<!DOCTYPE html>
<html dir='ltr' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' xmlns:b='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/b' xmlns:data='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data' xmlns:expr='http://www.google.com/2005/gml/expr'>
<head>
<link href='https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/widgets/2549344219-widget_css_bundle.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>
<meta content='text/html; charset=UTF-8' http-equiv='Content-Type'/>
<meta content='blogger' name='generator'/>
<link href='https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/favicon.ico' rel='icon' type='image/x-icon'/>
<link href='https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%20of%20Quietude?updated-max=2003-03-24T04:12:00-08:00&amp;max-results=20&amp;start=32&amp;by-date=false' rel='canonical'/>
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Silliman&#39;s Blog - Atom" href="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Silliman&#39;s Blog - RSS" href="https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss" />
<link rel="service.post" type="application/atom+xml" title="Silliman&#39;s Blog - Atom" href="https://www.blogger.com/feeds/3738579/posts/default" />
<!--Can't find substitution for tag [blog.ieCssRetrofitLinks]-->
<meta content='https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%20of%20Quietude?updated-max=2003-03-24T04:12:00-08:00&amp;max-results=20&amp;start=32&amp;by-date=false' property='og:url'/>
<meta content='Silliman&#39;s Blog' property='og:title'/>
<meta content='A weblog focused on contemporary poetry and poetics.' property='og:description'/>
<!--[if IE]> <script> (function() { var html5 = ("abbr,article,aside,audio,canvas,datalist,details," + "figure,footer,header,hgroup,mark,menu,meter,nav,output," + "progress,section,time,video").split(','); for (var i = 0; i < html5.length; i++) { document.createElement(html5[i]); } try { document.execCommand('BackgroundImageCache', false, true); } catch(e) {} })(); </script> <![endif]-->
<title>Silliman's Blog: School of Quietude</title>
<style id='page-skin-1' type='text/css'><!--
/*
* Blogger Template Style
*
* Sand Dollar
* by Jason Sutter
* Updated by Blogger Team
*/
/* Variable definitions
====================
<Variable name="textcolor" description="Text Color"
type="color" default="#000">
<Variable name="bgcolor" description="Page Background Color"
type="color" default="#f6f6f6">
<Variable name="pagetitlecolor" description="Blog Title Color"
type="color" default="#F5DEB3">
<Variable name="pagetitlebgcolor" description="Blog Title Background Color"
type="color" default="#DE7008">
<Variable name="descriptionColor" description="Blog Description Color"
type="color" default="#9E5205" />
<Variable name="descbgcolor" description="Description Background Color"
type="color" default="#F5E39e">
<Variable name="titlecolor" description="Post Title Color"
type="color" default="#9E5205">
<Variable name="datecolor" description="Date Header Color"
type="color" default="#777777">
<Variable name="footercolor" description="Post Footer Color"
type="color" default="#444444">
<Variable name="linkcolor" description="Link Color"
type="color" default="#DE7008">
<Variable name="footerlinkcolor" description="Post Footer Link Color"
type="color" default="#968a0a">
<Variable name="visitedlinkcolor" description="Visited Link Color"
type="color" default="#DE7008">
<Variable name="sidebarcolor" description="Sidebar Title Color"
type="color" default="#B8A80D">
<Variable name="sidebarlinkcolor" description="Sidebar Link Color"
type="color" default="#999999">
<Variable name="bordercolor" description="Border Color"
type="color" default="#e0ad12">
<Variable name="bodyfont" description="Text Font"
type="font"
default="normal normal 100% 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Verdana,Sans-Serif">
<Variable name="headerfont" description="Sidebar Title Font"
type="font"
default="normal bold 150% Verdana,Sans-serif">
<Variable name="dateHeaderFont" description="Date Header Font"
type="font"
default="normal bold 105% 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Verdana,Sans-serif">
<Variable name="pagetitlefont" description="Blog Title Font"
type="font" default="normal bold 300% Verdana,Sans-Serif">
<Variable name="titlefont" description="Post Title Font"
type="font" default="normal bold 160% Verdana,Sans-Serif">
<Variable name="startSide" description="Start side in blog language"
type="automatic" default="left">
<Variable name="endSide" description="End side in blog language"
type="automatic" default="right">
*/
body {
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
background:#ffffff;
color:#000000;
font-size: small;
}
#outer-wrapper {
font:normal normal 12px Arial, sans-serif;
}
a {
color:#666666;
}
a:hover {
color:#9E5205;
}
a img {
border-width: 0;
}
#content-wrapper {
padding-top: 0;
padding-right: 1em;
padding-bottom: 0;
padding-left: 1em;
}
@media all  {
div#main {
float:right;
width:66%;
padding-top:30px;
padding-right:0;
padding-bottom:10px;
padding-left:1em;
border-left:dotted 1px #e0ad12;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden;     /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}
div#sidebar {
margin-top:20px;
margin-right:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
margin-left:0;
padding:0px;
text-align:left;
float: left;
width: 31%;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden;     /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}
}
@media handheld  {
div#main {
float:none;
width:90%;
}
div#sidebar {
padding-top:30px;
padding-right:7%;
padding-bottom:10px;
padding-left:3%;
}
}
#header {
padding-top:0px;
padding-right:0px;
padding-bottom:0px;
padding-left:0px;
margin-top:0px;
margin-right:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
margin-left:0px;
border-bottom:dotted 1px #e0ad12;
background:#000000;
}
h1 a:link  {
text-decoration:none;
color:#ffffff
}
h1 a:visited  {
text-decoration:none;
color:#ffffff
}
h1,h2,h3 {
margin: 0;
}
h1 {
padding-top:25px;
padding-right:0px;
padding-bottom:10px;
padding-left:5%;
color:#ffffff;
background:#940f04;
font:normal bold 80px Verdana,Sans-Serif;
letter-spacing:-2px;
}
h3.post-title {
color:#9E5205;
font:normal bold 150% Arial, sans-serif;
letter-spacing:-1px;
}
h3.post-title a,
h3.post-title a:visited {
color: #9E5205;
}
h2.date-header  {
margin-top:10px;
margin-right:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
margin-left:0px;
color:#ffffff;
font: normal bold 104% 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Verdana,Sans-serif;
}
h4 {
color:#aa0033;
}
#sidebar h2 {
color:#cc0000;
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
font:normal bold 120% Arial, sans-serif;
}
#sidebar .widget {
margin-top:0px;
margin-right:0px;
margin-bottom:33px;
margin-left:0px;
padding-top:0px;
padding-right:0px;
padding-bottom:0px;
padding-left:0px;
font-size:120%;
}
#sidebar ul {
list-style-type:none;
padding-left: 0;
margin-top: 0;
}
#sidebar li {
margin-top:0px;
margin-right:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
margin-left:0px;
padding-top:0px;
padding-right:0px;
padding-bottom:0px;
padding-left:0px;
list-style-type:none;
font-size:95%;
}
.description {
padding:0px;
margin-top:7px;
margin-right:12%;
margin-bottom:7px;
margin-left:5%;
color:#cc0000;
background:transparent;
font:bold 100% Verdana,Sans-Serif;
}
.post {
margin-top:0px;
margin-right:0px;
margin-bottom:30px;
margin-left:0px;
}
.post strong {
color:#000000;
font-weight:bold;
}
pre,code {
color:#000000;
}
strike {
color:#000000;
}
.post-footer  {
padding:0px;
margin:0px;
color:#ffffff;
font-size:80%;
}
.post-footer a {
border:none;
color:#968a0a;
text-decoration:none;
}
.post-footer a:hover {
text-decoration:underline;
}
#comments {
padding:0px;
font-size:110%;
font-weight:bold;
}
.comment-author {
margin-top: 10px;
}
.comment-body {
font-size:100%;
font-weight:normal;
color:black;
}
.comment-footer {
padding-bottom:20px;
color:#ffffff;
font-size:80%;
font-weight:normal;
display:inline;
margin-right:10px
}
.deleted-comment  {
font-style:italic;
color:gray;
}
.comment-link  {
margin-left:.6em;
}
.profile-textblock {
clear: both;
margin-left: 0;
}
.profile-img {
float: left;
margin-top: 0;
margin-right: 5px;
margin-bottom: 5px;
margin-left: 0;
border: 2px solid #940f04;
}
#sidebar a:link  {
color:#000000;
text-decoration:none;
}
#sidebar a:active  {
color:#ff0000;
text-decoration:none;
}
#sidebar a:visited  {
color:sidebarlinkcolor;
text-decoration:none;
}
#sidebar a:hover {
color:#cc0000;
text-decoration:none;
}
.feed-links {
clear: both;
line-height: 2.5em;
}
#blog-pager-newer-link {
float: left;
}
#blog-pager-older-link {
float: right;
}
#blog-pager {
text-align: center;
}
.clear {
clear: both;
}
.widget-content {
margin-top: 0.5em;
}
/** Tweaks for layout editor preview */
body#layout #outer-wrapper {
margin-top: 0;
}
body#layout #main,
body#layout #sidebar {
margin-top: 10px;
padding-top: 0;
}

--></style>
<link href='https://www.blogger.com/dyn-css/authorization.css?targetBlogID=3738579&amp;zx=a1164a5b-94f7-434c-afab-b49aa5a29e3f' media='none' onload='if(media!=&#39;all&#39;)media=&#39;all&#39;' rel='stylesheet'/><noscript><link href='https://www.blogger.com/dyn-css/authorization.css?targetBlogID=3738579&amp;zx=a1164a5b-94f7-434c-afab-b49aa5a29e3f' rel='stylesheet'/></noscript>

</head>
<body>
<div class='navbar section' id='navbar'><div class='widget Navbar' data-version='1' id='Navbar1'><script type="text/javascript">
    function setAttributeOnload(object, attribute, val) {
      if(window.addEventListener) {
        window.addEventListener('load',
          function(){ object[attribute] = val; }, false);
      } else {
        window.attachEvent('onload', function(){ object[attribute] = val; });
      }
    }
  </script>
<div id="navbar-iframe-container"></div>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
      gapi.load("gapi.iframes:gapi.iframes.style.bubble", function() {
        if (gapi.iframes && gapi.iframes.getContext) {
          gapi.iframes.getContext().openChild({
              url: 'https://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID\x3d3738579\x26blogName\x3dSilliman\x27s+Blog\x26publishMode\x3dPUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT\x26navbarType\x3dBLUE\x26layoutType\x3dLAYOUTS\x26searchRoot\x3dhttps://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search\x26blogLocale\x3den\x26v\x3d2\x26homepageUrl\x3dhttps://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/\x26vt\x3d-6983219020609693114',
              where: document.getElementById("navbar-iframe-container"),
              id: "navbar-iframe"
          });
        }
      });
    </script><script type="text/javascript">
(function() {
var script = document.createElement('script');
script.type = 'text/javascript';
script.src = '//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/google_top_exp.js';
var head = document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];
if (head) {
head.appendChild(script);
}})();
</script>
</div></div>
<div id='outer-wrapper'><div id='wrap2'>
<!-- skip links for text browsers -->
<span id='skiplinks' style='display:none;'>
<a href='#main'>skip to main </a> |
      <a href='#sidebar'>skip to sidebar</a>
</span>
<div id='header-wrapper'>
<div class='header section' id='header'><div class='widget Header' data-version='1' id='Header1'>
<div id='header-inner'>
<div class='titlewrapper'>
<h1 class='title'>
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/'>
Silliman's Blog
</a>
</h1>
</div>
<div class='descriptionwrapper'>
<p class='description'><span>A weblog focused on contemporary poetry and poetics.</span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<div id='content-wrapper'>
<div id='crosscol-wrapper' style='text-align:center'>
<div class='crosscol no-items section' id='crosscol'></div>
</div>
<div id='main-wrapper'>
<div class='main section' id='main'><div class='widget Blog' data-version='1' id='Blog1'>
<div class='blog-posts hfeed'>
<div class='status-msg-wrap'>
<div class='status-msg-body'>
Showing posts with label <b>School of Quietude</b>. <a href="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/">Show all posts</a>
</div>
<div class='status-msg-border'>
<div class='status-msg-bg'>
<div class='status-msg-hidden'>Showing posts with label <b>School of Quietude</b>. <a href="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/">Show all posts</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style='clear: both;'></div>

          <div class="date-outer">
        
<h2 class='date-header'><span>Friday, March 14, 2003</span></h2>

          <div class="date-posts">
        
<div class='post-outer'>
<div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'>
<meta content='3738579' itemprop='blogId'/>
<meta content='90705146' itemprop='postId'/>
<a name='90705146'></a>
<div class='post-header'>
<div class='post-header-line-1'></div>
</div>
<div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-90705146' itemprop='description articleBody'>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>Yesterday, Matthew Zapruder
made some comments in his email here that are worth examining in greater depth,
both for what they say and what they presume. The context you will recall was
some poetry by Noah Eli Gordon that was rejected from a poetry reading being
staged in opposition to the impending war on </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>Iraq</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span
style='font-family:Arial'>. This was not a general all-purpose rally of the
sort one gets in </span><st1:place><span style='font-family:Arial'>Central Park</span></st1:place><span
style='font-family:Arial'>, on the Mall in DC or marching up </span><st1:Street><st1:address><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>Market Street</span></st1:address></st1:Street><span
style='font-family:Arial'> in </span><st1:City><st1:place><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>San Francisco</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-family:Arial'> &#8211; it was a poetry reading. The people coming to it
were, presumably, anticipating the presence of poetry. So when the organizers
of the event rejected some poetry on the grounds of difficulty, I questioned
their judgment. The poem, in point of fact, was not terribly difficult, but
what if it had been? Would that have made a difference? For Zapruder, whose
work as a translator <a
href="http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2003_02_01_ronsilliman_archive.html%2388644351">I&#8217;ve
noted</a> with approval here before, it does make a difference. Thus he asks:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>Are Ashbery's &quot;Leaving <span class=SpellE>Atocha</span>
Station,&quot; or Mina Loy, or Shakespeare's sonnets for that matter, as easily
<span class=SpellE>apprehendible</span> on first reading as let's say Philip
Larkin or Charles Simic? I'm not talking about the further and endless levels
of complexity in a good poem, regardless of its surface. <span class=GramE>Just
its surface.</span> A poem does have a surface, doesn't it?<o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>I guess it just comes down to whether or not one is
willing to grant that the notion of &quot;difficulty&quot; has any place at all
in poetry. That's an interesting discussion, and one worth having here and
elsewhere. But in this particular case, right or wrong, the organizers of that
reading in good faith seem to believe in that distinction, and genuinely thought
that Noah's poem was too difficult to work effectively in that situation.<o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>It&#8217;s the belief in that
distinction I want to question. Not because I want to bludgeon this particular
event into the ground, but rather because a decision predicated upon that distinction
stands as a metonym for a wider range of behavior that occur in &amp; around
poetry in this society. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>It&#8217;s a distinction that
underlay a decision by one post-New American writer I know over a decade ago to
<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>not</i> recommend Robert Grenier for the
short list for a teaching position at his school, a state university. This
writer not only fully understood Grenier&#8217;s reputation among his peers as a
poet, but also Grenier&#8217;s reputation as an innovative, engaged <a
href="http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2003_01_01_ronsilliman_archive.html%2387951724">teacher</a>
in the classroom. &#8220;I just cannot bring myself to deal with the backlash,&#8221; is,
in essence if not in words, how he explained his decision to me at the time, &#8220;<span
class=GramE>if</span> I recommend somebody whose most important work is a box.&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>I could replicate other
examples of this same sort of decision-making all across the continent with
respect to jobs, to publications, to grants, the entire gamut of what constitutes
the literary life. At one level, this is a type of thinking &amp; acting with
which Whitman had to contend. Certainly the growth of bureaucratic institutions
in the wake of the Second World War, as the American post-secondary education
system rapidly expanded toward what it is today, gave full reign to precisely
the sorts of decisions that might be made around variants of this particular
distinction. The first volume of Hank Lazer&#8217;s excellent critical work, <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a
href="http://nupress.northwestern.edu/title.cfm?ISBN=0-8101-1264-7">Opposing
Poetries</a>, </i>documents this phenomenon intelligently &amp; carefully. Jed <span
class=SpellE>Rasula&#8217;s</span> <a name="OLE_LINK1"></a><a
href="http://bookstore.ncte.org/default.asp?id_product=3044"><span
style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK1'><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>American
Poetry Wax Museum</i></span><span style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK1'></span></a><span
style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK1'> </span>does likewise.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>The distinction is not about
difficulty versus simplicity &#8211; although that is one form that this question can
take &#8211; nor is it about surface versus depth, nor even intelligibility versus
whatever the opposite of intelligibility might be. Rather it is a distinction
that has to do with expectation, the expectation of what is possible. It&#8217;s a
distinction between what I &#8211; or anyone &#8211; already know and what I might now
confront. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>The school of quietude is
almost entirely predicated on a pathological desire to avoid just this
confrontation. Indeed<a href="http://www.eapoe.org/pstudies/ps1960/p1969303.htm">,
as Edgar Allen Poe observed</a> when he first coined that phrase to describe
the very same tradition that persists to this day, that is why this school is
so very quiet.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>Imagine the life experiences
of a person relatively unfamiliar with poetry coming to a reading in the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>United States</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span
style='font-family:Arial'> the year 2003. This person lives in a society in
which the Talking Heads had a hit record singing the <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'>zaum </i>poetry of Hugo Ball in 1977. The most surreal songs of Bob
Dylan were released &#8211; and not on any <span class=GramE>indy</span> label &#8211; some
36 years ago. Eminem crams in more social observation into any given quatrain
than some Pulitzer poets have managed in their entire careers. Ditto
songwriters like Townes Van Zandt or Dave Carter, to pick on a completely
different musical genre, or groups like Public Enemy &amp; NWA. And Van Zandt
&amp; Carter are both dead, and those rap groups already consigned to the
remainder bins of history. Or consider, for that matter, Prince, another golden
oldie who managed a career without the benefit of a word for a name for several
years. The most popular motion picture of the past two years had substantial
portions of dialog spoken (with subtitles) in <span class=SpellE><i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Elvish</i></span><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'>. </i>To pick another medium altogether, television, the audience
coming to this reading will have had everything from the close attention to the
spoken that is <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Buffy</i>, to the
narrative ambiguities &#8211; including the backwards speaking dwarf* &#8211; of <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Twin Peaks</i> to the multiple layers of <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Max Headroom</i>, all in the range of recent
references as they gather to hear somebody read a poem. This is in 2003, 172
years after the first of Aloysius Bertrand&#8217;s prose poems. <span class=GramE>Over
a century after Rimbaud &amp; Lautréamont.</span> Forty-seven years after Allen
Ginsberg published <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Howl, </i>a book so
obscure that it made him a millionaire. All of the above, up to &amp; including
the Vampire Slayer, require at least as much sophistication in communication
skills on the part of their various audiences as the poem submitted by Noah Eli
Gordon. And when we consider the number &amp; kinds of discourses that occur
simultaneously on a single screen of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>CNN&#8217;s
Headline News</i> channel &#8211; let alone consider the signage visible at any
instant as we walk or drive down any commercial street in America &#8211; we see that
it is the surface of the univocal poem (<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>yes,
Matthew, there are surfaces<span class=GramE>) <span style='font-style:normal'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&#160;</span>that</span></span></i> is the deviant
experience. Whether or not we approve or disapprove is entirely another matter
&#8211; but the one-dimensional surface profoundly is the exception to our experience
of language, not the rule. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>In this context, which is an
ordinary context for any poetry reading in the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>United States</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span
style='font-family:Arial'>, would &#8220;Leaving <span class=SpellE>Atocha</span>
Station&#8221; be a complex experience? Would Mina Loy? I think the answer is
patently obvious: only for readers for whom the definition of poetry has
somehow become so constrained that it can only mean certain things. In fact,
this does not appear to be the case for ordinary readers, those who come to the
experience with no prior expectation, with no need to automatically toggle between
&#8220;right&#8221; &amp; &#8220;wrong,&#8221; easy &amp; hard. Those readers &#8211; especially those with
no poetry experience whatsoever &#8211; will associate what they hear with what they
already know from other experiences of language &amp; art in their lives. And
they have plenty of adequate options. To reiterate something I&#8217;ve written on
this blog more than once already, this is what underlies </span><st1:PersonName><span
 style='font-family:Arial'>Kit Robinson</span></st1:PersonName><span
style='font-family:Arial'>&#8217;s claim that language poetry is difficult <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>only</i> for certain types of graduate
students. That&#8217;s not a witty rejoinder &#8211; it&#8217;s the literal truth. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>A few years ago, my sons,
who were five at the time, got into the great puzzle books of <a
href="http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/base.htm">Graeme Base</a>, and asked me
if adults had puzzle books or books that were games as well. So we read together
all of Tom Philips&#8217; <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a
href="http://www.rosacordis.com/humument/humument.html">A <span class=SpellE>Humument</span></a></i>
and then we read the first 80 or so pages of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'><a href="http://www.trentu.ca/jjoyce/">Finnegans Wake</a>. </i>This morning,
six years later, one of my boys asked me &#8220;What was the other name of Finnegan
besides Everybody?&#8221; <span class=GramE>&#8220;Humphrey Clinker <span class=SpellE>Earwicker</span>?&#8221;</span>
I asked in reply. &#8220;Yeah, that&#8217;s it,&#8221; he said. <span class=GramE>Which is not
such a bad retention level that many years later.</span> While my kids didn&#8217;t
catch all (or maybe even <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>any</i>) of the
bawdy references in either work, neither book when read aloud can honestly be
said to be too difficult for kindergartners. That doesn&#8217;t mean that the <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Wake</i> necessarily works as a book &#8211; I
think that Joyce&#8217;s philological approach to language led him astray &#8211; but its
reputed difficulty is not a difficulty of the text itself but rather of the
social context into which works such as this have been integrated &#8211; or, more
accurately, marginalized &#8211; in our society. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>Another example of how
people who aren&#8217;t readers read poetry. Seven years ago, I discovered a pair of
siblings I had not known that I had. Both live in the </span><st1:City><st1:place><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>Charleston</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-family:Arial'> area where my half-sister works as a lay counselor
in a Baptist church &amp; my half-brother tends lawns for a living. My
half-brother had one semester at Clemson when he got out of high school, but
gave it up to <span class=GramE>work</span> on shrimp boats until he started to
have kids &#8211; that is the bulk of their post-secondary education. In the process
of getting to know these two very sweet people, I sent them some of my books.
Later, when I traveled down to </span><st1:City><st1:place><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>Charleston</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-family:Arial'> to actually meet them in person, I listened as my
half-brother explained my poetry to his sister as reminding him of some
gardening courses he had taken &amp; that my work seemed very much to be
structured like a walk on a path: &#8220;You see one thing, <span class=GramE>then</span>
you see another.&#8221; He brought what he knew of the world to this experience that
was new to him, my poetry, &amp; was perfectly able to find frameworks that
suited him just fine. <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>This is how human
beings work.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>It&#8217;s only when you know what
poetry is <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>supposed to be</i> and you
confront something that falls outside of that framework that it starts to
become genuinely hard. <span class=GramE>And that knowing what poetry &#8220;is
supposed to be&#8221; is taught &#8211; it&#8217;s neither natural nor integral to the poem, but
rather is superimposed over it.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>So, yes, I will admit that
there is a difference <span class=GramE>between &#8221;</span>Leaving <span
class=SpellE>Atocha</span> Station&#8221; and the work of Philip Larkin**, but it is
not a question of a difficult vs. an easy surface. Larkin wrote an impoverished
poetry &amp; Ashbery respects his readers. Larkin&#8217;s work may be apprehended on
some level at a single sitting &#8211; but this is invariably a sign of deprivation.
Bad TV sitcoms can be apprehended at a single sitting because there is never
more than a single idea to any scene. Bad poetry is not so terribly different.
But even Friends &amp; Seinfeld have strived for more than that. I have never
understood why any human being would subject others to such an information-drained
experience? Why would one deliberately write <span class=GramE>a poetry</span>
of sensory deprivation? <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>The presumption underneath
Zapruder&#8217;s question is that univocal, one-dimensional poetry is in some way
&#8220;normal,&#8221; when in fact it is radically unlike the everyday experiences of
language of any human being in this society. I won&#8217;t argue the point that there
isn&#8217;t a considerable amount of such poetry around, but almost invariably
univocal poetics can be traced back to structural failures in the educational
system, literally funneling a segment of the population into a narrow
conception of poetry that is pathologically bizarre. That the school of
quietude has grown into a self-reinforcing ensemble of social institutions
dedicated to the preservation of this world view is something that social
psychologists of the future will no doubt have lots to say about.<span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&#160; </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-family:Arial'>Historically
the Left has always demonstrated considerably anxiety around all issues of
culture, from the faux hillbillies of the Popular Front to John <span
class=SpellE>Sayle&#8217;s</span> cinematic <span class=SpellE>sermonettes</span>. <span
class=GramE>In some sense, a poetry reading against the war in </span></span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span
  class=GramE><span style='font-family:Arial'>Iraq</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span
class=GramE><span style='font-family:Arial'>, noble idea that that is, almost
invites these sorts of questions.</span></span><span style='font-family:Arial'>
Back in 1965, I helped a little in setting up the first Vietnam Day Teach-In at
the </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceType><span style='font-family:Arial'>University</span></st1:PlaceType><span
 style='font-family:Arial'> of </span><st1:PlaceName><span style='font-family:
  Arial'>California</span></st1:PlaceName></st1:place><span style='font-family:
Arial'> in </span><st1:City><st1:place><span style='font-family:Arial'>Berkeley</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-family:Arial'>. The chief coordinator for the entire affair was a
very buttoned-down newspaper reporter from, as I recall, </span><st1:City><st1:place><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>Cincinnati</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-family:Arial'> by the name of Jerry Rubin &#8211; he didn&#8217;t stay all that
buttoned down for long. One of the big debates among the organizing committee
for that event was whether or not to invite Michael McClure to read his poetry.
Rubin opposed the idea, precisely because he feared that McClure would read
from his <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a
href="http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&amp;d/mcclure/mccluret.htm">Ghost <span
class=SpellE>Tantras</span></a></i>: <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoPlainText align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'>GOOOOOOR! GOOOOOOOOOO!<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoPlainText align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'>GOOOOOOOOOR!<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoPlainText align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'>GRAHHH! GRAHH! GRAHH!<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoPlainText align=center style='text-align:center'><span
class=SpellE><span style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Grah</span></span><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'> <span class=SpellE>goooor</span>! <span
class=SpellE>Ghahh</span>! <span class=SpellE>Graaarr</span>! <span
class=SpellE>Greeeeeer</span>! <span class=SpellE>Grayowhr</span>!<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoPlainText align=center style='text-align:center'><span
class=SpellE><span style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Greeeeee</span></span><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoPlainText align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'>GRAHHRR! RAHHR! GRAHHHRR! RAHR!<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoPlainText align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'>RAHR! RAHHR! GRAHHHR! GAHHR! HRAHR!<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoPlainText align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'>BE NOT SUGAR BUT BE LOVE<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoPlainText align=center style='text-align:center'><span class=GramE><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'>looking</span></span><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'> for sugar!<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoPlainText align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'>GAHHHHHHHH!<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoPlainText align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'>ROWRR!<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoPlainText align=center style='text-align:center'><span
style='font-family:Verdana;color:black'>GROOOOOOOOOOH!<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-family:Arial'>Some
time around 1970, there was a giant reading also against the Vietnam War at </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>Glide</span></st1:PlaceName><span style='font-family:
 Arial'> </span><st1:PlaceType><span style='font-family:Arial'>Church</span></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><span
style='font-family:Arial'> in </span><st1:City><st1:place><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>San Francisco</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-family:Arial'>. All the major local figures of the New American
generation were there. The <span class=SpellE><span class=GramE>m.c</span></span>.
for the evening, or at least for the latter part of it, was Denise Levertov.
Unfortunately for her, one of the people in the overwhelmingly packed
auditorium dressed in a giant pink terrycloth penis costume, as he had done at
numerous demonstrations around the Bay Area, earning the rubric The People&#8217;s
Prick. As I recall, the room got so crowded &#8211; it was way over the fire code
allotment &#8211; <span class=GramE>that</span> Levertov sought to alleviate the
problem by having members of the audience come and sit on the stage. The
problem was, The People&#8217;s Prick was among those who got up on stage &amp; the
nature of the costume was such that he couldn&#8217;t sit down. He tried to stand
quietly at the back of the stage, but Levertov was having none of it. If cooler
heads had not prevailed, the event would have broken down into chaos. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>These conceptions of what
events like this <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>should be</i> have
bedeviled them forever. In some sense, the organizers of this reading were only
acting as links in a larger chain of fear that they share across time with
Jerry Rubin &amp; Denise Levertov. For his part, Noah Eli Gordon, like McClure
&amp; the People&#8217;s Prick before him, with his poem that <a
href="http://jonathanmayhew.blogspot.com/2003_03_01_jonathanmayhew_archive.html#90480328">read
aloud slowly lasts less than two minutes</a>, got to play the role of the
barbarian at the gate, the promise or threat of a little polysemy into a world
that is sworn to avoid it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>But Jerry Rubin, you will
note, changed his mind. Within three years of putting the kibosh on McClure&#8217;s participation
in the teach-in, he would show up at the New York Stock Exchange wearing only
an American flag &amp;, in </span><st1:City><st1:place><span style='font-family:
  Arial'>Chicago</span></st1:place></st1:City><span style='font-family:Arial'>,
nominate a pig for the presidency, an act that helped ignite the largest police
riot in decades. Perhaps Rubin noted that what got noticed &#8211; nation-wide as it
turned out &#8211; from the initial Teach-In was when Norman Mailer uttered the
phrase &#8220;Hot Damn! </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style='font-family:
  Arial'>Vietnam</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style='font-family:
Arial'>!&#8221; and got the radio broadcast of the event over </span><st1:City><st1:place><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>Pacifica</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-family:Arial'> radio instantly pulled off the air. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>I&#8217;m not necessarily an
advocate of Rubin&#8217;s politics, fun though they might have been. But it seems
apparent to me that the issue of complexity is a <span class=SpellE>spectre</span>
that is going to haunt poetry forever. The reason the anti-war poems of the
school of quietude, well intended as they were, had so little impact in the
1960s was because, regardless of what they said about the war, the form of
their work argued (sometimes, if it was well written, forcefully) precisely for
all the institutions of order as they apply to language &amp; meaning. Sam <span
class=SpellE>Hamill&#8217;s</span> sad little chapbook is merely the repetition of
that history, this time as farce. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>* Not
literally backwards speaking. His role was recorded with him reading his words
backwards &#8211; <span class=SpellE><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>sdrawkcab</i></span><i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'> <span class=SpellE>sdrow</span></i> --
&amp; the tape <span class=GramE>was</span> then reversed so that it sounded &#8220;<span
class=SpellE>frontwards</span>,&#8221; but as if spoken from Mars. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>** There is
considerably more going on in any poem by Charles Simic, so I don&#8217;t want to
extend this argument to him. I have some fondness for the soft surrealists of
the 1960s: Simic, James Tate, Bill Knott. There&#8217;s more to their poetry than
some of their fans seem to get.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div style='clear: both;'></div>
</div>
<div class='post-footer'>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>
<span class='post-author vcard'>
Posted by
<span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'>
<span itemprop='name'>Ron</span>
</span>
</span>
<span class='post-timestamp'>
at
<meta content='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2003/03/yesterday-matthew-zapruder-made-some.html' itemprop='url'/>
<a class='timestamp-link' href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2003/03/yesterday-matthew-zapruder-made-some.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2003-03-14T07:23:00-05:00'>Friday, March 14, 2003</abbr></a>
</span>
<span class='reaction-buttons'>
</span>
<span class='post-comment-link'>
</span>
<span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'>
</span>
<span class='post-icons'>
<span class='item-action'>
<a href='https://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=3738579&postID=90705146' title='Email Post'>
<img alt='' class='icon-action' height='13' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_email.gif' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'>
</div>
</div>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'>
<span class='post-labels'>
Labels:
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%2520of%2520Quietude' rel='tag'>School of Quietude</a>,
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Theory' rel='tag'>Theory</a>
</span>
</div>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'>
<span class='post-location'>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

          </div></div>
        

          <div class="date-outer">
        
<h2 class='date-header'><span>Saturday, February 08, 2003</span></h2>

          <div class="date-posts">
        
<div class='post-outer'>
<div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'>
<meta content='3738579' itemprop='blogId'/>
<meta content='88754146' itemprop='postId'/>
<a name='88754146'></a>
<div class='post-header'>
<div class='post-header-line-1'></div>
</div>
<div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-88754146' itemprop='description articleBody'>
<p class=MsoNormal><tt><span style='mso-ansi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Reading a magazine that I have not yet seen, Tom Fink
notes the containment strategy often imposed by conservative poets with regards
first to langpo &amp; then more broadly to the entire post-avant tradition.<o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><tt><span style='mso-ansi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Dear Ron,<o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&#160;</span><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; </span>When
I got a contributor's copy of the <span class=GramE>Winter</span> 2002 issue of
<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Barrow Street</i>, an eclectic </span></tt><st1:City><st1:place><tt><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>New
  York City</span></tt></st1:place></st1:City><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> journal, a very interesting
juxtaposition hit me. The magazine's first poem is an excerpt from Lyn
Hejinian's <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Fatalist</i>, a potent
example of the self-reflexive and, as she puts it, &quot;analytic lyric&quot;
drive of her work. (Like you, I'm especially drawn to My Life.) One of the last
pieces in the magazine is an interview of Robert Pinsky by Daniela Gioseffi,
author of 11 books of poetry, the latest from Rattapallax Press, and an
anthology, Women on War, and someone who has favorably reviewed close friends
of mine. The interview is subtitled &quot;On Poetry and Social
Conscience.&quot; Gioseffi asks Pinsky what he feels &quot;about the current
abstract school and the so called 'language school of poetry'; for example,
John Ashbery or Jorie Graham or </span></tt><st1:PersonName><tt><span
 style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Charles
 Bernstein</span></tt></st1:PersonName><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> &#8211; which has seemed to dominate
much of the poetry of our time and to which the average reader not schooled in
poetry seems to have such difficulty responding to. Do you find it solipsistic
in nature?&quot; (76). <o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&#160;</span><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; </span>If
we slightly correct Gioseffi and see Ashbery as a synecdoche for the New York
School, Bernstein for the Language Poets &#8211; and such synecdoches repress much
difference within those non-schools &#8211; and Graham for the recent Iowa Writer's
Workshop trend to fuse mainstream and experimental poetic practices, then
perhaps these 3 &quot;tendencies,&quot; combined, may account for half of
what's published in the poetry presses and magazines and e-<span class=SpellE>zines</span>.
But the word &quot;dominate&quot; implies a lot more than half; it demonstrates
the angst that you noticed in Edward Hirsch's claim that there were &quot;too
many&quot; poetic experimentalists: 10,000 practitioners. <o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&#160;</span><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; </span>Gioseffi
doesn't know or ignores that Language Poets are overtly political. Perhaps
&quot;difficulty&quot; makes her use the label &quot;solipsistic&quot; (without
conscience? apolitical?). Has she encountered the &quot;Language&quot; argument
that the illusion of unmediated communication in &quot;easy&quot; poetry is
itself an ideological construct in need of politicized demystification? Poetry
educators like Juliana Spahr can and do talk with the &quot;average
reader&quot; about politically progressive poetry that disrupts complacent
expectations of transparent mimesis, but have her mainstream sources told her
this? (Also, to read Ashbery as solipsistic is to miss a kind of <span
class=SpellE>Bakhtinian</span> dialogism, a carnival where one can read social
conflict into his poems' heteroglossia.) <o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in'><tt><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>To Pinsky's
credit, he doesn't quite take Gioseffi's cues. First sounding like a serene,
tolerant pluralist who will admit star experimentalists into his pantheon, he
then exposes his biases: <o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.8in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.8in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify'><tt><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>As you have said, in
every kind [of poetry], some is good and some is bad. In relation to your
concern with social and political materials, it is true that the more cerebral,
self-referential or linguistically complicated the writing is, the safer or
more armored it is. For lesser writers than those you name, an avant-garde
surface is protection from the difficulties and embarrassments of subject
matter. Language poetry of that kind is safe; it cannot sprawl because it holds
its pose behind a protective wall of texture. Abstraction and opacity can be
places to hide from the difficulty or passion of the world or oneself. But what
about examples like Paul Celan &#8211; a great writer who is very difficult, often
opaque, and a great writer of the social and political tragedy of modern </span></tt><st1:place><tt><span
 style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>Europe</span></tt></st1:place><tt><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>? (76)<o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Pinsky's concluding question is
very good, but Gioseffi parries it by going on to an unrelated question. When
Pinsky signifies on the usual safe/dangerous binary by making safe literary
forms/modes seem dangerous, some will find it clever. But the implication that
linguistic complexity is an evasion of psychologically difficult confession
(&quot;embarrassments&quot;) about the self's imperfections and its most
difficult emotions or an evasion of the difficulty of making a determinate
political judgment implies that the tasks being &quot;evaded&quot; are the &quot;true&quot;
tasks of poetry. What if confessional poetry a la Lowell or Sexton is seen as
just plain self-indulgent? What if a poet doesn't want to ignore the
complexities of political theory and praxis and thus refrains from making
&quot;sound-byte&quot; political judgments. The trope of &quot;sprawling&quot;
suggests that <span class=SpellE>LangPo</span> is &quot;uptight,&quot; ignoring
how funny it often is, whereas poetry with clearly packaged
&quot;personality&quot; is more relaxed. What if the poetry of &quot;subject
matter&quot; that he implicitly valorizes is a protection against a more
difficult subject matter: relations between areas of linguistic
&quot;experience&quot; that are not immediately recognizable, that do not
easily fit together but have metonymic contact in the multiplicity of the
social spaces that people experience as their daily lives? Pinsky may see in a
Bernstein or an Ashbery that even when language itself is the subject matter, a
large part of the interest in such writing is investigation of the social
functioning of words, but he will not allow that framing assumption to be in
place when he reads &quot;lesser writers&quot; that he considers part of the
Language group. Near the end of the interview, Gioseffi weighs in once more on
the poetry she finds apolitical, this time differentiating between the <span
class=SpellE>LangPos</span> and the </span></tt><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><tt><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>New
  York</span></tt></st1:PlaceName><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
 Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> </span></tt><st1:PlaceType><tt><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>School</span></tt></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><tt><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>:<o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.8in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.8in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify'><tt><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>The language school of
poetry seems to be about art for art's sake; and the abstract or action poetry
schools, or the </span></tt><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><tt><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>New York</span></tt></st1:PlaceName><tt><span
 style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'> </span></tt><st1:PlaceType><tt><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>School</span></tt></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><tt><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>, a sort of laid-back
observation on the poet's experience. (77)<o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Does action poetry=action
painting? Does she link the visual </span></tt><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><tt><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>New
  York</span></tt></st1:PlaceName><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
 Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> </span></tt><st1:PlaceType><tt><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>School</span></tt></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><tt><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> with
the poetic one? The caricature of the &quot;laid back&quot; </span></tt><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><tt><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>New
  York</span></tt></st1:PlaceName><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
 Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> </span></tt><st1:PlaceType><tt><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>School</span></tt></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><tt><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> could
have been obtained from some journalistic account, not from reading many NY
School writers. But where did she get the idea that <span class=SpellE>LangPo</span>
is &quot;art for art's sake&quot;? From a preconception that poetry, to be
political, must tell a story or present a single ideological perspective, and
that, poetry that cannot be pinned down to a single subject must only exist to
glorify its status as art? That linguistic inventiveness is just hedonism and
teaches us nothing about the world? What if the accusation of &quot;art for
art's sake&quot; were contextualized, instead, as an indication that the
accuser believes that a realm of &quot;pure formalism&quot; can exist outside
of the <span class=SpellE>socius</span>, and that this belief, rather than a
partial (not total or totalizing) attention to formal qualities, is a
mystification of the interpreter, not the poet? Hejinian's poem at the
beginning of the issue of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Barrow Street</i>
could help answer some of the questions, if the interviewer and interviewee
chose to read it carefully.<o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><tt><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in'><tt><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>All
Best, <o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in'><tt><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Tom</span></tt><tt><span
style='mso-ansi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p></o:p></span></tt></p>
<div style='clear: both;'></div>
</div>
<div class='post-footer'>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>
<span class='post-author vcard'>
Posted by
<span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'>
<span itemprop='name'>Ron</span>
</span>
</span>
<span class='post-timestamp'>
at
<meta content='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2003/02/reading-magazine-that-i-have-not-yet.html' itemprop='url'/>
<a class='timestamp-link' href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2003/02/reading-magazine-that-i-have-not-yet.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2003-02-08T08:28:00-05:00'>Saturday, February 08, 2003</abbr></a>
</span>
<span class='reaction-buttons'>
</span>
<span class='post-comment-link'>
</span>
<span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'>
</span>
<span class='post-icons'>
<span class='item-action'>
<a href='https://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=3738579&postID=88754146' title='Email Post'>
<img alt='' class='icon-action' height='13' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_email.gif' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'>
</div>
</div>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'>
<span class='post-labels'>
Labels:
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%2520of%2520Quietude' rel='tag'>School of Quietude</a>
</span>
</div>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'>
<span class='post-location'>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

          </div></div>
        

          <div class="date-outer">
        
<h2 class='date-header'><span>Tuesday, December 03, 2002</span></h2>

          <div class="date-posts">
        
<div class='post-outer'>
<div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'>
<meta content='3738579' itemprop='blogId'/>
<meta content='85425197' itemprop='postId'/>
<a name='85425197'></a>
<div class='post-header'>
<div class='post-header-line-1'></div>
</div>
<div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-85425197' itemprop='description articleBody'>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">Daisy Fried</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;"> writes to challenge my use of the term conservative
to characterize members of the broad literary heritage that I&#8217;ve generally been
calling the &#8220;school of quietude&#8221; here on the blog:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
Ron&#8212;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
It's VERY nice of you to mention me on your BLOG as a person you like to
read--you're somebody whose good opinion means a lot. And you're one <span class="GramE">of a number anti-coherent poets</span> I read with pleasure. <span class="GramE">[Just trying out "anti-coherent" as a general
semi-neologism for language poetry, Ashbery poetry and various offspring.</span>
<span class="GramE">Hmmm....]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
Now, I assume by conservative you don't mean politically
conservative--though I also realize you perhaps you don't separate politics and
poetics much, but still--Dugan (my hero!) is a clearly a red, and Hass is or at
least used to be left-liberal, as is Annie F., and Muldoon seems to be pretty
left...etc...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
So do you think it's automatically conservative to value closure, to be
generally accessible in traditional (which is different from conservative)
ways, or to not be particularly interested in the opaque signifier? Is it
automatically liberal on the other hand, to do the kinds of processes/
practices/writings that are lately called experimental? From other remarks you
made on the BLOG I think you would say no, so I'm just curious about your use
of the word 'conservative'.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
Lucien Freud and Alice <span class="SpellE">Neel</span> were painting
bodies all during period when abstract expressionism was the last big
innovation, and painting even the slightest bit representationally was a big
no-no. But now the general consensus is that they were pretty damn good and
innovative. And I don't think it's possible to call them conservative...[well,
I don't know anything about Freud's politics; <span class="SpellE">Neel</span>
was a member of the Communist part--but I mean their aesthetic is no longer
thought to be conservative either, right?] Is there an analogy here?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
Also, all this experimental poetry, or <span class="SpellE">lang-po/post-lang-po</span>
(and you'll forgive me for throwing around terms in this inexact way) seems deeply
academic to me. Which is no indication of its quality one way or the other, but
most of the so-called experimentalists are middle-class kids who go to grad
school and are taught by people of your generation, if not by you, how to be
avant whatever, no? Just like the other middle-class kids who go to the other
schools where other kinds of poetry are taught by various generations. Nothing
against middle class kids who go to grad school (if I'd gone, and I almost did
once, that would have described me too) but it sort of seems against the whole
idea of being experimental or radical or anti-mainstream in ones work, to learn
how to be those things from a university teacher, doesn't it? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
All best,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="GramE">your</span> fan,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
Daisy</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I want to respond to two points. One is my use of the
term conservative, the other is the concept of anti-coherency, which Daisy
concedes is a neologism she&#8217;s just trying on, but which is also an idea that
I&#8217;ve heard enough times before to understand is a conception that might exist
in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I wouldn&#8217;t characterize what I call the post-avant
traditions, even in their most extreme forms such as <span class="SpellE">vizpo</span>
&amp; sound poetry, as anti-coherency. If anything, I think that the very
opposite is true, that they form a poetics of a greater coherency, precisely
because it must be a coherency earned by &amp; within the writing, not
something easily assumed. Too often, bad writing within the school of quietude
presumes that simply by positing a narrating persona, coherency will follow.
That is precisely the same kind of presumption that lies behind the use of
family or workplace as the contextual site for almost all television sitcoms,
and to parallel result. If anything, poets of the easy coherency tendencies
have it harder, because the idea that the work of the poem has already been
done for them is so terribly seductive. Those who can write past this do </span><st1:state><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">ind</span></st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-family: Arial;">eed achieve something worth note. But my experience
of most poetry of the easy coherency variety is very much like my experience of
most television sitcoms &#8211; they&#8217;re <span class="SpellE">unwatchable</span>. I&#8217;d
rather have a root canal than read 30 lines by 98 percent of the poets who
simply think they&#8217;re coherent when they really aren&#8217;t. For me as a reader, the
far greater problem is how to find that mysterious two percent who consistently
do reward my effort. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">It is not that bad poetry cannot be written in the
post-avant mode &#8211; sign on to the Poetics List for awhile &#8211; but that almost all
practitioners of post-avant writing have had to confront such questions of
form, content, coherency, implication, context, responsibility and any other
number of qualities of the poem <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from
scratch.</i> On average, they have had to work much harder and far more
thoughtfully than their counterparts on the far side of the genre in almost
anything they have written. &amp; when they don&#8217;t do their homework, it shows
immediately. There may be self-delusion, but there is no hiding allowed for
post-avant poets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I would cite the example of my own poetry as a
demonstration of this &#8211; I was able to publish in such magazines as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poetry, Tri-Quarterly, Southern Review </i>&amp;
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poetry Northwest</i> within three years
of starting to write poetry seriously. It was not because I was good, but
because it was easy. It was much more difficult to appear in publications of
the post-avant tendencies of that time, because such writing demanded so much
more of me as a poet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">If I were to define poetry, it is that art of
language that demands the most of me, both as a reader and as a writer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">And that seems the
appropriate segue to Daisy&#8217;s core question: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
So do you think it's automatically conservative to value closure, to be
generally accessible in traditional (which is different from conservative)
ways, or to not be particularly interested in the opaque signifier?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The question of accessibility is a potential problem
here. What makes poetry of the schools of quietude &#8220;accessible&#8221; is only that
they have been institutionally ingrained for a century (or, in some ways, far
longer), mostly in high school &amp; undergraduate curricula. Having given
readings in such venues as <span class="SpellE">streetcorners</span> or the
Maximum Security Library at Folsom State Prison, I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s anything
&#8220;inaccessible&#8221; about my poetry, even when the audience has had little in the
way of formal education or the context of a rich literary heritage. If
anything, it is educational malpractice that may make post-avant poetics
sometimes seem difficult, not the poetry itself. There is a qualitative
difference between asking the reader to use all of their senses to read and
being deliberately obscure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">As to the question of tradition, my one response
would be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">whose tradition? </i>It is
post-avant writing, I would argue, that more accurately represents the
tradition not just of Pound &amp; Williams, Stein &amp; Zukofsky, Stevens &amp;
Crane, but also Whitman &amp; Dickinson, Blake, Wordsworth &amp; Coleridge. The
schools of quietude represent exactly those counter tendencies within Anglo
heritage with whom those poets invariably had to contend. And while there are
some important writers who arose out of that other poetics, such as my distant
in-law, Mr. Tennyson, I would happily put up my tradition against any other
over time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Ultimately, I use the term conservative as a literal
description &#8211; not, for example, the way I would describe George W., who would
have to move well to the left to become a conservative. I always pick Wendell
Berry as my demonstration for what I mean, because in his work conservative
&amp; conservation are wedded seamlessly as values &#8211; and it is in this sense
that he strikes me as a very great poet. </span><st1:state><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">Berry</span></st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-family: Arial;"> is quite conscious &#8211; and unapologetic &#8211; about his
premodernist position and its anti-modern implications. What separates him from
approximately 99 percent of his peers along the side of quietude is not only
his talent, but also his self-understanding. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Different genres of art respond to changes in time
&amp; history in different ways. When Pound, Joyce &amp; Stein were first
demonstrating how a poetics might respond to the modern world prior to World
War I, Bing Crosby had yet to discover the ways in which the microphone could
be used to transform the public art of song. Poetry since that time has changed
less than has popular music, in part because the latter, not unlike painting,
is artificially accelerated through the influx of capital and the need to
continually generate new markets. Lisa Jarnot, </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">Jena</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Osman &amp; Christian Bök are closer to Pound &amp;
Stein, for example, than Marshall <span class="SpellE">Mathers</span> is to Bing
Crosby. But the idea of a poetry that characterizes as traditional the idea of
writing as if Pound, Stein et al were still 100 years yet into the future cries
out for examination. Such a poetics is understandable as a political position &#8211;
the way </span><st1:state><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">Berry</span></st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-family: Arial;"> treats it &#8211; but not really on any other terms. If I
try to analyze why poets would thus want to write conservatively, terms like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">denial </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avoidance</i> immediately come to mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">If I continue my comparison with popular music a
little </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">furth</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial;">er, I can of course find people who still sing, &amp;
even compose, opera. Michael Feinstein &amp; Harry <span class="SpellE">Connick</span>,
Jr. continue to perform as though Frank Sinatra &amp; Sammy Davis, Jr. will be
sitting at the front table. Every major mode of rock that has come into
existence still has some manifestation in the current culture. So forms
continue, but as they do their meaning alters profoundly. One could argue, for
example, that <span class="SpellE">Eminem</span> is a natural descendent of
1950&#8217;s doo-wop culture, given a heavy political twist. But a completely
traditional doo-wop group would have a hard time getting a record deal from a
major </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">labe</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial;">l. Doo-wop, it is worth noting, is historically
parallel with Allen Ginsberg &amp; Frank O&#8217;Hara &#8211; it comes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">after</i> Robert Lowell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">If there is a counter argument to be made along the
lines of my music analogy, it would be constructed around that tradition that
used to be called folk music but that now more often goes under the heading of
the &#8220;singer-songwriter&#8221; tradition, a creation not so much of Appalachia as of
the Popular Front of the 1930s. Here also, as with Wendell Berry, the music is
constructed around a complex of political ideas that are not accidental. I
happen to like a number of these ideas*, frankly, which may explain why I do
listen to folk music, along with avant-garde jazz, rock, world music &amp; even
occasionally opera. But I would note that the folk tradition has changed
considerably over the decades and that the Kingston Trio-Limelighter 1950s is a
far cry from the O Brother Wherefore Art Thou 2000s. Anybody who proposes to
play acoustic Delta blues today is understood exactly as an historic re-enactor
of a tradition, not an actual participant. That is exactly the position into
which most &#8220;traditional&#8221; poetry falls, with the notable exception that blues
literally began after World War I with the work of people like Charlie Patton.
What we are really talking about in the case of poetry is more like Stephen
Foster imitations presented as images of contemporary life. <span class="GramE">Just
the sort of thing that Jeff Koons loves to make fun of.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">So yes, I would call what you term &#8220;traditional&#8221;
poetry conservative &#8211; that&#8217;s the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">positive</i>
term, when such poetry &amp; its practitioners understand what they&#8217;re about.
More of it I fear is simply pathological, which I find the much more disturbing
aspect of the troubled school of quietude. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">* The commitment to community &amp;
human scale in particular. Interestingly, I find these same values in
contemporary post-avant jazz, such as in the Rova Saxophone Quartet or the work
of Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton et al, but not in commercialized smooth jazz.</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style='clear: both;'></div>
</div>
<div class='post-footer'>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>
<span class='post-author vcard'>
Posted by
<span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'>
<span itemprop='name'>Ron</span>
</span>
</span>
<span class='post-timestamp'>
at
<meta content='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2002/12/daisy-fried-writes-to-challenge-my-use.html' itemprop='url'/>
<a class='timestamp-link' href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2002/12/daisy-fried-writes-to-challenge-my-use.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2002-12-03T07:01:00-05:00'>Tuesday, December 03, 2002</abbr></a>
</span>
<span class='reaction-buttons'>
</span>
<span class='post-comment-link'>
</span>
<span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'>
</span>
<span class='post-icons'>
<span class='item-action'>
<a href='https://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=3738579&postID=85425197' title='Email Post'>
<img alt='' class='icon-action' height='13' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_email.gif' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'>
</div>
</div>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'>
<span class='post-labels'>
Labels:
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/post-avant' rel='tag'>post-avant</a>,
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%2520of%2520Quietude' rel='tag'>School of Quietude</a>
</span>
</div>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'>
<span class='post-location'>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

          </div></div>
        

          <div class="date-outer">
        
<h2 class='date-header'><span>Sunday, October 13, 2002</span></h2>

          <div class="date-posts">
        
<div class='post-outer'>
<div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'>
<meta content='3738579' itemprop='blogId'/>
<meta content='82920311' itemprop='postId'/>
<a name='82920311'></a>
<div class='post-header'>
<div class='post-header-line-1'></div>
</div>
<div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-82920311' itemprop='description articleBody'>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I&#8217;ve made caustic comments
here about a few poets whom I&#8217;ve associated with the tradition I&#8217;ve
characterized (to borrow from Edgar </span><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">Allan</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Poe) as the school of quietude, that tendency within American letters
that envisions poetry in the United States as continuous with (&amp; mostly
derivative from) verse in the British Isles, and especially from the most
conservative elements there. So the question naturally arises: are there
conservative poets whose work I genuinely like? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The answer is yes. I think
Hart Crane&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bridge </i>a master work
of American poetry. There are aspects of Wallace <span class="GramE">Stevens</span>
work that I like, even though he suffers from being so overrated by his
advocates. Ditto the early Eliot, though the canonization process is not nearly
what it was when I was in college, mercifully. I&#8217;ve been reading Jack Gilbert
and Robert Hass with interest &amp; even passion for over 30 years*, have
always thought Berryman&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dream Songs</i>,
<span class="SpellE">Plath&#8217;s</span> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ariel, </i>John
Logan&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Zigzag Walk</i> and even <span class="SpellE">Merwin&#8217;s</span> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lice</i>
admirable. There are elements in Robert Lowell&#8217;s best writing that suggest that
he had the potential to have been another Frank O&#8217;Hara had he not been so
horrifically dysfunctional, aesthetically as well as emotionally. Alan Dugan is
a guilty pleasure. And Wendell Berry is a <span class="GramE">poet</span> for
whom the term conservative should be understood literally, in the very best
sense. The values he espouses in his poetry &amp; life seem to me to fit
together seamlessly. So when I come down harshly on a poet such as Richard
Wakefield, it&#8217;s because he writes so ineffectively: his sense of metrics could
only be characterized as plodding and bungled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">On my desk is a manuscript
for a book entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Calendars</i> by
Annie Finch that Tupelo Press will be printing sometime soon. It&#8217;s a marvelous
manuscript by a poet who could easily be taken for one of the New Formalists,
in the Timothy Steele vein, but who is also, I would argue, a formalist in the
tradition, say, of Bernadette Mayer &amp; Lee Ann Brown. Which is to say: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">she gets it</i>. Her commitment is to the
language, even as the strategies she deploys are most often taken from oldest
playbook there is. At times, as in the poem &#8220;Moon,&#8221; her work reminds me of <span class="SpellE">H.D.&#8217;s</span> sense of timing, so very deliberate &amp; ordered:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Then
are you the dense everywhere that moves<span class="GramE">,</span><br />
the dark matter they haven&#8217;t yet walked through?<br />
<br />
(No, I&#8217;m not, I&#8217;m just the shining sun<span class="GramE">,</span><br />
sometimes covered up by the darkness.)<br />
<br />
But in your beauty &#8211; yes, I know you see &#8211;<br />
There is no covering, no constant light.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
&lt;![if !supportLineBreakNewLine]&gt;<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
&lt;![endif]&gt;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">That supplemental <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yes</i> in the last couplet, the fact that
the final syllable in each line articulates a phonemic openness, except for the
last, even the use of the capital letter at the start of the final line (but
not in the final line of the other stanzas), all demonstrate a control over the
materials at hand that is extraordinary. That <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yes </i>functions as though it were a sigh, modulating &amp; <span class="GramE">redirecting<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>the</span>
timing of the work away from dialog &amp; toward conclusion. It&#8217;s a device that
I&#8217;ve often been suspicious of &#8211; Josephine Miles, another traditionalist whose
work I take seriously, too often incorporated such asides just <span class="GramE">to</span> even out meter or complete an end-rhyme. Finch uses it
here to halt the flow of the text, to gather the language up into an expression
of breath. It is no accident that every word in that aside uses exactly one
syllable** or that there are no hard consonants there &#8211; the only moment in this
six-line text where either of these conditions applies. I love it when someone
can demonstrate such mastery in such a compact terrain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I want to quote one other
short poem here, my favorite, because of the way in which it blends an
over-the-top sense of language&#8217;s lushness with a tone so soft it all but
whispers. It&#8217;s called &#8220;Butterfly Lullaby.&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">My
wild indigo dusky wing<br />
my mottled, broad-wing skipper<span class="GramE">,</span><br />
a sleepy, dreamy dusty wing,<br />
flying through my night.<br />
<br />
My northern, southern, cloudy wing<span class="GramE">,</span><br />
my spring azure, my crescent pearl,<br />
a silver-spotted, sweet question mark,<br />
sleeping in my sky.<br />
<br />
A tiger swallowtail, harvester<span class="GramE">,</span><br />
moving through my hours,<br />
an eyed brown in the redwing dark,<br />
wrapped softly in my words.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">We haven&#8217;t had a poet so
capable of combining control &amp; excess since the young Robert Duncan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">* I have a
theory that Jack&#8217;s animated &amp; public distaste for langpo has to do with the
fact that he <span class="GramE">himself,</span> were he younger, would have been
one. This is, after all, the man who once wrote (quoting from memory here):
&#8220;Helot for what time there is in the <span class="SpellE">baptist</span> hegemony
of death.&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">** Shades
again of H.D. and even of Lew Welch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style='clear: both;'></div>
</div>
<div class='post-footer'>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>
<span class='post-author vcard'>
Posted by
<span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'>
<span itemprop='name'>Ron</span>
</span>
</span>
<span class='post-timestamp'>
at
<meta content='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2002/10/ive-made-caustic-comments-here-about.html' itemprop='url'/>
<a class='timestamp-link' href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2002/10/ive-made-caustic-comments-here-about.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2002-10-13T10:07:00-04:00'>Sunday, October 13, 2002</abbr></a>
</span>
<span class='reaction-buttons'>
</span>
<span class='post-comment-link'>
</span>
<span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'>
</span>
<span class='post-icons'>
<span class='item-action'>
<a href='https://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=3738579&postID=82920311' title='Email Post'>
<img alt='' class='icon-action' height='13' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_email.gif' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'>
</div>
</div>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'>
<span class='post-labels'>
Labels:
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/%2523poetsyouneedtoknow' rel='tag'>#poetsyouneedtoknow</a>,
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Classic%2520American%2520Poetry' rel='tag'>Classic American Poetry</a>,
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Edgar%2520Allen%2520Poe' rel='tag'>Edgar Allen Poe</a>,
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Hart%2520Crane' rel='tag'>Hart Crane</a>,
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Robert%2520Lowell' rel='tag'>Robert Lowell</a>,
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%2520of%2520Quietude' rel='tag'>School of Quietude</a>
</span>
</div>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'>
<span class='post-location'>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

          </div></div>
        

          <div class="date-outer">
        
<h2 class='date-header'><span>Monday, September 02, 2002</span></h2>

          <div class="date-posts">
        
<div class='post-outer'>
<div class='post hentry uncustomized-post-template' itemprop='blogPost' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/BlogPosting'>
<meta content='3738579' itemprop='blogId'/>
<meta content='81032264' itemprop='postId'/>
<a name='81032264'></a>
<div class='post-header'>
<div class='post-header-line-1'></div>
</div>
<div class='post-body entry-content' id='post-body-81032264' itemprop='description articleBody'>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>The abstract lyric certainly
existed before Barbara Guest &#8211; Stein, for example, and some of Williams&#8217; work,
especially prior to World War II; the French can go back to Mallarmé &#8211; but it
was/is Guest who in English seems to have perfected the form in the 1950s, a
period in which she was largely (and unfairly) unnoticed with the significant
exception of the Allen anthology &#8211; it is Guest who lead off the New York School
section in that epochal collection, even as she had the fewest pages of work
represented. Reading her poetry of that period sends me back along a different
coordinate &#8211; to the texts of David Schubert and through him to the short poems
of Hart Crane. I don&#8217;t know if Guest read Schubert, who seems to have largely
slipped through the cracks of literary history (albeit acknowledged as an
influence by John Ashbery and visibly evident in the poetry of Frank
O&#8217;Hara).<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&#160; </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>There is a tendency in
American poetry that one might characterize as academic in the old-fashioned
pejorative sense &amp; certainly the letters and essays in the 1983 <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>QRL</i> issue on Schubert reflects that
tradition: Alan Tate, Ben <span class=SpellE>Belitt</span>, Horace Gregory,
Louise <span class=SpellE>Bogan</span>, Ted Weiss. In a sense, the New American
poetry and its descendents (which include virtually every progressive mode of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>U.S.</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span
style='font-family:Arial'> poetry some 50 years hence) has exorcised itself of
even the memory of that tendency. Pound and Stein were geographically
inoculated from <span class=GramE>it,</span> the Objectivists simply avoided
all interaction (the feeling appears to have been mutual). Yet Williams dealt
with it and Marianne Moore positively thrived in that environment, and it is
evident that at least through Auden (curious interloper that he is after the
Second World War) the </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><span style='font-family:
  Arial'>New York</span></st1:PlaceName><span style='font-family:Arial'> </span><st1:PlaceType><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>School</span></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><span
style='font-family:Arial'> was willing to let some elements in. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>In some sense, trying to
sort out the role of such influences is not unlike those followers of Creeley
who do not understand his enthusiasm for Crane or Stevens. </span><st1:City><st1:place><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>Reading</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-family:Arial'> is itself always a narrative, the unfolding of
meaning in time &#8211; I read this book before that one. In my own life, it was
Philip Whalen&#8217;s poetry that gave me the inroads I needed in order to appreciate
Clark Coolidge&#8217;s work in the 1960s, yet I know of poets who came upon those two
writers in the opposite sequence and I simply cannot imagine what one would
make of it: I cannot fold my mental map into that configuration.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>An analogy from music might
be the relationship between Bing Crosby and Jimi Hendrix. Before </span><st1:place><span
 style='font-family:Arial'>Crosby</span></st1:place><span style='font-family:
Arial'>, singers belted out tunes as if they were still performing from the
stage of an auditorium, even as they were finally being recorded. It was Crosby
who understood that the implication of the microphone was that you could sing
softly and bring out a whole new range of possible music. Similarly, Hendrix
was the first performer to understand the full implications of the
electrification of the guitar. Crosby and Hendrix equally revolutionized music.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>In a decade in which so many academic poets continue to sound as if they were the contemporaries of Bing Crosby, I
find it intriguing that Barbara Guest should become the most influential of the New American poets. In part, it no doubt is because her work has not yet been fully incorporated, much as the Objectivists of the 1930s needed to wait until the 1970s to be brought completely  into view. So perhaps it is <i>because </i> the current generation of academic poets seems as relevant to poetry as astrology does to astronomy, the abstract lyric carries forward within itself aspects of a tradition all but unheard elsewhere. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div style='clear: both;'></div>
</div>
<div class='post-footer'>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>
<span class='post-author vcard'>
Posted by
<span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'>
<span itemprop='name'>Ron</span>
</span>
</span>
<span class='post-timestamp'>
at
<meta content='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2002/09/abstract-lyric-certainly-existed.html' itemprop='url'/>
<a class='timestamp-link' href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2002/09/abstract-lyric-certainly-existed.html' rel='bookmark' title='permanent link'><abbr class='published' itemprop='datePublished' title='2002-09-02T11:08:00-04:00'>Monday, September 02, 2002</abbr></a>
</span>
<span class='reaction-buttons'>
</span>
<span class='post-comment-link'>
</span>
<span class='post-backlinks post-comment-link'>
</span>
<span class='post-icons'>
<span class='item-action'>
<a href='https://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=3738579&postID=81032264' title='Email Post'>
<img alt='' class='icon-action' height='13' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_email.gif' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='post-share-buttons goog-inline-block'>
</div>
</div>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'>
<span class='post-labels'>
Labels:
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/abstract%2520lyric' rel='tag'>abstract lyric</a>,
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/New%2520American%2520Poetry' rel='tag'>New American Poetry</a>,
<a href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%2520of%2520Quietude' rel='tag'>School of Quietude</a>
</span>
</div>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'>
<span class='post-location'>
</span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

        </div></div>
      
</div>
<div class='blog-pager' id='blog-pager'>
<span id='blog-pager-newer-link'>
<a class='blog-pager-newer-link' href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%2520of%2520Quietude%3Fmax-results%3D20' id='Blog1_blog-pager-newer-link' title='Newer Posts'>Newer Posts</a>
</span>
<span id='blog-pager-older-link'>
<a class='blog-pager-older-link' href='https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%20of%20Quietude?updated-max=2002-09-02T11:08:00-04:00&amp;max-results=20&amp;start=52&amp;by-date=false' id='Blog1_blog-pager-older-link' title='Older Posts'>Older Posts</a>
</span>
<a class='home-link' href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/'>Home</a>
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
<div class='blog-feeds'>
<div class='feed-links'>
Subscribe to:
<a class='feed-link' href='https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default' target='_blank' type='application/atom+xml'>Posts (Atom)</a>
</div>
</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<div id='sidebar-wrapper'>
<div class='sidebar section' id='sidebar'><div class='widget Text' data-version='1' id='Text4'>
<h2 class='title'>Upcoming</h2>
<div class='widget-content'>
<b>October</b><br /><br />Madrid<br />with Charles Bernstein & Susan Bee<br /><br />Barcelona<br /><div><br /><br />Saragossa?<br /><br /><b>November</b><br /><br />Rome?<div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=Text&widgetId=Text4&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("Text4"));' rel='nofollow' target='configText4' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div><div class='widget TextList' data-version='1' id='TextList1'>
<h2>Email</h2>
<div class='widget-content'>
<ul>
<li>silliman AT gmail DOT com</li>
</ul>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=TextList&widgetId=TextList1&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("TextList1"));' rel='nofollow' target='configTextList1' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div>
</div><div class='widget LinkList' data-version='1' id='LinkList1'>
<h2>Silliman Sites</h2>
<div class='widget-content'>
<ul>
<li><a href='http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1544'>Academy of American Poets</a></li>
<li><a href='http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/silliman'>Electronic Poetry Center</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.facebook.com/ron.silliman'>Facebook</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.goodreads.com/search/search%3Fsearch_type%3Dbooks%26search%5Bquery%5D%3Dron%2Bsilliman'>GoodReads</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/silliman/silliman.htm'>Modern American Poetry</a></li>
<li><a href='http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Silliman.php'>PennSound</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.pcah.us/the-center/grants-awarded/grantees-1998-ron-silliman/'>Pew Fellowships in the Arts</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=6323'>Poetry Foundation</a></li>
<li><a href='http://ronsillimanbibliography.blogspot.com/'>Silliman's Bibliography</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.spdbooks.org/Search/Default.aspx?AuthorName=Ron+Silliman'>Small Press Distribution</a></li>
<li><a href='http://eclipsearchive.org/projects/TOTTELS/'>Tottel's</a></li>
<li><a href='http://twitter.com/ronsilliman'>Twitter</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ubu.com/contemp/silliman/index.html'>Ubuweb</a></li>
<li><a href='https://library.ucsd.edu/speccoll/findingaids/mss0075.html'>UC San Diego Archives</a></li>
<li><a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Silliman'>Wikipedia</a></li>
</ul>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=LinkList&widgetId=LinkList1&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("LinkList1"));' rel='nofollow' target='configLinkList1' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div>
</div><div class='widget Text' data-version='1' id='Text1'>
<h2 class='title'>Ketjak</h2>
<div class='widget-content'>
<a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10742.php">I: The Age of Huts<br /><br /></a>             <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10742.php"><img src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/u_VsYLU9NS_tJXOrl6A4RM1Dne7QkuSslpBc0StgKSXXoIDStYoXqSwDo2tuxST00QD3ynVJH4yjAhcEzTWyM0F_RriCRx9yZdyygceY2wm-%3Ds0-d" /></a><br /><br /><br />II: Tjanting<br /><br /><a href="https://www.saltpublishing.com/products/tjanting-9781876857196"><img src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/efy1lIcVIKeKSdy_WUDIxV8WLN0OJmA3f7enQ2XDwxwt7Bh5ssfQQAkW_o4oG6FqrB1RGf7CX-Rw-VQ4u36RIuwSsCMxWjjHFDP4c7CbW2d_%3Ds0-d" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Alphabet,1897.aspx">III: The Alphabet<br /><br /></a><a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Alphabet,1897.aspx"><img id="ctl00_MainContent_ProductInfo1_ctl00_PrimaryImage_PrimaryImage" onclick="javascript:window.open(&#39;http://www.uapress.ua.edu//images/temp/212-1897-Product_LargeToMediumImage.jpeg&#39;, 1, &#39;resizable=1, width=500, height=700&#39;)" src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/OnaMjXm2h6XxneM04RgHx1Bkf2Wi9UE3a8c3o0NDvW5wXo7BK3MaM5VP9YfbEIpHYxAstTorwhNW4lhhkNuua5bDX7Ogr2UgZ1NMDDjeh-0bNnuo-WH-9pGHIR6lv-4-_UDHVNe36xB6%3Ds0-d" style="border: 1px solid Gray;" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div>IV. from Universe</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=Text&widgetId=Text1&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("Text1"));' rel='nofollow' target='configText1' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div><div class='widget Text' data-version='1' id='Text3'>
<h2 class='title'>Other Books in Print</h2>
<div class='widget-content'>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">MEMOIRS &amp; COLLABORATIONS</span><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Leningrad-American-Writers-Soviet-Union/dp/1562790056">Leningrad</a><br /><a href="http://www.thegrandpiano.org/">The Grand Piano</a><br /><a href="https://www.saltpublishing.com/products/under-albany-9781844710515">Under Albany</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">CRITICISM</span><br /><a href="http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/0937804207/the-new-sentence.aspx">The New Sentence</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">ANTHOLOGY</span><br /><a href="https://secure.touchnet.com/C22921_ustores/web/classic/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCTID=327&SINGLESTORE=true">In The American Tree</a><br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=Text&widgetId=Text3&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("Text3"));' rel='nofollow' target='configText3' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div><div class='widget Image' data-version='1' id='Image1'>
<div class='widget-content'>
<img alt='' height='163' id='Image1_img' src='//3.bp.blogspot.com/_TEBx9oYcXio/S9oGYEaetqI/AAAAAAAABDs/UI7l5u8GwcA/S230/redron.jpg' width='230'/>
<br/>
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=Image&widgetId=Image1&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("Image1"));' rel='nofollow' target='configImage1' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div><div class='widget Text' data-version='1' id='Text2'>
<div class='widget-content'>
<br /><img alt="" src="file%3A///Users/Lynn/Desktop/silliman2a.jpg" / /><img alt="" src="file%3A///Users/Lynn/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/moz-screenshot.png" / /><span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">RON SILLIMAN</span> has written and edited 40 books, and had his poetry and criticism translated into 16 languages. Silliman was a 2012 Kelly Writers House Fellow, the 2010 recipient of the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation, a 2003 Literary Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts, a 2002 Fellow of the Pennsylvania Arts Council, and a 1998 Pew Fellow in the Arts. Silliman has a plaque in the walk dedicated to poetry in his home town of Berkeley and a sculpture in the Transit Center of Bury, Lancaster, a part of the Irwell Sculpture Trail. He lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />(c) 2002-2019 by Ron Silliman.
</div>
<div class='clear'></div>
<span class='widget-item-control'>
<span class='item-control blog-admin'>
<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3738579&widgetType=Text&widgetId=Text2&action=editWidget&sectionId=sidebar' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById("Text2"));' rel='nofollow' target='configText2' title='Edit'>
<img alt='' height='18' src='https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png' width='18'/>
</a>
</span>
</span>
<div class='clear'></div>
</div></div>
</div>
<!-- spacer for skins that want sidebar and main to be the same height-->
<div class='clear'>&#160;</div>
</div>
<!-- end content-wrapper -->
</div></div>
<!-- end outer-wrapper -->

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/widgets/1068551213-widgets.js"></script>
<script type='text/javascript'>
window['__wavt'] = 'AOuZoY6_oqZAA6LnTIloR6JaDST19H3Hhw:1574387167817';_WidgetManager._Init('//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID\x3d3738579','//ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%20of%20Quietude?updated-max\x3d2003-03-24T04:12:00-08:00\x26max-results\x3d20\x26start\x3d32\x26by-date\x3dfalse','3738579');
_WidgetManager._SetDataContext([{'name': 'blog', 'data': {'blogId': '3738579', 'title': 'Silliman\x27s Blog', 'url': 'https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%20of%20Quietude?updated-max\x3d2003-03-24T04:12:00-08:00\x26max-results\x3d20\x26start\x3d32\x26by-date\x3dfalse', 'canonicalUrl': 'https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%20of%20Quietude?updated-max\x3d2003-03-24T04:12:00-08:00\x26max-results\x3d20\x26start\x3d32\x26by-date\x3dfalse', 'homepageUrl': 'https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/', 'searchUrl': 'https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search', 'canonicalHomepageUrl': 'https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/', 'blogspotFaviconUrl': 'https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/favicon.ico', 'bloggerUrl': 'https://www.blogger.com', 'hasCustomDomain': false, 'httpsEnabled': true, 'enabledCommentProfileImages': true, 'gPlusViewType': 'FILTERED_POSTMOD', 'adultContent': false, 'analyticsAccountNumber': '', 'encoding': 'UTF-8', 'locale': 'en', 'localeUnderscoreDelimited': 'en', 'languageDirection': 'ltr', 'isPrivate': false, 'isMobile': false, 'isMobileRequest': false, 'mobileClass': '', 'isPrivateBlog': false, 'feedLinks': '\x3clink rel\x3d\x22alternate\x22 type\x3d\x22application/atom+xml\x22 title\x3d\x22Silliman\x26#39;s Blog - Atom\x22 href\x3d\x22https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default\x22 /\x3e\n\x3clink rel\x3d\x22alternate\x22 type\x3d\x22application/rss+xml\x22 title\x3d\x22Silliman\x26#39;s Blog - RSS\x22 href\x3d\x22https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt\x3drss\x22 /\x3e\n\x3clink rel\x3d\x22service.post\x22 type\x3d\x22application/atom+xml\x22 title\x3d\x22Silliman\x26#39;s Blog - Atom\x22 href\x3d\x22https://www.blogger.com/feeds/3738579/posts/default\x22 /\x3e\n', 'meTag': '', 'adsenseHostId': 'ca-host-pub-1556223355139109', 'adsenseHasAds': false, 'view': '', 'dynamicViewsCommentsSrc': '//www.blogblog.com/dynamicviews/4224c15c4e7c9321/js/comments.js', 'dynamicViewsScriptSrc': '//www.blogblog.com/dynamicviews/ac414222f14fdfa1', 'plusOneApiSrc': 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js', 'disableGComments': true, 'sharing': {'platforms': [{'name': 'Get link', 'key': 'link', 'shareMessage': 'Get link', 'target': ''}, {'name': 'Facebook', 'key': 'facebook', 'shareMessage': 'Share to Facebook', 'target': 'facebook'}, {'name': 'BlogThis!', 'key': 'blogThis', 'shareMessage': 'BlogThis!', 'target': 'blog'}, {'name': 'Twitter', 'key': 'twitter', 'shareMessage': 'Share to Twitter', 'target': 'twitter'}, {'name': 'Pinterest', 'key': 'pinterest', 'shareMessage': 'Share to Pinterest', 'target': 'pinterest'}, {'name': 'Email', 'key': 'email', 'shareMessage': 'Email', 'target': 'email'}], 'disableGooglePlus': true, 'googlePlusShareButtonWidth': 300, 'googlePlusBootstrap': '\x3cscript type\x3d\x22text/javascript\x22\x3ewindow.___gcfg \x3d {\x27lang\x27: \x27en\x27};\x3c/script\x3e'}, 'hasCustomJumpLinkMessage': false, 'jumpLinkMessage': 'Read more', 'pageType': 'index', 'searchLabel': 'School of Quietude', 'pageName': 'School of Quietude', 'pageTitle': 'Silliman\x27s Blog: School of Quietude'}}, {'name': 'features', 'data': {'sharing_get_link_dialog': 'true', 'sharing_native': 'false'}}, {'name': 'messages', 'data': {'edit': 'Edit', 'linkCopiedToClipboard': 'Link copied to clipboard!', 'ok': 'Ok', 'postLink': 'Post Link'}}, {'name': 'template', 'data': {'name': 'custom', 'localizedName': 'Custom', 'isResponsive': false, 'isAlternateRendering': false, 'isCustom': true}}, {'name': 'view', 'data': {'classic': {'name': 'classic', 'url': '?view\x3dclassic'}, 'flipcard': {'name': 'flipcard', 'url': '?view\x3dflipcard'}, 'magazine': {'name': 'magazine', 'url': '?view\x3dmagazine'}, 'mosaic': {'name': 'mosaic', 'url': '?view\x3dmosaic'}, 'sidebar': {'name': 'sidebar', 'url': '?view\x3dsidebar'}, 'snapshot': {'name': 'snapshot', 'url': '?view\x3dsnapshot'}, 'timeslide': {'name': 'timeslide', 'url': '?view\x3dtimeslide'}, 'isMobile': false, 'title': 'Silliman\x27s Blog', 'description': 'A weblog focused on contemporary poetry and poetics.', 'url': 'https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/School%20of%20Quietude?updated-max\x3d2003-03-24T04:12:00-08:00\x26max-results\x3d20\x26start\x3d32\x26by-date\x3dfalse', 'type': 'feed', 'isSingleItem': false, 'isMultipleItems': true, 'isError': false, 'isPage': false, 'isPost': false, 'isHomepage': false, 'isArchive': false, 'isSearch': true, 'isLabelSearch': true, 'search': {'label': 'School of Quietude', 'resultsMessage': 'Showing posts with the label School of Quietude', 'resultsMessageHtml': 'Showing posts with the label \x3cspan class\x3d\x27search-label\x27\x3eSchool of Quietude\x3c/span\x3e'}}}]);
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_NavbarView', new _WidgetInfo('Navbar1', 'navbar', document.getElementById('Navbar1'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_HeaderView', new _WidgetInfo('Header1', 'header', document.getElementById('Header1'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_BlogView', new _WidgetInfo('Blog1', 'main', document.getElementById('Blog1'), {'cmtInteractionsEnabled': false, 'navMessage': 'Showing posts with label \x3cb\x3eSchool of Quietude\x3c/b\x3e. \x3ca href\x3d\x22https://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/\x22\x3eShow all posts\x3c/a\x3e', 'lightboxEnabled': true, 'lightboxModuleUrl': 'https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/jsbin/4152225668-lbx.js', 'lightboxCssUrl': 'https://www.blogger.com/static/v1/v-css/368954415-lightbox_bundle.css'}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_TextView', new _WidgetInfo('Text4', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('Text4'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_TextListView', new _WidgetInfo('TextList1', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('TextList1'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_LinkListView', new _WidgetInfo('LinkList1', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('LinkList1'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_TextView', new _WidgetInfo('Text1', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('Text1'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_TextView', new _WidgetInfo('Text3', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('Text3'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_ImageView', new _WidgetInfo('Image1', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('Image1'), {'resize': false}, 'displayModeFull'));
_WidgetManager._RegisterWidget('_TextView', new _WidgetInfo('Text2', 'sidebar', document.getElementById('Text2'), {}, 'displayModeFull'));
</script>
</body>
</html>