I'm not terribly familiar with his short poems, though. What's a good one or two?
― cosmic rough rider, Monday, 13 February 2006 16:20 (eighteen years ago) link
His poetry is on the sedate side. I expect he was a civil and reliable friend and neighbor, as the run of poets goes (and the run of poets has a definite streak of disorderliness and madness in it). He draws a lot of his imagery from opera and the theater, the simulacra of passion.
On the whole, I like his work. You can sit with it, brush aside the surfaces and find little fascinations to appreciate. There's almost always something to go back for - but don't expect big flourishes and stagey effects. He won't leave you sucker-punched and gasping for your next breath. But he'll guide you throuogh and exact series of small motions in your attention that add up to more than their parts and linger in your brain cells.
His nearest counterpart in terms of both perfection of craft and tone is probably Elizabeth Bishop.
― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 03:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 23:55 (eighteen years ago) link
(thats my biography again, and i should quit doing that.)
he and bishop were close friends and she championed his work, adn their letters are one of the best documents of american poetics, t ender, loving, complicated, and astonshing in their vitrouso control of languge, even in something so personal
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=1182http://www.biblio.com/details.php?dcx=51354565&src=frg
― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 23:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 16 February 2006 02:09 (eighteen years ago) link
Cross-indexing the Bishop v. Larkin thread.
I almost wrote my masters thesis on Merrill. "Days of 1994," written just before he died, destroys me.
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 19 December 2010 03:28 (thirteen years ago) link
Anyone read his prose? I picked up the collected novels and plays as a remainder, and am wondering what bit would be good to start with.
― buildings with goats on the roof (James Morrison), Monday, 20 December 2010 00:37 (thirteen years ago) link
His novels are awful. I've tried.
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 20 December 2010 01:15 (thirteen years ago) link
Aw crap
― buildings with goats on the roof (James Morrison), Monday, 20 December 2010 03:10 (thirteen years ago) link
Okay, just got a copy of Divine Comedies out of the library. Will see how it goes.
― Exile's Return To Sender (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 30 August 2015 00:55 (eight years ago) link
This poem combined with this piece of biography is a hell of a thing:
Yes.This is typescript version—w/ it’s “ornament” on top & “trunk”of still alive but felled evergreen.The missing “other”half is what haunted me.I think the reasons are obvious as one enters the“after”life...what’s in the “other”side of which this side is the shadow, the poem? https://t.co/RWaXeKpWKt— Jorie graham (@jorie_graham) December 1, 2018
― ... (Eazy), Saturday, 1 December 2018 18:03 (five years ago) link
Yes. The image I shared 👆🏼is from the memorial issue of POETRY for JM. Later, the poem would be formatted somewhat differently, as👇🏼(from the Selected), which was, according to Langdon Hammer’s bio, closer to what JM had in mind (and an echo of this Fairfield Porter print). pic.twitter.com/M1khHwRpqK— Kamran Javadizadeh (@kjavadizadeh) December 1, 2018
The Hammer bio is one of the best literary ones I've read.
― I like queer. You like queer, senator? (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 December 2018 18:11 (five years ago) link