 |
 |
>From: Michael Snider <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and > poetics <[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Regional Poetics? >Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 15:17:32 -0400 > >Revanthi Ragunathan has reminded me how different the poetry world can >be from the world I experience in Raleigh, NC, where the best and >largest independent bookstore, one recognized as the independent >American bookseller of the year, has fewer poetry titles on its shelves >than I do at home. David Bircumshaw similarly reminded me of the >difference between the English and US situations. Sevanthi, as in the flower. And actually, I must say that I have no problems remembering the diversity of the audience for poetry, since those poets who are often mentioned on this list--Creeley, Levertov, Olson--are not poets I estimate very highly. But I think in this specific instance--i.e. our different observations of which poets are popular in America--I suspect that it's not so much a question of regional poetics as, to put it delicately, other variables. >"New Formalism, for example, which is sometimes misleadingly portrayed >as an academic literary movement, is actually of a piece with rap and >cowboy poetry in recognizing the auditory nature of poetry." And yet, rap's historic continuities are with poets who wrote in open forms, from The Last Poets to Linton Kwesi Johnson. Not to mention, say the influence of Ntozake Shange on someone like Talib Kweli. Really, I can't take Dana Gioia at all seriously. In Can Poetry Matter, he goes on about the diminished role of poets without pausing to acknowledge how incredibly important poetry has been to American social movements. And sometimes, as in the case of Marilyn Hacker or Gwendolyn Brooks or Anne Sexton or Carolyn Kizer or Thom Gunn, to my tastes rather fine poets. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com