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Silliman's Blog
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<p class='description'><span>A weblog focused on contemporary poetry and poetics.</span></p>
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Showing posts with label <b>Wesleyan</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>Wesleyan</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>Saturday, January 25, 2003</span></h2>

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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Last Wednesday would have
been my father&#8217;s 76<sup>th</sup> birthday. It&#8217;s been 38 years since he died
from burns suffered in a plant explosion while working at a Westvaco paper
recycling operation in </span><st1:place><st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial;">Charleston</span></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial;">, </span><st1:state><span style="font-family: Arial;">South Carolina</span></st1:state></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">. It&#8217;s been 45 years since I last saw him. I tend to
think of those days as being the very distant past, but then I pick up a book
like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.holtzbrinckpublishers.com/FSG/search/SearchBookDisplay.asp?BookKey=660398">Chinese
Whispers</a></i> by John Ashbery, a poet born the same year as my father. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Ashbery is one of <span class="GramE">just a half dozen or so poets</span> from the </span><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">Don</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">ald Allen <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/7045.html">New American Poetry</a></i>
who are still actively publishing new poetry on a regular basis. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chinese Whispers</i> is at least the fifth
book by Ashbery since <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flow Chart</i> to
gather Ashbery&#8217;s short poems into a relatively slim volume &amp; the 16<sup>th</sup>
such volume in his career. It&#8217;s a form &amp; format that has stood Ashbery
well. When I first recognized it as such, which was absolutely by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rivers and Mountains</i> if not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tennis Court Oath,</i> I was convinced
that the model was one adopted in the 1960s by Wesleyan University Press &#8211;
original publishers of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The </i></span><st1:street><st1:address><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Tennis
  Court</span></i></st1:address></st1:street><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Oath </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial;">&#8211; and functionally, even subliminally, defined the
&#8220;academic&#8221; book of poetry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The Wesleyan roster, from
the founding of the Wesleyan Poetry Program in 1959, through 1970 is worth
thinking about. The press published the following books of verse: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Barbara <span class="SpellE">Howes</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Light and Dark</i>, 1959<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span class="SpellE"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Hyam</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> <span class="SpellE">Plutzik</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apples
     from </i></span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Shinar</span></i></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">, </span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">1959<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Louis Simpson, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Dream of Governors,</i> 1959<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">James Wright, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Saint Judas, </i>1959<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">David Ferry, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On the Way to the </i></span><st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Island</span></i></st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">,</span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">
     1960<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Robert Francis, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Orb Weaver, </i>1960<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Don</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">ald
     Justice, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Summer Anniversaries, </i>1960<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Vassar Miller, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wage War on Silence, </i>1960<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Alan <span class="SpellE">Ansen</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disorderly Houses, </i>1961<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Robert <span class="SpellE">Bagg</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Madonna of the Cello, </i>1961<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Don</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">ald
     Davie, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New and Selected Poems, </i>1961<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">David Ignatow, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Say Pardon, </i>1961<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">John Ashbery, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The </i></span><st1:street><st1:address><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Tennis Court</span></i></st1:address></st1:street><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> Oath</span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">,
     1962<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Robert Bly, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Silence in the Snowy Field,</i> 1962<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">James Dickey, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drowning with Others, </i>1962<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Richard Howard, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Quantities,</i> 1962<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Chester</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> <span class="SpellE">Kallman</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Absent
     and Present, </i>1963<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Vassar Miller, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Bones Being Wiser, </i>1963<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Louis Simpson, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">At the End of the </i></span><st1:street><st1:address><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Open Road</span></i></st1:address></st1:street><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">, </span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">1963<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">James Wright, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Branch Will Not Break</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">, </span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">1963</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">James Dickey, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Helmets,</i> 1964<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">David Ignatow, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Figures of the Human, </i>1964<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Don</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">ald
     Petersen, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Spectral Boy, </i>1964<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Vern <span class="SpellE">Rutsala</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Windows, </i>1964<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Tram Combs, </span><st1:city><st1:place><span class="GramE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">saint
       <span class="SpellE">thomas</span></span></i></span></st1:place></st1:city><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">. <span class="GramE">poems</span>.
     </span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">1965<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Don</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">ald
     Davie, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Events and Wisdoms, </i>1965<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">James Dickey, <span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Buckdancer&#8217;s</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Choice,</i> 1965<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">W. R. Moses, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Identities, </i>1965<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Turner <span class="SpellE">Cassity</span>, <span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchboy</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, What of the Night? </i>1966<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">John Haines, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Winter News, </i>1966<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Harvey Shapiro, </span><st1:city><st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Battle</span></i></st1:place></st1:city><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> Report, </span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">1966<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Jon <span class="SpellE">Silkin</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poems New and Selected, </i>1966<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Richard Howard, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Damages, </i>1967<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Don</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">ald
     Justice, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Night Light, </i>1967<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Lou <span class="SpellE">Lipsitz</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cold Water, </i>1967<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">David Ignatow, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rescue the Dead, </i>1968<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Michael <span class="SpellE">Benedikt</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Body, </i>1968<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">James Dickey, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poems 1957-1967, </i>1968<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Edwin <span class="SpellE">Honig</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spring Journal, </i>1968<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Philip Levine, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Not This Pig, </i>1968<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Vassar Miller, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Onions and Roses, </i>1968<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Marge <span class="SpellE">Piercy</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Breaking Camp, </i>1968<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">James Wright, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shall We Gather at the River, </i>1968</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Gray Burr, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A
     Choice of Attitudes, </i>1969<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Leonard Nathan, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Day the Perfect Speakers Left, </i>1969<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Marge <span class="SpellE">Piercy</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hard Loving, </i>1969<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Anne Stevenson, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reversals, </i>1969<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Richard Tillinghast, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sleep Watch, </i>1969<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Michael <span class="SpellE">Benedikt</span>,
     Sky, 1970<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">William Harmon, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Treasury </i></span><st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Holiday</span></i></st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">: Thirty-Four Fits for the
     Opening of Fiscal Year 1968, </span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">1970<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">David Ignatow, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poems 1934-1969</i>, 1970<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Charles <span class="SpellE">Levendosky</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Perimeter Poems, </i>1970<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Clarence Major, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Swallow the </i></span><st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Lake</span></i></st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">, </span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">1970<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">James <span class="SpellE">Seay</span>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Let Not Your Heart, </i>1970<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Charles Wright, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Grave of the Right Hand, </i>1970*<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The form was relatively
simple &#8211; maybe one &#8220;major&#8221; poem of as much as twelve pages, surrounded by a
series of one-page pieces, coming to anywhere between 60 &amp; 100 pages total
&amp;, if you were part of the &#8220;core&#8221; group, one such book every three or so
years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Laughable as it might seem <span class="GramE">today,</span> those of us of a certain age will remember when this
modest list &#8211; usually just four slim books per year &#8211; was the closest thing to
a hegemon as existed in American poetry. Simpson won the Pulitzer in 1964 for </span><st1:street><st1:address><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Open <span class="GramE">Road</span></span></i></st1:address></st1:street><span class="GramE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">,</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Dickey won the 1966
National Book Award for <span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Buckdancer&#8217;s</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Choice</i>, Justice&#8217;s 1960 volume was a Lamont
Poetry Selection. There are, of course, some decent books here &#8211; Wright&#8217;s later
two volumes, the two by Ignatow, Harvey Shapiro&#8217;s book**, Justice&#8217;s &#8217;67 volume,
Michael <span class="SpellE">Benedikt</span> as seriously out of place as
Ashbery. If you follow the dates, you can see that part of the program&#8217;s
success lay in its relatively cohesive aesthetic approach up through 1967 &#8211; the
sense of shape &amp; scene is as important for conservatives as it is for the
post-avant world &#8211; at which point the social impact of the 1960s in general
appears to have intervened, with leftists both real (<span class="SpellE">Piercy</span>)
&amp; nominal (<span class="SpellE">Lipshutz</span>, Levine, <span class="SpellE">Levendosky</span>,
the poet laureate of Wyoming) suddenly showing up as well as a writer of color,
Clarence Major. By 1970, the Wesleyan &#8220;moment&#8221; had passed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">But the great irony of
Ashbery&#8217;s parody of the Wesleyan form (and it had more than a few counterparts
among other presses during that period), nearly four decades hence, is that, of
all these books, his is perhaps the only volume that will still be remembered
distinctly forty years from now. Indeed, unless one is an avid (or masochistic)
reader of Hilton Kramer&#8217;s neocon <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.newcriterion.com/">New Criterion</a></i>, the one overtly
rightwing cultural journal in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">America</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Arial;">***, most of these names have already receded from
general public awareness. Indeed, Tram Combs would be a plausible candidate for
what Jonathan Mayhew once referred to as &#8220;<a href="http://jonathanmayhew.blogspot.com/2002_12_01_jonathanmayhew_archive.html#90077978"><span class="SpellE">sillimanning</span></a>&#8221; (&#8220;<span style="color: black;">rescuing from
literary oblivion in great, painstaking detail&#8221;&#173;). But overall, a list like the
one above exists as &#8220;the unmarked case,&#8221; the normative median against which the
interesting work of that decade was written &#8211; with the notable exception of
Ashbery. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I&#8217;ve heard the complaint
more than once that Ashbery&#8217;s books have become too predictable &amp; that he
hasn&#8217;t evolved in any particular direction in nearly 30 years, writing the same
colorful, not quite surreal poems again &amp; again. I&#8217;ve heard similar
complaints about </span><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">Robert
 Creeley</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">. Frankly, I
could continue reading both gentlemen with great pleasure for the rest of my
days even if they <span class="GramE">waver</span> not a single iota for the
remainder of their careers. In part, I think such complaints reflect the enormous
impact each has had on contemporary poetry &amp; a misplaced expectation that,
having changed poetry to some degree in their own image in the past, these
writers shall &#8211; or should &#8211; continue to do so in the future. I think such an
expectation misjudges what it was that they actually accomplished, and what
writers can &amp; do achieve when they exert a serious impact on their peers
&amp; descendants. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">If, from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Some Trees</i> through <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Flow Chart,</i> John Ashbery&#8217;s work evolved in directions that would
expand the terrain of the possible for poetry, it was not, I suspect, out of
any sense of historical mission that he worked. Rather, like any poet (you
included), he wrote the poems <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">he needed</i>,
and having arrived at a scope that gives him ample room in which to work, he to
some degree has settled in. One can see this exact same process at work in
Creeley as well, from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Whip</i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">&amp; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For
Love </i>through <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Day Book</i>. If the
work since then has operated within that territory each poet articulated over
decades, it is hardly a failure of the poets themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">* This list
is taken from the back matter of the second printing of Ashbery&#8217;s book, issued
in &#8217;67, then supplemented for later years through <a href="http://www.abebooks.com/">Abebooks</a>, although I have much less
confidence in the year of publication for the latter source. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">** Even if
it was published primarily to ensure that the rest of the series would be
reviewed in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times Book
Review</i>, which Shapiro edited for many a year with absolutely no hint of
aesthetic shape.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">*** <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/">The
Atlantic</a></i> is still politically in the closet, though <span class="GramE">editor</span>
Michael Kelly seems determined to catch up with Kramer &amp; poetry editor Peter
Davison will have no trouble obliging Kelly&#8217;s new order with a musty formalism.<o:p></o:p></span></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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