The barman says "You should have ducked"...
> A horse and a chicken walk into a bar...
>
> judy prince wrote:
>> Looks like one of the bottom lines on anthologies, Tad, is that they
>> were "destructive" to me (& of course I maintain that it's the same
>> for many other folks), but for others in different edu systems,
>> pursuing different majors, and in different countries (as Roger Day's
>> just detailed of his own situation), they were helpful. (Tough for
>> me to suss, since I didn't "come up" as he & others did.) Hence it's
>> enlightening to hear what others have experienced. (Tho I confess to
>> approaching a catatonic boredom at addressing the issue any more!!!)
>>
>> Any jokes you got this morning? Non-poetry jokes, pulllleeeezzz! <g>
>>
>> Judy
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "TheOldMole" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 7:58 AM
>> Subject: Re: Perloff on anthologies
>>
>>
>> A mimeo'd collection of beloved poems, from Kipling to Cummings to
>> Service to Housman, or whoever -- IS an anthology, and is a marvelous
>> thing, but not absolutely guaranteed to be better than one put together
>> by Sam Gwynn or W. H. Auden or Kenneth Koch.
>>
>> I had a friend who also made his own anthology of poems that
>> particularly spoke to him. Since he lived in a small town, and wasn't a
>> habitue of poetry-rich independent bookstores, his was entirely
>> composed of poems he had cut out of The New Yorker.
>>
>> Now, I know we know that New Yorker=bad, even worse than anthologies,
>> and most of us would not hold this up as a model, but my friend was
>> creating his own scrapbook of poems that meant something to him, from
>> what was available to him. My other friend who told me that she'd part
>> with almost anything sooner than her Norton anthology had fallen in love
>> with the riches to be found in a couple of thousand pages of poems, or
>> however many Norton has, and I don't think she was any more culturally
>> deprived than my New Yorker scrapbook friend, or you or Roger.
>> Anthologies aren't for everyone, and they aren't the only way to
>> experience poetry, but I can't accept the argument that they're
>> destructive.
>>
>> And I say this as someone who doesn't assign anthologies to his classes.
>>
>> judy prince wrote:
>>> Wonderful, Roger, that you've chosen to embrace this issue---and
>>> from your own poetry-awakenings---rather than peck at a convenient
>>> stiff edge or two. My first knowing of poems was from my sis's (me
>>> 11, she 16) homemade 3-ring binder filled with carefully-typewritten
>>> poems. She'd, as had your English teacher, and then you, given
>>> herself the luxury of Her Own Collection, culled from those at
>>> school and on our regular visits to the library. For quite awhile I
>>> assumed they were her own poems! <g> Later, I just enjoyed
>>> flipping thru the binder and memorizing bits, comforted by their
>>> familiarity.
>>>
>>> Again I say that my prob is less (if at all) with the Selecting than
>>> it is with the imposing and sanctioning of "standards" for poetry,
>>> as presented in the Perfect Wholes of edu-anthologies. For me, my
>>> sister's collection meant I could do the same: I could (at most)
>>> write my own collection, or (at least) choose poems I preferred.
>>> But the glossy, fat, annotated, annointed school anthologies made me
>>> doubtful, glaze-eyed, and suspicious. I'd been +distanced+ from
>>> poems, poets, and the possibility of my own creatings. My model had
>>> been my sister. Now it was Somebody/ies that I never was and never
>>> could be. "Models" are profoundly important, esp for females and
>>> "minorities"---as well as many males and most of the "majority" who
>>> feel weirdly outside the mainframe.
>>>
>>> And to the lesser prob of Selection. Though it seems the obvious
>>> problem, I think it's largely a false issue. Rather, anthologies
>>> conveniently, and I think, disastrously, preclude the ways folk can
>>> know poetry. Let's just take one way as an example---the one that
>>> most affected you. If each of your teachers, eschewing anthologies,
>>> had mimeo-ed poems they admired & loved---and from that
>>> private-made-public joy had lit debates in class (the inimitable
>>> "stick" of peer opinions goaded to gather resources)-----would you,
>>> honestly, have suffered the lack of anthologies? You mite've had a
>>> different patchwork of poems, but would it have been an "inferior",
>>> less-igniting collection? I suspect, from your telling, that it
>>> would have opened more of the poetry world as well as your confident
>>> participation in it.
>>>
>>> It may turn on WHO does the selecting, the evaluating, the
>>> default-deciding of what is ("good") poetry.
>>>
>>> Judy
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Day" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 3:59 AM
>>> Subject: Re: Perloff on anthologies
>>>
>>>
>>> Kindof. I was thinking more about the happy wanderer in the bookshop,
>>> the person who never makes it to the litcrit class. We're stuck with a
>>> few large book-sellers and with the best will in the world, I can't
>>> see them stocking every small press and pamphlet. So this is the best
>>> we have. It's not good, it's not great. It leads to a lot of official
>>> poetasting, most of it distasteful. But hey, if some can be enticed
>>> who knows?
>>>
>>> I had an inspirational English teacher, and I kept the mimeographed
>>> poems he gave out; I also collected my own typed copies. So yes, I
>>> agree some people will ferret out their own anthology; I was
>>> kick-started by the selection of another. Whether they could do so
>>> totally by themselves is another matter. In your scenario, the happy
>>> wanderers are let free-range amongst a selection of pamphlets. Ah,
>>> selection. No matter where you turn, a selection process appears. If I
>>> type poetry into google I get mostly garbage. If I hadn't done the
>>> reading I've done, how could I tell the difference?
>>>
>>> I agree that Universities are deadening, the canon should be blasted
>>> from a cannon. But how can we rid our-selves of official culture?
>>>
>>> The Golden Treasury is laughable in the main but I've treasured some
>>> nuggets I found within. However, some anthologies - The Lyrical
>>> Ballads for one IIRC - seem to have had quite an effect in their time.
>>>
>>> Roger
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:35 PM, judy prince
>>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>> They sell bcuz they're easier to teach/defend and therefore
>>>> entrenched in
>>>> the pre-uni and uni systems. And there'll always be those who
>>>> prefer Eggs
>>>> McMuffin or arranged marriages.
>>>>
>>>> It's the imposition and the halo of "standards" that I particularly
>>>> dislike---these are vastly more harmful, I believe, than most folks
>>>> think.
>>>> When certain poems/poets are sanctioned (in all the ways, including
>>>> anthologies, that schools/uni's use) , there grows a deadening, a
>>>> boredom, a
>>>> shrug in many readers---many of whom will then prefer not to read more
>>>> poetry. Happy the grouping (class, seminar, club gathering, ad hoc
>>>> motleys)
>>>> that digs into a table of cheap or free poetry pamphlets or
>>>> paperbacks and
>>>> starts reading and debating! I'll bet that setting'd produce
>>>> relatively
>>>> more poets than the anthology-using classroom. My guess, also, is
>>>> that the
>>>> solitary reader of poetry will quickly select-out from an anthology
>>>> into
>>>> her/his own "table" of pamphlets and paperbacks---something the
>>>> self-propelled usually do. But how many more folk are crabbed up in
>>>> classrooms? Seems a shame to offer them---mainly and
>>>> continuously---regurgitated pabulum.
>>>>
>>>> Judy
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Day" <[log in to unmask]>
>>>>
>>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 5:48 PM
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Subject: Re: Perloff on anthologies
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> But they do sell, and they do give a taster of poetry to people who
>>>> o'wise might not have read a range of poets.
>>>>
>>>> Roger
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 9:37 PM, judy prince
>>>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > Mark, I've always felt that anthologies---PC, Balanced, Proper,
>>>> Subjective,
>>>> > Pricey---ought to be replaced by a reader/student's own poetic
>>>> choices
>>>> > amongst the banquet of inexpensive paperbacks. A tradition of
>>>> imposed
>>>> > aesthetic judgments (i.e., anthologies) demeans poetry, poets
>>>> and---not
>>>> the
>>>> > least---the readers of poetry.
>>>> >
>>>> > Judy
>>>> >
>>>> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Weiss" >
>>>> <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> >
>>>> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> > Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 3:16 PM
>>>> > Subject: Re: Perloff on anthologies
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > Judy: In the lineup of poets she included in her
>>>> > course Hughes is a lightweight, however much one
>>>> > likes his work. Cesaire isn't. Context is all.
>>>> > Which is why anthologizing is so tough.
>>>> >
>>>> > Mark
>>>> >
>>>> > At 03:04 PM 4/28/2008, you wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > > Ah, alas, Doug, leaving out Langston Hughes, one of my all-time
>>>> > favourites!
>>>> > >
>>>> > > Judy
>>>> > >
>>>> > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas Barbour"
>>>> > <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> > > To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> > > Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 2:23 PM
>>>> > > Subject: Perloff on anthologies
>>>> > >
>>>> > >
>>>> > > In another interview, Marjorie Perloff has this to say;
>>>> intereting in
>>>> > > light of Jon's comments:
>>>> > >
>>>> > >
>>>> > > DC: Perhaps what is lacking in most journals and anthologies
>>>> is an
>>>> > > inclusionary approach to poetry and not one dependent upon being a
>>>> > > card-carrying member of a particular poetic group. Such a
>>>> criticism
>>>> > > could be leveled against some of the experimentalists as well
>>>> as the
>>>> > > mainstream.
>>>> > >
>>>> > > MP: Yes, but anthologies are, by definition, problematic today
>>>> because
>>>> > > no gathering can be definitive and perhaps it's best to make up
>>>> one's
>>>> > > own for teaching purposes.
>>>> > >
>>>> > > DC: If you were to edit a poetry anthology and the publisher has
>>>> given
>>>> > > you total control over the anthology from inception to
>>>> publication‹,
>>>> > > how would you choose what would be included? What would be the
>>>> > > governing principle that would hold the anthology together?
>>>> > >
>>>> > > MP: Well, I've never wanted to edit an anthology because I'm not
>>>> sure
>>>> > > there's a good way of doing it at the moment: there are too many
>>>> > > schools, factions, movements, interests. But if I did, my
>>>> criterion
>>>> > > would be VALUE. I would want to include only those poets whose
>>>> work is
>>>> > > distinctive, original, really interesting, regardless of
>>>> male/female
>>>> > > ratios, identity politics, and so on. So that's why I don't
>>>> edit an
>>>> > > anthology. These days one must be sensitive to all the special
>>>> > > interests.
>>>> > >
>>>> > > In teaching (which is a bit like anthologizing, isn't it?), I do
>>>> > > relatively few poets. This year in "Modern Poetry" at USC, a
>>>> 15-week
>>>> > > semester—I taught Eliot, Pound, Stein, Duchamp, Stevens, Moore,
>>>> Loy,
>>>> > > Williams--and then Aimé Césaire even though in translation,
>>>> because I
>>>> > > think he's a much stronger poet than, say, Claude McKay or
>>>> Langston
>>>> > > Hughes and I did want to teach some African-American poetry.
>>>> Notice I
>>>> > > omitted Frost and H.D. Simply a matter of taste: I never teach
>>>> work I
>>>> > > don't really like.
>>>> > >
>>>> > > Doug
>>>> > > Douglas Barbour
>>>> > > [log in to unmask]
>>>> > >
>>>> > > http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
>>>> > >
>>>> > > Latest books:
>>>> > > Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
>>>> > > http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
>>>> > > Wednesdays'
>>>> > >
>>>> >
>>>> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
>>>>
>>>> > >
>>>> > > There are no wrong notes!
>>>> > >
>>>> > > Thelonious Sphere Monk
>>>> > >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
>>>> "She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue
>>>> She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too"
>>>> The Go-Betweens
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
