tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post3124035784477402309..comments2024-03-19T21:14:01.007-07:00Comments on The Compass Rose: Ted Berrigan's Sonnets - 45 Years OnCurtis Favillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-1679278650609422422013-09-14T18:27:09.418-07:002013-09-14T18:27:09.418-07:00Hi there, this weekend is fastidious in support of...Hi there, this weekend is fastidious in support of me, since this time i am reading <br />this fantastic informative piece of writing hefe at my home.<br /><br /><br />Here is my homepage; <a href="http://www.bloodflix.com/users/WinifredD" rel="nofollow">company of heroes 2 serial keygenerator</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-17457655853587959542009-08-12T06:59:26.606-07:002009-08-12T06:59:26.606-07:00Dear Pat:
Obviously, one doesn't do complete ...Dear Pat:<br /><br />Obviously, one doesn't do complete justice to any writer on a single blog entry. With the Whalen pieces, I made sure to indicate that my appreciation of his work was much broader and deeper than any single book or poem. <br /><br />With the Berrigan, my point in discussion centered around formal innovation. Ted wrote a lot of good poems, but his primary "use" to students of form is The Sonnets. His "I do this/I do that" poems, as important to his earlier work as they are, for instance, aren't nearly as original in design, though every bit as well done. Train Ride feels like a repeat performance, because he's doing Tambourine Life over again (in terms of form). <br /><br />I'm less satisfied with much of the later work he did, and I think he freely admitted that he hadn't succeeded in finding new ways of saying new things. <br /><br />My favorite collection is Guillaume Apollinaire ist tod, the German bi-lingual book with the bright yellow cover by Joe B. <br /><br />Readers who weren't around to hear or see Berrigan in the flesh will have to make do with second hand report, and discussing his work in terms of the place he occupies in the historical progression is an easy way to approach him. Neither Berrigan nor Padgett, for instance, can be "summarized" through Bean Spasms, though the importance of that book in the grander scheme of descent can't be denied. I certainly wasn't trying to pigeon-hole him by "only" talking about The Sonnets, but Ted did himself seem frustrated at times by how good a thing he had done so early on. That isn't a new problem.<br /><br />Silliman's work is usually discussed in terms of its innovative design, which he codified in a series of essays in the 1970's and 80's. Ted wasn't much of a critic, but he clearly got specific ideas from his forebears, which he openly acknowledged. In Ron's case, I don't see anyone acknowledging how much his ideas of shifting contexts is derived from Berrigan's example. Credit is due. That doesn't make Silliman's work more important as a result, nor does it make The Sonnets any less entertaining and accomplished either. <br /><br />I find The Sonnets more important by far.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-21143477156490665422009-08-11T21:46:30.879-07:002009-08-11T21:46:30.879-07:00Mr. Faville – I was recently directed to your blog...Mr. Faville – I was recently directed to your blog in regard to the Whalen post. In all things Whalen I have an avid interest. I’m sorry to not have found it in a timely manner so that I could contribute my comment. In regard to your post on Berrigan’s Sonnets, there is so much more to his total work than the Sonnets. Is it because the Sonnets are considered “significant” and everything else flippant and undeserving of critical consideration? Interestingly, Ted Berrigan was one of the most serious poets I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. To liken the Sonnets with Mr. Silliman’s work, however, is to compare apples and oranges – they are both roughly spheres and edible, but the primary resemblance ends there. This is not to denigrate Mr. Silliman’s work in any way. The difference may have more to do with their individual approach to their art, one deliberate and the other spontaneous. <br /><br />I have read with interest some of your other poetry posts. You are to be commended on your honesty and forthrightness. Those tendencies tend to be lightning rods. However, you seem to have the intellectual acumen to take it all in stride. Is it too audacious to ask you to consider revisiting Whalen in a future post? His work truly deserves engagement and dialogue. As for Ted Berrigan, is he not just one of a number of significant poets who might be called the sons and daughters of Frank, Jimmy, John, and Kenneth? Another avenue for exploration, perhaps? Although I do seem to remember Eileen Myles saying in an interview in a recent Poetry Project Newsletter that whenever anyone asks about The New York School they are usually from the Language School. Whatever that means.<br /><br />I sign myself as xileinparadise but most everyone knows me as Pat Nolan.xileinparadisenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-88051651581791912712009-08-09T20:46:04.977-07:002009-08-09T20:46:04.977-07:00Kirby:
I was just reminding Silliman that what I ...Kirby:<br /><br />I was just reminding Silliman that what I do I do in the name of open debate, not open warfare. He understands that, but it bears repeating occasionally.<br /><br />Steven:<br /><br />I think it's demonstrable that The Alphabet isn't a lyric poem, either in its parts or as a whole. If it isn't lyric, or lyric-narrative, then what is it? <br /><br />We can call anything a "song"--but in the end, that kind of application isn't of much use, either as a definition, or a critical convenience. <br /><br />You could say "the singing of..." anything in a poem or prosepoem, and it will work. But as a discrete description of what we mean when we call a poem a "lyric" that doesn't work. A man's life is a song. Making love is a song. Building a beautiful house is a song. But a poem like The Alphabet is "un"-song-like, without much question. <br /><br />Yeah, I know all about Berrigan messing with the line sequence in The Sonnets. In the end, I'm not sure it matters, especially if it's something we don't notice, until it's shown to us. The important thing is HEARING the recurrence, and refreshment of lines in shifting contexts--that's funny and occasionally fascinating and weird. You can start The Sonnets anywhere and jump around, or start on number 26 and read to the end and then start from 1 and conclude with 25--that synchronicity--variance--is exactly what Berrigan is getting at.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-90787505713192996082009-08-09T19:10:15.794-07:002009-08-09T19:10:15.794-07:00I don't mean to spatter about in your comment ...I don't mean to spatter about in your comment box, Curtis, but one more thing:<br /><br />you write that Ron S.'s <i>the Alphabet</i> "It isn't a song to anything, or about anything."<br /><br />At the very least, it's a song <i><b>of</b></i> attention.<br /><br />And it's a song <i><b>about</b></i> Ron. It's extremely autbiographical. As well as extremely telling about his mind. <br /><br />I love that book. <br /><br />It's an accretion (and forgive me here, but your previous published criticisms of the book on your blog seemed not to grasp this part of it as well), as wondrous, and about as slow-paced in the time it takes to "grow," as a coral reef. <br /><br />Or equally apt, maybe better, what are Rodia's towers a song to, or about? Similar to Silliman and <i>the Alphabet</i>, Rodia took about 30 years with his towers.Steven Famahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13733977161680651117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-33214566552464529912009-08-09T18:32:09.618-07:002009-08-09T18:32:09.618-07:00P.S. That Saroyan-Silverblatt conversation in 199...P.S. That Saroyan-Silverblatt conversation in 1994, which is mostly all about Berrigan, is available still today on the KCRW <i>Bookworm</i> show archives.Steven Famahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13733977161680651117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-25348786711401700482009-08-09T18:30:14.547-07:002009-08-09T18:30:14.547-07:00The greatest thing I ever learned about the great ...The greatest thing I ever learned about the great Berrigan <i>The Sonnets</i> was a conversation and demonstration on August 15, 1994 during radio station KCRW (in Los Angeles) between host Michael Silverblatt and guest Aram Saroyan (who'd edited a selected Berrigan).<br /><br />They showed conclusively that at least one of Berrigan's <i>Sonnets</i> was scrambled by Ted via a quite methodical method. Specifically, if you re-arrange the sonnet such that you read the first line, then last line, then the second and second from last lines, etc. etc., the poem reveals itself as a totally traditional, straight-forward (but still beautiful) lyric. <br /><br />They do this with Berrigan <i>Sonnet</i> # XV (first line: "In Joe Brainard's collage its white arrow"). Check it out for yourself. It is astonishing. <br /><br />I assume it's an oddball in working that way (I should run a bunch of others via the same method), but number XV sure is interesting that way...!!!Steven Famahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13733977161680651117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-87172769310411444512009-08-09T16:55:46.078-07:002009-08-09T16:55:46.078-07:00Now you're trying to make up with Silliman at ...Now you're trying to make up with Silliman at the end, and it shows. That's fine. I don't want him to hate me, either. Not because I'm afraid of him, but because after all the pain he causes, it's hard to cause him pain. I want him to be happy every day of his life, and twice as happy at night.<br /><br />I never was able to read the sonnets or anything else by Berrigan. I was once standing in the rented apartments at Naropa at night in the kitchen when I heard two people standing outside chatting.<br /><br />They had this louvered glass window in the doors, and I peeped out, a kind of reverse peeping Tom. It was Berrigan talking with a poet named Dick Gallup. They were leaning against a railing on the second floor, smoking cigarettes, or at least one of them was. I hate cigarette smoke, and it was making it very difficult to go on peeping without coughing. Berrigan was a name I knew, but nothing else. He was probably as broad as he was tall, and he was saying,<br /><br />"We were really really great then, we were the greatest ever."<br /><br />It was like he was saying his life was over. I wanted to open the door and go over and kick him in the pants because he was only 40 according to the biographical data I had known at the time (1977).<br /><br />I had never heard of him, and for some reason I still can't get through the stuff. Underneath all the surface hilarity is some kind of sadness so dark and so debilitating that I feel like it's quicksand and I'll go down in it, and be lost forever, like Ted!<br /><br />I did know Anselm Hollo, but only through the net and the phone. He talked to me for an hour the night before I flew to Finland to teach for five years. We were intermittently in touch by internet. His writing seems very easy to read, and startlingly clear, and smart.<br /><br />I have a chapter on his writing in my book on Codrescu called The Outside Poets.<br /><br />I loved his writing. Anselm's brother is on the Finnish Supreme Court.Kirby Olsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05952289700191142943noreply@blogger.com