I just want to get these down here. I’ve been looking at The Reaper Essays by Mark Jarman & Robert McDowell. I find their Non-negotiable Demands of interest.
1. Take prosody off the hit list.
2. Stop calling formless writing poetry.
3. Accuracy at all costs.
4. No emotion without narrative.
5. No more meditating on the meditation.
6. No more poems about poetry.
7. No more irresponsibility of expression.
8. Raze the House of Fashion.
9. Dismantle the Office of Translation.
10. Spring open the Jail of the Self.
It’s a fundamentalist doctrine from the narrative metrical party, and I tend these days towards that side of the hall. But it is doctrinaire, and more like a set of demands from a conquering empire rather than a striving democratic city-state. But I will grant them their sixth demand today at once without any further argument. No more poems about poetry. That shall be written in the preamble in fact.
THERE AND GONE ….
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Here is an autumn hokku kindly shared by a reader in Japan: In a moment,It
no longer is —The rainbow. When we look at English poetry, it is common to
ask t...
3 weeks ago
6 comments:
What is so awful about poems about poetry?
I agree-- with a certain amount of qualification-- with the list, but #6 is the one I'm the least comfortable with. (He says, dangling.) That's for one reason only, though: that sometimes, very occasionally, some poems about poetry are actually worth the reams of bad poems we get on same. It's an old saw that serendipity is looking for a needle in a haystack and finding the farmer's daughter. Once in an indigo moon, she's there-- and that makes all the difference. I understand the desire for a moratorium, but I think I'd stop short of an all-out excision. #s 1, 3, 4 and 7 strike me as crucial, though: they seem to me the central vertebra of a rejuvenated poetics. Will have to check out the Jarman and McDowell at next possible chance; thanks for the note. Cheers.
I'm afraid I disagree with #6, for several reasons: why restrict subject matter?; the existence of great poems about poetry; I do it myself, using poetry to challenge predominant assumptions about poetry; as one former teacher said, "Every poem is an ars poetica" and another one said, "Good poems teach us how to read them."
I find #9 very disturbing, Anglo-centric and even arguably bordering on the xenophobic. I fail to see the logic of their argument: since there are several bad translations out there, we should do away with translation altogether. I'd like to think they're being ironic, but I detect no irony. And the concluding sentences on the Story Line website ("And what is the recent fascination for poets like Seamus Heaney and Geoffrey Hill, an Irishman and an Englishman, if it is not a longing for the sound of native speech? English.") devalue the achievements of poets writing in foreign tongues. (For the sake of full disclosure I am also a translator.)
I admit I'm only privy to what's on the Story Line website and not the entire book, but for what it's worth...
Jodie
Andrew, J, Jodie
I'm thinking that there's such a universe of subject matter out there without having to turn in on oneself so. And yes there's been some great poems about poetry, but I dare say there have been many many bad ones. So maybe the preamble should state that unless you are 100% sure that you've created a gem, fuhgeddaboudit.
J,
I'm with you for the most part on 1, 3, 4 &7. And I think I misrepresented Jarman and McDowell as fundamentalist. So maybe I agree with them more than I previously thought. Whether it is free or metered, there should be prosody et al. I'm specifically struck by #4, and wish to write more on that later.
Jodie, (I miss your blog btw) I think Jarman and McDowell are not as xenophobic as that demand may make them out to be. "Certainly, translation is not the problem, but the American mass production and marketing of it is." Bad poetry being translated. Translations sounding like the translator rather than the real poet. Etc. It's a difficult call. I appreciate the translations I've read of poets like Rilke and Neruda, but also recognize I'm reading Rilke and Neruda through someone's filter. As for their comment concerning the longing for the sound of native speech, well, sure I'm looking for good English, but that shouldn't preclude good translations, so I don't know what the hell they mean there.
RK, I'm beginning to believe all politics aren't personal, they're poetical. But no rumble going on that I can see. Any of your translations available on the web?
You can find some of RK's translations -- from Dutch and Latin-- on his LJ blog here (scroll down a bit). Given your interest in sonnet-sequences, you might also want to check out my old friend's book. Might be of interest for you. Cheers.
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