On Oct 19, 2016, at 11:38 AM, Kent Johnson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Peter, for you now, then, is Edward Thomas, say, a better poet than Pound?

Kent

>>> Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]> 10/19/16 1:21 PM >>>
I didn't of course (Kent) claim that the Shakespeare controversy was an American affair, I said the tone of it, the militancy, a particular kind of militancy which can get vehement, a sectarian militancy, container villages in the desert. On a subject like identity politics you are strongly spoken but with a righteousness which you are entitled to.

I think (Jaime) my focus was on a world-saving vehemence in American poetry of an older set, my own generation.  Certainly whenever I've got directly involved with American poets I've almost always come up against an indifference to contemporary British poetry on the grounds of its instant obsolescence plus of course that the messianic excitement of people like Olson is virtually unknown over here or restricted to hippie settlements in the northern hills, and in a very different mode.  In my review of Nancy Gaffield, if you've seen it, I spoke of a holding back from a full commitment to an Olsonian belief which has been taken very seriously, and such indeed is my own career. I think I'd view your own work in a similar light. 

It is all like picking up the pieces from world-saving machines which went off the rails. Indeed it looks like in many departments, including the English economy, poetics, and the world itself, mopping up is what is left for us to do, indefinitely..

Peter

On 19 Oct 2016, at 17:58, Jaime Robles wrote:

Hey Peter (the following with no vehemence of any sort),

As an American poet I object to having Kent’s words taken as representative of my own. I’m perfectly happy to have Shakespeare as he is traditionally and historically known to remain as Shakespeare. Nor do I see American poetry as being in “advance” of British poetry. Very different, yes. For most of these arguments, I find my attention better placed elsewhere. 

May I suggest for those interested, for example, Amnesty International’s decoding project. They are asking for volunteers to go over satellite pictures of western Sudan, searching indications of burning and the destruction of villages so that they can determine how much damage has been done in Darfur. For me, a more worthwhile use of time than arguing over the identity of Shakespeare.  

Best wishes, 

Jaime

jaimerobles.com

______________________________

QS: Let’s return to poetics.

JR: When did we leave?

—From the conversation between Quinta Slef and Joan Retallack, The Poethical Wager

On Oct 19, 2016, at 8:33 AM, Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Thanks, I will read that, for I'm still interested in understanding the techniques of Olson's actual poems. JHP too has binned most of the resources as far as I can see including transmission, unless very particular reasonings are followed. But i haven't read that interview yet.

pr

On 19 Oct 2016, at 16:06, Kent Johnson wrote:

>American advancedness has caused more poetical messes than I can count, such as the desperate failures which are The Cantos and Maximus. 

Peter, here you sound perhaps a bit like Prynne, in his Paris Review interview.

For a defense of projective vista and poetics, contra Prynne's dismissal (and didn't you guys all dig Olson those old Intelligencer years back?), see Michael Boughn's essay, posted just a couple days ago: "scholarship, poetry, and the politics of vision."

http://dispatchespoetry.com/articles/dispatches/2016/10

Kent