On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 6:54 PM, Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "sharon brogan" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2008 6:24 PM
> Subject: Re: another snap -- July 11, 02008
>
. . .
>
>
>> Sharon, this question is hard to answer because the only earlier poem of
> yours in my inbox is your 4th of July poem. (Don't take that personally; I
> had something like 5000 messages and I recently cut them down to 2000.) All
> I can give is a vague impression, and those are unfair; one should be able
> to cite lines and passages. With that proviso I have to say yes; my
> impression of your work is that it makes the reader look at you (the "I")
> rather than providing an image-world he or she can inhabit. Let me stress
> that this is an extremely widespread shortcoming. Many poets spend their
> entire careers talking ABOUT their grandparents, parents, childhoods,
> marriages, divorces, children, politics, gardens, etc. They do so with more
> or less wit or soulfulness, more or less fresh metaphors and stylistic
> economy. They criticize each other, and perhaps improve, in style alone,
> never aware that there is any deeper issue.
I really am at a loss -- what is this 'deeper issue' you speak of? Is it not
what we are nearly always seeking, in the writing?
> And there are many readers who enjoy, or even recognize, no other form of
> poetry. Such readers want to feel, Oh I've been there; the same thing
> happened to me; I really feel I know her, etc. But as far as I'm concerned,
> these predictable agonies and ecstasies and this sentimental
> pseudo-relationship aren't poetry; they're Oprah.
I do not believe that my readers think they have a 'relationship' with me,
sentimental or otherwise; no more than I believe I have a 'relationship'
with any poet whose work I read and like, but whom I do not know.
[Interesting -- I've found it easier to push through my defensiveness on my
own behalf than that I feel for those who read, and like, my work -- or that
of others like me. I resent the assumption that they (we) are foolish.]
> At the level, not of style, but of inspiration, what makes poetry poetry is
> 1) One tries to go beyond one's comfort-zone (which includes one's
> comfortable lifelong griefs). To probe the unconscious until one is truly
> scared of what one emerges. Baudelaire: "Au fond de l'abime de trouver le
> nouveau." That "new" is what counts, for oneself and the non-Oprahish
> reader.
And this is where I have been lacking -- not always, but lately. The -- oh,
you would not even call them poems, would you? -- have come too easily. I've
not been doing what is needed, the daily writing, the pushing through, the
'practice'.
Although -- I am not persuaded that '"new" is what counts...'
> 2) One renounces the most pervasive ideology of our society and of ordinary
> language: the assumption that there is a Private Life - of "personal
> feelings" and immediate relationships - distinct from the big "abstract"
> world of politics, history, science, etc. In reality, reality is ONE thing.
> It contains one's least admissible dreams, other galaxies, the future,
> hydrangeas, etc. etc. As Forster said of prose, the point is to connect -
> but more relentlessly, rapidly, and bravely than prose can.
Now, since I do not share this assumption ("Private Life" &) I hardly know
what to say. And, I suspect that those who have read my work for awhile
would know that I don't share this assumption.
However, I also do not believe that one can escape oneself; whatever persona
I may adopt, for the sake of a poem or anything else, can be nothing but me,
really. It may be a persona I dislike, or aspire to but cannot reach -- but
it can't be other than me. I can see this world, this reality, through only
my own eyes. So I may be scolded for not adequately educating those eyes,
challenging them, stretching them -- but I must be guiltless for not being
someone else.
> The paradox of Mainstream poetry, which is all I'm accusing you of
> writing, is that on the one hand it's narcissistic, even solipsistic - it
> assumes that one's tsurris (Yiddish: pains, troubles) and petty epiphanies
> are interesting.
Solipsistic. I looked it up, just to be sure. See above.
"... all I'm accusing you of ..." is, if I have this right, narcissism,
solipsism, narrowness, and boring. But then, I asked for it, didn't I?
> But on the other it's utterly timid; it confines itself to the narrowest
> ghetto of insight and subject-matter. I recently encountered two reviews
> that praised two different poets for being "humble." I don't think good
> poetry or poets are ever humble. I'm not.
>
I doubt that I'm humble. I may not be sufficiently ambitious. But it's
possible that I'm merely realistic -- I recognize that I haven't the talent
to be a 'great' poet. I could, though, be a more skillful one. That, I'll
grant you.
You have, however, defined me right out of the possibility of being a "good
poet", or of writing "good poetry". Did you mean to do this?
*********************
Finally, I actually wrote this first, but then decided to go back and
respond bit by bit:
Having chewed on it, slept on it, and discussed it with a mentor, I sit to
write/think this through.
My inclination is to separate my thinking into three threads: this
particular poem; my work in general; and poetry, it's purpose, its function,
its pleasures.
It is a challenge for me to respond thoughtfully -- rather than defensively
-- to this critique, because of some of the
This particular poem:
... should not have been posted without further revision. I think the
critiques specific to this poem are fair.
My work in general:
Well. Words like 'narcissistic', 'solipsistic', 'Oprah', and 'mainstream'
are tough to jump over. 'Mainstream' is certainly not, in itself, insulting
-- it's just that I've never encountered it in any description of me before
this, so am left a bit befuddled by it. And your definition of 'mainstream
poetry' is unlikely to make me happy to embrace it.
While not an Oprah fan, and quite understanding your indictment, I do feel
defensive of her use in this (and some other) contexts. Here is a person who
has overcome several major obstacles to become one of the most wealthy and
influential people of our time, and her name is used to connote the trivial,
and, of course, the female, emotional, "narrow ghetto of ...
subject-matter." I suggest that, if you truly don't want to be dismissed to
your own narrow ghetto of white male chauvinism, you reconsider using her
name in this way.
I feel a bit as I do when "accused" of being a lesbian -- do I deny it,
thereby giving the "insult" credibility? Or do I claim it, thereby refusing
to buy into the premise?
--
~ SB | http://www.sbpoet.com | =^..^=
|