Mark, I've always felt that anthologies---PC, Balanced, Proper, Subjective,
Pricey---ought to be replaced by a reader/student's own poetic choices
amongst the banquet of inexpensive paperbacks. A tradition of imposed
aesthetic judgments (i.e., anthologies) demeans poetry, poets and---not the
least---the readers of poetry.
Judy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 3:16 PM
Subject: Re: Perloff on anthologies
Judy: In the lineup of poets she included in her
course Hughes is a lightweight, however much one
likes his work. Cesaire isn't. Context is all.
Which is why anthologizing is so tough.
Mark
At 03:04 PM 4/28/2008, you wrote:
>Ah, alas, Doug, leaving out Langston Hughes, one of my all-time favourites!
>
>Judy
>
>----- Original Message ----- From: "Douglas Barbour"
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 2:23 PM
>Subject: Perloff on anthologies
>
>
>In another interview, Marjorie Perloff has this to say; intereting in
>light of Jon's comments:
>
>
>DC: Perhaps what is lacking in most journals and anthologies is an
>inclusionary approach to poetry and not one dependent upon being a
>card-carrying member of a particular poetic group. Such a criticism
>could be leveled against some of the experimentalists as well as the
>mainstream.
>
>MP: Yes, but anthologies are, by definition, problematic today because
>no gathering can be definitive and perhaps it's best to make up one's
>own for teaching purposes.
>
>DC: If you were to edit a poetry anthology and the publisher has given
>you total control over the anthology from inception to publication‹,
>how would you choose what would be included? What would be the
>governing principle that would hold the anthology together?
>
>MP: Well, I've never wanted to edit an anthology because I'm not sure
>there's a good way of doing it at the moment: there are too many
>schools, factions, movements, interests. But if I did, my criterion
>would be VALUE. I would want to include only those poets whose work is
>distinctive, original, really interesting, regardless of male/female
>ratios, identity politics, and so on. So that's why I don't edit an
>anthology. These days one must be sensitive to all the special
>interests.
>
>In teaching (which is a bit like anthologizing, isn't it?), I do
>relatively few poets. This year in "Modern Poetry" at USC, a 15-week
>semester—I taught Eliot, Pound, Stein, Duchamp, Stevens, Moore, Loy,
>Williams--and then Aimé Césaire even though in translation, because I
>think he's a much stronger poet than, say, Claude McKay or Langston
>Hughes and I did want to teach some African-American poetry. Notice I
>omitted Frost and H.D. Simply a matter of taste: I never teach work I
>don't really like.
>
>Doug
>Douglas Barbour
>[log in to unmask]
>
>http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
>
>Latest books:
>Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
>http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
>Wednesdays'
>http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
>
>There are no wrong notes!
>
>Thelonious Sphere Monk
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