West Chester debriefing part 1

West Chester was fantastic.  My brain is still full of information and swimming with crazy poetry.

If you didn't go -- and you're a poet who reads this blog -- you NEED to go next year.

Here's a breakdown of the weekend as I saw it:

I arrived late on Wednesday (missed the damn banquet, etc.) but got to meet Quincy Lehr and David Landrum and a few others of Eratosphere fame.  Woo hoo -- free wine.

On Thursday I wandered around for a bit, talking with Davids Yezzi and Mason and Mad Dog Gioia who has a memory for conversation that bespeaks one qualified to climb the ladder of governmental arts.  

Chatted a bit with Donald Hall about Hall's interviews with Pound.  Hall told me Pound's assessment of his political activities was that "he may have been a bit off base."  All poets should be so aware.

Class started, a lovely jaunt on poetry in the classroom with the verse wonder-twins of tag-team wrastlin: the Pythoness of Poetry Moira Egan and the inimitable Rhina P. Espaillat.  Thursday night I brought my mandolin and strummed up with Michael and Krys, Mike teaching me more in 10 minutes about the mandolin than I had learned in 10 years of owning one.

Friday brought more classes and a jaunty private chortle with critic-god Christopher Ricks ("how about Beckett? He's quite good too, what?") whose lecture reminded me why I wanted to go to U Boston for grad school when I was a wee sophomore.  

Friday night birthed full-on bluegrass with the Mike & Mike show, Yezzi-brand Banjo, and harps from as far away as Scotland.  Oh 'twas glorious.  After having my Glenrothes stolen (tha bastards!) and Yez and I riffing on the banj till 1, I strolled up to Ernie's room and è stato un colpo di fulmine -- I met the impossible Jillian.  A bad Christian girl with matchless skills in reimagining religious texts, I found a sure conspirator.  We all boozed it up in Ernie's room till 4 or so, drunkenly reciting remembered favorite poems.  Ah, poetry.

Saturday we wrapped things up, I bought two of JAE's books (expect reviews swoon), and we went to the (indoors, unfortunately) picnic.  Heather and the girls were supposed to join us but were caught up at the Adventure farm and so arrived after most everyone had left.  No matter, everyone who met them now knows my girls rank on the cuteness scale at at over 9000 yottaharo (Haro Kiti [that's Hello Kitty, y'all] being 1 unit of "cute" -- most of your standard lol-fare rates on the kiloharo range,  a megaharo would be Hayley Mills in Pollyanna, a petaharo  Momo-tan, and my friggin adorable daughters are off the yotta, yo -- but I digress).

Saturday night brought more booze and schmooze but in a cramped ballroom, so of a decidedly less-fun flavor.  I did have a great discussion with Our Photographer (ha!) Daniel Lin that will (I hope!) bear fruit.  Once most people started to leave, I did do some confabbing with the Mason (who tried to pour me a straw), J. Allyn Rosser (that's Jill to most of us), and The Jillian. Oh and Sam Gwynn and I liberated booze from the bar while Yezzi ran interference.  w00t what!

All-in-all a fabulist's formalist dream.  I await next year with open feet. 

A Review: Shannon by Campbell McGrath

Shannon: a poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

by Campbell McGrath

2009, Ecco

$23.99 (well, $17.99 at amazon...)

Campbell McGrath's Shannon is perhaps the first serious attempt at mythologizing America written after the deconstruction of the twentieth century.  It is "a poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition," an imagining of the sixteen days Private George Shannon spent wandering alone and lost on the prairie, a found horse in tow, trying to reconnect with "the Capts. & the Corps of Discovery."  Told in a free verse style that combines the best of Pound and Olson, George Shannon's hallucinatory travelogue praises both the newly purchased America of 1804 and Shannon's dream of the America to come.

McGrath wholeheartedly embraces the zeal of the early 19th century vernacular in his poem, giving us an sectional-epic -- a descent into hell.  But hell for George Shannon is filled not with flame and demons but hunger and buffalo.  Shannon begins his journey full of wonder for the "fine & open country" but when he realizes the "pure foolishness" of setting out alone with "but five balls" of shot, he begins to worry.  When he realizes he cannot find "the good Capts.," he falls into despair.

His lost days recounted in verse, Shannon muses on the "wind-torn lands flung to the horizon" being molded into states of the Union.  He wanders half-starved through Lewis and Clark's West, finding prairie dogs, antelope, beauty, and everything but his lost Expedition.  As he lays down, exhausted, hungry, and ready for death, Shannon imagines the future of the land on which he will perish.  

Though he sees a land populated by his countrymen, he knows that the West will always belong to the buffalo.  Indeed, Day 13, "the buffalo-god" section, is the surreal zenith of the poem, Shannon embracing the ever-present and seemingly sacrosanct buffalo.  Shannon knows that no matter how many "indians" die, no matter how many Americans die, their bones buried in the soil, "numberless generations" must die "to claim this land from the buffalo."  

Shannon is not being naive.  He is aware that "[his] countrymen / Will populate in numbers these fulsome plains."  But what Shannon understands is that the land itself -- its lay, its soil, its soul -- belongs not to man, but to the buffalo.  McGrath, writing from two centuries out, has the benefit of knowledge -- once returned to the plains and prairies of the West, the bison (for no one today calls them buffalo) thrive and grow, as if taking possession of what is obviously theirs.  But it is through Shannon that we know that irrespective of the highways we cut, the water we pump, and the acres we claim, the land only gives itself to the buffalo.

Having failed to find his Expedition, Shannon is ready, like a good soldier, to sacrifice his life for his Union.  In his final prayer, he gives his body to the land, to stake a claim of ownership:

My name is George Shannon

& I bequeath my remains

To seed this land

With American bones.

While on the prairie, Shannon walks into a deep reverie, a journey of realization and discovery.  McGrath, thankfully, doesn't abuse Shannon's thoughts with anachronisms.  There is no room in Shannon's "country of herds" for post-colonial worrying.  The only hand-wringing McGrath allows Shannon to engage in is the theological sort.  Shannon, with his distaste for the "sanctimony" of "Parson Macready," rejects the church and acknowledges that he never "will come to believing," knowing the reassurances of the Parson that his brother John died to fulfil God's "mysterious ways" are nothing more than "the palaver of a Kentucky card sharp / Caught bluffing."  

But at the same time, Shannon sees "the flower of which Jesus even was made" in a dogwood, and questions the nature and scope of God, even as he contemplates the scope of America's new West.  This struggle between the platitudes of the clergy and the majesty of experience was not only something we find to be true as historians of post-revolutionary America, but was viscerally true, with great men like Franklin and Jefferson trying to define belief against rationalism.  A struggle Shannon would have been wholly aware of and keen to participate in as an educated man.  

Here is where McGrath's writing shines.  In being unafraid to recount a historic episode not as it would be today, gussied up with dusty costumes or dissected in dry volumes, but as what it must have been like that summer of 1804, McGrath allows us not only to have the voyeuristic experience of historical fiction but, and far more valuably, to question and understand what internal struggle is.  By freeing George Shannon's journey and turmoil from any agenda, any contemporary-ism -- McGrath's frees his verse to carry the reality of conflict, the scarcity of hunger.  McGrath shows us the truth in Shannon, not what we wish the truth might be.

To be fair, there are parts of Shannon I do not love.  In his more Olson-ish moments, McGrath dandies with typography and repetition.  While these parts certainly work within the poem, such sops don't excite my reading tongue.  I also wish that McGrath were interested in meter, as the "rhythm and breath and musicality" he employs in his free verse lines are no more exciting than any unmetrical lines written in the last few decades.  I doubly wish this, as Shannon is a powerful poem, but one from which I have remembered the story far more than the verse.  

But these are small and biased complaints about an otherwise excellent and compelling work.  McGrath understands as a poet what it means to give himself to the poem.  Giving himself, he has given us a text, a poem that points the way towards a poetry that does not serve its master, a poetry that is not trapped in thought and academia, but a poetry for the people.  A poetry in which history and truth and beauty are held for riches, and shared freely with the world.

Silliman on School of Quietude, Oxford, and Academic Poetry

Hoo boy.

First let me say that I care neither for Prof. Walcott's alleged sexual indescretions nor for who has what post at Oxford (unless, of course, they are offering me a post -- in which case I accept).

I do, however, care for the framing of this whole "schools of poetry" thing.  At the above link, Silliman refers to both Walcott and Padel as School of Quietude poets.  Certainly I would place them in the world of oral poetry (Walcott, of course, gets a nod as a narrative poet, too).

Now, I've read Omeros.  It was all right.  I would recommend other narrative poems first, though in making a study of contemporary narrative/epic poetry, it's pretty invaluable.  Padel came on to my radar at the same time she came on to yours -- that is, a couple of weeks ago.  In reading the poems she has available on line, I am willing to say she's not a favorite of mine.  Here's a bit from her "latest poem":

At night the savannah comes to claim me.

Thirty females and their calves

in search of a leader. Shaggy manes

down each nape. White bellies, white cheeks 

and that dagger of kohl down the nose.

Kind of that "truncated prose without transistion" school of writing "poetry."  Not that we haven't written it -- but jeez, the featured poem on your website?  Oh well.  Perhaps more "School of Boringtude" or, more accurately, "School of Academia" -- but more on that in a minute.

No.  What really gets my goat is this quote from Silliman:

The surprise is not that the School of Quietude is ruthless in its practice of power politics. That has been its hallmark forever – beginning with a century-long pretense that it represents the whole of poetry, rather than just an anti-modernist / premodernist sliver within a far larger spectrum. No, the surprise is that the SoQ is so very bad at it.

Well of course he's surprised, as his school of avant garde is so good at it.  They circle the wagons, close ranks, and defend their territory with such predictability one thinks they must be orchestrated (though they don't appear to be -- unless there's a kool-aid distributor I've missed).

The real culprit here is not School of Quietude or Avant Garde -- but academic poetry.  As I have said, academic poetry creates these cancerous and mutated growths of "verse" unsupported by market economics.  Even the patronage poets were subject to the whims of the market (even if the market was a noble and his guests).  Academia, however, with its system of tenure and captive audiences, is about as anti-market as you can get (guess that's why everyone in college is a Marxist. . .).

This means that there are no real-world consequences for writing bad verse.  As long as your work fits within a certain mold and you hobnob with the right folk, you're in like flynn.  No matter that your books don't actually sell -- and therefore no one reads your work, you can get acceptance as a "poet" and fleece wannabe poets out of tuition and workshop fees.  Now, this is a great system to get in on, for the established poets.  It's a terrible system for poetry, however, and we've seen the 20th century take poetry from the lips of the masses to the quips of asses.  

It's time we wrote not for tenure but for people.

"Everyone's a little bit racist sometimes"

It seems that a certain Judge has watched Avenue Q a few too many times:

Apparently, holding sexist and racist views like Sonia Sotomayor will get you a nomination to the Supreme Court -- and here I thought the best way was to be a lapdog or a friend to torturers. . .

FTA:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor.

To remind us of where we should be:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

But that's what happens when you politicize things.  Just like folks politicized literature -- and as now we're stuck with this awful dreck (really, just search the links in the archives y'all) masquerading as poetry, we are stuck with this awful dreck masquerading as progress.

To quote GnFnS:

Things are seldom what they seem,

skim milk masquerades as cream. . .

update: she apparently is not a fan of free speech

West Chester Poetry Conference Coming Soon!

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know that I'll be at the West Chester Poetry Conference coming up in 3 weeks.  Woo!

After going to my poetry in the classroom workshop, I hope to be bumming around with a mandolin, a bottle of booze, and a stack of poems.

Good times.

Narrative Poetry Saves the Day; it's not vizpo, langpo, orpo, forpo, and freepo -- it's narpo.

or, Why Poets Should Tell Stories

So I've been wandering in the wilderness for a bit.  Like any good sojourn, it's refreshed and refocused me.  Not a bad thing 'tall.

We've also had some great visitors here.  Check the comments section for a handful of generally genial folks taking me to task for clarity and specifics.  Good stuff all around.

And I've been reading poetry -- first the folks I met at AWP, then the free books I got at AWP, and lately a few books that have been mailed for review (though I didn't review them -- nothing good to say and whatnot) and of course narrative prose as well. 

No narrative poetry, though.  I've read through a dozen or so books of poetry and the only one that even attempted a sort of narrative was half a collection of episodic/thematic sonnets; nice, but. . . (there's a review forthcoming, but in Florida English).  

So, folks, we know the point of this blog is to work towards a revival of poetry.  Namely to save poetry from its poets -- to turn our focus as makers of poetry, as artists, from our shoes to our spectators.

I believe that one of our greatest audience-reaching problems (book distribution, discussed here and here, for starters) is in the business of being solved.  Espresso Book Machines, by the way, are located here.  Check one out and check back in with us!

So the technology is keeping up with us.  The writing, however, is not.

I've talked before, at length, about narrative poetry.  

I've also had, since starting this blog, the opportunity to come into contact with a great many good poets.  Follow the links or just look to the right for even more.

Problem is, not many folks actually know them.  I was talking to an old prof over drinks at AWP and we surmised that the only people who read poetry anymore are those who write it and that there are approximately 4 writers of poetry for every 1 reader (I forget where he got the writers number from but it was about 10 or 12 million Americans).  I, of course, know why the readers number is so low.

Of the four above writers and the four poets to my right, only two of them are writers of longform narrative poetry (that I know of -- Kim Addonizio also wrote a novel) and, not surprisingly, they have the greatest amount of google hits (by a factor of 5 & 50 over the next two most popular).  Except for Mr. Philp, all the poets have far fewer hits than even regional and genre prose fiction authors.  I'm sure that their sales numbers are all smaller (by definition of poetry sales being utter shite), though I haven't been so gauche as to ask them specific sales numbers (yet -- we may get friendly enough at West Chester Poetry Conference, where at least 3 of the 8 will be).

Hits, of course, don't mean everything -- but they do mean how distributed the poet's "name" is (which still means less than a lot as even Mr. Philp is dwarfed by a Stephen King or JK Rowling -- both of whom are dwarfed by Harry Potter, Lost the TV show, American Idol, and porn -- priorities, priorities. . .) and how familiar the public is likely to be with said name.

Speaking of, I got berated at an old blog for being concerned with poets and not their poems.  Well first, I like poets for their poems; but more than that, we have to realize we live in a world of brands -- and we always have.  Brands are nothing more than commericalized authority (and, really, hasn't authority always been commercial?) and as such, we should respect the impact that a name makes.

Back on topic,

Why is narrative poetry so important?

The answer is simple -- memory.  I read Yezzi and Addonizio and Spera's and Barenblat's work and really liked it.  The only poems I "remember" are one by Yezzi and one by Spera that were very short (40 lines?) stories.  Yet I can quote at length from what happened in Mason's Ludlow, and can get people interested enough in the story to want to read the poem.

And there it is.  How can I get people interested in Kim Addonizio?  "Hey man, there's this poet and she writes some really fun verse -- a lot of it is catchy and risque" or Rachel Barenblat "so there's this poet and she rewrites a lot of the Torah -- really great updated religious poetry."

Note -- I'm not trying to write bad copy here, I'm just saying that the best thing I can say about them without having their poetry in front of me is a generalization of what their poetry is "about" -- or not even about, since lyric so often is about ephemera -- or what their poetry does.

Not very exciting -- except to a poet. . .

A story, on the other hand, gets everyone excited.  Readers are hooked in by stories, not writing ability, or more important, writing style.  If they find a good story, they'll read it.  Not to beat a dead horse, but look at Dan Brown.  Interesting stories propped up by bland and formulaic writing -- but not only does he "sell," but the VATICAN talks about his work.  

When was the last time the Vatican concerned itself with a book of poetry? 

We are missing out on something big, folks.

To pick up on that something big, we need to start writing stories in verse.  They need to be stories people will buy into written in verse they can read and understand.  It would be best if people loved the stories and the verse was memorable and moving.

Obviously the second part is most widely accomplished through rhythmic verse (whether metrical or accentual doesn't really concern me at the moment -- but we need regular beats).  Rhyme (at least in English) is an arguable factor.  But we need that backbeat rhythm to really really kick em in the heart of rock and roll and get them reading poetry again.

I've said before, we don't need to generate original stories.  In fact, it may be best that we don't while there are so many stories to mine.  Mason's Ludlow is a prime example of that -- as are the Iliad and Odyssey and even Paradise Lost.  Indeed, historical non-fiction (of a sort) is the home territory of narrative poetry and it's a shame we gave it up.

So, write narrative poetry for the connections;

write narrative poetry for the memories;

write narrative poetry!

Update on the Espresso Book Machine

So the Guardian numbers were a bit off.  I talked today with the good folks at On Demand Books and the New Orleans Public Library, where an Espresso Book Machine is currently located (the others are here).

Here's what I found out:

There are three versions of the EBM 2.0:

Two black and white models with different printing speeds:

The Turtle (35 ppm) for $75,000

The Rabbit (105 ppm) for $95,000

There is a color version as well:

The Leary for $100,000

Each version has a color printer for covers, but the Leary prints interior color as well.

There are currently 15 installations, with more coming.  Each unit has between 7,500 and 20,000 sales per year.  At a cost of $.01 per page (as the website says), with a book cost of $10, a 300 page book makes $7.  Split that even with the author and you're making $3.50 a book.  Charge more and, well, you make more.  That means the machine pays for itself in less than two years at a good rate of sale (assuming you're selling the books for cheap).  

But the cool thing was talking to the New Orleans Public Library.  They've taken a non-mercenary approach with their EBM and use it to make low cost books for children's programs, local geneological societies, and scholarly and creative journals.  Which reminded me that I should have thought about small presses.  A few small presses could get together and buy an EBM and control their own destiny (bwa ha ha), especially if they were located in the same area.

So that's my EBM update.  If anybody has $75-100k, I've got room in my house for one :)