tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post6845585061037076205..comments2024-03-19T21:14:01.007-07:00Comments on The Compass Rose: Minimalism Part II - Creeley's THIRTY THINGS [1974]Curtis Favillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-78807890997494045112009-05-06T15:55:00.000-07:002009-05-06T15:55:00.000-07:00Just for everyone's -- or those who may be interes...Just for everyone's -- or those who may be interested -- further information:<br /><br />Rexroth's <I>The Dragon and the Unicorn</I> is a mostly entertaining and at points astonishing long poem, in Rexroth's characteristic short line, plain style, that mixes travelogue with philosophic meditations, but the poem is marred, deeply, by offensive sections of gay hate, or homophobism, or -- at the very least -- poor judgment regarding matters related to sexual orientation.<br /><br />There's also some poor assumptions and conclusions about women, and about certain nationalities or types, but these don't seem as ugly today -- probably because they are mixed in with observations that are not so ignoble about those particular kinds of human beings -- as do the two or three (? -- I can't remember exactly how many there are)) rips on gays/homosexuals.Steven Famahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13733977161680651117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-62854312848074604552009-05-06T08:15:00.000-07:002009-05-06T08:15:00.000-07:00Don't know if some of your typos are encrypted pun...Don't know if some of your typos are encrypted puns or not, but<br /><br />yerars<br /><br />looked to my eyes as<br /><br />yeras<br /><br />as if every year was an era<br /><br />a great microscoping of time<br /><br />Thanks! ... and<br /><br />good to hear someone else hasn't yet slain that monstereddie watkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339600880006987180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-15972460121241571172009-05-06T07:58:00.000-07:002009-05-06T07:58:00.000-07:00hey I just found it on the net and passed it on ...hey I just found it on the net and passed it on have yet to read it! I am with you I won't even fucking print it out on my HP Color LaserJet 2605dn...much less "read" this on-line version!<br /><br /> will find the book version...as<br /><br />a poem of this magnitude might take me years (of bathroom-sitting) to read<br /><br />47 yerars now and I still ain't much beyond The Peesan Cantos of THAT monster..<br /><br />Not to mention...Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-88221394766589856422009-05-06T07:50:00.000-07:002009-05-06T07:50:00.000-07:00I should have put that in-to quotes...or said Dyla...I should have put that in-to quotes...or said Dylan Thomas said...<br /><br />which led him directly to <br />udder drunkenness or worst.... now he is reduced to just another God of Poetry...<br /><br /><br />I knew that I should not have dropped out of that <br />pee ached dee program! gee, by now I cld have been Professor E-meritous<br /><br />and have some degree of credibility.<br /><br />I ag(f)ree with you<br /><br /><br />one might learn/memorize "The Rules"<br /><br />then bye gawsh dropp 'em.... and move on.... ?<br /><br />your blog IS a breath of phresh aire...<br /><br />thanks.<br /><br />OH! another "neat" book (attitude):<br /><br />Soetsu Yanagi's THE UNKNOWN CRAFTSMAN more to what/how I define (soemtimes) "craft"<br /><br /><br />like<br /><br />"craft a piece" including what is accidental as .... etc..Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-2152148592767128882009-05-06T07:36:00.000-07:002009-05-06T07:36:00.000-07:00Don't think that's the complete, Ed, but I...Don't think that's the complete, Ed, but I'm curious - think you could read such a long poem on-line? would it get to your eyes?<br /><br />I'm yet to be able to apply the same attention & concentration to extended on-line reading as I do to an actual book object.eddie watkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339600880006987180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-32704472959237689022009-05-06T07:35:00.000-07:002009-05-06T07:35:00.000-07:00Dear Anon:
The idea that poetry is above all a "c...Dear Anon:<br /><br />The idea that poetry is above all a "craft" is by no means self-evidently correct. <br /><br />"Craft" by definition is something which can be codified, profiled, and learned, like a set of algebraic formulas which can be applied, endlessly, to specific relationships and problems. <br /><br />Rhyme, for instance, and meter, can be demonstrated and imitated endlessly. Straight end-line rhyme, therefore, can be employed with greater or lesser efficiency and inspiration by each succeeding generation of writers. <br /><br />But imitation and pat structural paradigms don't make art. If you're going to make something new, if you wish to invent or discover, imitation may be your starting point, but it can't be your ultimate goal. Art is about challenging the prevailing modes of "craft". It may be that one must first understand, perhaps even master, previous modes, before one can get beyond them, but even that is questionable. Some people with only a cursory knowledge of antecedents nevertheless broker new forms and ideas.<br /><br />Sorry to disagree with you here....Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-66608489167882744982009-05-06T07:11:00.000-07:002009-05-06T07:11:00.000-07:00and
you can read Rexroth's poem here (en toto...and<br /><br />you can read Rexroth's poem here (en toto)<br /><br />http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/poems/1940s.dragon.htm<br /><br /><br />SOME piece of work!<br /><br /><br />reminds me that after all<br /><br />(writing) poems IS above all else A CRAFT<br /><br />and<br /><br />as I frequently have said:<br /><br />in my craft and sullen art<br /><br />...go figureAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-51921001119691113522009-05-06T06:43:00.000-07:002009-05-06T06:43:00.000-07:00Read LE on The Dragon and the Unicorn last night. ...Read LE on The Dragon and the Unicorn last night. <br /><br />Refreshingly reviewed as a sensitized reader and a reader's direct experience as such, not as yet another poet picking bones or blindly & blurbily championing.eddie watkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339600880006987180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-90272718514778524752009-05-05T16:31:00.000-07:002009-05-05T16:31:00.000-07:00FR LARRY
in earth's wake
our ...FR LARRY<br /><br /><br /> in earth's wake<br /><br /><br /> our time allotedCurtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-13972998143217548692009-05-05T09:52:00.000-07:002009-05-05T09:52:00.000-07:00Eigner (also in areas lights heights
goes to...Eigner (also in areas lights heights<br /><br />goes to this (re:Rexroth) <br />(a 'review' of)<br />THE DRAGON AND THE UNICORN <br /><br /> By Kenneth RexrothAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-81993207497749601072009-05-05T09:39:00.000-07:002009-05-05T09:39:00.000-07:00why not jus' re:visit areas lights heights...why not jus' re:visit areas lights heights? for starters maybe (even) WHOLE &/OR PARTS? or <br /><br /><br />A DEFINATE AIR re:garding Cid Corman's Thwe Precisions<br /><br />or better yet just go to<br /><br />that 1977 Stoney Hills (Peter Bates) interview<br /><br /><br />page 148..<br /><br />and there-in a LE piece to thicken his plot (pardon me if the spacing ain't rigt):<br /><br /> what<br /> <br /> to study with<br /><br /> radio<br /><br /> in the common<br /><br /> light <br /><br /> why<br /><br /> go to town<br /><br /> if<br /><br /><br /> your earth<br /><br /> then dis<br /><br /> appears<br /><br /> watch out<br /><br /> now<br /><br /> for the steetlamp<br /><br /><br /> (etc)<br /><br />Ed<br /><br />pee est:<br />I could say more <br /> however<br />will save things for after I am dead <br /> <br /> or<br />for those who read/write/draw <br />before thinkingEd Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-46020588881785169102009-05-05T07:51:00.000-07:002009-05-05T07:51:00.000-07:00Monsieur Silliman might share some similarities wi...Monsieur Silliman might share some similarities with Rexroth, no?<br /><br />non-academic, autodidact, extremely opinionated (often in broad slashing strokes), thorny, extremely well-read, publicly available (though S isn't really the popularizer R was), and first and foremost a poetry inspirer.<br /><br />Both necessary figures for their times.<br /><br />Though I couldn't see R drinking joe out of a tin cup on a mountain-top.eddie watkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339600880006987180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-59098153364344970222009-05-05T07:13:00.000-07:002009-05-05T07:13:00.000-07:00Georgie:
American Poetry in the 20th Century is a...Georgie:<br /><br /><I>American Poetry in the 20th Century</I> is a broad survey, as if Rexroth were sitting in his bath-tub or an easy chair and carryng on as if he were flying 30,000 feet above. <br /><br />It's charm is Rexroth's wide knowledge, tendency to gossip, and judgmental approach. <br /><br />Those are its deficiencies too. <br /><br />The start of Chapter 8 is tpical as anything: an extremely good capsule portrait of Eugene Jolas, stressing his knowledge of languages and historic and varied literatures, a dismissal of the a key part of "The Revolution of the Word," praise for the magazine <I>transition</I>, and an intense curlicue inserted about Robert Desnos, in the course of which Rexroth knocks Cocteeau and Allen Ginsberg. <br /><br />In this way Rexroth covers a lot of ground. The book has no index, but if it did, it would run pages. It's maddeningly shallow, but wide wide wide and to this day when I re-read the book it sparks interest in reading or thinking about things. <br /><br />Rexroth champions Mina Loy, and Baroness Elsa von Freitag-Lorinhofen (that's Rexroth's spelling), considers WC Williams the greatest poet of the generation, specifically demolishing TS Eliot and others in the process, etc. etc. He's pretty dead-on.Steven Famahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13733977161680651117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-69769508209215386182009-05-05T06:56:00.000-07:002009-05-05T06:56:00.000-07:00I don't think Rexroth was ever in danger of writin...I don't think Rexroth was ever in danger of writing traditional poems. As a young man in Chicago, he was already a rebel, and his readings of the European avant garde, way back in the early 1930's, guaranteed he'd never be an academic. <br /><br />He was influenced by Pound, going back to early models and "classical" postures. I think, with Rexroth, that doesn't necessarily have a happy outcome. I'd really rather have someone like Wilbur or Logue or Jeffers doing the Greek drama bit, instead of Rexroth.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-65453276044068734692009-05-05T05:41:00.000-07:002009-05-05T05:41:00.000-07:00I've benefitted from "Waxwrath"'s translations and...I've benefitted from "Waxwrath"'s translations and have enjoyed his long poems and the rugged clarity of his short poems. I also like the seeming spontaneity of his work, its unbelaboredness.<br /><br />And who doesn't like his great quote: "Most poets are so square thay have to walk around the block just to turn over in bed."eddie watkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339600880006987180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-25458090421849080542009-05-04T21:24:00.000-07:002009-05-04T21:24:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.0000000https://www.blogger.com/profile/14767771887014774485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-58281077276366849712009-05-04T16:44:00.000-07:002009-05-04T16:44:00.000-07:00Curtis:
A few reasons Rexroth's important:
plai...Curtis:<br /><br /><br />A few reasons Rexroth's important:<br /><br />plain written instead of academic crap.<br /><br />a knowledge or world poetry when much of 'merican verse was USA-centric.<br /><br />excellent love poems<br /><br />excellent criticism (read the Classics Revisted)<br /><br />His earlier experimentation, from the late 1920s and early 1930s -- some great stuff -- was first collected not in his first book <I>In What Hour</I> (1940) but rather <I>The Art of Worldly Wisdom</I> published almost a decade later.Steven Famahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13733977161680651117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-65843252827314062262009-05-03T19:06:00.000-07:002009-05-03T19:06:00.000-07:00Something about his work has always struck me as n...Something about his work has always struck me as neurotic. A particular set of neuroses that must conflict with mine.<br /><br />But then I haven't read Pieces or Thirty Things.eddie watkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339600880006987180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-2981625527497816232009-05-03T18:31:00.000-07:002009-05-03T18:31:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.0000000https://www.blogger.com/profile/14767771887014774485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-40110395385560136262009-05-03T16:21:00.000-07:002009-05-03T16:21:00.000-07:00In Creeley's case, I think the exigencies of his l...In Creeley's case, I think the exigencies of his life derailed him. I won't go into details--after all, there's a full-fleshed-out biography now--but things just weren't working. Could he/would he/should he have continued on a path implied by the last third of Words and then Pieces and Thirty Things? I can't say. I don't know what the implication of such an eventuality might have been. It's imponderable. <br /><br />But there's certainly no reason to think that Creeley did the "wrong things" at any point. People may claim that a writer "abandoned" his inspiration in favor of a diversion or wrong turn. I don't think this is possible with Creeley. He carried all his intelligence with him to the end. He did what he had to.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-60203238850675562782009-05-03T15:18:00.000-07:002009-05-03T15:18:00.000-07:00"Did Creeley retreat, in early middle age, from th..."Did Creeley retreat, in early middle age, from the extremity of his own artistic enterprise? Or was the last half of his life a fulfillment of the potentials of his acute earlier vision?"<br /><br />Though I've never gotten into Creeley (but you've convinced me to pick up the 1st volume of the collected), I'd like to respond to this comment. <br /><br />One need not remain at that edge to create work of excellence and interest. In fact one can probably not remain at that edge for long, without incurring damages. But having experienced that edge, and its dangers and extremities, can effectively "open something up" within one, move one to another level of the mind in a sense, and then this new level can be explored at relative ease. In this way even more of that new level can be revealed and remarked upon. Better to let extreme experiences do their work and then reap their rewards in relative safety, than to torment oneself by trying to recreate the experience of being on that extreme edge.eddie watkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339600880006987180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-24994532525568695692009-05-03T14:34:00.000-07:002009-05-03T14:34:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.0000000https://www.blogger.com/profile/14767771887014774485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-67073978062675379072009-05-03T09:00:00.000-07:002009-05-03T09:00:00.000-07:00Steven:
I've never been able to understand why Re...Steven:<br /><br />I've never been able to understand why Rexroth was so important.<br /><br />Apparently he was a very abrasive character, he'd insult people right and left, and pontificate about everything. People like Duncan would swear by him, but I've never been impressed by a single poem he wrote, long or short. Some of his Japanese and Chinese translations have a workmanlike efficiency. He did some competent essays for the Saturday Review of Literature many years ago. I know he had a feeling for Western Landscape, but it never comes off as more than "arrogant rock" to my ears. He'd read a lot of French and Spanish surrealism in his youth, and it influenced him. His first collection--In What Hour--contains poems of traditional technique, and some that are "cubistic" in construction. <br /><br />Creeley isn't considered a pastoral poet by any stretch, but those I quoted above I've always admired--they really capture the mood of the place.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-55671956477584271812009-05-02T11:27:00.000-07:002009-05-02T11:27:00.000-07:00welll ME again an ohhhh I get
sooo excited when...welll ME again an ohhhh I get<br />sooo excited when something<br /><br /> strikes me<br /><br />so we got 4 and twenty black-birds<br /><br /> and all of them listened to radio...<br /><br />so<br /><br />Olson, Zukofsky, Rakosi, Oppen,Williams, Duncan,Levertov, Eigner, Creeley, Samperi... oh I wld have to go to my "stash" to get a 24-poet list...and<br />1,000 etcs<br /><br />but,, they all THEY ALL (especially Larry and Bobbie) they every one of 'em had<br /><br /> a central "electrical outlet" to plug into<br /><br /> C I D C O R M A N 's<br /><br />radio program up in Boston<br /><br />and the PIE!? well<br /><br /> Origin Magazine<br /><br />and, all these "guys wrote wrote wrote wrote<br /><br />far beyond any akaneamic credentialist "crap" <br /><br />get a hold The Gist of Origin<br /><br />Cid often said:Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-21721872379584757872009-05-02T06:58:00.000-07:002009-05-02T06:58:00.000-07:00acause he died
before
I got the chance to
buy ...acause he died<br />before<br />I got the chance to<br /><br />buy him a beer<br /><br />and 'schmooze'<br /><br />etc...Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.com