Alan Marshfield refers to an anthology by Helen Vendler, who has immense
power as a curator of canon in the US today (too bloody much, I say). It's
good on the poets she likes, but appalling in its absences, as is The
Harvard (or faber) Book she edited. She is one of those for whom poetry =
lyric, & that leaves out a lot.
I recall listening to her give a paper a few years ago at the Poetry and
History conference at the University of Stirling, where she pointed out
most cogently how a each poem in a poetry sequence of Herman Melville's
broke all the rules of lyric, but (because she *had to find a way to say
they were lyric) insisted they were neverhteless lyric; while i, listening,
could clearly see that she was talking about a proto-serial poem. The
problem with admitting that? She won't even admit that Jack Spicer (in my
mind one of the most important and influential poets of the 2nd half of the
20th century) existed, or at least wrote poetry. Strange, indeed. . .
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
And earth takes him as it takes more beautiful things:
populations of whole countries,
museums and works of art,
and women with such a glow
it makes their background vanish
they vanish too
and Lesbos' singer in her sunny islands
stopped when the sun went down -
Al Purdy
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