I think this gets all complicated and does not simplify too easily - think,
for example, of mutually supportive combinations of "rich" & "poor" as
Kenward Elmslie's relations - including publishing- with Ted Berrigan, Ron
Padgett and Joe Brainard.
Or take Ron Silliman - whatever may be one's critical chemistry du jour with
Ron! - he don't come from rich blood and he's managed to create a huge
presence, critically and creatively. It's quite over the top!
Much goes on in the dialog between wealth versus poverty, power versus the
imagination - and the dialog produces interesting work. They alternately
hate each other, fall in love with each other, get self-piteous and swear
never to talk to one another again. One camps receives awards and
scholarship and the other gets either celebrated or satirized. And sometimes
they fall in love with each other. Each camp loves to retreat to either its
horses or cats. Etc. Etc. Yet there is great work that rises and gets
published out of the grist. Tenaciousness may be the operative word for
those who achieve a public in this binary dance. Which is not to say the
work is always good, just A for effort.
The least interesting, or often suspect work comes from those who remain and
operate as singularly rich or singularly poor and remain intent on speaking
only to their own. Then there are no doubt periods among many of us where we
have spent more than enough time speaking only to ourselves! If that isn't
interesting, it's time to put up another shingle.
Did I say all that? When I should be sending work out!
Stephen V
Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
> Dear Judy,
>
> Thanks for your kind message. I was referring to www.foetry.com: I think it
> has come up recently on this list. There were copies of Bin Ramke's letters
> of support for a finalist in the University of Georgia Contemporary Poetry
> Series, for which Bin was the editor, with a very distinguished record. I'm
> glad I read them because they taught me what letters of support actually are
> or can be; and as I say, I have never seen anything like them supporting my
> own work. The bar has been raised. It has always been both a personal
> strength and weakness that I am delighted and joyfully surprised by small
> pleasures, mainly simply by survival. I like what your Quaker friend says
> about education.
>
> I have been thinking of self-publication a lot recently and I suppose Cummings
> is a salutary example. Essentially, much of his work was self-published.
> Class may have shielded him from anxiety in relation to that. Without the
> protection of class (several generations educated; money; property), one may
> tend to think one has something to prove, and that self-publication marks
> failure, i.e., if one was any good someone else would want to publish the
> work. It's not necessarily so though.
> Cummings was obviously good, but still published patron-funded books in tiny
> editions with miniscule sales.
>
> I really am trying to adjust how I understand poetry and audience. Recently,
> Randolph published a small chapbook of mine, VIVAS. When I distributed it to
> my family, I was a little disturbed to see it used as a beer-mat; also
> interested to know that the title VIVAS was instantly read as a health
> insurance company (rival to the VHI where my sister works); also cheered to
> hear my family sitting around the table reading the poems. Ridiculing them
> too; but also remembering things like the milk-bottles of our childhood, and
> having conversations that would not have happened without the poems. It's
> sort of a gristly satisfaction, but a bargain I agree to.
>
> I like to be able to change the conversation a little. I like to toss poetry
> in there and to participate on terms which include poetry, which is so much
> part of my effective dialogue with the world, if indeed I have any outside my
> check-book and credit cards.
>
> Mairead
>
>>>> [log in to unmask] 07/30/05 12:54 PM >>>
> Dear Mairead,
>
> Me jumping in here, a sober enthusiast on the topic of class and the arts,
> finding that it translates: If you have the socioeconomic position, you can
> pump your art into the "mainstream" or you can choose those whose art you
> will pump. It's a rule familiar to us who have plenty of word power but
> little green power, when we glance at the political, corporate, and legal
> worlds in any of our countries. And it's a well worn rule for those with
> few words and fewer dollar bills. But the story isn't interminably dark,
> primarily because artists are pretty much ignored (kind of like an old
> Quaker friend once said about education: "It's amazing that wealthy folk
> will entrust the education of their young to the impoverished.") In the
> arts, at times, we display our beautiful hearts and guts because we seem
> unable to help ourselves, and the real-er the bleeding, gutty and beautiful
> display, the closer we come to lifting the entire stage of art---in spite of
> the tiresome drag.
>
> Btw, Mairead, did you "slip" (or purposely) write "foetry" in this message?
> Wonderful, either way!
>
> Your comments that especially drew my attention:
>
> "The biography makes clear not only how these publications were financed (by
> family and patrons) but also how tiny the sales were, in some cases less
> than 10 copies. That knowledge gives hope, at the same time as taking it
> away!"
>
> "It was not disillusioning, but sobering, to see the extent to which class
> and Harvard connections facilitated his career."
>
> My thanks to you for your presence on this List.
>
> Judy
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mairead Byrne" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2005 11:05 AM
> Subject: Re: Cummings
>
>
> Well Alison, I like Cummings' poetry very much. And I have to say the
> biography included some photos of him which I liked too. But, probably as a
> result of my own life, I have a strong appreciation for paid work and
> financial/family responsibility. It disillusioned me that Cummings never
> worked or earned money but relied on borrowing/subventions from friends and
> family. It was not disillusioning, but sobering, to see the extent to which
> class and Harvard connections facilitated his career. When the economy of
> the poetry world is folded back, as it is a little here, it refreshes me to
> the realities of my own class/economic situation, and how this informs my
> career. I felt something similar when I read Bin Ramke's support letters
> on the foetry site: I have never been able to generate such letters and
> reading them makes me aware of how little I have contented myself with, and
> the level of support that is necessary in order to get a book published.
> This is not a criticism of Bin Ramke, who has published my work in the
> Denver Quarterly and who has always been attentive and responsive. Just
> that when one lifts oneself out of one's struggle long enough to read
> something like the Cummings' biography, one can gain awareness about the
> realities, limitations, and achievements of one's own situation.
> I think also my disillusionment with Cummings may relate to a general
> disillusionment with the romantic image of the poet; not surprisingly I am
> more keenly interested in the construction of the woman poet, and the
> reconciliation or at least co-survival of obligation to family and poetry.
> Nothing new here I know.
> Mairead
>
>>>> [log in to unmask] 07/30/05 5:12 AM >>>
> How is the biography disillusioning, Mairead? Curious - is it just around
> his privilege, or is it something else?
>
> On 30/7/05 3:03 PM, "Mairead Byrne" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> The biography makes clear not only how these publications were financed
>> (family and patrons) but also how tiny the sales were, in some cases less
>> than 10 copies. That knowledge gives hope, at the same time as taking it
>> away!
>
> Hope for us all - I've said this before, but I do think of a horse bolting
> out of control downhill when I contemplate the word "career" in connection
> with the word "poetry"...
>
> Best
>
> A
>
>
> Alison Croggon
>
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
> Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
|
