What do you expect from freaking American Neoformalists?

Anyone who'd rip-off a title from Robertson Davies ...

And Billy Collins *wasn't* one of the 25 Rebel Angels.

I can do the poetry bit but the football imagery passes me quite bye.

Help anyone?

Dana G.

{I thought of passing this on to Milton-L but then remembered my street-cred
...

<sour>  :-)

R2.}

Mind you, I thought I had copyright on the Night of the Lost Stanza.

What's happened to intellectual property these days?  Gone the way of GM
soup?

<sigh>

C3P0

[Subtext is Damon Runyon -- don't they teach ANY American frosh how to use
the continuous presnet?  Or is it Dash?  Or is that too raw given the
provisions of the Patriot Act?  Jack London anyone?

Vlad the Impaler.]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rebecca Seiferle" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 6:18 PM
Subject: poets riot


> Well, something funny and not without a perplexing element or two
> for the weekend.
>
> Best,
>
> Rebecca Seiferle
> www.thedrunkenboat.com
>
>
> POETS RIOT WHEN CAMPUS IS THROWN OUT OF RHYTHM
>
> Thursday, November 6, 2003
> FEATURES - ACCENT & ARTS 08B
>
> By Mike Harden
> THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
>
> At a reading by former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins last week at Ohio
> Dominican University, I wasn't surprised to see a Columbus police officer
on hand
> to thwart potential violence.
>
> Tensions have been high lately between neo-formalists and free versers,
and
> well-placed sources in the poetry community feared that a reading might
provide
> a flash point for simmering hostilities.
>
> I was glad I had taken my notebook. I needed it to chronicle the savage
> mayhem that has come to be called ''The Night of the Long Stanzas'':
>
> Columbus police and the Ohio National Guard patrolled the university
Friday
> after a night of rioting between rival poetry gangs resulted in three
minor
> injuries and a dozen arrests.
>
> Eleven of those in custody were being held for disorderly conduct. The
12th
> was apprehended for using eight syllables in the second line of a haiku.
>
> Of those injured, the most seriously hurt was an Obetz woman who suffered
a
> concussion after being struck in the head with a copy of John Milton's
Samson
> Agonistes.
>
> ''She was just an innocent bystander who happened to be in the wrong place
at
> the wrong time,'' Columbus Police Sgt. Holger Upvall said.
>
> ''We think she might be a T.S. Eliot enthusiast who simply got caught in
the
> crossfire. We tried to talk to her in the ER, and she wasn't making much
sense
> -- which would seem to indicate a strong connection with Eliot's work.''
>
> The trouble started, Upvall said, when tailgating revelers got out of
hand.
>
> ''You know how it is,'' he said. ''You get a few neoclassicists doing that
> beer-bong thing with dry sherry. They haven't had any watercress. They can
get
> pretty rowdy.
>
> ''A couple of the blank versers started talking trash about Coleridge. One
> thing led to another. We got matters calmed down until some hotheaded
formalist
> accused a blank verser of an unnatural act with Edgar Guest. Well, that
did
> it.
>
> ''Then someone ran over the mailbox of the school's professor of
Renaissance
> poetry. Witnesses told us the culprit was driving a dark-green Volvo with
a
> 'Save the Earth' bumper sticker. We stopped 137 vehicles fitting that
> description but didn't make any arrests.''
>
> Police tried to form a perimeter around the Birkenstock store and the
> health-food co-op but were too late to save either from looters, Upvall
said.
>
> Firefighters stood by helplessly as rioters -- their faces lighted by the
> flames of arson fires -- carried case after case of tofu from the health
co-op,
> leaving a trail of anguish and alfalfa sprouts in their wake.
>
> Neo-formalists kidnapped a Rod McKuen fan, then holed up in the
Birkenstock
> store, where they hurled sandals at confused police officers attempting to
free
> the hostage.
>
> A police negotiator persuaded the neo-formalists to release the hostage by
> promising to read a list of demands.
>
> Essentially, they are asking for a return to more oblique and obscure
poetry.
>
> ''How can we be expected to teach poetry,'' an unidentified neo-formalist
> noted, ''if there is nothing confusing about it? We need hidden meanings,
> confounding allusions, cryptic inner dialogues -- all those things that
drive
> students crazy.''
>
> Billy Collins, whom the neo-formalists consider far too ''accessible," was
> whisked out a back door of Erskine Hall and hastily driven to the airport.
>
> Collins' lawyer, quoting the poet, said his client had no intention of
> returning to Columbus ''in this or any other lifetime.''
>
> Mike Harden is a Dispatch columnist.
>
> [log in to unmask]