Kindof. I was thinking more about the happy wanderer in the bookshop,
the person who never makes it to the litcrit class. We're stuck with a
few large book-sellers and with the best will in the world, I can't
see them stocking every small press and pamphlet. So this is the best
we have. It's not good, it's not great. It leads to a lot of official
poetasting, most of it distasteful. But hey, if some can be enticed
who knows?
I had an inspirational English teacher, and I kept the mimeographed
poems he gave out; I also collected my own typed copies. So yes, I
agree some people will ferret out their own anthology; I was
kick-started by the selection of another. Whether they could do so
totally by themselves is another matter. In your scenario, the happy
wanderers are let free-range amongst a selection of pamphlets. Ah,
selection. No matter where you turn, a selection process appears. If I
type poetry into google I get mostly garbage. If I hadn't done the
reading I've done, how could I tell the difference?
I agree that Universities are deadening, the canon should be blasted
from a cannon. But how can we rid our-selves of official culture?
The Golden Treasury is laughable in the main but I've treasured some
nuggets I found within. However, some anthologies - The Lyrical
Ballads for one IIRC - seem to have had quite an effect in their time.
Roger
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:35 PM, judy prince <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> They sell bcuz they're easier to teach/defend and therefore entrenched in
> the pre-uni and uni systems. And there'll always be those who prefer Eggs
> McMuffin or arranged marriages.
>
> It's the imposition and the halo of "standards" that I particularly
> dislike---these are vastly more harmful, I believe, than most folks think.
> When certain poems/poets are sanctioned (in all the ways, including
> anthologies, that schools/uni's use) , there grows a deadening, a boredom, a
> shrug in many readers---many of whom will then prefer not to read more
> poetry. Happy the grouping (class, seminar, club gathering, ad hoc motleys)
> that digs into a table of cheap or free poetry pamphlets or paperbacks and
> starts reading and debating! I'll bet that setting'd produce relatively
> more poets than the anthology-using classroom. My guess, also, is that the
> solitary reader of poetry will quickly select-out from an anthology into
> her/his own "table" of pamphlets and paperbacks---something the
> self-propelled usually do. But how many more folk are crabbed up in
> classrooms? Seems a shame to offer them---mainly and
> continuously---regurgitated pabulum.
>
> Judy
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Day" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 5:48 PM
>
>
> Subject: Re: Perloff on anthologies
>
>
> But they do sell, and they do give a taster of poetry to people who
> o'wise might not have read a range of poets.
>
> Roger
>
> On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 9:37 PM, judy prince <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Mark, I've always felt that anthologies---PC, Balanced, Proper,
> Subjective,
> > Pricey---ought to be replaced by a reader/student's own poetic choices
> > amongst the banquet of inexpensive paperbacks. A tradition of imposed
> > aesthetic judgments (i.e., anthologies) demeans poetry, poets and---not
> the
> > least---the readers of poetry.
> >
> > Judy
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
> >
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 3:16 PM
> > Subject: Re: Perloff on anthologies
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Judy: In the lineup of poets she included in her
> > course Hughes is a lightweight, however much one
> > likes his work. Cesaire isn't. Context is all.
> > Which is why anthologizing is so tough.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > At 03:04 PM 4/28/2008, you wrote:
> >
> > > Ah, alas, Doug, leaving out Langston Hughes, one of my all-time
> > favourites!
> > >
> > > Judy
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas Barbour"
> > <[log in to unmask]>
> > > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > > Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 2:23 PM
> > > Subject: Perloff on anthologies
> > >
> > >
> > > In another interview, Marjorie Perloff has this to say; intereting in
> > > light of Jon's comments:
> > >
> > >
> > > DC: Perhaps what is lacking in most journals and anthologies is an
> > > inclusionary approach to poetry and not one dependent upon being a
> > > card-carrying member of a particular poetic group. Such a criticism
> > > could be leveled against some of the experimentalists as well as the
> > > mainstream.
> > >
> > > MP: Yes, but anthologies are, by definition, problematic today because
> > > no gathering can be definitive and perhaps it's best to make up one's
> > > own for teaching purposes.
> > >
> > > DC: If you were to edit a poetry anthology and the publisher has given
> > > you total control over the anthology from inception to publication‹,
> > > how would you choose what would be included? What would be the
> > > governing principle that would hold the anthology together?
> > >
> > > MP: Well, I've never wanted to edit an anthology because I'm not sure
> > > there's a good way of doing it at the moment: there are too many
> > > schools, factions, movements, interests. But if I did, my criterion
> > > would be VALUE. I would want to include only those poets whose work is
> > > distinctive, original, really interesting, regardless of male/female
> > > ratios, identity politics, and so on. So that's why I don't edit an
> > > anthology. These days one must be sensitive to all the special
> > > interests.
> > >
> > > In teaching (which is a bit like anthologizing, isn't it?), I do
> > > relatively few poets. This year in "Modern Poetry" at USC, a 15-week
> > > semester—I taught Eliot, Pound, Stein, Duchamp, Stevens, Moore, Loy,
> > > Williams--and then Aimé Césaire even though in translation, because I
> > > think he's a much stronger poet than, say, Claude McKay or Langston
> > > Hughes and I did want to teach some African-American poetry. Notice I
> > > omitted Frost and H.D. Simply a matter of taste: I never teach work I
> > > don't really like.
> > >
> > > Doug
> > > Douglas Barbour
> > > [log in to unmask]
> > >
> > > http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> > >
> > > Latest books:
> > > Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> > > http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> > > Wednesdays'
> > >
> >
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
> > >
> > > There are no wrong notes!
> > >
> > > Thelonious Sphere Monk
> > >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
> "She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue
> She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too"
> The Go-Betweens
>
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue
She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too"
The Go-Betweens
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