No offense taken, Tim. I understand busy.
Mark
At 04:34 AM 10/1/2009, you wrote:
>Mark,
>
>Sorry for not replying about this. I've been away from the computer
>for a few days. Trying to catch up.
>
>Cheers
>
>Tim A.
>
>On 28 Sep 2009, at 15:47, Mark Weiss wrote:
>
>>I can't speak for Britain, but I do know some of what's happened in
>>the States, or at least in some of the states. It's the collapse of
>>the educational system across much of the country, from grade
>>school through PhD programs (no one should have to read as many
>>dissertations as my various researches have led me to). (as long as
>>I've mentioned PhDs, this past week I met three doctoral candidates
>>in English Lit at Buffalo. They have to pass an oral exam on their
>>field of specialization, for which they and their advisor have to
>>agree on a reading list of 100 books, which in the case of these
>>three was contemporary American poetry. That doesn't sound like
>>graduate school so much as a prolonged vacation. One of them is
>>planning to write her diss about a poet a few years older than
>>herself. So much for any sense of history)
>>
>>In the US there's always been wide educational disparities between
>>regions, partly a matter of cultural differences about the value of
>>education, but largely because the primary funding source for
>>schools is local real estate taxes, which are at the mercy of the
>>voters and of local economics. And curriculum is also largely
>>determined locally, by elected school boards (in a country where
>>most people don't vote and where even those who do usually check off
>>candidates for the less-publicized offices without any knowledge of
>>who they are and what they stand for).
>>
>>Before WWII secondary education wasn't required in most parts of the
>>country, and a high school diploma was considered an achievement,
>>earned by perhaps a quarter of the population. This wasn't entirely
>>a matter of class, tho that enters into it. After the war the
>>schools were hit by a succession of tidal waves of new students,
>>because of changes in laws governing educational requirements, and
>>because of the baby boom and immigration. The schools were
>>overwhelmed, tho schools in the larger cities had been dealing with
>>this since the turn of the century, when the children of the
>>immigration wave of 1885 to 1924 hit the classroom. I know something
>>about the curriculum in what we call in the US public schools from
>>my parents' high school textbooks. I want to emphasize that my
>>parents were working class aspiring to middle class, and their high
>>school was mostly working class children of immigrants. They were
>>taught a great deal of poetry--their American poetry anthology (long
>>lost, alas) was about five inches thick, and included a lot of early
>>modernism (not Pound--largely unknown in this country). As adults my
>>parents owned only a couple of individual books of poetry--I
>>remember a volume of Sandburg--but at least two thick anthologies--a
>>Romantic Poetry from college (they attended the then-free university
>>of the city of New York) and the Untermeyer Modern British and
>>American Poetry, 1944 edition, which my mother must have picked up
>>while my father ws still fighting the Japanese. The Untermeyer,
>>which had plenty of Eliot, Pound, Williams, Cummings, was a fixture
>>of literate households--a perennial best seller. Big thick novels
>>were also scattered about--War and Peace, Dos Passos, Look Homeward
>>Angel, and thinner volumes of Hemingway and Faulkner. My mother was
>>a grade school teacher and my father a businessman. I don't think
>>they were atypical of their class and place.
>>
>>None of this made it any easier for them to accept that, as my
>>father put it, I was farting around with poetry. But it did mean
>>that when I was a small child my mother read me the entirety of the
>>Ancient Mariner while my eyes glazed over. And that the books were
>>there for me to devour.
>>
>>The post WWII increasing demands for education and its
>>democratization led, in the absence of funding and the lack of a
>>tradition of education, not to more literacy but to a progressive
>>dumbing down of the schools. Here's an example. In the 60s (I don't
>>know if this is still true) state colleges in North Carolina were
>>required by law to take the top 75% of graduates of high schools in
>>their catchment areas. By law 75% of those students had to receive
>>diplomas. Of those, 75% had to be accepted at local teachers
>>colleges, etc., and they would go on to staff the local high
>>schools. A mathematically-determined decline and fall.
>>
>>So now the US has one of the lowest rates of book buying in the
>>industrialized world.
>>
>>The influx of immigrants has strained educational systems everywhere
>>it's happened, and Brits and French people regularly complain about
>>the decline in quality. Hey, a bac isn't what it used to be. As a
>>USian I giggle when I hear this stuff. I mean, sure, but you don't
>>know how much worse it can be.
>>
>>Best,
>>Mark
>>
>>At 04:37 AM 9/28/2009, you wrote:
>>>Yes - why is that? I've been trying to fathom it for years.
>>>
>>>Tim A.
>>>
>>>On 28 Sep 2009, at 00:08, Mark Weiss wrote:
>>>
>>>>The chasm between readers and poets seems to be largely an English
>>>>language thing.
>>>
>>>Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry
>>>(University of California Press).
>>>Forthcoming in November 2009 2009.
>>>To read more go to: http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
>>>
>>>"The Whole Island is a masterwork of cartography: a map of what
>>>is, for English-language readers,
>>>an almost unexplored territory, full of poets--at home and in the
>>>diaspora--whom we ought to know."
>>>
>>>-Eliot Weinberger
>>>
>>>"A definitive anthology guiding curious poets, literary scholars
>>>and teachers, and generations of
>>>readers out of the shadow of ignorant, imperialist 'lockdown'
>>>surrounding the breadth and power of
>>>Cuban poetry. [Weiss] provides a salient, comprehensive
>>>introduction covering the fascinating vidas
>>>of individual poets, literary movements, political exigencies, and
>>>the vicissitudes of an ongoing cultural
>>>struggle. But the imagination of the poetry rules. What emerges is
>>>an essential compendium to
>>>world literature. Presente!"
>>>
>>>-Anne Waldman
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