dear stephen
i'm a big eliot fan myself. i also love kenneth rexroth, chiefly for his
translations from the chinese (the genious tu fu), japanese, latin and
greek.
i think he is the best chinese and japanese translator ever, better than
waley and pound. he is a promissing, profeting blend of counterculture
and erudition.
however, i think he is a lesser ORIGINAL poet. i think it is dangerous not
to see the more solid achievements of tse and ep. as greater (these
two have a lot of rubish, but i'm thinking in the good poems).
i think today we should conciliate rexroth and counterculture precisely...
with the straight classics. all classicism pressuposes an earlier
romanticism, from which it elaborates.
i think mina loy is a proto-example of this conciliation, even though she
came before the beats - boy, she was ahead of her time - and though
others can work it out very differently.
does anyone think what i'm saying makes sense?
---- ana
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Vincent" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 4:25 PM
Subject: Re: Kenneth Fearing article
Thanks, David, for the link. I, too, liked this piece on Fearing, a fearless
as he seemed.
It remains amazing how the post-war/Cold War critics (i.e., the New Critics
and Southern Agrarians) in this country tossed these 30's writers off the
cliff. Writers who were radical, members of the CP, and, no doubt, obnoxious
and abrasive to the core in dealing with the T.S. Eliot worlds of high
mandarin culture, conservatism, et al. Boy did Daddy strike back. No matter
how successful many of Kenneth Rexroth's books have been with New
Directions, he, too, forever got the critical cold nose. (Of course, Rexroth
was openly contemptuous of that whole establishment, and that did not help
him, either!) I actually got a call from Kenneth Fearing's son in about
1975 - who lived in Portland - asking me if Momo's Press wanted to do a
Collected Fearing (he was so much on the margins back then). Retrospectively
I was stupid not to do it. But then it seemed like a huge revival project
beyond my small press means or interest at the time.
Now days it strikes me that there are few groups of poets willing to front
for both their work and their politics - this David and Goliath challenge of
the time!
Stephen
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
--- On Thu, 6/11/09, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Kenneth Fearing article
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Thursday, June 11, 2009, 9:43 AM
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=236900
if of interest.
--
David Bircumshaw
"Nothing can be done in the face
of ordinary unhappiness" - PP
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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