tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post2505814875334432806..comments2024-03-19T21:14:01.007-07:00Comments on The Compass Rose: A Controversy of Poets - The Deep Divide in American PoetryCurtis Favillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-88926288859189787722009-12-21T16:48:19.469-08:002009-12-21T16:48:19.469-08:00Merton's last book of poetry, THE GEOGRAPHY OF...Merton's last book of poetry, THE GEOGRAPHY OF LOGRAIRE, shows definite interest in formal experimentation...Not Lonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17639765066370206564noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-48281619480999057252009-10-20T17:26:03.377-07:002009-10-20T17:26:03.377-07:00that's a bit different than most of the El Lay...that's a bit different than most of the El Lay hipsters' Dylanmann stories, which tend to be of the "we heard there was a par-tay in the 'Bu at dylan's compound , and tried to get in but they called the cops on us...." sortJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567400697675996283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-89053125098140817312009-10-20T15:57:37.857-07:002009-10-20T15:57:37.857-07:00one night in May
1972 or so
walking down 2 nd ave
...one night in May<br />1972 or so<br />walking down 2 nd ave<br />towards the corner pub<br /><br />(speaking of Bob Zimmerman)<br /><br />walking with Pauline/Fay <br /><br />Cienna and Tony caught up to us<br /><br />and this chubby guy falls in with us<br />and we all go for snapps and munchies<br /><br />well<br /><br />it was Bob's brother... David! doing something in The City re: recording a group..<br /><br />I think that there is a Dvid's Album "out there"Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-55380804535091342442009-10-20T11:08:15.485-07:002009-10-20T11:08:15.485-07:00Zimmerman had a few nice riffs, but real? Nyet. Mc...Zimmerman had a few nice riffs, but real? Nyet. McMeal.<br /><br />Beats overrated as a whole, alas--Snyder had a few pleasant Muirish mountain songs--better Zen than, er Zim. Or Zin. Poesy as a whole is. Roethke was McReal Deal. A bit of Frost . Pound<br /><br />Crane too. Steven. And Poe, as in poem. <br /><br /><br />Snodgrass at least uglified in a an interesting way..... like SimicJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567400697675996283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-84138208336225599692009-10-15T14:01:11.497-07:002009-10-15T14:01:11.497-07:00well
rain rain rain
so
John and Jan wenta home u...well<br /><br />rain rain rain<br />so<br />John and Jan wenta home up near Rehobath Beach..<br /><br />plus they got 'wiped out" doing the mall tourist "thing"<br /><br />so they didn't go over to Mount Vernon and Arlington Cemetery acuse they were pooped! so we didn't do it..<br /><br />so I guess I'll just have to continue reading to my gold fish..<br /><br />meanwhile I accidentally snipped my string of mala beads and 108 of em scattered.. took me all day to get up off the floor<br /><br />so, I guess I and John are yet "in absentia" and<br />will NEVER become Major American Famous Poets<br /><br />thanks for asking...<br /><br />pee est I may just do one myself...Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-48467794783092112722009-10-14T03:35:22.901-07:002009-10-14T03:35:22.901-07:00pee est:
hey anonumous..
don't take it too p...pee est:<br /><br />hey anonumous..<br /><br />don't take it too personally..<br /><br />most of what is "out there" being called poetry IS pure garbage!<br /><br />produced by clubbies and credentialist..<br /><br />who've been in the<br />shit<br />so lonng<br />that they can no longer smell<br />the stink<br /><br /><br />...much less the roses!Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-61573143152262243272009-10-14T03:30:39.502-07:002009-10-14T03:30:39.502-07:00hey jay ache..
John & Jan Perlman just here.....hey jay ache..<br /><br />John & Jan Perlman just here.. Perlman <br /><br />we go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy back<br /><br />he was first to publish poems of mine in 1972-ish in his SHUTTLE<br /><br />we plan to do a movie of us reading later tonight via one of them little phones a cell phone<br /><br />so<br /><br />speaking of monks<br /><br />I just found out that <br /> Daido Loori died!<br />John and Jan<br /><br />http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/photo.php?pid=593556&id=1504812297<br /><br />and<br />well<br /><br />it really ain't about that y'all being a monk...<br /><br />shit, you could just as swell be in a cell in Alcatraz! or in a room in the back of your house.Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-62878686216716733452009-10-09T20:20:35.670-07:002009-10-09T20:20:35.670-07:00hay a non ee muss
yoo takey ed way to serious
leee...hay a non ee muss<br />yoo takey ed way to serious<br />leee<br />he no meeney<br />he just a lito lito tired and well jaded too but he ain't so mean<br />really he ain't<br />he used to give me all kinds o shite<br />until it was clear i am a monk<br />now he reeferz to me<br />as br phuqqhead<br />but he's kind about it<br />you'll get used to the semantix<br />take the time to warm up to his ret O rik<br />he's sort of fun<br />and fun kee<br />ping around the poesiejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10043530995274885830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-90468852409309260482009-10-06T14:46:24.963-07:002009-10-06T14:46:24.963-07:00"Say, have you guys run across that Shakespea..."Say, have you guys run across that Shakespeare guy yet?"<br /><br />ain't he that hack plat-write who filched from everybody? <br /><br />even his sonnets don't hold a candle to <br />Petrarch<br /><br />check out a beautiful book put out by The Heritage Press (NYC) in <br />1966<br /><br />BEAUTIFUL big book in a slip-case one poem on a page opposite the Italian..<br /><br /><br />edited w an intro by Thos Bergin and delightful line drawings of "her" by Aldo Salvadori<br /><br />HEY<br /><br />this is another "of" in title book:<br /><br />The Sonnets of Petrarch<br /><br /><br />don't leave this earth with-out it!<br /><br /><br />not a single nasty word in it<br /><br />though lots of "love and hot passion"Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-9742121886901912042009-10-06T13:58:09.001-07:002009-10-06T13:58:09.001-07:00Charles Causley is an interesting example of someo...Charles Causley is an interesting example of someone in that anthology -- which I remember too, and in similar circumstances -- who 'crosses'. My other great example of that on 'the English side' is Stevie Smith.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-7238138610377331502009-10-06T10:13:20.329-07:002009-10-06T10:13:20.329-07:00Yeah, Well, I thought I was reading a fairly livel...Yeah, Well, I thought I was reading a fairly lively exchange about a poetry anthology until it devolved into sniping and low shot personal attacks. Thanks, Gary, for yr comments and for attempting to get people back on track. I just pulled my own copy of, A Controversey, off the shelf and found that I had actually put checkmarks in the table of contents next to the poets I had read or intended to read in the collection and not surprisingly most of them tend to appear next to the poets listed in the ' right hand ' column first posited on this blog. In my own case this was most likely done because I had probably already read at least some of the work and/or collections of most of the poets I had checked off, probably in the Allen Anthology or elsewhere in small press editions of their work available at the time in bookstores. The others, to my mind ' mainstream ' or, Gawd Help me, ' academic ' poets I automatically avoided as they were the ones who I had most likely come across in undergraduate classrooms at the time ( this would be the early Seventies in my own case ) and so the James Dickey, Anthony Hecht, Vassar Miller, Kenneth Pitchford, Frederick Seidel, W.D. Snodgrasa, etc. would have had no interest for me, and still don't, although I'm surprised to discover that I had checked off Robert Sward, Ralph Pomeray, Robert Pack and Donald Finkel. At any rate, I'm just angry now that I ruined a now collectible old poetry anthology by putting stupid checkmarks in it. Another anthology that came out a few years later that's largely forgotten now is Inside Outer Space, New Poems for the Space Age, An Anthlogy Edited by Robert Vas Dias in 1970. Sounds like it could of been a Sci-fi anthology of the time. Its Table of Contents ( mercifully left unchecked-marked) includes many of the same names as the Kelley with probably more ' left column ' names appearing, but it also includes some others of interest who didn't appear in Controversey: William Bronk, Kirby Congdon, Dan Gerber, Anselm Hollo, Ronald Johnson, etc. It was a few years later and so perhaps some of the above had not as yet begun publishing in 1965. LeRoi Jones certainly had and so had James Koller. Yugen and Coyote respectfully were already available. Both Rothenberg and Quasha appear at a time when neether had yet begun publishing any of their own groundbreaking anthologies. Someone no doubt will correct me if I'm wrong on this. Anyone else have the Vas Dias anthology handy?jadecarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00503706868065536007noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-38980576951698525252009-10-05T20:12:43.561-07:002009-10-05T20:12:43.561-07:00'A Controversy of Poets'
Purchased new fo...'A Controversy of Poets'<br /><br />Purchased new for $2.95 in 1972 at the UH bookstore. Still have it.<br /><br />Mandatory reading for 'Introduction to Poetry'...University of Houston, 1972.<br /><br />I just went through a similar experience with Bill Knott on Harriet about Hayden Carruth's 'The Voice That Is Great Within Us'.<br /><br />Purchased new for $1.95 in 1971 at the UNM bookstore. Still have it.<br /><br />Mandatory reading for 'Poetry 101'...University of New Mexico, 1971.<br /><br />Say, have you guys run across that Shakespeare guy yet?Gary B. Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17919492445467135425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-88219450860546089602009-10-05T19:40:04.286-07:002009-10-05T19:40:04.286-07:00Ed: How sad of you to call my ideas "horseshi...Ed: How sad of you to call my ideas "horseshit" and to attack my teaching when you know nothing about it. You nicely prove my point with your nasty, cuss word-laced attack: that so many poets (like you, it seems) lack generosity. Alas, much to your dismay, my courses are routinely over-enrolled and I expose my students to a diversity of poetic approaches. What makes poets like you so seemingly nasty and mean-spirited? I will never know the answer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-87156445860570044212009-10-05T15:18:13.746-07:002009-10-05T15:18:13.746-07:00hey anonohmuss...
regarding this you say:
"...hey anonohmuss...<br /><br />regarding this you say:<br /><br />"Very few poets can appreciate work across many styles and approaches."<br /><br />this statement and to your students? is,,, well,,horse-shit! they should opt out of your coursse. you ant a list?<br /><br />check out Cid Corman..<br />start with The Gist of Origin and I cld give you a list of 10 poet-friends who<br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Gist+of+Origin&x=15&y=17<br /><br />otherwise... there is much more "out there" than what you are positing...Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-34232575264112028892009-10-05T14:04:16.892-07:002009-10-05T14:04:16.892-07:00"This anthology is designed to turn the atten..."This anthology is designed to turn the attention of the reader away from movements, schools or regional considerations. Hitherto some of these poets have been referred to by commentators more enthusiastic than accurate as belonging to this or that rival--and hostile--school. Such poetasting has only served to distract the reader from the poem and to divert his attention to supposed movements or schools, whereas the only affiliation finally relevant is that apparent from the work itself."<br /><br />Amen. <br /><br />In my contemporary literature course my students (if they did know him) only knew Ron Silliman as the angry blogger who rails against anything that does seem avant-garde to him in his deeply reductive way.<br /><br />My students did not know any of Ron Silliman's poems until I walked them through the sentences from "Albany" to which <i>Under Albany</i> refers.<br /><br />After the unit on Language poets and Ron Silliman, one then asked me in an email last semester "Why is he so angry? What does he want from other poets? Is this [the poet of "Albany"] the same guy who comes across as such a narrow, sarcastic, bitter creepy guy--who seems so full of himself and his allies?" <br /><br />I countered that very, very few poets are generous.<br /><br />Very few poets can appreciate work across many styles and approaches.<br /><br />But her questions still came: "What does Ron Silliman want from other poets? Why does he label and put-down poets in ways that he wouldn't want others to label and put him down? Why does it seem like he's 'hating'?"<br /><br />Her questions cut to the core and my only advice to her was to stop reading Ron Silliman's blog and theoretical books and go back to his poems.<br /><br />After this interchange I came to the following conclusion.<br /><br />This is the incredible problem with poetry worlds today: Too much ridiculous, ego-filled, self-righteous bullshit about who should, could, would, does, or does not belong to somebody's trumped up school, or who gets prizes, or where they're published; and less attention to the actual poems.<br /><br />By their very nature poems are textual experiences that always vex assumed classifications, even and especially ones that we think may fit or not fit our view of a particular genre.<br /><br />It's really sad when a person's or a group's persona overshadows their poems.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-17133061845351489072009-10-05T09:42:36.513-07:002009-10-05T09:42:36.513-07:00Hey Curtis,
I wasn't wishing you'd adver...Hey Curtis, <br /><br />I wasn't wishing you'd advertised the editor's choices, but maybe show a bit, and incorporate into your discussion, their take on the divide, etc.<br /><br />Let me do a lowest common denominator here. All the poems in <i>Controversy</i>) are basically the same. Letters, arranged in words, arranged on the page. <br /><br />The real amazing thing about that anthology, I've always thought, is how it starts: all of Ashbery's "Europe." Think about what a mind-bender that still was in 1965, and maybe even today, to start any anthology but the most experimental with that poem...Steven Famahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13733977161680651117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-70047371680830417552009-10-05T09:34:52.114-07:002009-10-05T09:34:52.114-07:00having phun yet?
try this:
http://home.earthlink...having phun yet?<br /><br />try this:<br /><br />http://home.earthlink.net/~robert.kelly/robertkelly/index.htmlEd Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-53945088839921635832009-10-05T09:25:15.251-07:002009-10-05T09:25:15.251-07:00heck
why not just ask Bob?
he won't bite-chu...heck<br /><br />why not just ask Bob?<br /><br />he won't bite-chuh<br /><br />though he looks vicious<br />he ain't<br /><br />kelly@bard.edu<br /><br /><br />well.<br />enough.<br />about.<br />Robert.<br />Kelly:<br /><br />lets' talk about me!Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-18289948277225150402009-10-05T09:05:58.353-07:002009-10-05T09:05:58.353-07:00i once recited the full text of
"visions of ...i once recited the full text of <br />"visions of johanna"<br />to a young crowd with dylan awareness<br />they expressed amazement that the song actually had a narrative thread<br />so yeah why not<br />enough of the ivory tower preaching<br />in some ways dylan is a geek<br />he managed to protect himself pretty well<br />largely out of necessity<br />whereas neil young sort of hurled himself into the dust and clutter of north america<br />young i always felt tapped a deeper root than dylan into the american scene<br /><br />cohen refused the highest literary honor of canada because he said he wasn't really a poet anymore<br />but that he was chosen is a pretty big deal<br />and i would agree<br /><br />voices from the streets<br />that's all i hear<br /><br />jjhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10043530995274885830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-66071774868462322752009-10-05T08:58:02.983-07:002009-10-05T08:58:02.983-07:00Ed -- I have no opinion one way or another about w...Ed -- I have no opinion one way or another about whether Dylan should have been included in the anthology. love Bob Dylan a lot. I just can't imagine that Robert Kelly does. <br />Best,<br />LynnAnnandale Dream Gazettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08155953951163636760noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-14444506507413211772009-10-05T05:14:46.494-07:002009-10-05T05:14:46.494-07:00Hey, Annandale Dream
re: Robert Zimmerman
maybe ...Hey, Annandale Dream<br /><br />re: Robert Zimmerman<br /><br />maybe "wake-up?<br /><br />get thee directly to a "little" book published by Knopf, 1985: <br /><br /><br />LYRICS 1962-1985<br /> by Bob Dylan<br /><br />Includes ALL of "Writings and Drawings"<br />plus 120 new writings<br /><br /><br />THEN get thee The Songs of Bob Dylan 1966-1975<br />and<br /><br />Tarantula<br /><br />and<br /><br />if you can find a copy (v e r y scarce) of<br /><br />BOB DYLAN NEW MORNING complete vocal/piano folio (Columbia Album KC 30290) Words, music,and Arrangements by Bob Dylan with guitar diagrams & chord symbols<br /><br />cpyright 1970 (1970!)<br /><br />published by Big Sky Music via Chappell & Company who where up in The City<br />where I got my 'hot-off-the-press copy in 1970<br /><br />from Bob's hand to mine...should of got him to sign it..<br /><br />there are some neat photos in this on back cover is an very young Bob Dylan maybe 14 with a gitter almost as big as he is and a smiling black-woman blues singer at piano I forget her name his first "teacher" etc<br /><br /><br /><br />Bob Dylan IS 100% troubadour <br /><br />the "real-deal" of a poetics...neat if he had been included`<br /><br />Bob Kelly knows his pees and ques, too!<br /><br />just ask ...Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-62743986009828703322009-10-04T22:34:09.891-07:002009-10-04T22:34:09.891-07:00Steven:
Yeah, but I didn't want the post just...Steven:<br /><br />Yeah, but I didn't want the post just to be an advertisement for the editors' choices.<br /><br />What I found inspiring was what I said:<br /><br />"...the joint editors of A Controversy of Poets allowed their readers to imagine that the ultimate poetics was literally up for grabs, with the outcome very much in doubt. It didn't presume to say that everyone should, or could, think of all of its exemplars as inevitably chosen, but of all severally engaged in a colloquy of separate voices, none more "correct" than any other..."<br /><br />--that the outcome wasn't fixed, you know? That you could have it all and not come unglued. For years, afterwards, right through my Iowa years and beyond, it bothered me--how to reconcile it. Those two worlds insulated from each other. Sort of like having your wife meet your mistress, or as I say in that last prose poem in Wittgenstein's Door--that the two halves of my being might meet in the cave of the unconscious.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-78163030603460640552009-10-04T22:15:52.205-07:002009-10-04T22:15:52.205-07:00Bob Dylan? You believe that Robert Kelly wanted Bo...Bob Dylan? You believe that Robert Kelly wanted Bob Dylan in the anthology? Surely you jest, Ron. I don't believe that for a minute.Annandale Dream Gazettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08155953951163636760noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-60227946513600130242009-10-04T21:29:46.658-07:002009-10-04T21:29:46.658-07:00The editors' respective POSTSCRIPTS in this bo...The editors' respective POSTSCRIPTS in this book are AMAZING. Curtis, I'm surprised a bit you only mention them once.Steven Famahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13733977161680651117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1660090614793277371.post-71693557994891026802009-10-04T01:02:39.123-07:002009-10-04T01:02:39.123-07:00i misspelt
kilian mcDonnell
that's his real na...i misspelt<br />kilian mcDonnell<br />that's his real name<br /><br />i don't know about <br />the whole thing of poems on paper <br />in books<br />maybe some day<br /><br />i read the stuff <br />but don't ever think about <br />getting it together enough<br />to make a book<br /><br />maybe <br /><br />i am mostly concentrated on songs<br />learning writing and performing songs<br />that's my artsy gig these days<br /><br />early morning<br />now to bed<br /><br />jjhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10043530995274885830noreply@blogger.com