Someone could write an essay about Jorie Graham as the anti-type of
Emily Dickinson. An anti-type must have some affinity with the type:
JG & ED were/are children of privilege. But for JG it's the privilege
of a New Rome whereas for ED it was the privilege of a province of a
new Greece.
Romans absorb/co-opt the barbarians; hence the Iowa Program's kenosis/
feelers extended toward Language Poetry (if it's not a style, what is it,
Mark? A religion? A sect of Objectivism? Stylized populism - ie.
another anti-type, Lorine Niedecker?)
Graham reads like bombast to me. But it's better bombast than anyone
else has produced in the Creative Writing Programs industry - for that
she deserves the accolades of Helen Vendler, a critic of the Old School.
(Where have you gone, Blackmur Dimaggio...)
Henry
|