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“Mr. Yeats, Meet Mr. Freud” (but not Mr. Ashbery)
The works of Yeats and Freud are now available online thanks to the expiration of their copyrights. (Thanks to Jilly Dybka’s Poetry Hut Blog for this one.) Thanks to the greed-driven expansion of copyright protections future readers will have to wait a good deal longer to access the complete works of Ashbery (for example) online and for free.Read More
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Reading Into and the Avant-Garde
Jacket Magazine has published a peculiarly passive-aggressive 4,000-plus word response by Jeffrey Side to a 193 word statement by Seamus Heaney, quoted from Heaney’s interview with Dennis O’Driscoll as published in Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney. (The interview is no longer available online, alas.) Here is the Heaney excerpt; his initial “it” refers to the term “avant-garde”: It’s an old-fashioned term by now. In literature, nobody can cause bother any more. John Ashbery was a kind of avant-garde poet certainly and now he’s become a mainstream voice.Read More
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The Greatness Debate
This is a reply to Adam Fieled’s excellent post, in which he responds to Amy King’s challenge to define “greatness.” Her post, I have to add, was occasioned by a New York Times essay by David Orr, “The Great(ness) Game”—a laughable piece of pseudo-intellectual drivel. Orr’s essay has succeeded, however, in spurring all sorts of commentary among poetry bloggers. It just happens that Fieled’s and King’s got my head buzzing like a late spring hive. So, by addressing Adam here, I’m also addressing Amy and David Orr and anybody else who’s been pondering the issue of poetic greatness.Read More
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An Ordinary Reader Contra Jargon
I was going to post this as a response in the comment stream, but though it might be worth its own post. It’s a response to Seth’s comment on my earlier post below. Hello, Seth— Maybe I’m just oversensitive to theoretical language, so much so that I find the odor of it everywhere. You do, in fact, deliver a fairly jargon-free discussion of 7 lines from Joshua Beckman‘s Shake, but let me examine just one key sentence of it in the hope that I can clarify why I smell jargon there.Read More
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The Openness of Coral Bracho
Readers of this blog know I’m a fan of openness. But defining “openness” is impossible: the very nature of it defies definition. And it’s easy to confuse it with “anything goes.” I once fell to arguing with a friend who insisted that anything an artist says is art is art; some poets have made the same assertion for their own writing. Can I be a fan of openness without sharing that assertion? I guess it comes down to suggesting the kinds of openness I’m actually a fan of.Read More
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No Contest
Travis Nichols has posted his reaction to Stacey Lynn Brown’s account of her frustrating experience as the winner of a Cider Press Review publication contest. Nichols calls her account a “tale”—a term that is just one brick in the wall he wants to erect between Brown’s revelations and Nichols’ evident faith in the contest system. Personally, I’m grateful for Brown’s candor, and I set out to post a response to Nichols saying just that.Read More
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Duty and Delight
Thankfully, Bill Knott has resurrected his blog, where he has been posting links to those of his collections that he is making available through his storefront at Lulu.com (both as bound volumes and as free PDF downloads). He’s also reposting some good material from his old blog.Read More
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The Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Project (PPPLP)
Here’s an article regarding the move to choose “the Pikes Peak region’s first-ever poet laureate,” an intriguing notion that originated with the wonderful folks at Poetry West. The article is solid, but note the silly cartoons apparently intended to represent poets.Read More