Comments on: This Is The End / FAME http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/09/this-is-the-end-fame/ Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:40:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Krista Elliot http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/09/this-is-the-end-fame/#comment-25475 Krista Elliot Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:20:17 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5333#comment-25475 Poetry has its fashions just like anything else and it's way too easy to trivialize them. Fashion is art, right? Can anyone make the case that fashion is less useful than poetry? They're both useless! That's why they're both so awesome! Sure, some people can go overboard with their "hipster" biz (pace http://exoskeleton-johannes.blogspot.com/) but to pretend we all poetry folks are somehow above it with our sackcloth and ashes is sillier than anything on Project Runway. Yay fashion! Yay fame! Poetry has its fashions just like anything else and it’s way too easy to trivialize them. Fashion is art, right? Can anyone make the case that fashion is less useful than poetry? They’re both useless! That’s why they’re both so awesome! Sure, some people can go overboard with their “hipster” biz (pace http://exoskeleton-johannes.blogspot.com/) but to pretend we all poetry folks are somehow above it with our sackcloth and ashes is sillier than anything on Project Runway. Yay fashion! Yay fame!
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]]> By: Margo Berdeshevsky http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/09/this-is-the-end-fame/#comment-25467 Margo Berdeshevsky Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:33:41 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5333#comment-25467 As a grad of the "Fame" high school,which was never actually called that, but rather The High School of Performing Arts--and about performance, and hard training...I have a few musings on the subject, Rebecca. We were trained for high performance, high esthetics, high achievement, not fame, really. I think the old film, and perhaps the newest one, bought into the same American-dream, Amer-idol-ism that your own dream evidenced. And apart from being a spur to look-at-me-ism, it's also a sharded danger, as I'm sure you know. Kids who wanna be stars don't necessarily know-and so get heartbreaks, same as persons who dream of being "star" lovers to one another in an affair--(as other than hard working ones.) It's all about the big cigar, big 'Warholian' 15 minutes, etc...The poetry world is just as vulnerable, and the prize systems feed the shark in us all. Not a great thing for the art. Or the hungry-for-applause soul; or the poem, at the end of the night, end of the dream. It's still one word after another, one shiny word, or string or horn-blow or step, tripping over itself on the way to communication. For fame--glass slippers abound. They fit a few. Who knows why...but that's fashion, not art, we know it and pretend we don't (?) margo As a grad of the “Fame” high school,which was never actually called that, but rather The High School of Performing Arts–and about performance, and hard training…I have a few musings on the subject, Rebecca. We were trained for high performance, high esthetics, high achievement, not fame, really.

I think the old film, and perhaps the newest one, bought into the same American-dream, Amer-idol-ism that your own dream evidenced. And apart from being a spur to look-at-me-ism, it’s also a sharded danger, as I’m sure you know. Kids who wanna be stars don’t necessarily know-and so get heartbreaks, same as persons who dream of being “star” lovers to one another in an affair–(as other than hard working ones.)

It’s all about the big cigar, big ‘Warholian’ 15 minutes, etc…The poetry world is just as vulnerable, and the prize systems feed the shark in us all. Not a great thing for the art. Or the hungry-for-applause soul; or the poem, at the end of the night, end of the dream. It’s still one word after another, one shiny word, or string or horn-blow or step, tripping over itself on the way to communication.

For fame–glass slippers abound. They fit a few. Who knows why…but that’s fashion, not art, we know it and pretend we don’t (?)

margo
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]]> By: Gary B. Fitzgerald http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/09/this-is-the-end-fame/#comment-25463 Gary B. Fitzgerald Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:58:48 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5333#comment-25463 "Being a famous poet is not the same as being famous." - John Ashbery “Being a famous poet is not the same as being famous.”

– John Ashbery
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]]> By: Teri G. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/09/this-is-the-end-fame/#comment-25458 Teri G. Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:38:10 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5333#comment-25458 I didn't know your work before Harriet, Rebecca. So in some ways blogging has made you more 'famous'! Poetry-famous? How different is that from real-famous? Poetry-infamous? I didn’t know your work before Harriet, Rebecca. So in some ways blogging has made you more ‘famous’! Poetry-famous? How different is that from real-famous? Poetry-infamous?
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]]> By: Rebecca Wolff http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/09/this-is-the-end-fame/#comment-25457 Rebecca Wolff Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:23:22 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5333#comment-25457 You can't go wrong with barns. You can’t go wrong with barns.
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]]> By: Barney the Barn Awareness Owl http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/09/this-is-the-end-fame/#comment-25456 Barney the Barn Awareness Owl Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:13:01 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5333#comment-25456 Dear Ms. Wolff, I just wanted to say thank you for linking to the Wikipedia article on barns!! Your efforts, both today and in the future, will continue to bring much needed public awareness to the situation of America's barns. Thanks again, and always remember: "When In Doubt, Be Aware of Barns!!" Hoot Hoot!! Dear Ms. Wolff, I just wanted to say thank you for linking to the Wikipedia article on barns!! Your efforts, both today and in the future, will continue to bring much needed public awareness to the situation of America’s barns. Thanks again, and always remember: “When In Doubt, Be Aware of Barns!!” Hoot Hoot!!
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]]> By: Rebecca Wolff http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/09/this-is-the-end-fame/#comment-25454 Rebecca Wolff Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:50:07 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5333#comment-25454 Love Kia! Love Kia!
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]]> By: John Oliver Simon http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/09/this-is-the-end-fame/#comment-25453 John Oliver Simon Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:46:11 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5333#comment-25453 (1) Fame: more people know you than you know. — Lew Welch (2) On getting into Wesleyan, first and second try: thirty years later, my daughter Kia and I were walking across Harvard Yard, and I told her, "you know, if this place had accepted me as an undergraduate (ended up at Swarthmore) or a graduate (Berkeley), you probably wouldn't exist." She said, "Well, Dad, maybe that's why they didn't accept you." (1) Fame: more people know you than you know. — Lew Welch

(2) On getting into Wesleyan, first and second try: thirty years later, my daughter Kia and I were walking across Harvard Yard, and I told her, “you know, if this place had accepted me as an undergraduate (ended up at Swarthmore) or a graduate (Berkeley), you probably wouldn’t exist.”

She said, “Well, Dad, maybe that’s why they didn’t accept you.”
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]]> By: Glen http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/09/this-is-the-end-fame/#comment-25452 Glen Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:40:31 +0000 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/?p=5333#comment-25452 Dream songs? Love and fame? Somebody's been reading Berryman! Dream songs? Love and fame? Somebody’s been reading Berryman!
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