For those of you who have not heard, I'm sorry to tell you that Burton Hatlen, director of the National Poetry Foundation and long-time teacher at the University of Maine in Orono, died on January 21 in Maine. I'm including two links, which Steve Evans sent to the Poetics List.
http://bangornews.com/news/t/city.aspx?articleid=159261&zoneid=176
http://legacy.com/bangornews/Obituaries.asp?
Page=Lifestory&PersonId=101724577
I met Burt Hatlen only once, at the National Poetry Foundation conference at Orono in June 2004. The conferences are held every four years. In 2008, the focus will be on the 70s. It turns out every decade is a great decade for poetry! At the opening, we were in a kind of foyer, there was a table with books, etc for sale. I thought I was hallucinating when I saw a mug with Patrick Kavanagh on it! (I wish to hell I had bought it). Impelled by the energy of curiosity, I zoomed over to Burt Hatlen (he was the tallest guy & seemed to be in charge) & asked him about it. He told me about Patrick Kavanagh visiting Orono for an earlier conference. It was exciting & perturbing at the same time. I associated the National Poetry Foundation with Pound, Modernism, Objectivism -- in fact, a set of questing poetic traditions continuing to the present. While I personally have always considered Kavanagh experimental, generally he's not considered so. So it was enthralling & exhilarating to have this conversation with Burt Hatlen, who never did the Leaving Cert in Ireland, & who saw Kavanagh with a fresh & valid perspective (I'm not sure what exactly this was, other than "contemporary"). I never followed up on any writing/publishing Burt Hatlen might have done in connection to Kavanagh. If anyone knows of anything, I'd be very glad to have references.
You know, it also occurred to me recently, thinking of Michael Hartnett, whose work I love, that in many ways Hartnett was an Objectivist poet, a little younger than the American Objectivists, but with many shared sensibilities.
Mairead