>Driving through Connecticut yesterday I heard on 91.3 FM's broadcast of
>NPR, at 9:40 AM, 59.2 miles from Providence RI, on HWY 94 West, Maxine Hong
>Kingston say the following in an interview with Lee-Ann Hansen (sp?): that
>though she had been writing fiction since the early 70s, she wanted now to
>turn toward poetry because it was much easier to write, because fiction was
>a slog and poetry is easy. And then she said, "The life of the poet is one
>of ease, happiness, constant joy, freedom." It was one of the most facile
>interviews I have ever heard about poetry.
>
>She has just published a book with Harvard UP called _To Be The Poet_. Then
>she read some poems, which kind of made me cringe out of embarrassment for
>her. I don't think Harvard UP is terribly discerning when it comes to what
>they'll publish in the way of poetry and poetics. They published
>Bernstein's _A Poetics_ too.
Gabe
It sounds like Kingston doesn't really know what she's doing, but although
many like to slag Bernstein, I found much of A Poetics interesting & it's
not really just poetry, it's one of his mixes...
But of course there are those who can't stand a thing he writes. I'm not
one of them, altbough I don't take it all as gospel, truly I don't...
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
I do not limit myself: I imitate
many fancy things such as the dull red
cloth of literature, its mumbled griefs
Lisa Robertson
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