Hi John,
The rapprochement you mention has been going on in one form or another
(pun not intended actually) almost from the beginning of the free v
formal split.
I moved, in my own writing, away from so called 'free verse' to a more
structured or formally conscious approach in an attempt to answer some
questions which free verse (or in my case a near automatic verse) was
throwing at me. Around the same time I realised that many other poets
who had developed their poetry through and from the free verse
approach were doing the same. This wasn't in most cases a return to
traditional forms as an exploration of new ones. The word 'innovative'
has been bandied around a lot, but it isn't a bad description in the
way it refers to a more formally conscious manipulation of informal
content.
I am one of those who believe there is a connection between form and
thought - it might seem obvious, but for many people it is anything
but. If there is a connection between form and thought then there is a
connection between politics and poetry. Such a connection, of course,
is going to be, in a lot of cases, extremely complex and difficult to
track.
Cheers
Tim A.
On 14 Apr 2010, at 11:27, John Herbert Cunningham wrote:
> I've been observing this site for awhile. Allow me to introduce
> myself. I am
> the host of Speaking of Poets heard Sundays from 4:30 to 5:00 p.m.
> CST on
> CKUW 95.9 FM. I regularly review poetry for a number of journals in
> Canada
> and the U.S. I also write poetry, conduct interviews, etc. I am
> intrigued by
> this notion of free verse and form being binaries placing proponents
> on
> opposite sides of the political spectrum. I believe that a
> rapprochement is
> now occurring with several poets - Anne Simpson and Elizabeth
> Bachinsky, to
> name two - are equally at home writing both experimental and formal
> poetry.
> The two named are Canadian poets. I don't know whether the same is
> occurring in either the U.S. of the U.K.
> John Herbert Cunningham
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Tim Allen
> Sent: April-14-10 5:04 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: review of the new Les Murray
>
> The trouble is Uche, it's not rot, not historically. Of course it
> wasn't the case that everyone who wrote free verse was hippy or
> leftist or whatever and everyone who wrote iambic was conservative -
> but it was the case, particularly here in the UK, that behind the
> conscious choice of writing one way or the other lay that same nexus
> of belief and life-style that lent itself to political leanings and
> ideological gestures. The perception that free verse was, by its very
> name and nature, linked to ideas of freedom and an example of that
> freedom in action, was common. So too was the notion of form as being
> conservative, anal, fussy, stuck in the past, concerned with outmoded
> ways of thinking, anti progress, anti free etc.
>
> That moment lasted in its pure black and white state for a very
> limited period - it soon morphed and became a lot more complex - but
> in many peoples' minds the opposition continued and even now you can
> pick it up in a section of the rump of surviving small-press magazines
> etc. If anything the idea lasted a lot longer in the States than it
> did in the UK - it became one of the main street-level oppositions to
> the poetry of the avant garde formalists and intellectuals.
>
> I have written before concerning the subtle shift in the ideology of
> free verse from progressive to reactionary that has taken place over
> the past 30 years.
>
> Tim A.
>
> On 13 Apr 2010, at 23:32, Uche Ogbuji wrote:
>
>> Sometimes a fool is just a fool. People who think that poetic form
>> has some
>> bearing on politics infuriate me. I have no idea how the prejudice
>> came
>> about that hippies write in free verse and that Reaganite-
>> Thatcherites write
>> in form, but I'd love to take a stick of dynamite to that rot.
|