Doug:
I wasn't defending the Lint piece at all (as a matter of fact, I agree
wholeheartedly that it's mostly historically-flawed rubbish -- and I don't
know enough about the current poetry scene in the States to comment on that,
but if it's anything like Lint's take on contemporary UK poetry, it has to
be beyond weird) -- simply drawing attention to the _Observer_ piece (which
is mostly, also, typical GuardServer wuffle) mentioning it, as part of
establishing the context for the magazine.
One thing which +did+ puzzle me (as opposed to simply smacking my gob) in
the original article was Lind's condemnation of the Agrarians -- I'd have
thought any Good American Neoformalist would have, at the least, approved of
John Crow Ransom.
Incidentally, would you like to expand on 'open form'? I wouldn't take it
as a subdivision of free verse, but as a particular trend within
(predominantly) American poetry -- the line of Olson, Zukovsky, etc. Was it
Zukovsky who coined the term? (Sorry if I've managed to commit several
mistakes in the previous sentence -- I really +am+ asking for
enlightenment.)
Robin
> Robin
>
> Just to be clear
>
> I have nothing against fine so-called formalist verse, although I shudder
> at the use of the term 'formalist' as if it could only be asserted in the
> context of already constructed 'forms,' and as if those who seek new forms
> aren't just as formalist, really. But I also tend to agree with Eliot
> Weinberger's claims a few years ago (I think the article is in one of the
> early issues of Jacket) that an awful lot of the writing by the 'New
> Formalists' is just vapid & weak. On the other hand, as just one example,
> since way back in the 60s, I have admired the amazing poetry of Marilyn
> Hacker. And, interestingly, although most readers would consider someone
> like Ashbery a practitioner of 'free verse' (i prefer the term 'open form'
> but that's another story), he's also shown himself to be amaster of one of
> the most difficult of traditional forms, the sestina.
>
> In other words, things are far more complex than an article like Lind's
> even begins to suggest...
>
> 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's whatever
> makes the adrenalin run.
>
> John Newlove
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