Jonathan describes his “blogger’s code,” which “says not to criticize the poetry of another blogger who is known to me primarily, or principally, as a blogger, and is not a quote unquote famous poet.” I think I probably feel that way as well, although I’ve never really articulated it to myself that way. But what I’ve really been thinking is…
Author: Timothy Yu
The Chinese (American) Notebook
Ron Silliman muses today on the phenomenon of scribbling into a notebook while listening to another poet read: “the trifecta of literary environments, the best possible context in which to produce work.” I’ve found this to be the case as well, on some occasions. Though usually what results for me is a weird work in which the reader’s words get…
A-GGGG! (III)
A few more contributions over the past few days to the avant-grrr. Jasper Bernes agrees that we would have “a difficult time defining a-g writing as a function of the text itself.” Josh posts an email exchange with Reginald Shepherd, who criticizes the avant-garde’s “reflexive dichotomizing,” which neglects “actual poems.” Chris Lott argues for beauty and clarity and declares “It’s…
A-GGGG! (II)
Josh Corey asks: Where do we place a poet who produces normative free verse but publishes it with small presses and keeps blog? Did Ashbery lose his avant-gardener status the moment Auden chose him as a Yale Younger Poet? If Jorie Graham wrote the exact same poems but published with O Books instead of HarperCollins, would the poems somehow be…
A-GGGG!
Josh Corey and Ange Mlinko debate whether folks like Anne Winters and Jorie Graham are avant-garde or not. If the discussion ulitimately feels unsatisfying, it’s not because both don’t make reasonable points, but because the question of who is or is not avant-garde can’t be determined on merely formal grounds, i.e. just by reading a text and classifying it one…
Your Linguistic Profile: 55% General American English 20% Yankee 15% Upper Midwestern 5% Dixie 5% Midwestern What Kind of American English Do You Speak? A little surprising. I thought I’d score a little higher on the Midwestern scale; I even tried to skew the results by using my childhood terminology (“pop,” which they also seem to say in Toronto–is this…
Fooey! (II)
Double ugh. I was trying to reserve judgment on Alan Cordle’s intentions, but I now see that the blast of embarrassing publicity the NYT article generated has encouraged him not to crawl into a hole (which I would probably do) but to bring Foetry roaring back–cringeworthy sign-offs notwithstanding. It’s all too obvious at this point that Foetry’s methods, which claim…
Fooey!
Ugh. The front page of the NYT arts section yesterday had me reaching for my airsick bag: there it was, an article on the collapse of Foetry. Congrats to Alan Cordle for doing the impossible: making people feel sorry for Jorie Graham. Ron Silliman reflects a bit today on the whole thing. I already said my bit on it–almost exactly…
Myopia
Updated: the link to the Myopic Poetry Series, at right. Next up: Dan Beachy-Quick and Stacy Szymaszek, this Sunday at 7.
This Isn’t a War Story
but a layer of war around every hard-boiled egg, running through what looks likeopen ground and as if the newspaperwere striking on the hour Who’s this girl’s-best-friend, who is the nextterm in the sequence sufferinga term of art Touchis a sharp rightI knowI’m good a self-servewind brushing back the hairof the head, the soft hairof the face and arms all…