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Showing posts with label <b>School of Quietude</b>. <a href="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/">Show all posts</a>
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<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>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Friday, January 12, 2007</span></h2>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><img height="258" id="_x0000_i1025" src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/79y7gLk9xpCPtSOnfO-VeixJUdPvZfqHEztnEB4YhS5e4VHY73x7iOod85g7Fe1XwQvJPwFNGEHWsNxRQ4hHxTDQb-PnDit1oQ3t4VBGfqMZm6c71jk%3Ds0-d" width="200"></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>In a <span class=SpellE>webnote</span> that he calls &#8220;<a href="http://sonnetsat4am.blogspot.com/2007/01/dark-clouds-over-mordor.html"><span style='color:windowtext'>Dark Clouds over <span class=SpellE>Mordor</span></span></a>,&#8221; Greg <span class=SpellE>Rappleye</span> has been wondering &#8220;how long Silliman will go without responding&#8221; to <a href="http://reginaldshepherd.blogspot.com/"><span style='color:windowtext'>Reginald Shepherd&#8217;s</span></a> repeated attempts to, as Greg characterizes it, call me out. But here in the Shire, the skies are blue. I think Shepherd&#8217;s doing exactly what he ought to be doing &#8211; he&#8217;s defining his poetics and defending them. That makes total sense to me. Do I agree with him? <span class=GramE>Probably not.</span> But I don&#8217;t think he needs to write my poems any more than I think I need to write his. Each of us, I trust, will write the poetry we need. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Shepherd&#8217;s roster of the &#8220;experimental&#8221; poets he likes &#8211; Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Kathleen Fraser, Ann Lauterbach, Michael Palmer, Bin <span class=SpellE>Ramke</span>, Donald <span class=SpellE>Revell</span>, Cole <span class=SpellE>Swensen</span>, and Rosmarie Waldrop &#8211; is a pretty good starter list of what I think of as &#8220;third way&#8221; or (to use Stephen Burt&#8217;s old phrase) &#8220;<span class=SpellE>ellipticist</span>&#8221; poets, writers trying to identify a path open as much to such mainstream poets as Jorie Graham or Jean Valentine as to the likes, say, of such post-avants as Erica Hunt or Harryette Mullen. I&#8217;d add Forrest Gander &amp; C.D. Wright to Shepherd&#8217;s list as well. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>But then I&#8217;ve never said that I disliked all </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceType><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>School</span></st1:PlaceType><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> of </span><st1:PlaceName><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Quietude</span></st1:PlaceName></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> (SoQ) poets either. I&#8217;ve gone out of my way at times to point to Wendell Berry, Daisy Fried, Bob Hass, John Logan &amp; Jack Gilbert as writers who I think are worth reading under any circumstances. I&#8217;ve been known to say positive things about everyone from Elizabeth Bishop to George Starbuck to the soft surrealism of Charles Simic &amp; James Tate. And I agree with anyone who thinks Hart Crane was one of the most interesting (and tragic) poets of the last century &#8211; a lot more interesting than the faux experimentalism of <span class=SpellE>e.e</span>. <span class=SpellE>cummings</span>. If they have a significant relationship to the forms they use, it doesn&#8217;t really matter where they get them. I think Wendell Berry would be exactly the same poet even if the SoQ never existed. <span class=GramE>Which is exactly how it should be.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>It&#8217;s the <span class=SpellE>SoQ&#8217;s</span> historic presumption that American literature is a subset of British (or, since the vaults are pretty much empty over amongst the conservatives on the  </span><st1:place><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Island</span></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>, Irish) literature that irks. Or its occasional annexations of the tradition it dare not name (from Blake to Whitman &amp; Dickinson to the early Pound), which seems to be just the clumsiest sort of turf elbowing imaginable. Or its 160-year history of pretending that other traditions don&#8217;t exist in the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>United States</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>, a pretense that one still finds in certain programs, anthologies and institutions.&#185; Shepherd would appear to be one of the poets who <span class=GramE>has</span> gotten over that, which is great. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial'>&#185; How many poets of the several post-New American tendencies have ever had a photograph on the cover of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Poets &amp; Writers </i>in its 20-year history? Unless you&#8217;re counting C.D. Wright, Andrei Codrescu or an occasional identarian poet who receives dispensation to write freely, the answer is still zero. <span class=GramE>Which is how a publication with a circulation of 60,000 trivializes itself.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Friday, January 05, 2007</span></h2>

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<span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Bill Knott</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Three times in the past week, I&#8217;ve seen missives from poets that echoed one another. One was an email from a friend of mine, not a langpo, but somebody with a significant birthday this year and a big beautiful selected poems due out in a few months who is in despair that anyone reads him or, if they do, understands what he is trying to do. The second is the degree of alienation positively radiating from Jonathan Mayhew&#8217;s <a href="http://jonathanmayhew.blogspot.com/2007/01/few-more-things-about-me-if-you-really.html#links"><span style='color:black'>second blognote</span></a> about things little known about him &#8211; he says that he hates poetry readings (he told me as much when I ran into him at the MLA, and he stayed away from the big group reading, tho many there would have loved to have met him) and is too angry all the time really to be the nice guy I know him to be. The third, and most extreme, was <a href="http://billknott.typepad.com/billknott/2007/01/once_they_get_t.html"><span style='color:black'>this New Year&#8217;s Day message</span></a> on Bill Knott&#8217;s blog: <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Once they get to a certain age, poets should be put to sleep; I don&#8217;t mean all poets, not real poets, <span class=GramE>successful</span> poets: but poets like me, second-raters, third-raters, run of the mill whether SOQ hack like me or superannuated avant, we should get it in the neck.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>I know there is a significant correlation between depression and poetry, and that the holidays in particular can be especially hard, but it disturbs me that the social environment of poetry is such that it seems to reinforce these feelings. <a href="http://www.bookslut.com/features/2005_02_004302.php"><span style='color:black'>Bill</span></a> <a href="http://www.lighthousewriters.com/newslett/knott.htm"><span style='color:black'>Knott</span></a> may not be my kind of poet, but one thing he is <a href="http://tinyurl.com/8lvqf"><span style='color:black'>not</span></a> is a failure. It&#8217;s doubly ironic, perhaps, that he is <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>doing to himself</i> precisely what he insists elsewhere on his blog the likes of Geoffrey Hill &amp; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gjertrud_Schnackenberg"><span style='color:black'>Gjertrud Schnackenberg</span></a> (whose aesthetic program Knott characterizes, not incorrectly, as <a href="http://billknott.typepad.com/billknott/2006/12/fascist.html"><span style='color:black'>fascist</span></a>) do to other poets. But with Knott&#8217;s sense of satire &#8211; he was <a href="http://andykaufman.jvlnet.com/"><span style='color:black'>Andy Kaufman</span></a> avant le comic &#8211; you never quite know. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Knott teaches &#8211; or has taught, I don&#8217;t find him on the current faculty roster &#8211; at Emerson College in Boston, Mayhew at the University of Kansas (his family lives in St. Louis) tho not in the English Department, my friend teaches somewhere in the New York area, tho like Mayhew not in a writing program as such. What each is expressing is an enormous sense of isolation related precisely to their writing. Both Mayhew &amp; Knott talk about it in competitive terms &#8211; at least Jonathan hasn&#8217;t concluded that the game is over yet. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>These seem to me terms predicated on an image of writing as part of a false economy, one dominated by schools &amp;, to a lesser degree, publishers, where the absolute ratio of jobs (and  books from the likes of FSG, Knott&#8217;s publisher) to actual writers is so severe that even the most successful feel cut off from the community of their peers. This is really directly related to the same issues as I discussed on Wednesday. Poetry may be, as that silly piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer insisted, &#8220;hot,&#8221; but these three poets can&#8217;t get beyond the incredible chill they feel. <o:p></o:p></span></p> 

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>The idea of the poet competing for the FSG volume or the tenured job in </span><st1:City><st1:place><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Lawrence</span></st1:place></st1:City><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> may have made some sense in a world like, say, the 1950s, when the number of poets wrestling for such goodies was around 200. But in a world in which there are at least 10,000 </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>U.S.</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> poets, it can only lead to the conclusion that, even if you&#8217;re a winner, you&#8217;re still a loser. That&#8217;s sad at best &amp; potentially tragic.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>The distinction I always make between avant and post-avant poets has always been around this very recognition. The mythology behind the idea of a tenured elite or the card-carrying Surrealist are just flip sides of the same coin of exclusionary gate keeping. But the Beats and the </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>New York</span></st1:PlaceName><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> </span><st1:PlaceType><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>School</span></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> (and to a lesser degree even the </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Black</span></st1:PlaceName><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> </span><st1:PlaceType><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Mountain</span></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> poets &amp; the </span><st1:Street><st1:address><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Spicer Circle</span></st1:address></st1:Street><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>) seemed clearly to get it that they were a community first, individuals second, and that that was just fine. This seems to me the inescapable implication of reading the work of Frank O&#8217;Hara &#8211; it&#8217;s literally what &#8220;<span class=SpellE>Personism</span>&#8221; means &#8211; and Ted Berrigan. Jack Spicer, one example I cited on Wednesday, is famous for being a misanthrope, but his Lorca letters, his imitation of Creeley, the intimacy of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Language </i>and the literary games of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Book of Magazine Verse </i>are all, every single one, acts predicated on the importance of community. That&#8217;s why I wrote, on Wednesday, <b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>poetry is a community. </i></b>It really, legitimately is. And if you hate readings, that says a lot about your relationship to that community. Why wouldn&#8217;t you want to see what your friends are doing, and check out their work? It doesn&#8217;t matter, finally, if the event is more social than focused on the literary &#8211; there is plenty of time for that elsewhere. And isn&#8217;t it an incentive to push yourself even harder when a friend is doing something interesting? <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>But if you think that beyond a certain point, the &#8220;failed poets&#8221; should be taken out &amp; shot, Knott&#8217;s modest proposal, there is something seriously wrong. I feel about failed poets the way Larry Fagin &amp; C.A. Conrad feel about &#8220;neglectorinos&#8221; or, to use one term I&#8217;ve employed in the past, &#8220;the disappeared.&#8221; That disappearance &#8211; usually from print first &#8211; is invariably tragic. It robs me of my heritage as a poet that I can&#8217;t find the work, say, of Gail <span class=SpellE>Dusenbery</span> on the web. I&#8217;ve already been robbed no doubt of many good poems by Weldon Kees, Lew Welch or Dan Davidson because they acted on an impulse not so different from Knott&#8217;s. I don&#8217;t want to lose one poem or poet more. One of the real long-term potentials of the Internet, and of archival programs like <span class=SpellE>PennSound</span>, Ubuweb, Eclipse &amp; Project Gutenberg, is that &#8220;the disappeared&#8221; could be, can be kept accessible literally forever. That&#8217;s the goal we should be seeking. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Monday, July 24, 2006</span></h2>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>While I was in </span><st1:State><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>California</span></st1:place></st1:State><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> back on July 10, the <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://online.wsj.com/google_login.html?url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115249443313702007.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"><span style='color:black'>Wall Street Journal</span></a> </i>ran a piece on Afghan poetry in the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>U.S.</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> on its front page. The article by <span class=SpellE>Masood</span> <span class=SpellE>Farivar</span>, which has been reprinted by a few other newspapers in places such as <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06191/704786-42.stm"><span style='color:black'>Pittsburgh</span></a> and Birmingham, Alabama, is worth reading in its entirety &#8211; when was the last time you saw a cogent piece on the sociology of poetry on the front page of a newspaper? Me neither. The headline in the <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Journal </i>was &#8220;For Afghan Cabbies, A Poetry Tradition Spurs War of Words.&#8221; Most of the other papers, however, realized that this wasn&#8217;t about taxi drivers, giving it the plainer, but more accurate heading of something like the Post-Gazette&#8217;s &#8220;D.C. Afghan poetry groups fight war of words.&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>The gist of the article concerns two reading series that take place in the same Masonic Lodge in </span><st1:place><st1:City><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Springfield</span></st1:City><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>, </span><st1:State><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>VA</span></st1:State></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>, on different Friday nights each month. One, &#8220;An Evening with the Dervishes,&#8221; in the words of <span class=SpellE>Farivar</span>, &#8220;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>prefers what it calls the serious, scholarly pursuit of poetry. The group views itself as a literary clique focusing on masters such as Abdul <span class=SpellE>Qadir</span> <span class=SpellE>Bedil</span>, a 17<sup>th</sup> century poet and Islamic mystic, or Sufi. Its gatherings feature top scholars and poets.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>The other, older series, &#8220;An Evening of Sufism,&#8221; <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>brings all forms of Afghan poetry to large audiences.</span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'> It also treats attendees to free refreshments and pop-music performances.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>The article makes a point of noting that a reader in the latter series recently &#8220;informed the audience that she&#8217;d just finished her poem in the parking lot.&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>The differences between the two groups echo the division within American poetries between the School of Quietude, that ensemble of aesthetic tendencies that tends to stress the conventionality of poetry and its continuity with English literary traditions (and tensions) &amp; the broad range of post-avant alternatives that emerged with the New American Poets of the 1950s, but which can be traced back to Whitman &amp; Poe a century earlier. <span class=SpellE>Farivar</span> characterizes the dispute:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Mostly they adhere to Afghan social norms, treating each other with civility and even deference. Occasionally, they drop by each other's gatherings. But at times, their rivalries have burst into the open.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Members of &quot;An Evening of Sufism&quot; accuse the Dervishes of tearing down their flyers from Afghan stores, and have dubbed them &quot;hash-heads,&quot; which in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black'>Afghanistan</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black'> is a term associated with the uneducated. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>In fact, the Dervishes seem closer to the group&#8217;s origins in a series of evenings when the poets would seriously debate the nuances of classic Afghan texts, pooling their money to call M.I. <span class=SpellE>Negargar</span>, a former </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Kabul</span></st1:PlaceName><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> </span><st1:PlaceType><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>University</span></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> professor now living in exile in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>England</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>, to tease out the full potential of the works they were discussing. <o:p></o:p></span></p> 

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>If one steps back from the specifics of the current tempest &#8211; who tore down whose flyers or who is trying to get whom kicked out of the Masonic Lodge &#8211; one sees two distinct approaches to literature emerging, one focused on the historic canon of Afghan poetry and emphasizing continuity with traditional Afghan culture &#8211; there is a move among the Dervishes, for example, to ban all forms of musical accompaniment at their readings &#8211; the other focused more on the present, which includes contemporary writing and concerns that may affect Afghan exiles in the U.S., but which would be of little import from the perspective of traditional culture in Afghanistan. Finishing a poem in the parking lot just before the start of a reading may not be the best way to present polished writing, but it certainly is one way of foregrounding the value on the present that the other group has.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>The article made me wonder just how much these same divisions may underscore roughly parallel, and far older, chasms within American poetry. For example, just how much of the School of Quietude/post-avant debate can still be traced back to this nation&#8217;s origins as a gathering of exiles, one group concerned with accentuating its continuity with European cultures, especially British culture, the other hoping to foreground that which is somehow uniquely American about American poetry?&#185; How does this compare with the same sort of division, say, back in the U.K., where the distinction seems instead to reflect class divisions as much as anything else (a cleavage that goes back to Shakespeare&#8217;s day, at the least, when the Bard initiated the post-avant impulse by composing his own sonnet series to demonstrate that an uneducated writer of popular entertainments from the boonies could perform at least as well as a &#8220;University wit&#8221; like Ben <span class=SpellE>Jonson</span>). <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>The U.S. Afghan exile literary scene dates, according to this article, back to the 1980s when the first wave of exiles began to write. The article implies, without seeming to realize that this is what it is suggesting, that the scene in Springfield, VA, represents literary processes that may be larger than just Afghan or U.S. verse, and represents an opportunity to observe an evolution in the social history of poetry not unlike the way a cyclotron enables a scientist to recreate conditions near, if not at, the Big Bang from which all current tendencies necessarily follow. Regardless of where you might fit into these broader literary traditions, the rise of Afghan poetry in the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>U.S.</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> should be worth watching.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>&#185;One could argue that between a colonial imperialism lurking within one tradition &amp; an unexamined nationalism lurking in the other, that both tendencies offer ample territory for critique. This division isn&#8217;t so much about who might be &#8220;right&#8221; as it is about the values being propagated by each tendency&#8217;s agenda. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Friday, July 21, 2006</span></h2>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>I'm not making this up: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/books/review/16leithouser.html?_r=1&8bu&emc=bu&oref=slogin"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>"there's no more reliable way of initially entering a poet's private domain than by examining what he or she rhymes with what."</a> This from Brad Leithauser, reviewing the latest slender (78 pages for $20) offering from Seamus Heaney in last Sunday's <i>New York Times</i>. In other news, the latest way to test out the reliability of your new hybrid vehicle is to gauge how many buckets of oats it will eat. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Tuesday, July 05, 2005</span></h2>

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<p class=MsoNormal align=right style='text-align:right'><span style='color:black'><img height="269" id="_x0000_i1025" src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/HK3cHoa3jEcGunp776z5T-A1j4RRdxkwP0NLm1rAFybTQu_0_v2Su7LP1WdsLgtkCQaXBA4CiXL5cRAtbo0nQo16Dl76mJFSjJmNN9qBHa8%3Ds0-d" width="200"><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Last Wednesday, when I was demonstrating that a ten year old could write better than some work offered by the </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceType><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>School</span></st1:PlaceType><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> of  </span><st1:PlaceName><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Quietude</span></st1:PlaceName></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>, and used <a href="http://www.geoffreybrock.com/"><span style='color:black'>Geoffrey  Brock</span></a> as my example, I conceded that I was being unfair: &#8220;there are Brock poems that are actually quite good.&#8221; I think it makes sense to point to an example of this also, and to say a little why I think it&#8217;s exemplary, even tho it&#8217;s certainly SoQ to the max. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>My favorite Brock poem is a recent piece entitled &#8220;<span class=SpellE>Exercitia</span> <span class=SpellE>Spiritualia</span>,&#8221; published in <a href="http://32poems.blogspot.com/"><span style='color:black'>Deborah <span class=SpellE>Ager&#8217;s</span></span></a> zine, <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a  href="http://www.32poems.com/index.html"><span style='color:black'>32 Poems</span></a>. </i>What it does with rhyme would &#8211; <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>should </i>&#8211; impress any fan of Oulipo.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>We met, like lovers in movies, on a quay<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span class=GramE><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>Beside the </span></span><st1:place><span class=GramE><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>Seine</span></span></st1:place><span class=GramE><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>.</span></span><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'> I was reading Foucault<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span class=GramE><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>And feeling smart.</span></span><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'> She called him <i>an assault <o:p></o:p></i></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><i><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>On sense</span></i><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>, and smiled. She was from </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>Paraguay</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>,<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span class=GramE><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>Was reading Saint  Ignatius.</span></span><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'> <span class=SpellE>Naivete</span><o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>Aroused her, so she guided me to </span><st1:City><st1:place><span class=SpellE><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>Chartres</span></span></st1:place></st1:City><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>And <span class=SpellE>Sacre</span> Coeur, to obscure theatres<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>For passion plays - she was my exegete.<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>In </span><st1:City><st1:place><span   style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>Rome</span></st1:place></st1:City><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'> (for </span><st1:City><st1:place><span  style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>Paris</span></st1:place></st1:City><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'> hadn't been enough)<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>We took a room, made love on the worn parquet,<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span class=GramE><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>Then strolled to <span class=SpellE>Sant'Ignazio</span>.</span></span><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'> Strange duet:<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>Pilgrim and pagan, gazing, as though through<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>That ceiling's flatness, toward some epitome<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style='margin-left:.5in'><span class=GramE><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'>Of hoped-for depth.</span></span><span style='font-family:Verdana;font-size:10.0pt;color:black'> I swore I saw a  dome.<o:p></o:p></span></pre> 

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>This is the first strategy for an A-B-B-A rhyme scheme, to call it that, that could make me envision wanting to read a long poem in it, at least until the deadening metrics overcome me like so much carbon monoxide. Sonnet-sized, tho, they don&#8217;t detract. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>This is rhyme at the level of the graphic signifier, not the audible one, exploiting a feature within English&#8217;s notorious pliability to demonstrate the ongoing slide between sound, sense &amp; visual representation. While there is nothing here that could be called opaque, as such, the scandal of opacity &#8211; representation&#8217;s ultimate failure-from-within &#8211; lurks everywhere. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Another poem, I find effective, but problematic, is &#8220;Hopes for My Daughter,&#8221; which appeared in <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Hudson Review </i>in Winter, 2003:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>I hope that, once or twice, she's chosen last. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>I hope that some friend's trusted smile  <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Proves false, and that when she betrays a trust <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>She hates herself a while. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>I hope a handsome good-for-nothing boy <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Bruises her heart when her heart's strong.</span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>I hope she isn't granted each wished-for joy, <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Occasionally is wrong, <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>And learns firsthand what loss is, and regret. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>I hope she faces prejudice. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>I hope her world will still need saving - yet <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Not be as dire as this. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>I hope her father's flaws are, in her eyes, <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span  class=GramE><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Flaws.</span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> And if she has children too<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>If anyone still does - I hope she dies <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>Before the children do. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>The variable line lengths soften the predictability of the rhyme scheme enough so that one focuses first on the content, a poem that echoes works by such disparate souls as Robert Creeley &amp; Weldon Kees. The trick is that, like Kees, Brock has no daughter. The poem is also an exercise in speculative fiction. That detail, I suspect, also elevates the layers of irony at work in the final lines.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Yet this latter poem is also filled with eyebrow-raising clichés &#8211; <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>trusted smile, handsome good-for-nothing boy </i>&#8211; and language added just to pad out lines (<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>handsome good-for-nothing </i>again, but also <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>If anyone still does</i>). My experience has been that the more times you read this poem, the larger &amp; more gaping these flaws seem, so that the power of the initial reading is followed by a series of progressively larger disappointments. Still, the power of that first reader cannot &amp; should not be denied. <o:p></o:p></span></p> 

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>When I contrast these two poems with the cringingly bathetic piece I ran last Wednesday, it demands an act of imagination to conceive that they were written by the same human being. Yet there must <span class=GramE>exist</span> some place, some perspective, from which all three make a kind of sense that is compelling enough for Brock to put his name to all three. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>So while I would actually agree with Curtis Faville&#8217;s point from the Comments trail the other day that </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceType><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>School</span></st1:PlaceType><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> of </span><st1:PlaceName><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Quietude</span></st1:PlaceName></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> poetry is not necessarily always bad poetry, my own conclusion is that the tradition offers a framework that perpetually invites the mawkish, the overstuffed, the conflation of pattern with form. Great SoQ poems are being written, but almost invariably it is in spite of the tradition from which they arise. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>From my perspective, there are two negatives to the concept of the </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceType><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>School</span></st1:PlaceType><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> of </span><st1:PlaceName><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Quietude</span></st1:PlaceName></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>, the idea of an aesthetically &amp; culturally conservative (and ultimately Anglophiliac) literary movement that I&#8217;ve adapted from the correspondence of Edgar Allan Poe. One is that it lumps together too crudely all manner of conservative-to-outright-reactionary writing, without sufficient regard to the subtleties therein. But the more serious problem lies within Poe&#8217;s term itself, which could be misread as suggesting that quietness itself is not an appropriate register for writing. There are, in fact, many quiet poets who are (a) excellent writers and (b) not at all <span class=SpellE>quietudinous</span>, so to speak. I&#8217;ve noted both Tom Meyer &amp; Devin Johnston as instances of this circumstance in the past. But perhaps the best example is the poetry of <a href="http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/NCW/gilfcrit.htm"><span style='color:black'>Merrill Gilfillan</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>I&#8217;ve praised Gilfillan here <a href="http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2003/05/half-with-editing-half-with-strange.html"><span style='color:black'>before</span></a>, so it should not come as much surprise to find out that I think of the man as the pre-eminent nature writer of my generation, indeed since Thoreau. The key to this, whether in his poetry or in his essays, lies in the specificity of Gilfillan&#8217;s language. He is principally a descriptive poet, even when it is all the many other little things kicked up by his description that ultimately catches our eye: <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Morning with Chokecherries<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> 
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Douse them, wet<br>
they shine like brilliant<br>
caviar (dust devils whirling,<br>
cranes circling, babies<br>
laughing, <span class=SpellE>halfmoon</span> sailing,<br>
ravens, old station wagons<br>
circling and circling), set<br>
them in the sun.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Or:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Smoke Today<br>
</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'><br>
To the west<br>
just off that lightning-rod<br>
ridge, a lazy gray<br>
smoke curl, a simple up<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>and out, left<br>
to right.</span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'> <span class=GramE>Burning off<br>
the tumbleweeds, burning off<br>
piranha ticks.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>It makes me long<br>
for a Lucky Strike.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Early today, far above<br>
<span class=SpellE>faroff</span> Prairie Dog Creek<span class=GramE>,</span><br>
a mile-long ribbon<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>flowed elegantly east<span class=GramE>,</span><br>
undulant fretless umber<br>
almost not quite really there &#8211;<br>
burning off the buckaroo<br>
<br>
wallpaper. It made me dream<br>
of a Gauloise blue.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Even as Gilfillan creates a context in which <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>undulant fretless umber </i>does not sound excessively lush &amp; <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>almost not quite really there </i>remains articulate in all its qualifications, Gilfillan yokes together two disparate domains, one that of the landscape of northern Wyoming, the other the cultural imagery of tobacco brands, both brands retro, one almost comically exotic. It&#8217;s a touch not unlike the parallel Gilfillan draws in the first poem between cranes (whooping or <span class=SpellE>sandhill</span>, the reader wants to ask) &amp; station wagons.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Both of these poems are to be found in <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://www.floodeditions.com/new/index.html"><span style='color:black'>Undanceable</span></a>, </i>just out from Flood Editions. They are about as noisy as Gilfillan gets. Much quieter are the six serial poems here, ranging from four to a dozen pages, perhaps because they can circumambulate their ostensible subject (or, in the case of &#8220;Six Songs,&#8221; radiate outward from the idea of the title). They don&#8217;t much need to go anywhere, closure being an option more than a necessity, the presentness of everything &#8211; word, image, intellection &#8211; being always the <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>about </i>in <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>What&#8217;s this about</i>. Thus there is no forced drama hidden in the first section of &#8220;Yampa Crows at Yampa Evening,&#8221; <a href="http://parks.state.co.us/default.asp?parkID=60&amp;action=park"><span style='color:black'>Yampa</span></a> itself the name of a river &amp; valley in Gilfillan&#8217;s adopted state of </span><st1:State><st1:place><span   style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Colorado</span></st1:place></st1:State><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Subject pilfered<span class=GramE>,</span><br>
lightly repainted: poetry<br>
as subtlest of craws: crows<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>at sundown<br>
fine print for omnivores.</span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'><br> 
They sit on old boxcars &#8211;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>&#8220;Alabama State Docks/<br>
Port of </span><st1:City><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Mobile</span></st1:place></st1:City><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>&#8221; &#8211; doors<br> 
wide open, see right through:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>sand bar, willows, </span><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Yampa</span></st1:place><span class=GramE><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>,</span></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'><br>
alders, foothills, half-lit peaks:<br>
the </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceName><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Williams</span></st1:PlaceName><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'> </span><st1:PlaceName><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Fork</span></st1:PlaceName><span  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'> </span><st1:PlaceType><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>Range</span></st1:PlaceType></st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black'>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Gilfillan&#8217;s vocabulary, a la Forrest Gander, keeps me close to a dictionary when reading him. In the nine sections of &#8220;Yampa Crows,&#8221; I find <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>cecropia, firn, feuille mort, <span class=GramE>alpenglow</span>. </i><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Poetry as meditative as this is, in its own way, as &#8220;pure&#8221; or &#8220;extreme&#8221; or &#8220;abstract&#8221; (take your pick) as Clark Coolidge&#8217;s <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Polaroid </i>or <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Maintains. </i>Tho, of course, it is not abstract in the slightest &amp; abjures extremism. I could read such writing without <span class=GramE>limit,</span> and with total pleasure at all points, which is pretty much what reading&#8217;s all about. <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Undanceable </i>makes for terrific music. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Sunday, May 16, 2004</span></h2>

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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>It is true, as somebody <span class=GramE>suggested,</span> that I can figure out who is posting anonymously, even pseudonymously, to the comments section of this weblog. I&#8217;ve sent the fellow &#8211; you knew it was a guy, didn&#8217;t you? &#8211; who was railing on <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Fence</i> this past week a note, but as he&#8217;s already apologized (albeit anonymously) I won&#8217;t out him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>His paranoia &#8211; especially with the conspiratorial tones regarding </span><st1:City><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Iowa City</span></st1:place></st1:City><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> &#8211; reminds me more than a little of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><a href="http://www.foetry.com/index.html"><span class=SpellE><span style='color:black'>Foetry</span></span></a>, </i>a curious little act of literary muckraking. <span class=SpellE><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Foetry&#8217;s</i></span><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'> </i>argument is simple enough &#8211; many literary contests either are rigged or might as well be, given the numerous points of contact between judges, hosts &amp; winners. While the website&#8217;s thesis falls apart somewhat when it gets down to specifics, its deeper premise is even <span class=GramE>more true</span> than I think they themselves imagine. Because poetry is social &#8211; not, repeat not, individual &#8211; all poetry contests, awards, prizes, fellowships, you name it, are always rigged all of the time. That&#8217;s not the important distinction. Some of them are competently done and others are not &#8211; that&#8217;s one important distinction. Certain groups of human beings have organized themselves more tightly around such institutions than others &#8211; that&#8217;s another point worth discussing, tho it&#8217;s not quite the same thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>What do I mean by this? First, that there is no method known to human beings to remove the social from a social practice, but this is what would be required to fully expunge personal preference from the process of identifying &#8220;the best&#8221; manuscript. For the most part, blind screening such as is done, for example, by that National Endowment for the Arts, simply inserts a filter of incompetence as a randomizing factor. But ultimately the judges, real human beings, will sort what makes it through this literary spawning challenge to select those texts to which they most respond. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>The idea of prohibiting judges from selecting their students or former students or colleagues or spouses or even the cute kid they slept with at the writer&#8217;s conference last summer, however you want to define that, even maybe just the one they <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>thought</i> they wanted to sleep with, is the kind of pro forma rule you put in place precisely because you don&#8217;t trust the competence of the judge or judges in the first place. The most significant volume ever published in the Yale Younger Poets Series, John Ashbery&#8217;s <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Some Trees, </i>was virtually recruited by W.H. Auden. It wasn&#8217;t even Ashbery&#8217;s first book. Yet one might point to it as an example of &#8220;the process&#8221; working at its finest. Auden picked the best possible manuscript by a young writer available, and did a better job locating it than the bureaucratic procedures put in place by the Yale University Press. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>What seems to me more disturbing, actually, is the idea anyone would have that a prize, whether it&#8217;s the Nobel or Jimmy&#8217;s Crush List, represents some kind of &#8220;objective&#8221; or &#8220;impartial&#8221; validation. That isn&#8217;t how prizes work &#8211; it&#8217;s the other way around: <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>the winner validates the prize. </i>Or not, as the case may be. Consider, for example, the Oscars. Does anyone imagine that giving the Best Picture award to a film such as <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Rocky </i>or </span><st1:City><st1:place><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Chicago</span></i></st1:place></st1:City><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> </span></i><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:black'>or <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Out of Africa </i>means that these celluloid dogs can dance? It&#8217;s the same for the Pulitzer. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>It&#8217;s this need for external validation that strikes me as sad, finally, though I&#8217;m sure I crave it just as badly as the next human <span class=GramE>being</span>, maybe more. What makes it sad is what it says about how our culture doesn&#8217;t let us value the act of writing itself, for its own sake, as its own reward. And that craving, that index of our own lack of self-confidence, is what is exploited by contests, especially those that are intended not to find, say, publishable manuscripts, but just to raise funds. Are they any worse than the flood of writing conferences that the School o&#8217; Quietude puts on each summer? Contests are cheaper &amp; leave you with fewer mosquito bites. But you might enjoy a week in the woods with like-minded people a whole lot more.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>So <span class=SpellE><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Foetry</i></span><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'> </i>might be right in the most trivial sense, but it&#8217;s so completely missing the larger picture that it warrants the great So What. The real story about literary prizes isn&#8217;t who picks whom, but the larger anthropological question of how value is concentrated &amp; assigned, both across society &amp; within ourselves. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Tuesday, November 25, 2003</span></h2>

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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>The <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Washington Post </i>changed its online
format over the weekend, so that I couldn&#8217;t find Edward Hirsch&#8217;s weekly poetry
column until I got my (also weekly) email from <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'><a href="http://www.poems.com/news.htm">Poetry Daily</a></i> with a
proper <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A232-2003Nov20.html">link</a>.
It should come as no surprise to my readers that Hirsch &amp; I have different
views of the world of poetry &#8212; he represents the school of quietude (SoQ) at
its most hushed &#8212; but I do check out his column every Sunday. He takes his
responsibility as a reporter on poetry for a mostly non-poetic readership
seriously &amp; the column on occasion is an opportunity for me to check in on
older SoQ poets that I haven&#8217;t thought about in awhile, as well as to learn
about new ones.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&#160; </span><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'>As it so
happens, his column this past Sunday focused on a poet for whom he &amp; I both
share an enthusiasm, <a
href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/oppen/oppen.htm">George Oppen</a>.
But in his reading of Oppen &#8212; he quotes portions of two poems from <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>This in Which, </i>one from <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Of Being Numerous &#8212;</i> Hirsch creates a
poet rather unlike the man I knew in </span><st1:City><st1:place><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>San Francisco</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>. He sets up his revisionist
interpretation instantly in his opening sentence:<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 style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>George Oppen (1908-1984) is widely known as an Objectivist
poet, <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>but I think of him more as an
American solitary</i>, akin to Edward Hopper. (emphasis added)</span><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><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'>Thus this
Communist organizer, this partaker of literary &amp; political movements, turns
out secretly to have been that libertarian icon, the Rugged Individual. It&#8217;s an
odd, but interesting, twist to give to the man &amp; his work, and I can&#8217;t help
but think that Hirsch must have some idea what he is doing here. <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'>His
argument is anything but gratuitous. Particularly given that Hirsch has only
some 530 words in which to make it &#8212; and that a second (if unwritten) rule of
his newspaper column is to quote a certain amount of poetry* &#8212; Hirsch&#8217;s waltzes
through a deft series of critical moves, taking on poems that can be seen as
central to Oppen&#8217;s project. In Hirsch&#8217;s reading, Oppen envisions the natural as
radically Other &amp; opaque, but that words fail people because they cannot
make themselves transparent &amp; thus bring that Other clearly to us. Oppen&#8217;s
goal, in this reading, is to establish &#8220;clarity in relationship, for the &#8216;this
in which,&#8217; the determination of the human in relation to the Other.&#8221; So far as
this goes, I have no great problem with it. <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'>But Hirsch
takes it a step further &#8212; &#8220;Oppen's self-reflexive poetry of consciousness
strives to restore meaning to language by faithfully using it to refer outward
to a world of things&#8221; &#8212; and this seems not at all accurate to my sense of
Oppen. For one thing, <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>to restore meaning
to language </i>imposes a narrative to the conception of meaning that feels
foreign to Oppen&#8217;s sensibility. And the idea that one might use it &#8220;faithfully
. . . to refer outward to a world of things&#8221; cascades a series of assumptions
over the conception of language that the Oppen I read would have some trouble
recognizing, precisely because it is wrong. <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'>Hirsch&#8217;s
evidence, the poem this is leading up to, is &#8220;Psalm,&#8221; one of Oppen&#8217;s anthology
pieces, which the online version of the <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Post
</i>makes a hash of, obliterating indentations, stanza breaks &amp; the distinction
of the epigram&#8217;s font.** [A correct printing of the text can be found <a
href="http://www.wisdomportal.com/Peace/GeorgeOppen-Peace.html">here</a>.]
&#8220;Psalm&#8221; provides the title for <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>This in
Which, </i>Oppen&#8217;s third collection (and second after the 25 year hiatus
between <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Discrete Series </i>&amp; <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Materials</i>). It&#8217;s something of an
unusual work for Oppen, in that he uses a more fixed, reiterative stanza than
was generally his practice.*** After an initial three-line stanza setting up an
image of deer bedding down in a forest, each of the other stanzas is introduced
with a single indented line announcing its focus. The progression is worth
noting: <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 style='margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2;
tab-stops:list .75in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;
color:blue'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>&#183;<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Their eyes<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2;
tab-stops:list .75in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;
color:blue'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>&#183;<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>The roots of it<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2;
tab-stops:list .75in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;
color:blue'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>&#183;<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Their paths<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2;
tab-stops:list .75in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;
color:blue'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>&#183;<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>The small nouns<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'>After these
announcements, each stanza follows with three lines in what appears to be free
verse. Yet each of the next three stanzas also proceeds by focusing the
reader&#8217;s attention on a single anomalous word positioned near or at the end of
the stanza&#8217;s next to last line:<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 style='margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo4;
tab-stops:list .75in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;
color:blue'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>&#183;<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>the
alien small teeth<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 style='margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo4;
tab-stops:list .75in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;
color:blue'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>&#183;<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>the
strange woods<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 style='margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo4;
tab-stops:list .75in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;
color:blue'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>&#183;<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>the
distances<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'>Such
nebulous, judgmental terms as <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>alien </i>&amp;
<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>strange </i>seem out of place for a poet
whose &#8220;ethical imperative is to reach for the actual,&#8221; in Hirsch&#8217;s terms. These
words do the exact opposite of reaching &#8220;outward to a world of things.&#8221; They
are, by both position &amp; content, the most telling &amp; important words of
their respective stanzas. They are the terms on which each stanza pivots. <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'>It is when
we recognize the function of these pivot terms that the stanzaic symmetries
come into focus &#8211; not just the number of lines, but that every second stanza
ends in a period (which means also that every stanza beginning with <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Their </i>ends without punctuation). This
poem is as far from the organic mimicry of forms as Oppen will ever get in his
writing &#8211; it&#8217;s a closed pattern as tight as any of Zukofsky&#8217;s. <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'>So it is
worth noting what comes in that same position in the next to last line of the
final stanza: <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>the wild deer. </i>This
positioning does two things at once &#8211; first it refocuses our attention onto the
ontology of deer-ness in the first place; second, &amp; more important, it
underscores that the adjective <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>wild </i>is
every bit as strange, conceptual &amp; ultimately empty of content as the terms
used in each of the three preceding stanzas. It is the opposite of natural, the
opposite of being &#8220;rooted in the thing,&#8221; it is cultural . . . almost in the
anthropological sense of that word. The term <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'>wild </i>has no meaning in the context of deer other than as an </span><st1:State><st1:place><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>ind</span></st1:place></st1:State><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>ex of the distance from our own
realm, the not wild.<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'>Which is
why the announced topic of the final stanza is so critical &#8211; <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The small nouns.</i> The deer, these deer
certainly &amp; in some sense all others, exist not in &#8220;the wild,&#8221; but rather
in <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>this in which</i> they stare back at
us &#8211; <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>through language. </i>Escher-like in
its process, the poem unveils itself at last not to be about deer, but about
language. <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>That they are there! &#8211; </i>the
final line of the first stanza now takes on a powerful new meaning that both is
&amp; is not an assertion of nature&#8217;s immanence. <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'>The poem
literally stands Hirsch&#8217;s assertion &#8211; that Oppen seeks &#8220;to restore meaning to
language by faithfully using it to refer outward to a world of things&#8221; &#8211; on its
head. The poem is an analog to Wordsworth&#8217;s crossing of the alps in <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Prelude, </i>looking into nature only to
see his mind, unable to get <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>beyond</i>.
The poem argues against the restoration of something that never existed in the
first place, a transparent language. <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'>So Hirsch
gets the poem exactly backwards. And it&#8217;s a misreading, I would argue, that
occurs in good part because he wants to take Oppen out of context, right there
in his very first sentence, to make of Oppen something he </span><st1:State><st1:place><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>nev</span></st1:place></st1:State><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>er was. For to take Oppen at his
word would be to challenge everything Edward Hirsch holds dear. Edward, you
must change your life.<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'><o:p>&nbsp;</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'><o:p>&nbsp;</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:8.0pt;font-family:Arial'>* Which is
why, I suppose, the column is not the newspaper standard 700 words. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial'>** Why can&#8217;t
newspaper typesetters get this right, even on the web? The mangling of poetic
form seems to be journalism&#8217;s primary contribution to the history of
poetry.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&#160; </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial'>*** Indeed,
it is an anthology piece for Oppen in part for the same reason that &#8220;The
Yachts&#8221; is one for Williams &#8211; it is the poem those who don&#8217;t like his more
&#8220;extreme&#8221; works can get into, because it looks deceptively familiar. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div style='clear: both;'></div>
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          <div class="date-outer">
        
<h2 class='date-header'><span>Tuesday, September 16, 2003</span></h2>

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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>It was
Kasey Mohammad&#8217;s brilliant note, appended as a comment to my September 9 <span
class=GramE>blog, that</span> got me thinking more about the Houlihan question
yesterday. Kasey&#8217;s argument is that <o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>you've sketched an axis whose poles are the external
(&quot;audience&quot;) and the internal (&quot;community&quot;); I wonder
whether there couldn&#8217;t be other axes that figure in here as well.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>In that
sentence &#8220;you&#8221; is me and &#8220;I&#8221; is him (which sounds like it ought to be out of a
John Lennon song somewhere). And I of course agree that things </span><st1:State><st1:place><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>nev</span></st1:place></st1:State><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>er are that simple. But simply
recasting my terms thus reminded me instead of how much our Official Poets of
late have in fact cast their lot around a series of activities that posits <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>appreciation </i>as the major relationship
towards the poem. Robert Pinsky&#8217;s <a href="http://www.favoritepoem.org/">Favorite
Poem Project</a>, Billy Collins&#8217; <a href="http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/">Poetry
180</a> and Dana Gioia&#8217;s &#8220;Art for the Masses&#8221; <a
href="http://www.pw.org/mag/0309/newssofer.htm">NEA Shakespeare Campaign</a>
all are premised on a few common presumptions, principally that poetry is
written by the very few &amp; consumed largely by a passive audience of
non-writers. That seems to me to be a very specific &#8211; and very political &#8211;
theory of literature.<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'>One feature
of post-avant poetics, regardless of the tendency, is that readings often occur
in which the audience is at least half composed by other poets. It&#8217;s not
unusual for the poet to know a good number of the poets in his or her audience,
even when reading in a </span><st1:City><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
  font-family:Arial'>new city</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> for the very first time. That&#8217;s an
implicit presumption in Frank O&#8217;Hara&#8217;s &#8220;Personism&#8221; manifesto &amp; it is what
literally authorizes the use of a form of shorthand in the critical writing,
for example, of Charles Olson. It&#8217;s also the feature of post-avant poetics that
is being identified whenever a </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceType><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>School</span></st1:PlaceType><span
 style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> of </span><st1:PlaceName><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Quietude</span></st1:PlaceName></st1:place><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> poet accuses some part of the
post-avant scene of having <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>coterie
poetics</i>. <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'>That&#8217;s
always struck me as being a peculiarly Orwellian charge, in that the
presumption of the literacy of an audience &#8211; that its members could just as
easily be the writers speaking &#8211; is taken as a sign of elitism, whereas the
contrasting model is one of a functionally non-literate (because non-writing)
audience appreciating the work of an anointed few. That Gioia&#8217;s anglophilia
takes him out of American literature altogether is almost too </span><st1:State><st1:place><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>del</span></st1:place></st1:State><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>iciously ironic for words. <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'>Those of us
in what Bill Knott recently called the </span><st1:PlaceType><span
 style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>School</span></st1:PlaceType><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> of Noisiness &#8211; I&#8217;d use terms more
like <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>vibrancy </i>&amp; <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>life, </i>Bill, just to contrast it with the
embalming elixirs of the Other &#8211; really don&#8217;t think in terms of audience,
precisely because it posits an unbridgeable gap between those who write &amp;
those who don&#8217;t. So, in fact, I would disagree with Kasey about the model of an
axis being posed that has audience at one extreme. Rather I see the universe of
writing, which includes all readers, as a series of constantly shifting
ensembles of tendencies, directions, &amp; what I&#8217;d characterize as interest
clusters. And while I do often think about poetry in terms of political
organization, the dynamics of it are most amenable to a Gramscian view of a
poetics of movement &amp; position, more than one of winners &amp; losers. The
short-term gains I posited as one aspect of a position not unlike Houlihan&#8217;s
yesterday are real, even if the longer term dynamics &#8211; </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceType><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>School</span></st1:PlaceType><span
 style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> of </span><st1:PlaceName><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Quietude</span></st1:PlaceName></st1:place><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> poetry always dissolves in the long
run, overwhelmed by the crazies, the <span class=SpellE>Blakes</span>, <span
class=SpellE>Dickinsons</span> &amp; <span class=SpellE>Whitmans</span> &#8211; are
likewise inescapable. <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Periplum, </i>that
Greek term for navigating a constantly reconfiguring universe, is </span><st1:State><st1:place><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>ind</span></st1:place></st1:State><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>eed the point. <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'><o:p>&nbsp;</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 align=center style='text-align:center'><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>&#1064;<span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; </span>&#1064;<span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; </span>&#1064;<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>

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

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

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>The blog
recorded 441 visits yesterday, a record. There were a total of 729 pages views,
also a new high.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Monday, September 15, 2003</span></h2>

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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>I thought about stepping
into the <a href="http://www.webdelsol.com/LITARTS/Boston_Comment/">Joan
Houlihan fiasco</a> &#8211; especially the exchange betwixt </span><st1:PersonName><span
 style='font-family:Arial'>Dale Smith</span></st1:PersonName><span
style='font-family:Arial'> &amp; Bill Knott on the <a
href="http://www.skankypossum.com/pouch/">Skanky Possum blog</a>* &#8211; but then I
just thought &#8220;<span class=SpellE>Ick</span>!&#8221; And that <a
href="http://monkey.onepotmeal.com/archives/002389.html">Jim Behrle</a> had it
pretty much accurate as to Houlihan &amp; the broader social phenomena of which
she is only a symptom:<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:0in;margin-bottom:
6.0pt;margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2;tab-stops:
list .75in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:
Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;color:blue'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>&#183;<span
style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-family:Arial'>They don&#8217;t get
it<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
6.0pt;margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2;tab-stops:
list .75in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:
Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;color:blue'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>&#183;<span
style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-family:Arial'>They&#8217;re &#8220;scared
of us&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:
l1 level1 lfo2;tab-stops:list .75in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style='font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:
Symbol;color:blue'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>&#183;<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-family:Arial'>They think we&#8217;re
all language poets<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'>Houlihan herself
underscores that last point when she uses Sheila E. Murphy as an example of, as
Houlihan calls it, I=N=C=O=H=E=R=E=N=C=E. But while Murphy&#8217;s painterly
linguistic abstractions might be viewed as extending from, say, Clark
Coolidge&#8217;s early books, I don&#8217;t believe that I&#8217;ve ever seen or heard her
describe herself as a language poet, nor have I ever seen anyone I would
associate with langpo do likewise. The painterly &amp; abstract elements in her
work are entirely her own. Houlihan&#8217;s calling Murphy&#8217;s work a &#8220;language poem&#8221;
simply demonstrates that, in fact, Houlihan doesn&#8217;t know how to read post-avant
work in any of its varieties &amp; can&#8217;t even see the differences when they&#8217;re
up front &amp; fairly obvious.** This is just a replay of the review ages ago
in <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Nation </i>that similarly abused
Jorie Graham as a language poet. </span><st1:PersonName><span style='font-family:
 Arial'>Sheila Murphy</span></st1:PersonName><span style='font-family:Arial'>
&amp; Jorie Graham <span class=GramE>are</span> both fine writers, but neither
is doing anything remotely similar either to language poetry or to each other. <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 are other questions
one might ask about Houlihan&#8217;s performance here: Does she, in fact, know what
she is doing? Is this really just a cynical attempt to generate tourist traffic
around her writing by generating an artificial scandal? Is Houlihan another
Bill Bennett, a compulsive gambler who inveighs on the topic of values while
practicing a lifestyle in direct conflict with his screeds? The test of this is
whether or not Houlihan really believes what she herself is writing or only
thinks that her own supporters are too stupid to know the difference. That&#8217;s
not an attractive choice, but those really are the options. I often wonder this
same thing about William Logan, the <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>New
Criterion </i>critic whose fulminations are the closest thing that journal has
to a comic strip. Nor are these hardly the first instances of this same
phenomenon. We could just as easily ask if Norman Podhoretz understood in 1958
that penning &#8220;The Know-Nothing Bohemians&#8221; would make him a laughing stock
forever. What all of these defenders of a beleaguered norm have in common is
not just a rhetorical stance &#8211; one that has clear enough political implications
&#8211; but also a perfect historical track record. Dating at least as far back as
Henry Theodore Tuckerman &amp; the original </span><st1:place><st1:PlaceType><span
  style='font-family:Arial'>School</span></st1:PlaceType><span
 style='font-family:Arial'> of </span><st1:PlaceName><span style='font-family:
  Arial'>Quietude</span></st1:PlaceName></st1:place><span style='font-family:
Arial'> of the 1840s, these misfortunates <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>always</i>
lose. <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-bottom:6.0pt'><span style='font-family:
Arial'>So whenever one <span class=GramE>these routines shows</span> up in a
new guise &amp; with a new name, the questions one needs to have answered are:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
6.0pt;margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo4;tab-stops:
list .75in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:
Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;color:blue'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>&#183;<span
style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-family:Arial'>Is this person
ignorant of history? (Position A)<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
6.0pt;margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo4;tab-stops:
list .75in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:
Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;color:blue'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>&#183;<span
style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-family:Arial'>If not, which of
the following are their motives?<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
6.0pt;margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo4;tab-stops:
list 1.0in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='mso-fareast-font-family:"Courier New"'><span
style='mso-list:Ignore'>o<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-family:Arial'>Short-term gain
&amp; notoriety? (</span><st1:place><span style='font-family:Arial'>Po</span></st1:place><span
style='font-family:Arial'>sition B)<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
6.0pt;margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level2 lfo4;tab-stops:
list 1.0in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style='mso-fareast-font-family:"Courier New"'><span
style='mso-list:Ignore'>o<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style='font-family:Arial'>A commitment to
values so strong that he or she is willing to accept the historical
consequences in order to make a stand? (</span><st1:place><span
 style='font-family:Arial'>Po</span></st1:place><span style='font-family:Arial'>sition
C)<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Arial'>I have a lot of respect
for that last position, although it is by the far the <span class=GramE>most
rare</span>. I&#8217;ve said this before, but I think that the poetry &amp; work of
Wendell Berry is perhaps the best example of Position C extant. Positions A
&amp; B are far more common.<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'>More interesting, because
it is so much more complex, is a certain kind of middle stance taken these days
by the likes of bloggers Gabriel Gudding &amp; Henry Gould along with fellow
traveler </span><st1:PersonName><span style='font-family:Arial'>Kent Johnson</span></st1:PersonName><span
style='font-family:Arial'>. None of them is ignorant of history but all three
seem to share an instinctive suspicion of much of the new, even as they
themselves are often practitioners of same. I don&#8217;t think any of them would
mind gain or notoriety, frankly, short-term or otherwise, but I also sense that
they understand the hollowness of its promise, so that rather than being
defenders of an Olde Order, they have chosen instead to become the guilty
conscience of the New. There is a risk in this, because it is a complex
position, and that is that they can be taken for or confused with the likes of
a Houlihan. I&#8217;m not sure that any of the three manages that risk as deftly as I
would like, but at least I will take what any one of them says seriously, even
when, on the face of it, some of their critical writing makes me think we must
be inhabiting parallel (if not perpendicular) universes. <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:8.0pt;font-family:Arial'>*67 comments
to a single blog!<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Arial'>**In the
same piece, Houlihan misspells Lyn Hejinian&#8217;s first name.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Wednesday, July 09, 2003</span></h2>

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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>I&#8217;ve
thought about responding in detail to Brian Kim Stefans&#8217; <a
href="http://www.arras.net/weblog/000694.html">screed</a> over the first half
of my </span><st1:City><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
  Arial'>Lowell</span></st1:place></st1:City><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'> commentary, but found (find) it impossible, at least
personally, to untangle his thinking from the <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'>ad hominem </i>attacks that he loads into it. Of greater value &amp;
interest are Kasey Mohammad&#8217;s &amp; Michael Magee&#8217;s <a
href="http://limetree.blogspot.com/2003_07_01_limetree_archive.html#105725469207326778">discussion</a>
of the same issue. Though, frankly, Brian&#8217;s second <a
href="http://www.arras.net/weblog/000700.html">approach</a> on the same subject
seems less over-the-top &amp; thus more thoughtful. Alas, he slides back into
the ad hominem mode for his third commentary.<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'>I do want
to reiterate that anyone who lived through the 1960s will remember that, in
politics, the &#8220;third way&#8221; strategy advocated by Stefans &#8211; Walter Mondale was
its apotheosis &#8211; invariably came out as road kill. While the intentions of a
rapprochement may always be noble, in the world of American letters it requires
amnesia to imagine it possible. If you&#8217;re anywhere on the post-avant spectrum &#8211;
as Brian clearly is &#8211; the idea of rapprochement is virtually a death wish.
Kasey, on the other hand, is exactly on target when he suggests that a &#8220;17<sup>th</sup>
way&#8221; will be possible before a &#8220;third one&#8221; is.<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'>Daniel Nester
offers a more cogent criticism concerning my comments in his email below:<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'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Mr. Silliman:<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span class=GramE><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Some
quick comments on your otherwise spot-on assessment of all this <span
class=SpellE>Lowellmania</span> of late.</span></span><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>When you say that when <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Time </i>&quot;could have focused on the
aftermath &amp; implications of the first </span><st1:place><span
 style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Harlem</span></st1:place><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> riots
of the decade, it chose instead to feature </span><st1:City><st1:place><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Lowell</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> on its
cover,&quot; I think it misses many points.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>To wit: <em><span
style='font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Time</span></em> could
have had another poet, not from his clan, on the cover &#8212; Ginsberg, perhaps, an
obvious choice, but perhaps a feature on &quot;The New American
Poetry.&quot;&nbsp; Granted, that last proposed feature would have been four
years late &#8212; not so <span class=SpellE>unhip</span> for mainstream media &#8212; but
my point is by saying <em><span style='font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:
Arial'>Time</span></em> should have focused on the </span><st1:place><span
 style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Harlem</span></st1:place><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> riots,
you're implying that <o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;
margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;tab-stops:list 1.0in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Wingdings;mso-fareast-font-family:Wingdings;
mso-bidi-font-family:Wingdings'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>n<span
style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>any
poet beside Lowell couldn't have competed with him for a <em><span
style='font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Time</span></em> cover &#8212;
indeed, if we are to believe poets of your generation (Larry Fagin's asinine
bloviating comes to mind), this was a glorious time for poetry, filled with
cheap rents, great pot, and hot chicks;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;
margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;tab-stops:list 1.0in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Wingdings;mso-fareast-font-family:Wingdings;
mso-bidi-font-family:Wingdings'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>n<span
style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Lowell
and his lot didn't care about the </span><st1:place><span style='font-size:
 10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Harlem</span></st1:place><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> riots
&#8212; they probably did, they being of the <span class=SpellE>aristopoet</span>,
armchair <span class=SpellE>purply</span> liberal pedigree;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:6.0pt;
margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;tab-stops:list 1.0in'><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Wingdings;mso-fareast-font-family:Wingdings;
mso-bidi-font-family:Wingdings'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>n<span
style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>poetry
is less important than the </span><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
 font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Harlem</span></st1:place><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> riots
&#8212; it is not, and to imply it is demonstrates that in the absence of good ideas
all we have is moral indignation;<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:-.5in'><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-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'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Granted, your comparison goes
for cheap points, and does point out <em><span style='font-family:Verdana;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Time</span></em>'s oversight of engaging with the
real world, just as </span><st1:City><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
  font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Lowell</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>, in
his diction and topics, avoided the real world as well.&nbsp; But by saying
non-pedigreed poets, by right of <em><span style='font-family:Verdana;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Time</span></em> magazine's exclusion, are
&quot;down&quot; with </span><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
 font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Harlem</span></st1:place><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> <span
class=GramE>riot concerns suggests</span> <span class=SpellE>alternapoets</span>
of the early 60s were political heroes, and the pedigreed ones weren't.&nbsp;
I'm afraid neither is the case.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>I just don't think you need to
invoke the </span><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;
 mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Harlem</span></st1:place><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'> riots to point out the
iniquity of the poetry world back then.&nbsp; Is all I'm <span class=GramE>saying.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

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

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

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

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

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span class=GramE><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>editor</span></span><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>, <em><span
style='font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>Unpleasant Event
Schedule</span></em><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><a
href="http://unpleasanteventschedule.com/" target="_blank">http://unpleasanteventschedule.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span class=GramE><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>author</span></span><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>, <em><span
style='font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'>God Save My Queen</span></em><o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial'><a
href="http://www.godsavemyqueen.com/" target="_blank">http://www.godsavemyqueen.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>

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

<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Nester is
absolutely right in some of his points. I wasn&#8217;t trying to suggest that </span><st1:City><st1:place><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Lowell</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> or his immediate circle were in any
way involved in the decision to cover poetry over social eruption on the cover
of <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Time. </i>There is no reason to
believe that </span><st1:City><st1:place><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
  font-family:Arial'>Lowell</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> didn&#8217;t feel some sympathy for the
rioters, although frankly at that early moment most of the Left didn&#8217;t know how
exactly how to react to that event. <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'>As an
editor, my experience tells me that a &#8220;poetry cover&#8221; on <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'>Time </i>is what you choose for a week of little or no news of great
topical importance. In the face of the first modern urban uprising, to have
missed that was a major editorial comment on <i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'>Time&#8217;s </i>part. It&#8217;s not that poetry is &#8220;less important,&#8221; but rather
that its importance functions on a very different dimension. <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'>However,
it&#8217;s a comment more on the school of quietude&#8217;s (<span class=SpellE>SoQ&#8217;s</span>)
integration into the social milieu of the publishing industry, as such, that <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Time </i>would think to put </span><st1:City><st1:place><span
  style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Lowell</span></st1:place></st1:City><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>, rather than Ginsberg, on its cover
&#8211; the latter would almost certainly have sold more copies in 1964. It reminds me
of the degree to which many of the quietude poets don&#8217;t even know how that world
represents their own small press scene. As one Pulitzer-winning SoQ said to me
a couple of years back, &#8220;It must be hard to come out of college without a book
contract.&#8221; Yeah. <span class=GramE>Right.</span><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&#160;&#160; </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<h2 class='title'>Ketjak</h2>
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<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>
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<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 />
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<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.
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