Humbug!

Merry Christmas.
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All the technical skill and craft in the world are useless if you really have nothing to say.
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It’s a very easy way to say me that imagination
in your own circ, circle and circumference is the laziest thing…

On the other hand here in Turkey,
we prefer making ‘gobek dance’ on the ‘corners’ of your cycles..

However we know that, cycling is also a way of discovering another culture.
You need to learn much than this about us.

Thanks,

Murat Ustubal, a stupid poet from the city of mystical poet Mevlana.
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And Seyh Galip and Mevlana as Madonna showed you in your music videos, are some kind of Buddha’s with new and cool dance figures! Lennon and Beatles told that already in 1960s, but Mevlana says nothing more than “come together”. And you knew that already, thanks to Yoko!

And our poetry is nothing but Farisi (persian) mumbling! We -who the hell are we?- some kind of barbarians still the time we crashed our heads to the walls of peacefull vienna!

But even we, had some word for you two guys, a stereo type in our literature since 1890s: “zuppe” (in turkish) and you know that word from Homer Simpson maybe: “la di dah”

Be a poet first in our terms, but around here we still love Pound!
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While I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was intentionally sexist or that Bok is a secret sexist at heart, the trope is telling of a kind of reflexive metonymic dismissal of “women’s work.” Maybe he should start using marquetry instead of doilies. If, that is, the substitution doesn’t require a hard drive reformat.

And yeah, I thought the whole thing quite an underwhelming barrage of dud ordnance. It would have been better, I think, had the moderator been more of an intrusive interviewer. I mean, really, a teleprompter could have taken his place and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Because the “discussion” turned into a sequence of soliloquies, it emphasized both the bored, over-rehearsed aspects of Bok’s delivery and the apparent stage-nerves of Carmine’s.

And you should get Carmine’s book if you get some xmas money. It’s his best, overall. I think a lot of people who tended to dismiss his work as a poet have been revising their opinions. Even Stuart Ross was saying he really likes some stuff in it! Maybe you could review it for someone. I’d offer, but CNQ doesn’t review books written by its editors.
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I presume he means everybody except (or possibly including) himself, so that would be a long list. Maybe something to make an epic poem out of.
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Agreed, this being a good reason to concentrate on what can be taught.

-o-
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The formulation, “Here’s a series of rules of thumb that always work under all circumstances and if you adopt them slavishly, blindly, you can always be assured of writing something, producing something of merit,” is pure academicism. For decades, American schools of music composition told their students the same thing; they called the rules serialism. And the results rarely had merit to anybody outside the halls of master-disciple slavishness that can characterize any academy of arts.

Here’s to Brian Palmu’s formulation, “comprehensive vision and intuitive trope structuring.” That’s the shizzle that can’t be taught.
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The avant-gardists were little appreciated and even less understood by the mainstream (bourgeoise) practitioners and theorists of their day. Check out Buck’s denunciation of Pound, to whom Pound refers to as “that idiot in Chicago”. Critics of Duchamp, Pollock, Rauschenberg, Cage, etc were also legion in their own day. It’s almost cliche to refer to the poor, penniless, unappreciated radical avant-gardist: right? Even Schwitter, the man Bok actively emulates, died penurious and really not that well known. It was a loyal following of appreciative followers who passed the torch to the next generation.

If Bok is playing for laughs, speaking tongue-in-cheek, well that’s a different matter and I will mend my speech a little. But I think the man’s arrogance is genuine. I do appreciate, by the way, his anti-Canada Council views, and applaud him for it. Slaving over a dictionary for 7 years is admirable in itself,an impressive devotion to a completely unconventional view of poetry design & construction (but I wonder if it really is poetry, after all)

But he isn’t the only one who’s spent years over his/her craft, and without the privilege of membership in an academic elite (actively buttressed by Canada Council and mainstream publishing)I doubt he would got the Griffen 50Gs. As I’ve said elsewhere I’d like to see poets from different walks of life (elementary school teachers, steelworkers, mutual funds administrators, etc) win the big prizes for their poetrywriting.

Steelworkers? Timothy Russell, North America’s greatest haiku master, worked in the steel mills of Pittsburgh before he retired.

ZZZ, thanks for the opportunity to clarify some of what I’ve said.
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I’d be curious to see what Christian Bök considers ‘rules of thumb’. Does he set these out in the linked interview/discussion, or does one need to join one of his courses to find out? (sorry, but I’m presently too lazy and stupid to check for myself)
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Poetry is aleatory. I agree that a lot of poets are lazy (though not stupid), but Bok can place his nose to the stone forever and still not end up with a “justifiable” work (as in Eunoia).

Henry Gould has the right idea. So did Stanley Kunitz. Technical ability is important, even indispensable. But without the deeper, more abiding (and now unfashionable) qualities of comprehensive vision and intuitive trope structuring, poetry is only a higher form of linguistic hopscotch (as in Eunoia).
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lots of people consider haiku easy. yeah, they’re right. but a memorable haiku…

follow this procedure and one is more likely to produce something worthwhile — perhaps, but one may miss the quirky stuff that could become more striking and not merely novel.
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As such, the problem in this seems to be in your definition of the avant-garde, which becomes problematic as it is looked at more closely. How do avant-gardists manage to hurt and offend if they are ignored by publishers and readers? What distinguishes their “enlightened disciples” from the mainstream, particularly when you seem to indicate that there is an explicit goal of eventual acceptance? Bok, by “insulting the next generation of readers” (if that is indeed what he’s done), would seem to be following your definition to the letter.
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And yes, both participants are very much on point. A slightly more generous description than we’ve seen.
http://vimeo.com/7963755

My question is why these either/or discussions? I am a big fan of Christian Bok, but I see him as one voice of many. One way of doing poetry. Why all these entrenched responses? It’s such a primitive, divide and conquer stance. I think there are many ways in to poetry and I do look forward to discussing ways in which those poetics intersect.

Happy holidays all.
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http://vimeo.com/7963755
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