Rilke is certainly in the picture, Doug, and some Greeks.
What Spanish? Vallejo, Neruda, Machado (what a pure poet) Lorca.
That's just for starters. Vallejo, although he could write rubbish at
times, would also be my bet for the greatest 20th century European
language poet.
2008/12/10 Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>:
> I'm not sure I'd go that far, but the point is worth taking in. For many of
> us, poets in our first (often only) language are the ones we will learn most
> from, see most fully.
>
> Nevertheless, Celan, absolutely (do we count Rilke?). And probably some of
> those Russians.
>
> Whom would you name (& what Spanish?); there are also a couple of Greeks
> early on?
>
> Doug
> On 9-Dec-08, at 6:06 PM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
>
>> I would timidly hazard that the greatest poetry of the twentieth
>> century was in Russian and Spanish, plus Paul Celan, I don't think any
>> twentieth century British or American poets are in the same league.
>
> 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
>
> let us make an anthology of recipes
> let us edit for breakfast
> our most unspeakable appetites --
> . . . . .
> let us answer hunger
> with boild chimera
> and apocalyptic tea,
> an arcane salad of spiced bibles,
> tossed dictionaries --
>
> Gwendolyn MacEwen
>
--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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