I was reading David Baptiste Chirot's essay on Bob Cobbing, since I cannot
copy and paste I will be brief, but you can find the part quoted here
http://www.acetonemagazine.org/10/body/wri3.htm
and the start of the article on the previous page.
At one point a young Ukrainian poet wanted to interview Bob informally. The
man spoke no English, so an elabroate system for translation was made. The
Ukrainian would give the question to ask to a Russian who translated it into
Russian to a man who translated into German and the I translated it into
English. The question and answer I will never forget are: "Mr. Cobbing, what
do you consider the primary quality of a work of art? What do you look for
that really determines what a work of art it?"
"Robustiousness", Bob replied in a very deep voice, filled with
"robustiousness".
From: "MJ Walker" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2006 1:19 PM
> Well, I do think Elizabeth Barrett was shrivelling *before her elopement.
> Was George Eliot "unsexy"? Lewes seems not to have thought so and their
> liaison caused social unease. What David points out can be interestingly
> modified, though: Women Poets (sic) were sometimes praised , as were (I
> first typed "qwere") male poets , for their masculinity; thus, Richard
> Garnett introducing Sara Coleridge in the volume of A.H.Miles *The poets
> and the poetry of the century* devoted to Women Poets wrote "While
> deficient in no female grace, she is intellectually distinguished by a
> quality for which we can find no better name than manliness" etc, or
> Mackenzie Bell judiciously remarked that Augusta Webster (no drooping or
> spinsterish flower she), while lacking E.B. Browning's "impulse and fire"
> or C.Rossetti's "deep and searching symbolism" surpassed all "other women
> poets of England" "in that quality which, as it is generally deemed the
> specially masculine quality, is called virility." (One will note the
> hesitation of both writers as to the specifically male nature of
> "virility".) In the above-mentioned anthology there are many poets, by the
> way, whose lives in no way suggest gender-related marginalisation. No less
> a personage than W.B.Yeats intro's Ellen O'Leary, whom he admiringly
> describes as an active Fenian. Mathilde Blind, though apparently unmarried
> ("Miss Blind") is described with unconcealed admiration as a "traveller,
> continually on the move from land to land, [who] has accumulated the
> impressions derived from many different regions, and many different
> societies." Emily Pfeiffer (what? never heard her piping?) seems to fit in
> with the drooping stereotype ("from the first weak, and almost morbidly
> sensitive"), yet "Her husband believed in her powers, and was wise in his
> suggestions and encouragements [....] Mr Pfeiffer predeceased his wife by
> exactly a year." Doesn't sound much like marginalisation in that marriage,
> does it? "I would be a goddess in/The light of those dear eyes,/Apt to
> hold you as to win,/All-beautiful, all-wise,/Pray you wherefore should you
> deem/This a vain and idle dream?/Purblind love that cannot see/That woman
> still to man may be/Whatever she can seem!" And she writes a sonnet on
> Evolution: "Hunger that strivest in the restless arms/Of the sea-flower
> [...]/Thou art the Unknown God on whom we wait. Thy path the course of our
> unfolding fate", while she eulogizes George Eliot as "Lost queen and
> captain, Pallas of our band" etc. No shrinking violet, she.
> I've enjoyed dipping into this dusty tome after its years of marginalised
> shelf-life...
> mj
