Ah, Fred definitely has his prejudices, Barry, & they're not really
mine, but I can sometimes sympathize.
In that poem, though, despite the repetition that I dont like, I think
there's an attempt to deal with something akin to what painting does,
or does to the I/eye of the poem, that comes through in some of the
lines rather powerfully for me. It isn't, I will say, a poem I feel
pulled back to.
Let's allow for sometimes somewhat conflictual discussion, eh?
Doug
On 6-Oct-08, at 9:10 AM, Barry Alpert wrote:
> "Ann Lauterbach
> Ruth and David E. Schwab Professor of Languages and Literature
>
> Program(s): Integrated Arts, Literature, Writing Program in Fiction
> and Poetry
>
> B.A., University of Wisconsin, Madison. Woodrow Wilson Fellow,
> Columbia University.
> Teacher and director of the literature program at the Institute of
> Contemporary Arts.
> Books include If in Time (2001); On a Stair (1997); And For Example
> (1994); Clamor
> (1991); Before Recollection (1987); Many Times, But Then (1979).
> Contributing editor,
> Conjunctions (1981– ). Wrote column "The Night Sky" in American
> Poetry Review. Grants:
> New York State Foundation for the Arts, Ingram Merrill Foundation,
> Guggenheim
> Foundation, MacArthur Fellowship (1993). Faculty, Milton Avery
> Graduate School of the
> Arts and Center for Curatorial Studies. (1997– ) David and Ruth
> Schwab Professor of
> Languages and Literature."
>
>
> Will Poetryetc's "board" post the list's language regarding sexism.
> That phrase "meaty
> masterpiece", within a context which can't be regarded as literary
> criticism and more
> closely resembles jealous personal assault (repeated from "before"),
> needs serious
> consideration.
>
>
> On Mon, 6 Oct 2008 09:45:32 -0400 Frederic Pollack wrote:
>
> This is really really really terrible. The word "light" - usually
> pronounced, at readings,
> with a kind of tearful gurgle before the l and a breathy-ecstatic
> gasp after the t; the "you"
> interpolated like a bumper between speaker and reader; the gassy-
> ethereal non-situation
> and non-emotions; the emphasis on "images" - otherwise she'd haveta
> mention
> "language" --- I've noticed this poet before; she seems to be
> respected by po-biz flacks.
> And why not? In her, Langpo meaningless mates elegantly with
> Mainstream triviality.
>
>
> On Mon, 6 Oct 2008 09:51:35 -0400, Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]
> > wrote:
>
>> Sorry - in my remarks on the Lauterbach poem, I meant to say
>> "Mainstream
>> meaninglessness." -- After that meaty masterpiece of hers, these
>> two recent
>> ones of mine (no doubt overmasculinist, unpleasantly "closed,"
>> depressingly
>> retrograde) may serve as a ... sorbet.
>
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
bleary with hashish at a ghazal dud show
in Kurdistan, soaring Muslim melodies
over a smoked-out Jamaican one drop
Brian Francis Slattery
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