I've decided to implement a new poetry-awareness initiative into the Useless Critic. seems like I'm the only contributor that gives a tolerant shit on the subject, so might as well!
I start with a poet that all my comrades-in-arms in Poetry Workshop are way too familiar with, and that would be our current Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan.
I'm not sure I like her style, nor appreciate it a great deal. It's a lot like Elizabeth Bishop to me and I am no Elizabeth Bishop fan. Too....blah. like, I see the experimentation and I can like, respect that. I see certain things with the flow and the style that are interesting but really. Really? Overall not my bag.
Nonetheless, she earned the title of Poet Laureate for a reason. A good way to describe her stuff is "compact," as I read in a biography. I tend to agree. see here:
THINGS SHOULDN'T BE SO HARD
A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn-out place;
beneath her hand
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks. The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space—however small —
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn't
be so hard.
...
somedays I would do anything to be nine again.
w00t. I don't know, I think I might judge poets too much by how they look (LINDA LEE HARPER; TS ELIOT; BRYCE PHILLIPS).
ReplyDeletebut seriously, after writing the kay ryan explication, I came into a whole new appreciation for her poetry.
ahem
for the masses:
Mockingbird
Nothing whole
is so bold we
sense. Nothing
not cracked is
so exact and
of a piece. He's
the distempered
emperor of parts
the king of patch,
the master of
pastiche, who so
hashes other birds'
laments, so minces
their capriccios that
the dazzle of dispatch
displaces the originals.
As though brio
really does beat feeling
the way two aces
beat three hearts
when it's cards
you're dealing.
kinda loved it, actually. especially the dickinsonian quip at the end. we should do a recited poetry night - people challenge themselves to do poetry recitations. less pressure than in a class setting. and you can pick anything!
!!! YES!
ReplyDeletewe just talked about this. I'm really in, all the way.