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Ken, you have my sympathy for the really bad time you're going through. It would be a great loss for this list if you lost your internet access - please keep on kvetching ! Viel Glück mj Kenneth Wolman wrote: > Really, it is. No more after this, to comment or answer. I'm tired, > my health is shot, I really was incarcerated, I stand a good chance to > losing my internet access and my car next month, and you may interpret > all this is a "Get the hell away from me" plaintive melody if you > wish, played upon the English horn. Or not. I don't really care. > > In late September 1990 I sat up all night in the visiting room of a > north Jersey hospital where my then 9-year-old son was recovering from > emergency surgery. I, who had been writing less than a month at that > point, was totally caught. I read through the Harvard Book of > Contemporary American Poetry, which Vendler edited, and interspersed > it with reruns of Linda Hamilton in *Beauty and the Beast*. But I > read enough, and what I read seized me and still has not renounced its > hold. Okay, HHV was promoting her Curia, at the time including Jorie > Graham and Michael Blumenthal. The latter was the poet who gave me my > first voice and who remains a favorite to this day. At age 46 I wanted > to write like him and by 63 have found I can barely stutter like one > of Eugene O'Neill's fog people. That's not a change of voice so much > as an irrecoverable loss because I listened to everyone but myself. > > What if HHV had read some piece of whatever that I had in print or > online. What if she'd anointed me? Could I have done my "I'm not > worthy!" routine and pushed aside a hand with her strength and reach? > Did David, son of Jesse, tell the prophet Samuel to go kiss a duck? > Or would I have let Helen show me around, poet under glass, and open > me to opportunities like the Briggs-Copeland lectureship at Harvard > and other plums? Would I have let her pre-critique my work as she's > reputed to have done with Ms. Graham? > > A lot of this feels like it's about a poetic demimonde into which I > suspect people stagger without intending to do so. Except Michael > Blumenthal does not appear to be a courtesan. He is hugely talented, > with a voice like a cello. Some people like Jagged but truthfully I > know it when I see it and I despise it. It is a curious state of > affairs that Blumenthal's association with HHV makes some--not > me--wonder how good he really is (like your own instincts are not good > enough) and why he became as lucky as he became. And why should I > feel this way? Simple jealousy? Or resentment that systems of > influence exist--be they from Vendler or from other parts of the > world--into which some or many of us do not fit? I am sure Silliman > too has his collection of acolytes, wannabes, and offers promotional > opportunities if you sit at his feet long enough. The trouble is that > labels adhere to us like napalm. I rather liked Silliman until I > found out he was supposed to be a Language poet. Is that fair or > unfair? I still sort of like him: he links to my blog among 800 others. > > Since I made the mistake of sleeping on this, I don't remember the > point except that it has something vaguely to do with spheres of > influence, personal Oy Gevalts, and some such such. So I stop. > > ken > -- A man may write of love, and not be in love, as well as of husbandrie, and not goe to plough: or of witches, and be none: or of holinesse, and be flat prophane. - Giles Fletcher the Elder.