I was a bit surprised to receive an email from Henry Gould of The Plumbline School, inviting me (at the suggestion of Plumbline fellow Joseph Duemer) to join their circle. My response was essentially a reaction to the School’s self-definition, to wit:
“Plumbline poetry” is provisionally defined here as poetry which exhibits a stylistic “mean between extremes”: understated, transparent, inclusive, objective. It avoids extremes of both the ponderous and the superficial; it shuns mannerism and facile ornamentation, on behalf of clarity and simplicity of presentation. It strives for mimesis rather than pantomime. On the other hand, the plumbline poet (Bard o’th’ Plumbline, BP, BeeP) is not merely sober, dull, strenuously industrious. Poetry is recognized as paradoxical—as a conjunction of opposites—as old and new, experimental and traditional, funny and sad, simple and complex, personal and public, unique and common.
Here’s a copy of my reply to Mr. Gould—although I’ve added a number of links and made a few small emendations:
Hello, Mr. Gould—
I have to say I’m flattered to be invited but will have to say no.
First of all, I’m simply not a joiner. Woody Allen said he wouldn’t join a club that would have him as a member, and I feel pretty much the same.
Second, I simply don’t agree with your desire to produce “poetry which exhibits a stylistic ‘mean between extremes'”—poetry that is “normative, middling, equable, objective, comprehensive, inclusive, disinterested.” By way of explanation let me address these qualities individually.
“Normative,” deriving from the Latin norma, “a carpenter’s square,” I find too confining. What about round poems? Or designedly rough poems?
“Middling” I understand as “average,” poetry that is “neither very good nor very bad,” and that is certainly not the kind of poetry I want to write or read.
Nor do I want to write or read “equable” poems that are “calm and even-tempered” (at least not most of the time).
I simply don’t believe in “objective” poetry, since all poems worth the name are maker’s distillations and bear the distinctive mark of their maker, which is why the poetry I care for is also not “disinterested.”
That leaves “inclusive,” by which I assume you mean “deliberately nonsexist”; I think that’s all right, but it smacks too much of the censor, and since I oppose censorship of any kind I’m even leery of “inclusion”!
You can see that I have a contrarian nature. It’s probably this that leads me to smile when you speak, in your “Inaugural Message,” about “the plumbline poet (Bard o’th’ Plumbline, BP, BeeP)”; I smile because when I consider “BP” or “Beep,” I think of the great Karl Shapiro, who used “BP” and “Beep” as tags for his “Bourgeois Poet.” I’m sorry to say that the “Plumbline School” feels bourgeois in the sense of “conventional.” And I have to wonder: What about Rimbaud? What about Parra? What about Enzensberger? What about Whitman? I can’t imagine any of them in the Plumbline School….
Anyway, I hope I haven’t come across as contentious. And I do thank you for the invitation.
I have to add that I was invited to join The Plumbline School on the basis of this earlier post, which makes me wonder just how often I’m failing to myself clear. Or maybe it’s just the fragmentary nature of blogs. Surely if Mr. Duemer had read more of The Perpetual Bird, he would have understood how poor a fit I’d be for his school. Wouldn’t he?
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
Thanks for the correction, Gary. I’ve been misattributing that for years!
For the record:<BR/><BR/>"I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."<BR/> <BR/>Groucho Marx
I see your point, J.H., and appreciate your gravestone goal. Personally, I can’t bring myself to toss out the distinction between the art and the artist, although certain artists make it very tempting. A poet friend of mine who happens to be Jewish refuses to read Pound or Eliot or Darwish. When James Dickey supported the war in Vietnam I was sorely tempted to boycott his books, but I couldn’t
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joe,<BR/><BR/>about whose work i wouldn’t consider out of distaste for the crimes of their personal lives–pound was politically perverse, which is a little different than sexual abuse. i’ve always thought that, as soon as woody allen dies my interest might peak. same goes for polanski. or jerry lee lewis. etc.<BR/>the idea that they’re commercial artists, that so many of their peers are
Joseph, thanks. Yes… this matter of name-spelling… I guess it's better than name-calling… the spelling of YOUR name has also been corrected!<BR/><BR/>We're trying NOT to be so polemical… but perhaps "normative" is a scary word. It probably helps to know that the "Plumbline" was triggered in part as a reaction against the FLARF phenomenon, which seems
Hello, J. H.—regarding your statement that "i’ve avoided all [Woody Allen’s] movies, since sometimes there are are higher moral prerogatives than art or wit" … are you objecting to his private (or all-too-public) behavior and therefore avoiding his movies? If so, so you also refuse to look at paintings by Caravaggio or read poems by Ezra Pound? Just curious….
I believe I’ve gotten "Duemer" corrected wherever I used it. Again, my apologies….
Henry, I <I>swear</I> it was unintentional, my misspelling of "Duemer," but in fairness, he misspelled my name too (there’s no "n" in the middle). Gad! No offense intended….<BR/><BR/>I also appreciate your clarifications (especially of "inclusive") and won’t quibble about them. I do think there’s a lot of free-floating polemics going on, and maybe it would help if you named names. A "normative"
Joseph,<BR/><BR/>I want respond a little more.. & I do appreciate your careful elaboration of differences over the vocabulary. For taking it seriously.<BR/><BR/>"Normative" : by this I mean a poetry that has some appreciable relation – pro or con – with generally-understood, basic human ethics. Much poetry of the last century seems more interested in forming its own autonomous
Joseph,<BR/><BR/>I want respond a little more.. & I do appreciate your careful elaboration of differences over the vocabulary. For taking it seriously.<BR/><BR/>"Normative" : by this I mean a poetry that has some appreciable relation – pro or con – with generally-understood, basic human ethics. Much poetry of the last century seems more interested in forming its own autonomous
sorry, joe, i’m gonna get off your back.<BR/>if pressed, i guess i’d take your position. and…i am.
Joseph,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the Karl Shapiro reference! That’s very interesting. Being "bourgeois" is so very radical these days.<BR/><BR/>But let me ask you – what do you think Whitman was referring to, when he wrote (in "Starting from Paumanok"):<BR/><BR/>"O such themes–equalities! O divine average!"<BR/><BR/>- because this is what we’re talking about with "middling". <BR/><BR/>By the way,
what if this plumbline is a convoluted call for ‘clarity?'<BR/><BR/>middling is, of course, an irony, as is the sense that any school actually has good poets AND adherence to any of its tenets (how good of an objectivist was WCW (he was a good one at his worst, i guess)).<BR/><BR/>the best irony is woody allen’s, though, because of course there is a lot more between the lines than simple