[lit-ideas] Re: POETRY SCHOETRY
- From: Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:37:15 -0500
Hi, Julie,
I wouldn't presume to categorize them. I've never read any of Sharon Olds
or Celan, and only a few poems of Neruda and Paz. The others you list I'm
pretty familiar with. I like especially e.e. cummings, Mary Oliver and
Sexton. Eliot apparently still sits at the right hand of God -- I once
showered adoration on him, but find him rather tendentious and tedious now.
As to my categories, they're obviously without any merit. 44 years ago when
I was at S F State, American poets were categorized as West Coast, East
Coast or Beat. To me now the most interesting differences in American
poetry are the themes -- personal, sociological, philosophical. There's one
hell of a big difference between a poem by Mary Oliver and one by John
Ashbery. But so what. There should be a big difference.
And etc.
Mike Geary
Memphis
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 12:30 PM, Julie C <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Where do you put (how do you categorize) these? They are the poets who,
> for many years now, have spoken to me --
>
> cummings
> Sexton
> Sharon Olds
> Neruda
> T. S. Eliot
> Mary Oliver
> Octavio Paz
> Celan
> Rumi (odd man out, I guess)
>
> Julie Krueger
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Mike Geary <
> jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> I'd rather read a good short story than a good novel. I'd rather read a
>> good poem than a good short story. It could be that I'm just lazy (I am),
>> or it could be that the more concentrated the experience, the more intense
>> the experience.
>>
>> Poetry is not everyone's cup of tea. Those I know who don't like poetry
>> usually say things like: "why doesn't he just say what he means?" Good
>> question if poetry were about meaning. Or maybe I should say "totally about
>> meaning." When I think back to my high school exposure to poetry I
>> remember Frost (Hired Hand, Mending Wall, Stopping By The Woods On a Snowy
>> Evening), some easy sonnets by Elizabeth Barret Browning and Shakespeare.
>> Mostly good old home grown thoughts and emotions within a rhyme scheme.
>> College brought the study of poetry as canonized period pieces. But the
>> period that interested at the time was my own -- it was the Beats -- the
>> wild men who had grabbed the labels of the culture and were shaking it:
>> "Listen to me, listen to me." But most of their poetry was just
>> evangelizing an unarticulated alternative culture. Still, it was fun. Then
>> I discovered the "sensitive poets" -- Merwin, Bly, Hall, Hect,
>> Bishop, Galway Kinnell, Levertov, Plath, Wright -- to name a few that come
>> immediately to mind. And so many unclassifiables: Cummings,
>> Roethke, Snyder, Stafford, Koch. All are rich veins of versification. But
>> I never took to Ashbery. Never understood how he was using words, but I
>> persisted. At first he seemed as disconnected as Ritchie's Gardening
>> Guy. Where's the poetic language in his poetry? He seems to write prose
>> sentences. Where the emotional nexus? He seems have no center. Then it
>> began to dawn on me that he uses everyday language as the most poetic of
>> poetic language, and that the nexus is the whole of the poem. Most of the
>> poems reflect he helter-skelter of our experience of the world and our
>> wanting, needing, crying out for a nexus to our lives. All of us as lost as
>> he is and read that way I find him very powerful. I'm reading Jorie Graham
>> now. Love her. A genius at metaphorization -- is that a word? It is now.
>>
>> Mike Geary
>> not giving a damn what you think you know, I know better
>> in Memphis
>>
>
>
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