I think it's important to make distinctions between autobiography and
biography and between biography and history but the existing ones are not
helpful for writers as they tend to be abstract, dictionary distinctions
which say nothing about the process.
For example, in the examples you furnish, I would suspect that there is a
shift from the subjective to the objective and perhaps back again and likely
a shift from individual to group and back again? How did these shifts
affect the writng and how do they affect the reading?
tom bell
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 4:32 PM
Subject: Re: biographical poetry
> Hmn,,,
>
> I had to miss out on the original, so thanks for posting it Steve.
>
> What, to carry on my last question, do we make of books like Susan Howes's
> Pierce Arrow, and many of her other poems?
>
> Where, to bring it home (for me) to Canada, would we put Atwood's Journals
> of Susannah Moodie, Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid,
> Scobie's McAlmon's Chinese Opera & The Ballad of Isabel Gunn, Bowering's
> George, Vancouver, & many other such book-length poems? Admitedly, many
are
> written in the first person, but history almost always is an important
> context, & they do play off what is known biographically about their
> titular figures...
>
> It get's very complicated I suspect...
>
> Doug
>
> 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
>
> Beauty
> is to lay hold of Love
> is the leave
> to
> Charles Olson
>
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