In 1993, I edited for an Italian publisher an anthology of British
Contemporary Poetry with the help of Blake Morrison, who wrote the
"introduction" (I wrote the "preface").
We edited the anthology on the common understanding that we would aim to
make it last as a valuable gathering of poetic personalities and voices.
Just a reasonable project. We did not include for charitable reasons or clan
purposes any of our friends.
Of course, I did not include any of Blake's poems, for fairness, nor did I
force in any of my friends (Jamie Mc.., Romesh Gun.., Michael Hoff...Peter
Dal...et al.).
(which at the time were not so unknown, already). I chose poets whose
poetics and politics was not always exactly attuned to my own and in one or
two cases, even poems I did not particularly like, for the sole purpose of
fulfilling the editor's task of presenting a variety of tendencies in that
given period of time.
The anthology is still valid and sells well. For the title, I drew
inspiration from Hill's "Men are a mockery of Angels", since so we appear to
be. The entire process of editing the book was quite depleted of visceral
passion, unemotional, and therefore aimed to reach a certain degree of
desirable objectivity.

Not the same happens when I have to choose an author to translate and write
about for the audience of a literary magazine.

 In that case, I go for the clan, for the personal sympathy, for the
friendship, and even for the affection. I have translated in Italian the
majority of all my poets/novelist friends and had them scattered in all
literary magazine for the sole purpose to promote them at all costs.
(I love to see them become known to the readers of my country and I am
always very pleased  personally when I succeed in this task. )
If I look back at my own strategies, then I have to admit the presence of
these two tendencies, in my past and present literary choices and actions.
These are the risks and pleasures of acting as a vehicle of foreign poetry
into the Italian contemporary editorial market and culture.
In the first instance, to have to recourse to a strict " critical sense" is
almost a duty given the nature of the collective appearance of different
voices in an anthology, in the second, which I consider subjective and
arbitrary,  to be strictly critical would mean to take in an unnecessary
burden.

Erminia


> I never thought of an anthology as a group of activists. I think the issue
> was false advertizing: if a book says it's an anthology of current British
> poetry and leaves out almost an entire major tendency in British verse
it's
> clearly dealing, to be charitable, at cross-purposes.
>
> As to clubs, in the States there's been a long struggle to gain admission
> to such by members of minorities (or even majorities--the old boys
wouldn't
> admit women, Blacks, people of Mediterranean descent, or Jews). Some of
the
> clubs responded by admitting a single member of an excluded group who
colud
> be counted on not to make trouble. That does sound like some anthologies.
> But it didn't wash, and the fight continued, not because the peasants at
> the gate liked the folks inside the fortress but because of the career
> benefits of membership.
>
> The flap at the Academy was primarily aesthetic and followed upon the
> admission to membership of a mainstream poet (sorry, I don't remember her
> name) who was honorable enough to very publicly withdraw because of the
> Academy's refusal to recognize that a very large number of American poets
> who don't fit the mold even exists. Robert Creeley was as a result made a
> member and appointed to the board, hence Palmer's admission. It follows a
> 50 year struggle for recognition by those who haven't chosen to be
> marginal, merely to write in their own manner. The marginalization was
> imposed from the center, and the gates have hardly swung open easily.
Let's
> remember that even Allen Ginsberg, who consistently rewarded City Lights
> with handsome profits and was one of a very few contemporary poets whose
> books have been profitable, only managed to acquire a major publisher  and
> the creature comforts that allowed in the very last years of his life.
Even
> the profit-motive hadn't been persuasive enough to publishers before that.
>
> Aside from the prestige issue the Academy, by the way, administers a lot
of
> lucrative prizes.
>
> Most poets portray themselves as poets, whether or not we or they connect
> themselves to a group identity for the sake of ease of discussion. They
> write in the hope that what they write will be found useful by an
audience.
> If an individual poet claims to be a prophet without honor one can
question
> whether he's not too blinded by vanity to see the lacks in his work. It's
a
> different issue when a set of major tendencies in poetry are kept outside
> the gate. One could ask what the gatekeepers are afraid of.
>
> A model of what could be done is Paris Leary and Robert Kelly's 1965 _A
> Controversy of Poets_, which calls itself "an anthology of contemporary
> American Poetry." Two poets, one very mainstream one very not, were each
> given roughly half of 522 pages to fill with their own kind. The results
> were presented alphabetically (chronology by date of biorth would hve
> worked just as well--any structure that didn't carry a value judgement
with
> it would have), creating some surprising combinations: James Dickey comes
> just before Ed Dorn, for instance. The reader is left to make his/her way
> through without prejudice. And the book does do what it advertizes itself
> as doing. The experiment has never, as far as I know, ben repeated.
>
> At 12:10 PM 8/7/2000 EDT, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> ><< Groups form for several reasons. The three that apply here are I think
> >that
> > a. One finds both irrelevant and abhorrent what another crowd is doing
> >
> > b. One joins with others to protect a position of power
> >
> > c. One joins with others to challenge a position of power. >>
> >
> >If we move the argument back to anthologies, then one can say
> >I find most of what you (the anthologist) have selected irrelevant
> >if not abhorent, but you've left me and those of my poetic ilk
> >out, so I/we want in.
> >Was it Groucho Marks who said "I wouldn't join a club that would
> >have me as a member." (which can be read a couple of ways)?
> >If one is going to potray oneself as avantgarde/outre'/innovapoe,
> >or whatever the term of the moment is, one can't act all hurt
> >and dismayed when the gates of the g(u)ilt-edged pages don't
> >swing open easily.
> >After a recent flap about its exclusivity (centered primarily
> >around race & gender, but also in terms of aesthetics), the Academy
> >of American Poets named Michael Palmer to its fellowship.
> >But isn't that a Pyrrhic victory for avantgarde?
> >Finnegan
> >
> >
>
>



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