Really, it is.  No more after this, to comment or answer.  I'm tired, my 
health is shot, I really was incarcerated, I stand a good chance to 
losing my internet access and my car next month, and you may interpret 
all this is a "Get the hell away from me" plaintive melody if you wish, 
played upon the English horn. Or not.  I don't really care.

In late September 1990 I sat up all night in the visiting room of a 
north Jersey hospital where my then 9-year-old son was recovering from 
emergency surgery.  I, who had been writing less than a month at that 
point, was totally caught. I read through the Harvard Book of 
Contemporary American Poetry, which Vendler edited, and interspersed it 
with reruns of Linda Hamilton in *Beauty and the Beast*.   But I read 
enough, and what I read seized me and still has not renounced its hold.  
Okay, HHV was promoting her Curia, at the time including Jorie Graham 
and Michael Blumenthal. The latter was the poet who gave me my first 
voice and who remains a favorite to this day. At age 46 I wanted to 
write like him and by 63 have found I can barely stutter like one of 
Eugene O'Neill's fog people.  That's not a change of voice so much as an 
irrecoverable loss because I listened to everyone but myself.

What if HHV had read some piece of whatever that I had in print or 
online. What if she'd anointed me?  Could I have done my "I'm not 
worthy!" routine and pushed aside a hand with her strength and reach?  
Did David, son of Jesse, tell the prophet Samuel to go kiss a duck?  Or 
would I have let Helen show me around, poet under glass, and open me to 
opportunities like the Briggs-Copeland lectureship at Harvard and other 
plums? Would I have let her pre-critique my work as she's reputed to 
have done with Ms. Graham?

A lot of this feels like it's about a poetic demimonde into which I 
suspect people stagger without intending to do so. Except Michael 
Blumenthal does not appear to be a courtesan.  He is hugely talented, 
with a voice like a cello. Some people like Jagged but truthfully I know 
it when I see it and I despise it. It is a curious state of affairs that 
Blumenthal's association with HHV makes some--not me--wonder how good he 
really is (like your own instincts are not good enough) and why he 
became as lucky as he became.  And why should I feel this way?  Simple 
jealousy?  Or resentment that systems of influence exist--be they from 
Vendler or from other parts of the world--into which some or many of us 
do not fit?  I am sure Silliman too has his collection of acolytes, 
wannabes, and offers promotional opportunities if you sit at his feet 
long enough.  The trouble is that labels adhere to us like napalm.  I 
rather liked Silliman until I found out he was supposed to be a Language 
poet.  Is that fair or unfair?  I still sort of like him: he links to my 
blog among 800 others.

Since I made the mistake of sleeping on this, I don't remember the point 
except that it has something vaguely to do with spheres of influence, 
personal Oy Gevalts, and some such such.  So I stop.

ken

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Ken Wolman			    rainermaria.typepad.com

"It takes a big man to cry.  It takes a really big man to
laugh at that man."