I just opened the book to find a particularly fine example for the list and
got lost. It's all very fine, and lovely to have together, new material
also, tho it's going to be difficult getting used to its airy white pages
after my now 18 year old copy of Granite Pail.  Not just familiarity, a
question also of book design. The Collected is on starkly white almost
toothless paper, 30 lines to the page, 10 pt. on 14 pt. leading. Feels like
museum cases that no dust will ever adhere to. As opposed to the warmer,
softer paper, 43 line pages, 10/12 of The Granite Pail, which I think
better served the poetry. The collected also seems over-designed: the
display faces heavy sans-serif bold, sometimes, as on the title page, in
both black and half-black,  or Janson capitals very widely spaced. Too
clean, too perfect, too gimmicky. A perfect mausoleum that at once excludes
and signifies the status of the corpse. And the artwork, on dust cover,
flyleaf and in two places as page ornament: a whispy pattern of
out-of-focus twigs and blossoms from a 1920s floral still-life. Very
feminine, like a a transparent floral scarf or a doily. One can almost
smell pot-pourri.

But a gift anyway, an essential volume, and I'll probably feel better about
the design when inevitably something gets spilled on it.

On the why of "American," two points:

1. from almost the very beginning the US has been trying to define itself.
A friend once explained to me with a straight face that the Scotch-Irish
(early 18th century immigrants from the Protestant plantation in Ulster)
are the real Americans. In the face of the hordes of immigrants, voluntary
and otherwise,  from every which place, and the indigenous. It's common to
hear folks in other sectors refer to New York, by far the largest city, as
"not really America." New York is a convenient handle--what they really
mean is the entire urbanized sector from Washington to Boston. So an
"American poet" with an "American voice" is a part of that--an effort to
define, but also an effort to exclude--the American in this case being Midwest.

There's a peculiar habit of speech that's common in the US: we mistake
"heartland" for "hinterland." The midwest is referred to as the former,
when it's actually the latter. The suggestion is that the status of farmer
in Iowa (or mail clerk in Wisconsin) is what we all have strayed from but
secretly aspire to, and that status is endowed with all manner of
"american" virtues of self-reliance, despite the reality--the yeoman
farmers, the denizens of the little house on the prairie were, in "the good
old days," serfs of the railroads and now are all but extinct, replaced by
agribusiness. Nonetheless, we continue to imagine in our patriotic rhetoric
an americanness tied to the land and speaking the flat dialect of the
prairies.

It's for some a useful political fiction. It helps justify the
over-representation in government of states with small and shrinking
populations. And it's allied to the myth of the cowboy, tho the accent
differs. The cowboy is the hero of childhood male fantasy, a life of
freedom, independent of even emotional ties, riding off into the sunset on
the only creature that really matters,  but bounded always by the vast,
empty plain. Which is why George Bush, scion of New England aristocracy,
the "best" boarding schools and Yale, chooses to speak a West Texas drawl.

2. the US continues to be post colonial in its sense of cultural
inferiority to the "mother country." This despite the irrelevance to most
US writers of anything written in Britain in the past 50 years.

A good text for both points would be the 1935 film "Ruggles of Redgap." Try
not to barf during Laughton's final paean to America.

At the time wealthy Americans were marrying their daughters off to decrepit
British aristocrats--the Brits got cash to maintain an obsolete lifestyle,
and the Americans got social status.

I'm not sure how much the reviewer buys into all this--he may in fact be
using it selfconsciously to try to attract less sophisticated readers to
Niedecker.

OK, enough for a New Year's Day.

Mark


>At 09:25 AM 1/1/2004 +0000, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>It is good, Ron
>
>I like the way that he explains to some extent what might need explaining
>without patronising. I like the use of simple and clear language
>
>I like "glance-rhyme".  That's mine too now.
>
>One thing which struck me as odd - and a thing which I think takes us
>outside of Niedecker as a subject - is
>"the life work of a really fine American poet"
>
>Why specify _American_ like that?
>
>It seems to me the meaning of _American_ there is slightly different to the
>meaning in "Hear the American voice there? Niedecker lived most of her life
>in Black Hawk Island, Wis., and her voice is quite Northern Midwest. "
>
>Though it's difficult to be sure because the latter isnt developed. And as a
>sentiment, I dont think the text quoted is especially USAmerican... Maybe in
>"put forth"... I wish he'd said more on that. He was very careful to be sure
>he explained his terms elsewhere; it's a pity he didn't check we heard what
>he thought we shoud hear - I cant believe there is unanimity on what an
>"American voice" is
>
>& I dont think anyone has ever disputed Niedecker was USAmerican... or that
>anyone is likely to claim there is any shortage of fine poets in USA
>
>Never mind. Still a good review. And a book I want. (Fairy godpersons to
>note)
>
>Happy same old crap everyone
>
>L
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ron <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: 31 December 2003 14:56
>Subject: Niedecker review
>
>
> >An excellent review of Lorine Niedecker in today's Philadelphia
> >Inquirer:
> >
> >http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/magazine/daily/7602366.htm
> >
> >Ron
> >