I see Andrew has responded to this Ken, but I suspect it is in the eye
of the beholder (reader).
So I don't know how to answer your query, but I do know what I mean by
it when I see it.
I never read much James Wright, so can't speak to what I might or might
not have thought of him way back when (the poem Joe found wanting now,
however, I read for the first time on his blog & was wondering what
people had found in it, as it just seemed slack to me [reading it now,
of course]). I suspect there are some of The New American Poetry poets
I might find to be less than I once thought, but the ones who had the
most influence on me continue to stand high.
As do those Canadian poets to whom I owe so much, especially Phyllis
Webb.
Doug
On 24-Oct-07, at 6:10 PM, Kenneth Wolman wrote:
> Joseph Duemer wrote:
>> Thanks, Andrew. I wonder what other poets, loved in youth, flist
>> members
>> have had to reevaluate.
>>
>> jd
>>
>
> My issue is even more basic. How easily we bandy about terminology,
> assuming all the while that there is a common language here! There
> isn't--if it hasn't made it to central New Jersey. If Wright is
> sentimental, it is in some vague sense that I cannot quite identify.
> What *is* sentimentality? How basic a question is that? No, you may
> *not* consult or certainly quote from Abrams' dictionary of literary
> terms:-). Is a display of...what the hell IS sentiment, Joe?--
> without exception a "Bad Thing"? After we survive the vomitacious
> death of Little Eva, what is "sentimental" thereafter? I feel like
> I'm trying to decode something that I am perhaps assumed to
> understand--and I don't, not a bit of it.
>
> Oh, I'm not being difficult or obstreperous for its/their own sake.
> It would be even more fun if I were.
>
> KW
>
> --
> ------------------
> Kenneth Wolman rainermaria.typepad.com
>
> "I agree with the Chekhov character who, when in a crisis, he is
> reminded that 'this, too, shall pass,' responds 'Nothing
> passes.'"--Philip Roth
>
>
Douglas Barbour
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It's the first lesson, loss.
Who hasn't tried to learn it
at the hands of wind or thieves?
Jan Zwicky
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