that had taken over, at that point, so in 1973 you were breathing that air, whether you knew it or not; I was just now listening to Sylvia Plath being interviewed at the end of her life, in London, and Plath was saying how intimidated she found English students were at English university, they had Shakespeare and classical literature looming over them; Plath said in this interview these English girls would innocently ask her, ‘how do you have the nerve to write poetry, anyway?’ and Plath said in her college studies in America she studied T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and Yeats, the Modernists were what she studied, and that was less intimidating, well of course it was less intimidating, and this is going back to the late 40s, early 50s, and T.S. Eliot was an early New Critic; the New Critics were part of the same clique: Laura Riding, Robert Graves, Paul Engle of Iowa was chosen for the Yale Younger by a New Critic, Ford Madox Ford, who hung out with Pound when Pound first got off the boat from America, Ford stayed with Allen Tate in Tennessee when Robert Lowell went to see Tate when Lowell was on his way to study with the New Critic John Crowe Ransom. All the New Critics were Rhodes Scholars, and Ford Madox Ford was the grandson of a pre-Raphaelite painter, and the pre-Raphaelites picked up on Whitman when nobody was really reading him in America, and then you’ve got William James, so influential at Harvard, Emerson’s godson (and of course Whitman springs right out of Emerson’s head, as does virtually every Modernist) and Gertrude Stein and Wallace Stevens both were students of William James, and John Ashbery is right out of Gertrude Stein and William James, we’re talking a dozen, maybe two dozen people defining 90% of poetic thought since America’s literary beginnings until now–and Modernism the poetic subject in college for the last 60 years; 1973, you hadn’t heard of the New Critics? Or those ideas? Are you kidding me? That was the air you breathed–you couldn’t avoid it.
Now maybe, as a poet back in 1973 you rejected, consciously, or unconsciously all or some of the Modernist agenda, but that would put you hopelessly out of touch and behind the times; Ashbery was about to be crowned king in 1973, and he was crowned not because he was some great new poet, but rather because he was the culmination of the nitrous oxide philosopher, William James; Ashbery wasn’t just the future–he was the past, and that’s what made Ashbery unavoidable, and that’s why Ashbery is still unavoidable. I don’t know where poetry can go after Ashbery, frankly, and Ashbery has been ‘it’ for over 30 years–think about that. This is the ‘Age of Ashbery,’ as Bloom said, we’ve all grown up and live in it, and it’s a mere chapter in 200 years of Emerson-James-Eliot, and New Citicism is the handy guidebook to it all. New Criticism isn’t some small window of specialized poetic knowledge; it is THE doctrine of THE triumphant line of American poetry, stretching back to Emerson.
Thomas
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Thomas,
Upthread you wrote: “but simple literary connections don’t have to be hidden, do they?”
Then why hide your connection to your wife while pretending to be objective while praising her poems? You say you would never do what Robert Penn Warren did or what Jorie Graham has done. Okay, I’ll take you at your word, but I hope you can see why some might be skeptical. If you steal $5 (I’m speaking metaphorically here as Christopher admonished I should), why would anyone trust you with $500?
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As the record will show, Mr. Woodman, you and I have not been the best of friends here on Harriet, but I must say:
Well said, my man! Well said.
Gary
Christopher,
You wrote:
“I think you’re holding Thomas Brady’s feet a bit to the fire here, aren’t you? After all, that’s not his real name but just a sock-puppet appellation for someone who may be the re-incarnation of yet another sock-puppet, Monday Love, who seems to have had a wife that he loved, and with whom he may or may not have had children. Just because in the midst of all that this so-called ‘Monday Love’ praised a poem that may or may not have been by his wife in a totally unofficial, unpaid for, un-solicited, anonymous, back-water, on-line riff with no connection whatsoever to any contest or advancement, that’s hardly a moral lapse.”
Although I can’t find your original post (or my first response to it), you were the one who posted a link to foetry and encouraged people to go there and take a look at the good work “Thomas Brady” aka “Monday Love” did on that site. I followed your suggestion. I’m sorry if you don’t like the results.
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So, let me get this straight, Christopher–you’re saying that it’s not the actual doing of a favor for someone you know in the poetry world (i.e. writing in praise of your wife’s work without revealing your connection) that makes it immoral, it’s whether or not there’s money connected to the act? Or is it a matter of degree of the nepotism–how often, or whether or not the review appears locally or nationally? Or what? Aside from the well-known fact that in the poetry field, as in other arts, the “prestige” of the writer being enhanced is at least as important as, and may lead to, (gasp) actual money, I wonder where your line is–when does it become “immoral?” Does it have to do with how MUCH prestige, how MUCH money, or what?
Your analogies are startling to say the least. Even with the most egregious of poetry sins (e.g. the Jorie Graham contest debacle of years ago–or maybe the “grooming” of the modernists and resulting banishment of Shelley from the canon) it goes without saying that there is nothing in even the deepest, badest, most connected activities of poets that compares to harrassment with a bullhorn outside an abortion clinic, or rape, or any other real-world problems. Equating Foetry and Greepeace? This is why you (and other Foetry-ites) finally come across as ludicrous. The Foetry “cause” is really quite a trivial one by any measure. And those involved are unconvincing, finally, because real poets don’t spend their mental energies on these matters for years or even days or even hours. They write. Unless, of course, they can’t.
Christopher, you imagine there’s an establishment in poetry, one that has engaged in nefarious acts in order to advance their chosen people. And some of them are connected in some ways through school or work or friends–you know, like in the rest of the world–and some of them write positive reviews of their wife’s poetry to help advance her career. But if there is an establishment in the poetry world, well, you’re at its doorstep here at the Poetry Foundation. So where is it? Is it Don Share? Hey, Don, are you to blame for all this?
Re: “Do you think she’ll be back anytime soon?”
Hopefully, no. But I agree, your “well-known online expert” does seem smart–she got the “thumbs down” message right away.
Excellent.
It’s good to have a new voice here, Sheila: thank you for weighing in, and please keep doing so.
There’s a story in the UK that Anthony Thwaite once rang up Douglas Dunn and said “This is the London Literary Establishment calling” — and that Dunn believed him. (When asked about this in an interview, Thwaite said, “I don’t really want to get drawn into that, if you don’t mind.”)
Here’s another: when John Gross took over at the TLS, one of the first things he did was call William Empson to ask for his services as a contributor. Empson said: “Oh, it’s you. Are you in the chair already?’” Gross answered, “Yes.” A long pause. Then Empson said: “Does it swivel?”
In other words – sure, I’ll take the blame!
Sincerely,
The Poetry Establishment
“…sure, I’ll take the blame!” Um, a new voice here. Okay. Like Poetry did for Franz, maybe?
Yes, you are indeed “The Establishment”.
And you are completely out of touch.
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“Even with the most egregious of poetry sins (e.g. the Jorie Graham contest debacle of years ago–or maybe the “grooming” of the modernists and resulting banishment of Shelley from the canon) it goes without saying that there is nothing in even the deepest, badest, most connected activities of poets that compares to harrassment with a bullhorn outside an abortion clinic, or rape, or any other real-world problems.”
Yea, Sheila’s right. Every ‘real-world problem’ eclipses whatever we might have to say about poetry. How can we dare to address issues in poetry when there are so many ‘real-world problems?’ Bullhorns outside of abortion clinics, rape, the War of 1812, the Lisbon Earthquake, hunger, poverty, auto insurance, tooth decay, death.
Move along, folks, nothing to see here…
(Bullhorn) MOVE ALONG. SHEILA HAS SPOKEN. THOSE WHO RESIST WILL BE DISLIKED.
I REPEAT: THOSE WHO RESIST WILL BE DISLIKED. DON’T MAKE US DISLIKE YOU.
I vote that the phrase “Move along, folks, nothing to see here…” should be retired from comment streams. Put it on a banner and send it up to the rafters of Useless Blog Commentary Arena….
I think you are all mad and beautiful and lovely lovely people on Hairy ‘Ed ‘ere mon ame.
It makes me larf: how the reds and greens have played out.
Great idea Trav, I’d love to hear the genus of this ‘handy’ add-on you crazee intellectuals here at Hairy ‘Ed thought was a cool kinda carry on – yeah – real dudz ee innit.
What’s the score with the two hundred million? How best can you lot get yer mits on it? Who does the dishing up the dough, please? I mean, who’s in charge of the lolly?
Just asking: no probs if it’s ATS code no we don’t want to tell you that Dear Reader.
It’s just I am wondering if i can get a few Jacksons for time earned, please Hair ‘Ed?
~
I reckon the instigator’s will be remembered for the red and green gig, because it’s so simple: over eight and in the seal goes. For some reason, the scene – yeah – as/is t/here, is really vibrant and the ones who will be remembered for their contribution to the world of Letters on Hair ‘Ed, for poetry per se: aint gonna be me or anyone redded to the max; but those inoffensive y’alls who know what being dead cool is, because they know the here and now is only of a modo see.
Thanks very much, it’s all a load of bollix anyway: we’re all gonna die, as Jack told America on Allen when asked why he wrote poetry.
So I see that the like/dislike function has turned hyrda headed, popping up in exchanges almost spontaneously. It was to be predicted.
Moving on here, Shiela Chambers’ most recent comment brings something to mind. She writes:
“Your analogies are startling to say the least. Even with the most egregious of poetry sins (e.g. the Jorie Graham contest debacle of years ago–or maybe the “grooming” of the modernists and resulting banishment of Shelley from the canon) it goes without saying that there is nothing in even the deepest, badest, most connected activities of poets that compares to harrassment with a bullhorn outside an abortion clinic, or rape, or any other real-world problems. Equating Foetry and Greepeace? This is why you (and other Foetry-ites) finally come across as ludicrous. The Foetry “cause” is really quite a trivial one by any measure. And those involved are unconvincing, finally, because real poets don’t spend their mental energies on these matters for years or even days or even hours. They write. Unless, of course, they can’t.”
It was years ago when I read what I suppose is a minor, maybe not so minor, American classic. Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” It is his report on Deep South poverty during the Great Depression. His report and Walker Evans’ photo essay on the same group of sharecroppers they covered. Agee’s introduction makes it clear he is grappling with a similar worry: how much does art matter when there is so much suffering in the world. The message that comes through is that it matters precisely because there is so much human suffering in the world. I pretty much agree, especially when it comes to poetry. By extension I also feel that the exposure of any scandal in the poetry world matters too.
Terreson
Ok, art is important. But can we at least agree that the idea that uncovering a poetry “scandal” is as important as stopping people from destroying the earth is completely ludicrous?
“stopping people from destroying the earth”
Nice, Matt. Good one. You rock, dude.
Sheila Chambers says: “Re: ‘Do you think she’ll be back anytime soon?’
Hopefully, no. But I agree, your ‘well-known online expert’ does seem smart–she got the ‘thumbs down’ message right away.”
The attitude expressed here stuns me and not in a good way. The expert referred to, one Dmanister, I know to be an honest broker. She and I agree on next to nothing when it comes to poetry. But she speaks straight and poetry, in and of itself, matters to her. That Ms Chambers hopes a participant will not darken the door again, then gets the explicit approval of Don Share, bothers the beejesus out of me.
F**k me running. Maybe Mr Brady is right after all.
Terreson
Mrs Chambers may very well be a puppet of one of the Hairy Ed staff T. at least, that was my instinctive thought on reading this – what i assume is a – nom de guerre.
Sheila and Tere,
It’s Sheila Chamber’s analogies that are disingenuous, Tere, not mine. I never said any activities of poets should be compared to harrassment with a bullhorn outside an abortion clinic, or with rape. Indeed, I said just the opposite. Rachel used the analogy of $5.00 and $500.00 to imply that Thomas Brady’s praise of a poem by his wife was still on the scale of crime, even if it was a very small crime. I said no, that’s chalk and cheese — and went on to explain that it would be like arguing there was something in common between an adolescent shouting at his parents and the fanatic’s bullhorn outside the abortion clinic, that there is, in fact, no comparison whatsoever. I also said it would be like comparing the damage a baby does to the vagina at birth to what a rapist does to the same organ in a rape. I hoped that that over-the-top hyperbole would shock the reader into realizing there was no analogy between Thomas Brady and Bin Ramke whatsoever. They’re not on the same scale!
Such a twisting of the logic of the opposition in a formal debate would have gained both of you nothing but thumbs-down at the Oxford Union, Sheila and Tere, yet here it gets garlanded with green!
Ditto Greenpeace, Tere. I said the angry attack of the Japanese on Greenpeace was parochial and self-interested, not that it was in any way similar to the abuses in poetry. I used that example because Greenpeace is such an effective environmental opposition that most of us admire so much. I suggested that the ugly attacks on Foetry as a protest movement today in America were also parochial and self-interested. Indeed, it’s a very good analogy for the protests themselves, not for the causes they espouse — because the Japanese are willing to accept the slaughter of the noblest creatures on earth just for a little slice of sushi! (You can carry through that anlogy with Foetry on your own.)
Finally, Tere, your analogy with James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” cuts just the opposite from what you want it to. Because what Agee was describing and Walker Evans was photographing was not what Americans wanted to see either, and when the book finally did get published a decade later it was scorned as socially disturbing, badly written, neurotic and exaggerated. Nobody wanted to hear that sort of bad news at the time. Then the Japanese arrived over Pearl Harbor and the book was shelved altogether.
So this wonderful piece of dissension, one of the greatest works of social protest ever put together in America, was dismissed in much the same way as you dismiss Foetry. When I say that I’m not making any anaolgies between the devastating effects of poverty and the abuses of poetry at all, just saying the two protest movements were equally both in our backyard and equally both invisible!
You see, you all don’t want to hear about Foetry any more than Americans wanted to face up to white poverty.
White poverty! Poetry business as usual!
Christopher
The disappearing of comments that get voted off the island isn’t working for me, because now that Terreson has spoken up for the woman that Sheila disparaged, I can’t find her comment, because it’s been disappeared, because (I’m guessing) it originally appeared as a reply to a comment that’s been Voted Off, which, when that happens, Disappears all the sub-threaded replies as well.
Another feature that hasn’t, to my knowledge been mentioned: Since Harriet can track who votes how for what, there’s an incentive built in to Vote Up the P-Foundation staff’s comments, and Vote Down those critical of P-Foundation staff or of the institutions of poetry in general, since the P-Foundation is such a major institution. After all, P-Dation staff can see how everybody’s voting! Very interesting to become aware of this on a post about Contests. Oh, the Agon! (Don’t know whether it’s Harriet’s spellcheck or my computer’s spellcheck that doesn’t recognize this word from classical poetics. If it’s Harriet who don’t know “Agon,” please add it to her lexicon.)
Somebody earlier pointed out that you can vote twice on a single post, for or against. I just tested it, voting against myself twice. I was able to vote against a single post of mine twice.
Terreson
So, John, do you think anybody’s ready to start naming the names of the posters who are no longer on board? Or to mention the fact that there are a great many new posters that nobody has ever heard from before, and have very little to say? Do we dare guess where all the red stuff is coming from?
I haven’t even bothered to look in for quite awhile and now it’s even worse than before. I’ve got a headache anyway. I mean, who needs this?
Like losing a friend!