Anny, would you kindly share this with the Poetryetc list? Thank you.
Kent
*
I've been invited to share this commentary on Lyric Poetry after
Auschwitz and of course I am happy and honored to!
The translation is by Ammiel Alcalay.
Kent
*
Below is an exchange between Ammiel Alcalay and Semezdin Mehmedinovic
(Bosnian poet, author of Sarajevo Blues; 1998, City Lights; Nine
Alexandrias, 2003, City Lights; and numerous other books in Bosnian)
about Kent Johnson?s Lyric Poetry After Auschwitz; the text was
translated from Bosnian into English by Ammiel.
Ammiel, Mon. 08 August
I got the copy of Kent's book that you sent today. I read it
immediately and was really struck by it: beautiful, humorous, very
painful and intelligent. I haven't read anything this fresh in a long
time: my hope would be that this poetry has some kind of serious effect
or, barring that, that it at least bring back some primary faith in
poetry. I'm happy that you're in some way present here; I had the
feeling while I was reading the book that it was the direct result of
your public work over the past ten years...
Sem
*
sem,
i'm going to ask you if I can quote you on this because there is a
controversy raging on various poetry blogs now about kent's book and
what you wrote here would be perfect...
*
Ammiel:
That would make me very happy - by all means quote me if you think that
it is well enough articulated; I think that Kent's book needs to be
talked about as much as possible precisely because it is unsettling;
it's unsettling to the less talented and less courageous (and that,
unfortunately, includes about 90% of the poets in America). I was
reading somewhere, that one of the mindless assertions (but today
typical) written on one of the blogs is that the war in Iraq (the one
Kent's book is dealing with) is 'old news.' Well, that's a terrifying
phrase, not just because the war is ongoing and even more horrendous
measures are in preparation but because, let's say, Hiroshima then is
old news and poetry shouldn't try to deal with it, as if poetry were
some prime time TV show. What must be most unnerving for poets here is
the freshness of Kent's book on all levels - on the formal and every
other level, because it's alive, it's speaking of reality, while most
American poets would still rather go on writing about anything and
everything except themselves in the world they're in, and certainly not
about things that are so unsettling; what's more, they've been writing
about nothing so long, that they're not in any position to write about
anything concrete; the freshness of Kent's book completely overshadows
most of what's being written now and it doesn't at all surprise me that
there would be negative reactions among "the poets." But this actually
really saddens me. Because the book opens a dialog with serious problems
that all of us on this planet are living with, while a reaction like
that makes it seem as if all that is at stake here is cleansing
relations between poets and their conscience. But now I'm telling you
things you know a lot more about and better than I do. So, that's it, I
just want to say that I'm not at all indifferent to what is going on,
that the whole thing hits very close to home for me.
s.
__________________________________
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star!
Friedrich Nietzsche
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