i wrote a chunk of my ma thesis on a hejinian i never finished /:
― i better not get any (thomp), Thursday, 8 August 2013 21:29 (ten years ago) link
she's really good, though, i think. i think ilx user 'j.' has been reading my life for plural years. hejinian's theoryish book is a good book to look at if you're getting involved in that like whole thing. i think most Contemporary Poet types would think of her as being quite old hat but i mean, those people.
― i better not get any (thomp), Thursday, 8 August 2013 21:30 (ten years ago) link
yes i have.
i have yet to finish it.
but each time i do better. sustained attention to it pays dividends.
i would like to think that if ilx user 'the pinefox' were to read it he would have reservations about its intelligibility but grudgingly admit that it really is something.
i tried to teach it once. boy did i have to try to back out of that.
― j., Friday, 9 August 2013 05:35 (ten years ago) link
while browsing the poetry section at B***** & N****, I picked up a book by Brian Russell (whose name is uncannily similar to that of a friend of mine), The Year of What-Next--it is about terminal illness, but in a good way
― Excelsior twilight. Harpsichord wind through the trees. (bernard snowy), Saturday, 17 August 2013 20:34 (ten years ago) link
sorry, that's The Year of What Now
― Excelsior twilight. Harpsichord wind through the trees. (bernard snowy), Saturday, 17 August 2013 20:35 (ten years ago) link
I'm not finished reading it yet. also, I've been drunk
― Excelsior twilight. Harpsichord wind through the trees. (bernard snowy), Saturday, 17 August 2013 20:36 (ten years ago) link
anyone read glyn maxwell's recent book on poetry?
― cozymandias (cozen), Saturday, 17 August 2013 20:44 (ten years ago) link
c sharp major do you have any kind of personal history or animus w/r/t young british poets or is this a purely unmotivated distaste? this is not meant to be a loaded question, i am just curious
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Sunday, 18 August 2013 14:40 (ten years ago) link
i have read hamilton's intro to the new poetry anthology and like, of course this guy's pop-culture touchstones are TNG and eddie izzard
also i got really annoyed because i bought it without reading the details and when it arrived i realised i'd bought something in bloodaxe. oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear no.
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Sunday, 18 August 2013 14:41 (ten years ago) link
i have no personal history or animus! and i like a great number of young british poets-- i don't think I feel a distaste for them in general? It would be unreasonable for me to expect of myself that I would like all of these young people; it's maybe a little disappointing to me when the ones I like fall so clearly into a type.
― confusion is sexts (c sharp major), Sunday, 18 August 2013 16:01 (ten years ago) link
on flicking through thus far the only one i've been tempted to stop and actually read is the 'therefore' guy
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Sunday, 18 August 2013 22:07 (ten years ago) link
have spent as much time rolling my eyes at the biographies as i have reading the poetry. probably a bad sign
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Sunday, 18 August 2013 22:08 (ten years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/books/john-hollander-poet-known-for-his-range-dies-at-83.html?hp
― j., Sunday, 18 August 2013 23:30 (ten years ago) link
so i posted abt this on fb but would like to submit the question here also
just picked up michael robbins' widely-praised book alien vs. predator, and i think i *get it*--it's cleverly versified pop culture riffs with some pathos baked in by way of careful use of references--but, like, this shit seems to have blown people's minds? and i'm not sure why? i know it's like uncool to hope for a view into a narrator's inner life or whatever, but as clever as this is, it leaves me pretty cold.
have any of you guys read it? thoughts?
― HOOS it because...of steen???? (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Wednesday, 28 August 2013 02:04 (ten years ago) link
Michael Robbins - Alien Vs. Predator (nb this book of poems is not about aliens, predators or their conflicts)
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 28 August 2013 02:09 (ten years ago) link
it got its own-damn-thread, fwiw
i think it's weird reading more than three poems of his at a time, or maybe ever, because of the sorta exposure of formula, technique, types-of-reference-points, &c, but I also think there's something insufficient about only seeing him in this broader context; that stuff is punchy, & wasn't being fed to people like that (afaik &c&x), & it seems to have some sorta formal timeliness that delivered what he wrote quite freshly, which can evaporate under scrutiny/saturation
― szarkasm (schlump), Wednesday, 28 August 2013 02:11 (ten years ago) link
oh lookat that
― HOOS it because...of steen???? (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Wednesday, 28 August 2013 02:24 (ten years ago) link
currently trying to wrap my brain around bernadette mayer's 'scarlet tanager'
― Rothko's Chicken and Waffles (donna rouge), Wednesday, 28 August 2013 19:04 (ten years ago) link
btw i really love brenda hillman's essay on teaching contemporary poetry, which also functions as a guide on how its readers can slip into it more easily/thoughtfully:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/essay/239762
― Rothko's Chicken and Waffles (donna rouge), Wednesday, 28 August 2013 19:23 (ten years ago) link
It makes a straightforward patriotic statement based on an image of a bird; it rhymes.
lol
― j., Thursday, 29 August 2013 10:50 (ten years ago) link
what's good
― markers, Tuesday, 15 October 2013 05:45 (ten years ago) link
should i just keep reading twitter
I liked Charles Bernstein's book from this year...
― Not A Good Cook (bernard snowy), Sunday, 20 October 2013 16:44 (ten years ago) link
markers who do you follow on twitter
― flopson, Sunday, 20 October 2013 18:56 (ten years ago) link
http://shoutkey.com/provision
― markers, Sunday, 20 October 2013 19:39 (ten years ago) link
click that
― markers, Sunday, 20 October 2013 19:40 (ten years ago) link
and no it isn't a trick
New Franz Wright, bleak and amazing as ever.
― Lover (Eazy), Monday, 21 October 2013 03:27 (ten years ago) link
ck williams, my favorite living poet. one of his poems was part of my wedding vows.
and now this
http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-a-movie-based-on-a-book-of-poems-tar-stars-james-franco-of-course-20131111,0,2046763.story#axzz2kY6zFryD
― a hard dom is good to find (Edward III), Wednesday, 13 November 2013 17:55 (ten years ago) link
a good friend has a new book coming out soon: http://www.h-ngm-n.com/dear-corp
― festival culture (Jordan), Thursday, 6 February 2014 17:33 (ten years ago) link
A friend of mine sent me the link to this Kate Kilalea poem and I think it's incredible: http://newpoetries.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/don-share-on-kate-kilaleas-henneckers.html
(the subsequent interpretation stuff i find a little wearying: all this i-i-i- itemising of a person's reaction raises my hackles the way faux-naivety does)
― of human sonnage (c sharp major), Tuesday, 25 February 2014 12:43 (ten years ago) link
I've been doing a poetry-reading round-robin email with a few friends - i.e. where we record mp3s of ourselves reading poems and send them to each other - and it's having a huge effect on how i think about poetry, way out of proportion to what i would have expected. I don't feel like I get a better sense of the poems from reading them aloud, but rather a bunch of different conflicting and sometimes unhelpful versions -- as dramatic monologue, as collection of sounds, as rhythm game. It makes everything so much harder; it's turning me against things i've liked for a while.
― of human sonnage (c sharp major), Tuesday, 25 February 2014 12:55 (ten years ago) link
That poem's really exciting. To begin with - e.g. "Wow. The rain. Rose beetles" and "Ickira trecketre stedenthal, said the train" - I was prepared to be irritated, but as it expanded it got more and more wild and interesting.
The interpretation had some useful things to say, but you're spot on with the faux-naivety thing. The whole "I googled this and got nothing, but googling something else gave me a clue" style is very weird unless the point of his site is to be some step-by-step guide to approaching a poem.
― Eyeball Kicks, Tuesday, 25 February 2014 22:19 (ten years ago) link
my friend's new book is really, really good: http://www.h-ngm-n.com/dear-corp/
― festival culture (Jordan), Tuesday, 25 February 2014 23:55 (ten years ago) link
Kilalea is good and so is Tara Bergin I think
― cardamon, Thursday, 10 April 2014 22:02 (ten years ago) link
just read clover's "red epic" and enjoyed it a lot and now i see it is available free: http://communeeditions.com/red-epic-joshua-clover/
― Option ARMs and de Man (s.clover), Saturday, 16 January 2016 23:06 (eight years ago) link
I can't find a more suitable thread to post this to, but I just wanted to say it makes me a little sad to see the dismissal of the poet H.D. in some earlier posts. Have people read Trilogy and Hermetic Definition? The earlier poetry generally hasn't done much for me (though many others swear by it), but I think the late poetry, especially those two collections, are where it's at. I remember "Winter Love" in particular as having some strikingly musical passages, though it's been a while since I read it. (I ditched my copy of Hermetic Definition a long time ago because I was annoyed with my youthful underlining and marginalia.) Helen in Egypt is a hard nut to crack and is perplexingly static. I can't say I've ever loved it either.
Her memoir, Tribute to Freud is also quite good (and I've seen it recommended in bibliographies of works on Freud for non-specialists), and the highly edited memoirs New Directions put out at one time, entitled The Gift, has some fascinating material (though I never made it through the unexpurgated version of the memoir material put out much later by some university press or other). End to Torment (on Pound) is also at least a breeze to read. I can't say I've ever enjoyed her fiction.
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 04:00 (eight years ago) link
(I might be partial to the material in the Gift because of the references to Pennsylvania German culture, which makes up a good part of my own background.)
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 04:04 (eight years ago) link
it makes me a little sad to see the dismissal of the poet H.D. in some earlier posts.
I searched around in this thread for these dismissals and couldn't find them. That doesn't mean they aren't there, but can you give me a hint?
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Saturday, 23 January 2016 04:44 (eight years ago) link
Haha, there were maybe 1.5 dimissals, but not on this thread just in the deep archives of ILB.
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 05:23 (eight years ago) link
HD >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Edith Sitwell >> Amy Lowell
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Saturday, 23 January 2016 05:29 (eight years ago) link
I never cared much about those two. I think I've read more Sitwell than Lowell, but it's been a while. I'd rather read Loy than either of those, if we're doing women poets. But I'd rather read HD or Loy than some very well known male modernist poets as well.
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 18:29 (eight years ago) link
yup, with cardamon here. I think of her as epitome of in-the-academy US poetry.
I think language poetry is the ultimate made-for-the-academy poetry, since it needs so much theory to prop it up, but I largely hate it. And I know that many who love it will say: oh no, it's not about the theory.
I did read some Graham a while back and it seemed okay and everything but went by me in a blur. But most poetry does now. I probably shouldn't even be allowed to comment since although I've read a ton of poetry over the years (not much lately), I only like maybe 1% of it at this point.
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 19:28 (eight years ago) link
Robert Duncan said something in an interview somewhere about how in the Elizabethan era, you wrote poetry for the stage, because that's where the money was; and now you write poetry for the classroom, for the same reason. Something like that. He was including himself in the group of poets writing for the classroom, so it wasn't pointing fingers.
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 19:32 (eight years ago) link
Maybe he didn't say money, maybe he said audience.
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 19:38 (eight years ago) link
Does anyone have anything to say about Akashic Press's Black Goat imprint? I've been a little intrigued with it since finding out about it. It looks like it's slowed down though so maybe nobody has been biting.
http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog-tag/black-goat/
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 23 January 2016 19:41 (eight years ago) link
xps
Being a careful, respectful and understanding reader never requires you to like what you find. These days I find that even the best poetry I read seldom excites me as it did when I was younger, but the best still engages me and gives me worthwhile satisfaction.
If you haven't already perused the many threads where ilxors have posted their own poetry, you really ought to. The results are not overly concerned with theory, reputation-making, or critical approval, and so are rather refreshing. You might like a good 3%!
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Saturday, 23 January 2016 19:47 (eight years ago) link
On the anniversary of the birth of the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), poet Marilyn Hacker shares a new translation:The Second Olive TreeBy Mahmoud DarwishTranslated by Marilyn HackerThe olive tree does not weep and does not laugh. The olive treeIs the hillside’s modest lady. ShadowCovers her one leg, and she will not take her leaves off in front of the storm.Standing, she is seated, and seated, standing.She lives as a friendly sister of eternity, neighbor of timeThat helps her stock her luminous oil andForget the invaders’ names, except the Romans, whoCoexisted with her, and borrowed some of her branchesTo weave wreaths. They did not treat her as a prisoner of warBut as a venerable grandmother, before whose calm dignitySwords shatter. In her reticent silver-greenColor hesitates to say what it thinks, and to look at what is behindThe portrait, for the olive tree is neither green nor silver.The olive tree is the color of peace, if peace neededA color. No one says to the olive tree: How beautiful you are!But: How noble and how splendid! And she,She who teaches soldiers to lay down their riflesAnd re-educates them in tenderness and humility: Go homeAnd light your lamps with my oil! ButThese soldiers, these modern soldiersBesiege her with bulldozers and uproot her from her lineageOf earth. They vanquished our grandmother who foundered,Her branches on the ground, her roots in the sky.She did not weep or cry out. But one of her grandsonsWho witnessed the execution threw a stoneAt a soldier, and he was martyred with her.After the victorious soldiersHad gone on their way, we buried him there, in that deepPit – the grandmother’s cradle. And that is why we wereSure that he would become, in a little while, an oliveTree – a thorny olive tree – and green!
The Second Olive Tree
By Mahmoud Darwish
Translated by Marilyn Hacker
The olive tree does not weep and does not laugh. The olive treeIs the hillside’s modest lady. ShadowCovers her one leg, and she will not take her leaves off in front of the storm.Standing, she is seated, and seated, standing.She lives as a friendly sister of eternity, neighbor of timeThat helps her stock her luminous oil andForget the invaders’ names, except the Romans, whoCoexisted with her, and borrowed some of her branchesTo weave wreaths. They did not treat her as a prisoner of warBut as a venerable grandmother, before whose calm dignitySwords shatter. In her reticent silver-greenColor hesitates to say what it thinks, and to look at what is behindThe portrait, for the olive tree is neither green nor silver.The olive tree is the color of peace, if peace neededA color. No one says to the olive tree: How beautiful you are!But: How noble and how splendid! And she,She who teaches soldiers to lay down their riflesAnd re-educates them in tenderness and humility: Go homeAnd light your lamps with my oil! ButThese soldiers, these modern soldiersBesiege her with bulldozers and uproot her from her lineageOf earth. They vanquished our grandmother who foundered,Her branches on the ground, her roots in the sky.She did not weep or cry out. But one of her grandsonsWho witnessed the execution threw a stoneAt a soldier, and he was martyred with her.After the victorious soldiersHad gone on their way, we buried him there, in that deepPit – the grandmother’s cradle. And that is why we wereSure that he would become, in a little while, an oliveTree – a thorny olive tree – and green!
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 14 March 2016 22:43 (eight years ago) link
Derek Walcott
With the stampeding hiss and scurry of green lemmings, midsummer’s leaves race to extinction like the roar of a Brixton riot tunneled by water hoses; they seethe towards autumn’s fire—it is in their nature,5 being men as well as leaves, to die for the sun. The leaf stems tug at their chains, the branches bending like Boer cattle under Tory whips that drag every wagon nearer to apartheid. And, for me, that closes the child’s fairy tale of an antic England—fairy rings,10 thatched cottages fenced with dog roses, a green gale lifting the hair of Warwickshire. I was there to add some color to the British theater. “But the blacks can’t do Shakespeare, they have no experience.” This was true. Their thick skulls bled with rancor15 when the riot police and the skinheads exchanged quips you could trace to the Sonnets, or the Moor’s eclipse Praise had bled my lines white of any more anger, and snow had inducted me into white fellowships, while Calibans howled down the barred streets of an empire20 that began with Caedmon’s raceless dew, and is ending in the alleys of Brixton, burning like Turner’s ships
midsummer’s leaves race to extinction like the roar
of a Brixton riot tunneled by water hoses;
they seethe towards autumn’s fire—it is in their nature,
5 being men as well as leaves, to die for the sun.
The leaf stems tug at their chains, the branches bending
like Boer cattle under Tory whips that drag every wagon
nearer to apartheid. And, for me, that closes
the child’s fairy tale of an antic England—fairy rings,
10 thatched cottages fenced with dog roses,
a green gale lifting the hair of Warwickshire.
I was there to add some color to the British theater.
“But the blacks can’t do Shakespeare, they have no experience.”
This was true. Their thick skulls bled with rancor
15 when the riot police and the skinheads exchanged quips
you could trace to the Sonnets, or the Moor’s eclipse
Praise had bled my lines white of any more anger,
and snow had inducted me into white fellowships,
while Calibans howled down the barred streets of an empire
20 that began with Caedmon’s raceless dew, and is ending
in the alleys of Brixton, burning like Turner’s ships
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 21 March 2017 21:54 (seven years ago) link