> At 12:06 AM 11/12/98 +0000, Cris Cheek wrote:
> .
> >I see no problem with Al Fisher and Simon Armitage.
I do cris. wouldn't wish that on old friend Al. As far as readings are
concerned, okay, "un moment de honte est vite passé" one grits one's teeth if
reading in the other's den (as Lisa clearly did, in PQ's post). But to do an
anthology, which was I think the first suggestion re Fisher + Armitage, doesnt
seem viable. For one, the toll it would take to work with someone of opposite
sensibility on a large-scale project, would be too much. For two, the result
will always be very mixed bag. There's one example of such a collaboration I
know of: Robert Kelly & Paris Leary's _A Controversy of Poets_ from 1965. And
after all these years I still haven't read all of the Leary section, depite
various attempts. If the book itself was indeed a valiant attempt, it was also
finally a failure if it intended more than a controversial juxtaposition.
The two modes simply do not connect. Jackson Mac Low makes James Merrill
look like a boring dinosaur. Just as Gray Burr is made to look even more dead
than he is, when you read the preceding poet, i.e. Robin Blaser, first.
Obviously the Leary crew will just turn these names around. But, for me, for
example, reading the book in 1967, was an absolute confirmation of what was the
interesting US poetry at that moment. And who were the enemies. (Well, I guess
you could say that in that sense the book was successful!)
Pierre
ps. Guess there could be some liminal ways in which for thematic or contextual
reasons one could bring some of the other company in. Which is what Jerry & I
tried to do in MILLENNIUM with, say, Adrienne Rich or Anne Sexton.
Though the dream of such a catholic anthology that wld gather the "best" of both
sides seems to resurface at periodic intervals -- Jed Rasula for example, keeps
mentioning the necessity of such an enterprise to me.
--
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Pierre Joris
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http://www.albany.edu/~joris/
6 Madison Place
Albany NY 12202
tel: 518 426 0433
fax: 518 426 3722
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Through the living the road of the dead
— Ungaretti
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