Right, Mark, I should have reiterated my earlier point: that there are
of course different factors at play in all this, including the
separation of the Creative Writing industry from the tradition of
serious literary study. The Language/ post-avant phenomenon (an extended
sociological process with various satellite formations now) is a
significant part of the turn away from older sources, though, and not
least of course within the "oppositional" wing of U.S. poetry. Though
the term "oppositional" at this stage deserves double or triple
quotation marks.
>>> Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> 10/20/16 5:13 PM >>>
I share some of your resentments from the early days, Kent, when the
more vocal of the langpo folks were bent on suppressing any evidence
that they hadn't invented the wheel, but I don't think they were nearly
as important a factor as the general demise of the teaching of
literature, and especially poetry, in the schools. I benefited greatly
from my parents' very limited library--they weren't really poetry
readers--which included the Untermeyer Modern English and American
Poetry ("English" included Irish and Scottish), a doorstop in most homes
with middle class aspirations. For U. modern began with Whitman and
Dickinson in the US and Hardy in Britain. I also practically memorized
their HS textbooks, which by later standards were a marvel.
-----Original Message-----
From: Kent Johnson
Sent: Oct 20, 2016 6:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Britain vs. U.S. Poetry war
That would partly be my point, Pierre. The modernists certainly looked
back. And the Objectivists and the NAP poets, generally speaking, were
attentive to pre-20th century sources.
With the concerted LangPo move to bury the forefathers (including some
folks still alive when they embarked on the effort), things became much
more circumscribed in the present, a condition you yourself describe for
your generation. And (with some promising exceptions) that "present" is
still very much playing itself out with the younger "avant" U.S.
generation, which seems quite comfortable and happy with its
provincialism.
>>> Pierre Joris <[log in to unmask]> 10/20/16 4:26 PM >>>
Well, I don’t know of many, if any, poets of my generation (and that’s
the langpo generation) who, even when making a living in academe, have
done much writing on pre 20C lit. Most of us have concentrated on
writing on our direct predecessors (or at most, back to the originators
of modernism), be it to exalt or bury them, and on our own generations.
Though there must obviously be some who have have written on Milton or
Shakespeare (if I were to do so I’d probably write on Marlowe) or… oh,
Chuck Stein just came to mind with his marvelous Homer translations…
&, news flash: Just out in the University of Alabama Press' Modern and
Contemporary Poetics series, edited by Charles Bernstein & Hank Lazer:
Imperfect Fit: Aesthetic Function, Facture, and Perception in Art and
Writing since 1950 by Allen Fisher. with a foreword by yours truly.
Pierre
On Oct 20, 2016, at 6:50 PM, Kent Johnson <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
Well, I have to strongly differ with Pierre here. I never said that
some of the LangPos aren't knowlegeable; I said that serious discussion
of pre-20th century English poetry is almost totally absent in their
poetics. This is not debatable; it is the record. One could say that
this is consistent with their early avant-garde stances (long ago
dissipated down the air-conditioning vents of the institutional
habitus), but it is the way things were and are. Almost none of the
poets Pierre lists, below, had any direct relation to Language, so not
sure how they enter the argument. All praise to the great and catholic
Robert Kelly indeed.
And I never said the LangPos don't know or care about contemporary UK
avant poetry. Indeed, they were among the first to reciprocate,
following certain NAP figures, like Dorn. I said the
English tradition,
which is what
>>> Pierre Joris <[log in to unmask]> 10/20/2016 11:37 AM >>>
Have to agree with Mark here. Kent’s blanket condemnation was over the
top. I agree that creative writing programs (as separated from English
departments) are much to blame for historical ignorance, though it is
only natural that young wannabe poets look to their just-elders, living
poets for inspiration first & only in a second or third moment (if they
are serious about their art) start looking at the tradition(s).
As Mark says, the language poetas are not to blame here — most of the
ones I know are very knowledgeable when it comes to the older
traditions. Many others of our contemporaries should be mentioned too:
quickly: Robert Kelly is one of the best-read poets I know (check out
his write-through of Shelley’ Montblanc, among many other works), the
same goes for the likes of Gerrit Lansing, Anne Waldmann, Jerome
Rothenberg, George Economou, Ed Sanders, both Howe sisters, Chuck Stein,
Don Byrd, among those I know personally well enough to make such a
judgment.
Pierre
On Oct 20, 2016, at 6:20 PM, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
Kent: Interesting. I suspected the blanket ignorance among the young,
but I don't have that much contact with them. As to the Language poets,
I have had my own issues with them, but I do know that several of them
are deeply knowledgeable about earlier writing and conversant with a lot
of what's going on in the UK and Ireland. For the most part they don't
write about it, tho.
Re: the Rothenberg anthologies, we owe a tip of the hat to Jeffrey
Robinson, who co-edited Rothenberg's Romantics volume. Jeffrey has lived
in Glasgow for the past several years. He organized the recent jamboree
there.
-----Original Message-----
From: Kent Johnson
Sent: Oct 20, 2016 11:53 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Britain vs. U.S. Poetry war
I should mention one big exception to the disregard for "tradition"
among LangPo figures (though like Palmer her relation to the group is
complicated):
Susan Howe's work on Dickinson and other pre-20th century sources, most
of them American.
The exception makes the rule, maybe.
Also, in further response to Peter's somewhat wholesale framing of
American disregard, there is the extended anthology project begun by
Rothenberg and Joris which brings forth a range of English writers--not
least of the Romantic period--as precursors to the new. This is a
singular case, granted, but its influence had been significant.
>>> Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]> 10/20/16 8:18 AM >>>
Curiously, I don't remember saying anything like that. I thought I was
talking about American poets' attitudes to British poetry,
conventional or innovative, which with exceptions I have found
consistently negative for the last 40 years. This was very noticeable
in the running of the Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry for
instance. Our enthusiasm for the new American poetry knew no bounds
but was clearly not reciprocated.
I suggest we not start a discussion as to whether the "experimental"
can claim the "left field" as its own.
PR
On 20 Oct 2016, at 11:00, Tim Allen wrote:
Yes to that Jaime, but at least arguing over Shakespeare is harmless,
I think. For me I'd rather walk the dog but would gladly sit back and
be entertained by a TV programme about it.
Just want to remind you American folks that Peter's views are his
alone and that his negative opinions about some Brit left-field poetry
are just as forceful, only he kind of blames Americans for that too,
for tempting people like me away with your 'novelty'. I always found
much more to like in C20 American poetry than British until around
2000 when it somehow tipped the other way. My influences are mainly
French anyway.
Cheers
Tim
