Andrew Burke writes:
<<Something I've been musing about recently re: David Lehman. The
only postings about him seemed negative, yet for people away from
his scene, and away from the American and European catchment areas
for poetry (!), his career activities mean nothing.>>
Andrew, it's true that distance is a great leveler, but Lehman is an
exceeding noxious pill to swallow. It's not just the self-promotion,
for which I can forgive him--as you say, that's the way it goes--,
but because he has access to the power of Scribners, Inc. he has a
wide & pernicious reach. Lehman represents that he has gathered each
year "the best American poetry," but even given the "range" of his
guest editors, the volume turns up many of the same names year after
year. If there were a rule that no poet appearing in the previous
year's volume could be represented in the current year, it would
perhaps be a different book, more open to good new work. As it is,
it is a deeply conservative volume. And I am not myself what you
would call an "experimental" poet or editor, but the almost total
lack of experimental poetries in the Best books is indefensible,
given the liveliness of that branch of American poetry.
Joe
======================
Joseph Duemer
School of Liberal Arts, box 5750
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699
315.268.3967
[log in to unmask]
http://web.northnet.org/duemer
http://www.grammarbitch.com/ppp/index.html
======================
Sing so dogs bark, oxen bolt,
So a girl walks out on her lover.
Sing so dogs bark, bulls bellow,
So the old coot crawls out of his hut.
[Mekong Delta 1971, trans. John Balaban]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|