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Martin Earl on Günter Grass … and More!
Martin Earl Apropos of my earlier post on the controversial poem “What Must Be Said,” by Günter Grass, I want to direct all Birders to Martin Earl’s lucid Harriet post on the subject. It’s well worth pondering…. It’s also worth wondering why, with the single exception of Earl’s fine post, America’s most well-funded poetry-promotion engine, The Poetry Foundation, has managed to remain utterly silent on what is currently the world’s most famous contemporary poem.Read More
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Hapax Legomenon Redux
Harriet celebrates Poetry Month with this hilarious post by con man Kenny Goldsmith, in which he makes good on his promise of “uncreative writing” by quoting a vacuous, jargon-ridden exercise in what passes for criticism in the back alleys of academe. “Conceptual writing signaled the end of the era of individual voice,” opines Ms. Johanna Drucker. “Poetics of the swarm, mind-melding writing, poiesis as the hapax legomenon of the culture?” (No, that question mark is not an typo. It is in Drucker’s text and is as mysterious there as it is here.Read More
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Tin Ear
Rimbaud (who did nothave a tin ear) It’s statements like this that drive me nuts—at least when I’m in a certain mood: The poem [Paul Schmidt’s translation of Rimbaud’s “Le Bateau ivre”] starts with I drifted on a river I could not control. In the other of my most favorite translations, Samuel Beckett begins with Downstream on impassive rivers suddenly. Two magnificent and very different first lines, but rhythmically not that far apart. The statement is by Norma Cole, a widely-published poet and academic who teaches at the University of San Francisco.Read More
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News Flash: Potatoeheads at Harriet in Line for Promotion to Muttonheads
So let me get this straight. The Harrieterati want us to sneer at Bradley Cooper playing Lucifer but applaud the casting of con man Kenny Goldsmith as Julian Assange because Goldsmith routinely violates copyright laws at UbuWeb. Now, I’m sure Cooper will never match my favorite film Satan, David Warner; but I’m equally sure that Goldsmith bears as much resemblance to Assange as Dan Quayle did to John F.Read More
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Poetry News from Harriet and PennSound
Charles Bernstein hails a cab, or perhaps cusses out a cabbiefor failing to stop in response to his hailing. This is a still fromBernstein’s film-in-progress, Hailing a Cab, or How I Learnedto Stop Worrying and Love the Post-Avant. The kind of crap that passes for “poetry news” when you’ve been handed about a billion dollars to promote poetry.Read More
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Horse Pucky*
The Slipperiness of Academe “Perloff also seems to understand the problematizing act of Hawkey’s project, which manifoldly engages and investigates appropriation, dialogism, the creative act, and the anxiety of influence.” —Some denizen of academia (I’m betting) named Harriet Staff __________________* Regarding horse pucky, it’s a cherished term from my childhood. It means “nonsense,” yes. But nonsense that reeks. That squishes between one’s mental toes. That causes the feet of one’s intellect to fly out and dump one down in the muck.Read More
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Pretentious
Okay. Drop by this post on the Poetry Foundation’s blog Harriet, if you feel like a good laugh.Read More
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. 
