A horse and a chicken walk into a bar...
judy prince wrote:
> Looks like one of the bottom lines on anthologies, Tad, is that they
> were "destructive" to me (& of course I maintain that it's the same
> for many other folks), but for others in different edu systems,
> pursuing different majors, and in different countries (as Roger Day's
> just detailed of his own situation), they were helpful. (Tough for me
> to suss, since I didn't "come up" as he & others did.) Hence it's
> enlightening to hear what others have experienced. (Tho I confess to
> approaching a catatonic boredom at addressing the issue any more!!!)
>
> Any jokes you got this morning? Non-poetry jokes, pulllleeeezzz! <g>
>
> Judy
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "TheOldMole" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 7:58 AM
> Subject: Re: Perloff on anthologies
>
>
> A mimeo'd collection of beloved poems, from Kipling to Cummings to
> Service to Housman, or whoever -- IS an anthology, and is a marvelous
> thing, but not absolutely guaranteed to be better than one put together
> by Sam Gwynn or W. H. Auden or Kenneth Koch.
>
> I had a friend who also made his own anthology of poems that
> particularly spoke to him. Since he lived in a small town, and wasn't a
> habitue of poetry-rich independent bookstores, his was entirely
> composed of poems he had cut out of The New Yorker.
>
> Now, I know we know that New Yorker=bad, even worse than anthologies,
> and most of us would not hold this up as a model, but my friend was
> creating his own scrapbook of poems that meant something to him, from
> what was available to him. My other friend who told me that she'd part
> with almost anything sooner than her Norton anthology had fallen in love
> with the riches to be found in a couple of thousand pages of poems, or
> however many Norton has, and I don't think she was any more culturally
> deprived than my New Yorker scrapbook friend, or you or Roger.
> Anthologies aren't for everyone, and they aren't the only way to
> experience poetry, but I can't accept the argument that they're
> destructive.
>
> And I say this as someone who doesn't assign anthologies to his classes.
>
> judy prince wrote:
>> Wonderful, Roger, that you've chosen to embrace this issue---and from
>> your own poetry-awakenings---rather than peck at a convenient stiff
>> edge or two. My first knowing of poems was from my sis's (me 11, she
>> 16) homemade 3-ring binder filled with carefully-typewritten poems.
>> She'd, as had your English teacher, and then you, given herself the
>> luxury of Her Own Collection, culled from those at school and on our
>> regular visits to the library. For quite awhile I assumed they were
>> her own poems! <g> Later, I just enjoyed flipping thru the binder
>> and memorizing bits, comforted by their familiarity.
>>
>> Again I say that my prob is less (if at all) with the Selecting than
>> it is with the imposing and sanctioning of "standards" for poetry, as
>> presented in the Perfect Wholes of edu-anthologies. For me, my
>> sister's collection meant I could do the same: I could (at most)
>> write my own collection, or (at least) choose poems I preferred. But
>> the glossy, fat, annotated, annointed school anthologies made me
>> doubtful, glaze-eyed, and suspicious. I'd been +distanced+ from
>> poems, poets, and the possibility of my own creatings. My model had
>> been my sister. Now it was Somebody/ies that I never was and never
>> could be. "Models" are profoundly important, esp for females and
>> "minorities"---as well as many males and most of the "majority" who
>> feel weirdly outside the mainframe.
>>
>> And to the lesser prob of Selection. Though it seems the obvious
>> problem, I think it's largely a false issue. Rather, anthologies
>> conveniently, and I think, disastrously, preclude the ways folk can
>> know poetry. Let's just take one way as an example---the one that
>> most affected you. If each of your teachers, eschewing anthologies,
>> had mimeo-ed poems they admired & loved---and from that
>> private-made-public joy had lit debates in class (the inimitable
>> "stick" of peer opinions goaded to gather resources)-----would you,
>> honestly, have suffered the lack of anthologies? You mite've had a
>> different patchwork of poems, but would it have been an "inferior",
>> less-igniting collection? I suspect, from your telling, that it
>> would have opened more of the poetry world as well as your confident
>> participation in it.
>>
>> It may turn on WHO does the selecting, the evaluating, the
>> default-deciding of what is ("good") poetry.
>>
>> Judy
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Day" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 3:59 AM
>> Subject: Re: Perloff on anthologies
>>
>>
>> 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
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
--
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
The moral is this: in American verse,
The better you are, the pay is worse.
--Corey Ford
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