I very much appreciate, Stephen, your loving, rich synthesis of this topic
which I couldn't get my hands 'round, not all by m'sel', anyway.
If I weren't in the midst of creating homemade French vanilla with toasted
almonds ice cream, I'd flag the especially beautiful parts of your writing
(loved horses n dogs!). P'raps later.
All the best and do keep posting here for us these analyses (ANY topic), as
well as your Snaps and other pomes.
Judy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Vincent" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2005 4:55 PM
Subject: Re: Cummings
>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
>
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