Favorite Modern/Living/Non-English Poet

[stlukesguild]

OK... there seems to be this frequent assumption that those who cite an older poem and poet (and especially one written in English) as their favorite, are either clueless or dismissive of anything more contemporary... or by a non-Anglo poet. So here's your chance to prove them wrong.

Share with us, if you will, who is:

1. Your favorite 20th century poet

2. Your favorite 20th century poem

3. Your favorite living poet

4. Your favorite poem by a living poet

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Well, I can only answer 1 and 2, as I'm not familiar with enough poetry to answer the rest. So 1 would be Yeats, and 2 would be "The Second Coming."

[stlukesguild]

No answer yet. Perhaps it proves that LitNetters don't read "outside the box" of old Anglo-poets... or it proves JBI's assertion that most LitNetters simply don't read poetry.:frown2:

[JBI]

Favorite 20th century poet, well, maybe Montale, that is who comes to my mind right now.

Favorite 20th century poem, maybe 死水 by Wen Yiduo, or perhaps something by Bialik. Definately This is to Say by W. C. Williams if we include English poems.

Favorite living poet, well, this is difficult because there are so many. Right now, Wilbur comes to mind first, but if you want a non-English one, maybe Xi Murong.

Favorite poem by a living poet is probably Autobiography of Red, but if you want a shorter one, maybe O Cadoiro by Erin Moure, which is a mix of medieval Galician and idiosyncratic English.

Favorite non-Anglo poet, well probably Li Yu, Or perhaps Li Bo. Ibn Gabriel is also a favorite poet of mine.

Favorite Non-English poem, well, probably this one http://www.chinese-poems.com/y9.html The translation is absolute crap though, and without the background it is impossible to get the essence of it, with the paralleled allusions and evasive suggestions. They even axed the real title from it.

Edit, and of course, the immortal Teresa Teng singing it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P2AUcqL50U

I like this one by Li He also, http://books.google.ca/books?id=EB1naSWbq1IC&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=song+of+the+warden+of+goose+gate+li+he&source=bl&ots=-3YGRhtKD0&sig=KxY0qzEPv33F5ukHWXdFbrVrQiY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=y8S-T7XzOOPa6gGdhNnfCg&ved=0CEkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=song%20of%20the%20warden%20of%20goose%20gate%20l i%20he&f=false. Again, not a perfect translation, as it seems to localize the poem more, whereas the Chinese seems to keep the poet blurry within the poem, which makes its engagement with war and history more universal and less personal. Still, Li He is perhaps the most difficult poet to translate I have ever encountered.

[Polednice]

Stlukes! Peek a boo! :D

[Polednice]

Ahem, forgiving my outburst, to the actual question:

1. I must shamefully admit that my knowledge of 20th century poetry is rather slim, so I cannot profess a fully reasoned opinion, but I have recently loved reading the poetry of Edwin Morgan.

2. Couldn't answer this for any period.

3. Again my experience is thin on the ground. I think John Burnside is interesting, and I came across a young poet in Poetry Review called Isabel Galleymore who wrote something wonderful, but I couldn't claim a favourite yet.

4. Same as 2.

5. Does non-Anglo mean non-British (i.e. American allowed), or are we being stricter? If strict, I suppose I'd have to be cliché and go with Baudelaire.

[Alexander III]

OK... there seems to be this frequent assumption that those who cite an older poem and poet (and especially one written in English) as their favorite, are either clueless or dismissive of anything more contemporary... or by a non-Anglo poet. So here's your chance to prove them wrong.

Share with us, if you will, who is:

1. Your favorite 20th century poet

2. Your favorite 20th century poem

3. Your favorite living poet

4. Your favorite poem by a living poet

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem


This is actually a good "what is your favorite thread" I am in.



1. Your favorite 20th century poet


Had you asked me 2 months ago I would have said Ezra Pound. But right now my favorite is giuseppe ungaretti, he lead an extraordinary life and was one of the few masters of modernist verse. The stuff is simply beautiful and unique - the last century focused heavily on the latter but he was one of the few who also never forgot the former.

2. Your favorite 20th century poem

Autumn

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one
anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long
time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.

- Maria Rainer Rilke


3. Your favorite living poet

This is more difficult as I don't enjoy most contemporary poetry. There is a strong part of me which would wish to say Bob Dylan, but I shall say Seamus Heaney instead. I have always admired his harmony.


4. Your favorite poem by a living poet

For John Clare


Kind of empty in the way it sees everything, the earth gets to its feet and
salutes the sky. More of a success at it this time than most
others it is. The feeling that the sky might be in the back of someone's
mind. Then there is no telling how many there are. They grace
everything--bush and tree--to take the roisterer's mind off his
caroling--so it's like a smooth switch back. To what was aired in
their previous conniption fit. There is so much to be seen everywhere
that it's like not getting used to it, only there is so much it
never feels new, never any different. You are standing looking at that
building and you cannot take it all in, certain details are already hazy
and the mind boggles. What will it all be like in five years' time
when you try to remember? Will there have been boards in between the
grass part and the edge of the street? As long as that couple is
stopping to look in that window over there we cannot go. We feel like
they have to tell us we can, but they never look our way and they are
already gone, gone far into the future--the night of time. If we could
look at a photograph of it and say there they are, they never really
stopped but there they are. There is so much to be said, and on the
surface of it very little gets said.

There ought to be room for more things, for a spreading out, like.
Being immersed in the details of rock and field and slope --letting them
come to you for once, and then meeting them halfway would be so much
easier--if they took an ingenuous pride in being in one's blood.
Alas, we perceive them if at all as those things that were meant to be
put aside-- costumes of the supporting actors or voice trilling at the
end of a narrow enclosed street. You can do nothing with them. Not even
offer to pay.

It is possible that finally, like coming to the end of a long,
barely perceptible rise, there is mutual cohesion and interaction. The
whole scene is fixed in your mind, the music all present, as though you
could see each note as well as hear it. I say this because there is an
uneasiness in things just now. Waiting for something to be over before
you are forced to notice it. The pollarded trees scarcely bucking the
wind--and yet it's keen, it makes you fall over. Clabbered sky.
Seasons that pass with a rush. After all it's their time
too--nothing says they aren't to make something of it. As for Jenny
Wren, she cares, hopping about on her little twig like she was tryin'
to tell us somethin', but that's just it, she couldn't
even if she wanted to--dumb bird. But the others--and they in some way
must know too--it would never occur to them to want to, even if they
could take the first step of the terrible journey toward feeling
somebody should act, that ends in utter confusion and hopelessness, east
of the sun and west of the moon. So their comment is: "No comment."
Meanwhile the whole history of probabilities is coming to life, starting
in the upper left-hand corner, like a sail.



- Ashbery

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet

I must cede to a 3 way tie between Francois Villon, Arthur Rimbaud or Pushkin.

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem

If I walk the noisy streets,
Or enter a many thronged church,
Or sit among the wild young generation,
I give way to my thoughts.

I say to myself: the years are fleeting,
And however many there seem to be,
We must all go under the eternal vault,
And someone's hour is already at hand.

When I look at a solitary oak
I think: the patriarch of the woods.
It will outlive my forgotten age
As it outlived that of my grandfathers'.

If I dandle a young infant,
Immediately I think: farewell!
I will yield my place to you,
For I must fade while your flower blooms.

Each day, and every hour
I habitually follow in my thoughts,
Trying to guess from their number
The year which brings my death.

And where will fate send death to me?
In battle, in my travels, or on the seas?
Or will the neighbouring valley
Receive my chilled ashes?

And although to the senseless body
It is indifferent wherever it rots,
Yet close to my beloved countryside
I still would prefer to rest.

And let it be, beside the grave's vault
That young life forever will be playing,
And impartial, indifferent nature
Eternally be shining in beauty

- Pushkin

[JCamilo]

1. Your favorite 20th century poet

Fernando Pessoa or Yeats or Rilke or Drummond or Ruben Dario or Frost or Vinicius de Moraes or Borges...

2. Your favorite 20th century poem

Leda and the Swan or Autopsicografia or Navegar é Preciso or Vou me embora para Passargada or I dunno, tomorrow some other...

3. Your favorite living poet

Ariano Suassuna or Manoel de Barros

4. Your favorite poem by a living poet

Nothing specific, maybe the book "No tempo das ignoranças"

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet

Dante

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem[/B][/QUOTE]

The Comedy

[stlukesguild]

Stlukes! Peek a boo!

Accckkk!! The Brahmsian vampire pig. Me thinks you skipped out on LitNet just to avoid the celebrations of Wagner's birthday. Too bad, really... you missed out on some of Dr. Mike's Neo-Con diatribes... "America... the land of the free..." and all that.

[stlukesguild]

I should probably answer my own poll, eh?

1. Your favorite 20th century poet- I'd be torn between Rilke, Montale, Neruda, Borges, Yeats, Pasternak, and Eliot

2. Your favorite 20th century poem- I'd almost certainly have to opt for The Wasteland... or perhaps Octavio Paz' Sunstone.

3. Your favorite living poet- A slew of my most beloved poets have died over the last decade or so (Anthony Hecht, Rafael Alberti, Czesław Miłosz, Jaroslav Seifert, etc...)... this leaves me with Geoffrey Hill, Anne Carson, Yves Bonnefoy, Homero Aridjis, Richard Wilbur, Adam Zagajewski and a few others... I'd probably go with Hill.

4. Your favorite poem by a living poet- I'd probably go with either Geoffrey Hill's Triumph of Love or Carson's Autobiography of Red (good choice JBI)... although I quite like some of the poems in Carson's Plainwater as well.. especially Cannicula di Anna

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet- Dante is the obvious answer. After him...? Quite likely Baudelaire.

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem- Dante's Comedia, Firdawsi's Shanameh and Homer's Odyssey. Shorter poems? I think Paul Celan's Death Fugue is devastating.

[stlukesguild]

Ariano Suassuna or Manoel de Barros

Brazilian? Portuguese? Unfortunately, contemporary poetry outside the languages which we can read, is quite limited in terms of accessibility. Only a few major poets from contemporary France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, etc... find their way into descent translations.

[shortstoryfan]

1.) Favorite 20th century poet: I have to say either Stein, or Eliot, or Stevens I suppose. But all three of these are based less on my actual enjoyment and more on the things I've learned from them, or the impact they have had. Eliot and Stevens are the two most common poets people read as influencing me--and I just personally think what Stein help do for language with Tender Buttons is invaluable to someone like myself.

2.) Favorite 20th century poem: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was the first poem that really impressed itself upon me with thoughts and feelings with lasted. It seem to have this grand scope that I hadn't encountered before. I also love Meditation at Lagunitas by Robert Hass.

3.) Your favorite living poet: Wow. Wow. What a question. I would say I have the opposite problem of the typical Litnetter--most of my poetry book collection is made up of books published in the last 15-20 years. Probably D.A. Powell. I also love Eduardo C. Corral, though (I get to see him read in September!) and so many more. What I love about Powell is his ability to draw upon very immediate subjects and imagery in his poems, and still give them this extraordinary sense of glamor using very beautiful, sensuous language. And all of Corral's images are so gorgeous and unique, so visceral in a way they give you a sense of the divine or of myth. Devotion perhaps? I don't know.

4.) Your favorite poem by a living poet: The Truth About God by Anne Carson. I really don't think I can say anything about this poem, or my relationship with it that won't make me sound really stupid, so I won't.

5.) Favorite Non-Anglo poet: I suppose either Rilke or Baudelaire. I've had so little experience with Non-Anglo poets--in poetry, I feel like things are so muddled in translation. I feel like Hesse novels are very badly translated, but I could be wrong. I've read some Lorca in translations, and Paz. Also a friend of mine, who has her own press and a few books, who is from Bulgaria who has poems in both Bulgarian and English. I do have a rather extensive list of people I want to read though.

6.) Favorite Non-Anglo poem: Eh, I'm simply too inexperienced to answer this--in reading Les Fleurs du Mal, I tried to understand what was so significant about it, but I think after all this time, being exposed to poets who have been influenced by Baudelaire, in a big way, I am "immune" to what was magic in those poems (especially at that time). It's sometimes hard for me to put myself in "the mind" of poems, because many of them are just this kind of poem which depends on you being able to read it with sophistication, attuned to the subtleties of the work. Perhaps this kind of thing is lost in contemporary English poetry. Not sure.

[OrphanPip]

1. Your favorite 20th century poet

This is really a tough question, I'm bad with favourites in general. I'm leaning towards Marianne Moore at the moment. Maybe Robert Kroetsch if I'm feeling nationalistic.

2. Your favorite 20th century poem

That's really too hard, ah I like "The Shield of Achilles" by Auden. I'm going with that simply because I mentioned it in another thread earlier.

3. Your favorite living poet

I'm not a huge reader of contemporary poetry, I don't mind some Ashbery, and I do have most of Carson's stuff.

4. Your favorite poem by a living poet

I like Autobiography of Red too, but now it feels like bandwagoning. The Beauty of the Husband is quite underwhelming in comparison. I don't really feel like committing to too much in this category because I only infrequently read contemporary poetry.

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet

Outside of 19th century French poetry, and the usual big international names, I'm not that well read in non-English poetry either. I'll go with Mallarmé or Verlaine.

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem

L'Après-Midi d’un faune by Mallarmé.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Well with modern, non-English and living it probably does by my own admission put me in the minority of reading to be fair! Of course studying a pure English literature degree doesn’t help that much either, but that has long finished now so I don’t have that excuse. I’ll have a go anyway.

1. Your favorite 20th century poet

Thinking about it I’m probably more exposed to contemporary poetry than I would have thought. This is probably due in part to working with the AQA GCSE poetry syllabus. Some of their usual slew of poets include the likes of Simon Armitage (who teaches at Sheffield University), Carol Ann Duffy, John Agard, Grace Nichols, Choman Hardi, Ciaran Carson, Imtiaz Dharker, Andrew Foster and a well of other characters with one off pieces. From this lot unfortunately I can’t say anything has really taken my fancy apart from the odd line here or there or a bit of humour in the likes of Agard or Zephaniah. There are also some really horrendous pieces like this one by Jane Weir probably champions them all: http://www.janeweir.co.uk/POPPIES.html, I couldn’t teach that one without pointing out how horrendous it was, I’m not one for neutrality!

When it comes to 20C poets I do like it is hard to name a favourite to be honest - Auden, Yeats, Benjamin? Not enough to go with. I have no obvious favourite at all really. Neruda? Hughes I’m enjoying at the moment, and maybe with time but…? Eliot’s interesting but has never really let me in. Frost? Really, I just don’t know. I don’t feel like I have connected enough to any one poet of the 20th century to honestly name a favourite. Not in the same way I am connected to older poets (dinosaurs as someone called them the other day) such as Wordsworth, Keats, Milton, Shakespeare for example. However, I’m certainly not dismissive of contemporary poetry and the grounds that it is contemporary or non-Anglo poets on the grounds of their non-Angloness. Clueless to a degree, but not guilty I think of automatically dismissing the last 100 years of the written word.

(StLukes 1 0 Other?)

2. Your favorite 20th century poem

The two that immediate spring to mind time and time again are Auden’s ‘Funeral Blues’ and Betjeman’s ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song,’ magic.

(Stlukes 2 0 Other?)

3. Your favorite living poet
4. Your favorite poem by a living poet

I don’t know I’m going to struggle with this as just don’t think I have connected to contemporary living poet enough to name these yet. This is good in a way because it leaves plenty open to discover. I think a lot of contemporary poetry that works well, and 20th century poetry too, tends to not take itself too seriously and uses humour. Is this the post modern element at play, I don’t know? Humour is evident in the above two poems, but also found in the likes of local Northern poets such as Ian McMillian:

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MumnMsqGY0Y*
*Not to be Missed*

Now I think there is some fun to be had there, especially after some beers, reading/following the likes of that. I know that I would rather teach that for kicks that some of the ‘worthy’ anti-ismism stuff found in the AQA syllabus. I would like to explore poems in areas such as this a little more. I’m going to look for some Ian McMillan stuff later, though I am into nature at the moment very much.

(Stlukes 2 Other 2?)

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet

Hmm, possibly Baudelaire or Verlaine, Verlaine has found a place by the bath of late, but historically I vowed to learn French using only by duel translation Baudelaire. It didn’t happen but the intention of learning a language solely through the medium of poetry deserves great merit I think! I also love the simple verses found in the Buddhist text The Dhamapada. I enjoyed reading Leopardi but I’ve not read enough to put him in the above bracket, same with the likes of Dante, Homer etc, I think these require repeated readings in different translations really, unless you know the original. I did enjoy The Odyssey very much though. Oh, if you can include playwrights then I enjoyed reading Euripides a lot one time.

(Stlukes 3 Other 2?)

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem

There are several passages I know almost by heart from the Dhamapada and one or two poems that shine a little here and there but none that really sing to me to reach upon the upper mantle of favourite I think. Translation still remains a thorn in non-Anglo poetry I think.

(Stlukes 3 Other 3?)

(Stlukes wins the argument after a passionate appeal to the jury. He conceded the natural bias towards Englishness and the gaps in contemporary favourites, but argued strongly (with arms waving) that, although there are clueless gaps certainly, there is no fundamentally grounded contemporary bias to be found here at all. Indeed, he pointed out that he finds a Neely looking forward to discovering new and exciting contemporary artists, especially within the realms of pie and ale memorabilia. In short, he finds and an open mind; not a closed one.

The crowd cheered, the judge shouted for order and slammed down his tired hammer but in the end the jury's vote was unanimous).

[mortalterror]

1. Your favorite 20th century poet
T.S. Eliot, followed by Yeats, Frost, Pound, Cavafy, Lorca, and Auden. Dario also did some nice things in the 20th century.

2. Your favorite 20th century poem
The Wasteland gave me goosebumps the first time I read it.

3. Your favorite living poet
Derek Walcott

4. Your favorite poem by a living poet
I am a Cowboy in the Boat of Ra by Ishmael Reed followed by A City's Death By Fire by Derek Walcott and The Death of Allegory by Billy Collins

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet
Cavafy

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem
Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías by Lorca

[tonywalt]

Well, I can only answer 1 and 2, as I'm not familiar with enough poetry to answer the rest. So 1 would be Yeats, and 2 would be "The Second Coming."

Mutatis, I also have to go with Yeats "Second Coming". It's just such a powerful poem. It's the first poem as a kid that captured me.

[JCamilo]

Ariano Suassuna or Manoel de Barros

Brazilian? Portuguese? Unfortunately, contemporary poetry outside the languages which we can read, is quite limited in terms of accessibility. Only a few major poets from contemporary France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, etc... find their way into descent translations.

Brazilian both, remains of the 40's generation.

Brazilian governament started program of translation of brazilian authors outside, apparently the BRICKS raised some interest on brazilian Culture and we are the country of Frankfurt fair 2014. Not sure how this will go.

Found from Manoel de Barros :

http://www.amazon.com/Birds-Demolition-Manoel-Barros/dp/0887485235/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337958168&sr=1-1

Not sure about the translation, of course. He is a very musical poet, in the lines of portuguese lyrical tradition. Sounds simple, is bucolic, but manages very melodic lines, those people go quoting easily.

Calling Ariano Suassuna a poet was a stretch from my part, he is more well know for his plays (with the traditional Auto form). A very comical old man, he does the link with popular - erudite from brazilian northwest. I would say, his use of popular language make him hard to translate.

[stlukesguild]

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem
Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías by Lorca

Yes... I was considering Lorca's poem as well.

[The Comedian]

Your favorite 20th century poet
A lot to choose from here: Dylan Thomas, Wallace Stevens, and Yeats are all poets that I read often. But if the idea here is "favorite", I'd give Dylan Thomas the top spot, though I think the other two are better poets. Thomas's wordplay, Romantic sentiment, and natural settings just strike a chord with me.

Your favorite 20th century poem
I'll stick with Thomas and go with his "Poem in October", which I've read/listened-to so often that I have nearly memorized it. Others that I enjoy are Yeats' "Brown Penny" and "Second Coming", Stevens's "Idea of Order at Key West". . . . Oh, I also like Robert Lowell's "Epilogue" quite a bit.

Your favorite living poet
My preference for American writers will really show through here. I read a lot (well, compared to most) of contemporary poets: Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Gary Snyder, Wendel Berry, and Jim Harrison are the ones that I have read either most often or most recently. Of these, I gotta go with Gary Snyder. I dig the hippie/spiritual/goofy thing that he does.

Your favorite poem by a living poet
Changes often. But as of my writing this I'll go with "Wild Geese" by Wendell Berry. Here's a like to it: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2003/08/05

Your favorite non-Anglo poet
Virgil -- I used to be able to read Latin, so I read the Aeneid in the original. But, sadly, I let that second language go unpracticed for far too long and am now pretty pathetic at it.

Your favorite non-Anglo poem
Aeneid

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Your favorite non-Anglo poet
Virgil -- I used to be able to read Latin, so I read the Aeneid in the original. But, sadly, I let that second language go unpracticed for far too long and am now pretty pathetic at it.

Your favorite non-Anglo poem
Aeneid

I'll agree with this. Of the short amount of non-Anglo poetry I've read, this would it. As much as I loves Dante's comedy, something about The Aeneid just grabbed me.

[Venerable Bede]

1. Your favorite 20th century poet

I'd have to choose William Butler Yeats

2. Your favorite 20th century poem

I'm not sure, probably "The Circus Animals Desertion" by Yeats

3. Your favorite living poet

I don't really read contemporary poets so I can't name a good choice

4. Your favorite poem by a living poet

N/A

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet

Homer

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem

The Iliad

[Sindhu]

OK... there seems to be this frequent assumption that those who cite an older poem and poet (and especially one written in English) as their favorite, are either clueless or dismissive of anything more contemporary... or by a non-Anglo poet. So here's your chance to prove them wrong.

Share with us, if you will, who is:

1. Your favorite 20th century poet : Marianne Moore

2. Your favorite 20th century poem:Poetry



I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all
this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a
flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician--
nor is it valid
to discriminate against 'business documents and

school-books'; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
'literalists of
the imagination'--above
insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, 'imaginary gardens with real toads in them', shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.



3. Your favorite living poet:Hoshang Merchant and Eunice D' Souza (both Indian poets who write in English)

4. Your favorite poem by a living poet:Advice to Women (by Eunice D'Souza)
Keep cats
if you want to learn to cope with
the otherness of lovers.
Otherness is not always neglect --
Cats return to their litter trays
when they need to.
Don't cuss out of the window
at their enemies.
That stare of perpetual surprise
in those great green eyes
will teach you
to die alone.

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet: Pablo Neruda

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poemThe Lost Child


by Sitor Situmorang (Indonesian Poet)

In the midday heat
a speck appears on the lake.
The anxious mother runs down to the beach
to welcome her long-awaited child.

The boat takes shape.
As she stares her tears flow -
the child has come back from his journeying.
The moment he sets foot, mother embraces him.

Father sits at the centre of the house
as if he couldn't care less.
The child is crestfallen at his mother's side -
but men know to restrain their feelings.

The child sits down, is told to talk,
a chicken is slaughtered, rice cooks.
The whole village is asking,
'Are you married, any children?'

The lost child has come back
but now he knows no-one.
How many harvests have been and gone?
What has happened?

The whole village is asking,
'Any children, how many?'
The lost child is silent -
He has questions of his own.

At dusk after the meal
his mother moves closer, she wants him to speak.
The child stares, the mother asks
if it is cold in Europe.

The child is silent, remembering forgotten things -
the cold of Europe, the seasons of its cities.
His mother is quiet, has ceased talking -
no resentment, only joy.

Night has come, mother is asleep,
father has been snoring some time.
The waves swish on the beach.
They know the child has not returned.

[mortalterror]

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem
Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías by Lorca

Yes... I was considering Lorca's poem as well.

I thought we were keeping things to the last hundred years or so. Now, I see everybody naming the Divine Comedy, The Iliad, and The Aeneid.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I was gonna say, I coulda swore I saw mortal say his favorite poem was The Divine Comedy prior to this thread.


Mutatis, I also have to go with Yeats "Second Coming". It's just such a powerful poem. It's the first poem as a kid that captured me.

Same here--it was the first poem I ever read where I thought, "Wow, that was awesome . . . what the hell did I just read?" So I went back and read it again . . . and again and again. It's the mystery of the poem, along with the imagery. I can't go back and give one book that got me into reading, but I always know Yeats's poem was where I really got what poetry could do.

[stuntpickle]

OK... there seems to be this frequent assumption that those who cite an older poem and poet (and especially one written in English) as their favorite, are either clueless or dismissive of anything more contemporary... or by a non-Anglo poet. So here's your chance to prove them wrong.


I suspect this thread has come about because of my recent comments in another one. If that is not, in fact, the case, then please excuse me for what I'm about to say.

I think it is a gross misrepresentation to suggest that I said "[citing] an older poem or poet as [one's] favorite [means one is] either clueless or dismissive of anything more contemporary." I think the errors in your assumption are many.

First, my interest in the unawareness of modern literature, owed not primarily to the discussion of Canonical poets, but rather to the dearth of discussion about modern ones. It's not that one mentions Shakespeare that I find so telling, but rather that one does not mention someone more modern. I would also point out that this discussion largely concerned modern poetic technique, which would, presumably, entail a discussion of modern poets. When pressed on the issue in the other thread, someone provided a list of the so-called modern poets mentioned in the thread, which turned out to be a list of mostly dead poets including people like Tennyson.

Also, I think you misidentify or misrepresent the underlying issue, which was not whether Shakespeare might be applicable but whether the point of devoting oneself to such aged varieties of literature was, much as I see this point of this thread, simply a means of demonstrating publicly one's sophistication. After all, this thread, like the other one, seems mostly a vehicle to "prove them wrong," as you say, while simultaneously excusing everyone from a substantive conversation of the pertinent issues. I can't count the number of threads I've seen on this forum where one is invited to list one's favorite novels, favorite lines or favorite writers, and these sorts of threads constitute a sort of non-conversation in which the responses are mostly uniform and differ only insofar as to how one fills in the blanks.

Today, a love for Shakespeare is seldom automatic, as Shakespeare presents great difficulties of language for any modern reader. This is to say that one must LEARN to love Shakespeare, with concordance and lexicon in hand. Bukowski, on the other hand, is immediately accessible to any modern reader, so I find any protestations to love his work more plausible for a modern reader. I suppose I am saying that love of Shakespeare results most often from a formal education in Shakespeare or a desire to pretend that one has had such an education. There are no such impediments to reading Bukowski; moreover, what Bukowski says is more immediate to our time and consequently, more relevant--even if one can rightly say that Shakespeare is universal. But in the thread in question the person who brought up Bukowski was instantly rebuked for her presumably "bad" taste.

Imagine an interview with Elvis in which all he talked about were Mozart and Bach. Could sense be made of such an interview? If all Elvis had been concerned with were, in fact, Mozart and Bach, I can't imagine we'd even know who he was.

[JuniperWoolf]

Also, I think you misidentify or misrepresent the underlying issue, which was not whether Shakespeare might be applicable but whether the point of devoting oneself to such aged varieties of literature was, much as I see this point of this thread, simply a means of demonstrating publicly one's sophistication. After all, this thread, like the other one, seems mostly a vehicle to "prove them wrong," as you say, while simultaneously excusing everyone from a substantive conversation of the pertinent issues. I can't count the number of threads I've seen on this forum where one is invited to list one's favorite novels, favorite lines or favorite writers, and these sorts of threads constitute a sort of non-conversation in which the responses are mostly uniform and differ only insofar as to how one fills in the blanks.

But those threads often lead to conversations about the writers or works mentioned. Look at this thread, it's only on the second page and we've already seen a couple of mini-interactions between posters.


1. Your favorite 20th century poet

Edna St. Vincent Millay


2. Your favorite 20th century poem

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn wtih pity, -- let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.


3. Your favorite living poet

Leonard Cohen


4. Your favorite poem by a living poet

I long to hold some lady
For my love is far away,
And will not come tomorrow
And was not here today.

There is no flesh so perfect
As on my lady's bone,
And yet it seems so distant
When I am all alone:

As though she were a masterpiece
In some castled town,
That pilgrims come to visit
And priests to copy down.

Alas, I cannot travel
To a love I have so deep
Or sleep too close beside
A love I want to keep.

But I long to hold some lady,
For flesh is warm and sweet.
Cold skeletons go marching
Each night beside my feet.


5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet

Rimbaud.


6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem

This is my favorite translation of Ophelia but I can't find it online, so I had to type it out from one of my books last year:

I

Where the stars sleep in the calm black stream,
Like some great lily, pale Ophelia floats,
Slowly floats, wound in her veils like a dream.
... -Half heard in the woods, halloos from distant throats.

A thousand years has sad Ophelia gone,
Glimmering on the water, a phantom fair.
A thousand years her sad, distracted song
Has waked the answering evening air.

The wind kisses her breasts and shakes
Her long veils lying softly on the stream;
The shivering willows weep upon her cheeks;
Across her dreaming brows the brushes lean.

The wrinkled water lilies round her sigh:
And once she wakes a nest of sleeping things
And hears the tiny sound of frightened wings;
Mysterious music falls from the starry sky.

II

O pale Ophelia, beautiful as snow!
Yes, die, child, die, and drift away to sea.
For from the peaks of Norway cold winds blow
And whisper low of bitter liberty.

For a breath that moved your long heavy hair
Brought strange sounds to your wandering thoughts;
Your heart heard Nature singing everywhere,
In the sighs of trees and the whispering of night.

For the voice of the seas, endless and immense,
Breaks your young breast, too human and too sweet;
For on an April morning a poor young prince,
Poor lunatic, sat wordless at your feet.

Sky! Love! Liberty! What a dream, poor young
Thing! You sank before him, snow before fire,
Your own great vision strangling your tongue,
Infinity flaring in your blue eye!

III

And the poet says that by the starlight you came
To pick the flowers that you loved so much, at night,
And he saw, wound in her veils like a dream,
Like some great lily, pale Ophelia float.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

When pressed on the issue in the other thread, someone provided a list of the so-called modern poets mentioned in the thread, which turned out to be a list of mostly dead poets including people like Tennyson.
Hey, you insinuated that certain people knew nothing of poets who wrote within the last century, and I simply pointed out that plenty of authors who have were mentioned. I never said they were modern, I only listed poets according to your stipulation. Now who's being misrepresentative?

And, for god's sake man, I already admitted Tennyson was mistakenly added to the list. What, do you take some sort of petty pleasure in pointing out a simple mistake even after their person admitted he was wrong?


I can't count the number of threads I've seen on this forum where one is invited to list one's favorite novels, favorite lines or favorite writers, and these sorts of threads constitute a sort of non-conversation in which the responses are mostly uniform and differ only insofar as to how one fills in the blanks.
1. Conversations often evolve from these non-conversations.

2. Just so you know, there's this little button you can click that says "New Thread," and then you can start whatever conversation you wish. It's really cool!



Today, a love for Shakespeare is seldom automatic, as Shakespeare presents great difficulties of language for any modern reader. This is to say that one must LEARN to love Shakespeare, with concordance and lexicon in hand. Bukowski, on the other hand, is immediately accessible to any modern reader, so I find any protestations to love his work more plausible for a modern reader. I suppose I am saying that love of Shakespeare results most often from a formal education in Shakespeare or a desire to pretend that one has had such an education.
I've been taught a ton of Shakespeare, even took a class on him. Hell, I've taught Shakespeare, and I still can't stand him. I've tried really hard. I'm sure it's partly due to me not particularly liking reading drama, but I don't like his sonnets, either. I get his genius and think he deserves his spot in history, but I just don't dig his language.

I'm not really sure how that's relevant, just felt like throwing it in there.

[stuntpickle]

Hey, you insinuated that certain people knew nothing of poets who wrote within the last century, and I simply pointed out that plenty of authors who have were mentioned. I never said they were modern, I only listed poets according to your stipulation. Now who's being misrepresentative?

And, for god's sake man, I already admitted Tennyson was mistakenly added to the list. What, do you take some sort of petty pleasure in pointing out a simple mistake even after their person admitted he was wrong?



The "last century" was an arbitrary hyperbole you chose to interpret literally, something I find prevalent among the younger generations. I wasn't trying to misrepresent the conversation; you tried to dispute a point I wasn't really making. I mean, surely you understand that sort of idiomatic expression.

I assure you that had I wanted to shame you, I would have named you. Mentioning Tennyson did sort of prove my point, by the way. Yeats wasn't much better (he's been dead almost eighty years).

In the same conversation, just before you provided your list, you seemed to purposely misconstrue what I had said by cutting the quote short.

You quoted me as follows:



Should a writer be familiar with his predecessors? Of course.

You replied:


This is (and the rest of your post, except the little rant about us discussions music, which was a sidetrack discussion in the first place) pretty much what a lot of us have been saying.

I replied by pointing out that what I was saying was entirely different and that this was clear if one simply kept reading.

Consider:


Should a writer be familiar with his predecessors? Of course. But he has a more immediate need to be familiar with his immediate predecessors. He isn't concerned with an academic approach to the Canon, but rather his immediate cultural antecedents.

Of course, when I replied I actually said the following:


It's unfortunate that you cut the quote off where you did since the following sentence expresses something very different from what everyone else has been saying. My point was that, yes, artists should acquaint themselves with their predecessors, but they should acquaint themselves with more culturally relevant predecessors. You know, someone who has lived in the last century--sort of like how you guys relate to music.

You replied to this with your list. Now it seems to me that you never really addressed the disparity I was pointing out. You, yourself, were discussing Nirvana, and yet when you tried to rebut my point, you provided a list with Yeats and Tennyson. It seems as though you're trying to just argue with me without even considering what I'm truly trying to say. I mean, can you really claim that Yeats is your "immediate cultural antecedent," which was my point?

My guess is that you're doing this because the point is perhaps plain and true, and so perhaps you are pursuing a fairly legalistic defense in order to avoid the truth. I mean, for Chrissake, in this very thread in which people have been tasked with demonstrating their appreciation for modern poetry, we're back to talking about Homer and Virgil! And several persons have confessed to not really being aware of modern poetry, which was precisely my point.

I suspect that most people only interact with poetry insofar as education requires it. I suspect people with no real interest in poetry are acquainted only with the stuff in the Norton anthologies. Surely, persons who have an extra-academic interest in poetry would discuss, I don't know, the last poem they saw in this or that journal, the last edition of Best American, a reading given by Billy Collins--something that demonstrates a genuine interest, rather than simply hopping on a bandwagon of sophistication.

Surely, you can understand why someone trying to be a poet TODAY should probably concern himself with poetry being written TODAY (by which I do not literally mean this very day, in case you are preparing another list). And surely, we can agree that the thread in question dealt with how people become poets, right?

[miyako73]

Is "Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias" a queer piece of literature?

[Venerable Bede]

I suspect that most people only interact with poetry insofar as education requires it. I suspect people with no real interest in poetry are acquainted only with the stuff in the Norton anthologies. Surely, persons who have an extra-academic interest in poetry would discuss, I don't know, the last poem they saw in this or that journal, the last edition of Best American, a reading given by Billy Collins--something that demonstrates a genuine interest, rather than simply hopping on a bandwagon of sophistication.

I believe you do have a point here and I have to admit that I am guilty of this as well. I never was in to poetry until the first years of university and there the only exposure was to the poets of the canon. While I do read some poetry for a pastime as well, I usually gravitate towards prose works. And when I do read poetry it's generally something old like Petrarch's works. I think one of the problems is that current poetry slips under the radar and doesn't demand the same attention and respect that a novel does. Thus, I don't feel compelled to read a new poem in the same way that I do to read the newest winner of the Pullitzer or Man Booker prizes.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

The "last century" was an arbitrary hyperbole you chose to interpret literally, something I find prevalent among the younger generations. I wasn't trying to misrepresent the conversation; you tried to dispute a point I wasn't really making. I mean, surely you understand that sort of idiomatic expression.

I assure you that had I wanted to shame you, I would have named you. Mentioning Tennyson did sort of prove my point, by the way. Yeats wasn't much better (he's been dead almost eighty years).

In the same conversation, just before you provided your list, you seemed to purposely misconstrue what I had said by cutting the quote short.

You quoted me as follows:



You replied:



I replied by pointing out that what I was saying was entirely different and that this was clear if one simply kept reading.

Consider:



Of course, when I replied I actually said the following:



You replied to this with your list. Now it seems to me that you never really addressed the disparity I was pointing out. You, yourself, were discussing Nirvana, and yet when you tried to rebut my point, you provided a list with Yeats and Tennyson. It seems as though you're trying to just argue with me without even considering what I'm truly trying to say. I mean, can you really claim that Yeats is your "immediate cultural antecedent," which was my point?

My guess is that you're doing this because the point is perhaps plain and true, and so perhaps you are pursuing a fairly legalistic defense in order to avoid the truth. I mean, for Chrissake, in this very thread in which people have been tasked with demonstrating their appreciation for modern poetry, we're back to talking about Homer and Virgil! And several persons have confessed to not really being aware of modern poetry, which was precisely my point.

I suspect that most people only interact with poetry insofar as education requires it. I suspect people with no real interest in poetry are acquainted only with the stuff in the Norton anthologies. Surely, persons who have an extra-academic interest in poetry would discuss, I don't know, the last poem they saw in this or that journal, the last edition of Best American, a reading given by Billy Collins--something that demonstrates a genuine interest, rather than simply hopping on a bandwagon of sophistication.

Surely, you can understand why someone trying to be a poet TODAY should probably concern himself with poetry being written TODAY (by which I do not literally mean this very day, in case you are preparing another list). And surely, we can agree that the thread in question dealt with how people become poets, right?
I wasn't trying to rebut your point. I was just pointing out that poets within last century were mentioned (many of which wrote longer than Yeats) . . . I thought maybe you hadn't seen that they were. This is all I said:

Yeats, Eliot, Neruda, Auden (all of which mentioned by your pal Moprheus, no less), Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Bukowski is mentioned who knows how many times, Tennyson, Maya Angelou, Morgenstern, Olson, Vallejo, Carson, and, well, I quit scanning posts after page four. All of those authors have been mentioned, most in the sense that they should be admired, studied, or are part of the canon.

It seems you can't accept when you're wrong, even if it comes down to a trivial nature. Hell, I wasn't even trying to prove that you're wrong (as I get how someone can make an occasional mistake), I was just giving you info. Sheesh. :rolleyes:

But, yes, I agree with most of what you say there.

[stuntpickle]

It seems you can't accept when you're wrong, even if it comes down to a trivial nature. Hell, I wasn't even trying to prove that you're wrong (as I get how someone can make an occasional mistake), I was just giving you info.
But, yes, I agree with most of what you say there.

Oh, puhlease! So if I say I'm so hungry I could eat a horse and it turns out I can't literally eat one, then I'm wrong?

This is what I find so bizarre about this site: there's a bunch of people pretending to have conversations for the actual purpose of reinforcing their own self-worth, and if ever someone points this out, everything devolves into passive-aggression and semantic wrangling.

So you had no intention of "proving me wrong," but were simply pointing out where I was wrong?

[stlukesguild]

I suspect this thread has come about because of my recent comments in another one. If that is not, in fact, the case, then please excuse me for what I'm about to say.

Sorry stuntpickle... but you're not the center of the universe... not even at LitNet. I started this thread in response to Babyguile's comment (No comtemporary poets, a whole lot of dinosaurs in this thread though.) posted on the thread Who Is Your Favorite Poet and What Is Your Favorite Poem By Them?

After all, this thread, like the other one, seems mostly a vehicle to "prove them wrong," as you say...

And I see nothing wrong with that... considering the presumptions made by some as to the ignorance or dislike of contemporary poetry among LitNet members. From my experience there are more than a few here, among those members who read poetry on a regular basis, who read and enjoy any number of contemporary poets as well as non-Anglo poets... in spite of the fact that they might still site Shaekespeare or Dante or Blake as their absolute favorite.

Today, a love for Shakespeare is seldom automatic, as Shakespeare presents great difficulties of language for any modern reader. This is to say that one must LEARN to love Shakespeare, with concordance and lexicon in hand. Bukowski, on the other hand, is immediately accessible to any modern reader...

And what does this prove? A great many works of art present serious challenges to the audience. Wagnerian opera, Beckett's plays, the poetry of Geoffrey Hill and John Ashbery, the music of Philip Glass, a great deal of the best art demands an effort on the part of the readers/listeners/viewers. Indeed, one could state the obvious: all art must be learned. When we say something is accessible, we simply mean that it doesn't stray far from that which audience is familiar with. Introduce me to an unfamiliar work of Western classical music, and I will likely find it quite accessible. Introduce me to a work of Chinese classical music and I will likely be completely lost.

Imagine an interview with Elvis in which all he talked about were Mozart and Bach. Could sense be made of such an interview? If all Elvis had been concerned with were, in fact, Mozart and Bach, I can't imagine we'd even know who he was.

Of course you are assuming that the bulk of the members here are potential novelists and poets. It is just as likely... if not moreso... that the majority here have no illusions of becoming professional authors. They are but lovers of literature... and as such, they read what they enjoy. Speaking for myself, I have absolutely no thoughts whatsoever of becoming a writer. As such, Charles Bukowski is no more "relevant" to me than Shakespeare... or Homer.

[stlukesguild]

I suspect that most people only interact with poetry insofar as education requires it.

Unlike yourself, no doubt.:rolleyes:

I suspect people with no real interest in poetry are acquainted only with the stuff in the Norton anthologies. Surely, persons who have an extra-academic interest in poetry would discuss, I don't know, the last poem they saw in this or that journal, the last edition of Best American, a reading given by Billy Collins--something that demonstrates a genuine interest, rather than simply hopping on a bandwagon of sophistication.

Why? Are you presuming that an individual with a pssion for poetry must have a passion for contemporary poetry? I can't begin to count the number of people I know with a real and abiding love of art or classical music that goes far beyond or has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what was required of them by their formal education. Many of these persons have absolutely no interest whatsoever in what is happening in contemporary art or contemporary classical music.

Surely, you can understand why someone trying to be a poet TODAY should probably concern himself with poetry being written TODAY (by which I do not literally mean this very day, in case you are preparing another list). And surely, we can agree that the thread in question dealt with how people become poets, right?

Again... surely you can understand that the majority of those who love poetry have no illusion of becoming professional poets? At the same time, you are surely cognizant of the fact that more than a few artists in any genre rejected or turned their back upon the work of their immediate predecessors and turned to the examples of older art. I could easily give you dozens of examples with the filed of the visual arts.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Oh, puhlease! So if I say I'm so hungry I could eat a horse and it turns out I can't literally eat one, then I'm wrong?

This is what I find so bizarre about this site: there's a bunch of people pretending to have conversations for the actual purpose of reinforcing their own self-worth, and if ever someone points this out, everything devolves into passive-aggression and semantic wrangling.

So you had no intention of "proving me wrong," but were simply pointing out where I was wrong?

Hey, stuntpickle, I love you, man. I just want you to know that.

[JuniperWoolf]

I suppose I am saying that love of Shakespeare results most often from a formal education in Shakespeare or a desire to pretend that one has had such an education.

You don't need to have taken him in class to like Shakespeare (I know several autodidacts, and I live in a metaphorical small pond) and it's a bit sad that you insist that anyone who hasn't taken Shakespeare in formal education but reads him anyway is just "pretending." You sound bitter, truth be told.

I like Shakespeare for the challenge. It took me twenty solid minutes of dwelling on it to figure out this one line of Romeo and Juliet. Juliet was praying in her room, waiting for Romeo to come over so that they could consummate their marriage, and Juliet said something along the lines of "teach me how to win at a losing hand." I was confused, how can someone win by losing? I thought and thought, and finally it dawned on me that she wins if she loses her virginity! Unraveling that felt fantastic, figuring things out is one of the best feelings in the world. That feeling is one of the main reasons why I read in the first place, and Shakespeare delivers.

[Pierre Menard]

Great story, Juniper. That's also a reason why I love Shakespeare too - The challenge! Figuring out the wordplay, puns, allusions, etc. It all adds to the enjoyment of reading.

[Virgil]

Let me preface this by saying (1) I'm not big on picking favorites and (2) I'm doing this impulsively, so i might reconsider.


1. Your favorite 20th century poet

Probably between Yeats or Wallace Stevens.

2. Your favorite 20th century poem

If you consider TS Eliot's The Four Quartets as one poem, that one. Or simpler lyric poem might be Theodore Roethke's "In A Dark Time."

3. Your favorite living poet
4. Your favorite poem by a living poet

My reading of living poets is limited. I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough to answer that. I did read Geoffrey Hill last year and thought him quite good.

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet

Dante. Also consider Horace.

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem

The Divine Comedy. It's the tops.

[stlukesguild]

Virgil... yes I thought of The Four Quartets as well. Perhaps they make more sense... or rather resonate more as you get older. Nevertheless I went with The Wasteland for the simple reason that it was the Modernist poem that absolutely blind-sided me. When I first read it I was absolutely stupefied... and I read it again and again and again. For a good period of time I nearly always had my dog-eared copy... crammed with endless notes in the margins... on me... along with Richard Howard's translation of Les Fleurs du Mal. Only later did these two give way to volumes of Borges.:nod:

[MorpheusSandman]

1. Your favorite 20th century poet -- If I have to choose just one... WH Auden

2. Your favorite 20th century poem -- The Changing Light at Sandover by James Merrill

3. Your favorite living poet -- Geoffrey Hill

4. Your favorite poem by a living poet -- I won't say favorite, but the last poem I read over and over until I memorized it was Hill's September Song (that last line always gets to me):

September Song

born 19.6.32 - deported 24.9.42

Undesirable you may have been, untouchable
you were not. Not forgotten
or passed over at the proper time.

As estimated, you died. Things marched,
sufficient, to that end.
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented
terror, so many routine cries.

(I have made
an elegy for myself it
is true)

September fattens on vines. Roses
flake from the wall. The smoke
of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.

This is plenty. This is more than enough.

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet -- Neruda

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem -- I don't know about one, but I immensely enjoyed Neruda's Odes in translation. Here's one. (http://www.motherbird.com/broken.htm)

[MorpheusSandman]

It's not that one mentions Shakespeare that I find so telling, but rather that one does not mention someone more modern. I would also point out that this discussion largely concerned modern poetic technique, which would, presumably, entail a discussion of modern poets. 1. Modern poets were mentioned; you (and perhaps others) just glossed over them.

2. One reason I mention canonical authors more so than contemporary ones is simply because I'm less likely to be met with blank stares. I'd just as soon talk about Hill and Ashbery, but so few people have read them compared to Shakespeare or Keats or whomever, so my mentioning them is more likely to generate a conversation. It does no good to use analogies if the other side is unaware of the referent.

3. That other thread wasn't about "modern poetic technique" or poetic technique at all.


whether the point of devoting oneself to such aged varieties of literature was, much as I see this point of this thread, simply a means of demonstrating publicly one's sophistication. :rolleyes: This is a literature forum, I don't think one is going to stand-out in sophistication by having read Shakespeare.


After all, this thread, like the other one, seems mostly a vehicle to "prove them wrong," as you say, while simultaneously excusing everyone from a substantive conversation of the pertinent issues. I can't count the number of threads I've seen on this forum where one is invited to list one's favorite novels, favorite lines or favorite writers, and these sorts of threads constitute a sort of non-conversation in which the responses are mostly uniform and differ only insofar as to how one fills in the blanks.Now THIS is something we can agree on. I usually dislike these "list" threads precisely because they are an invitation to "opinion vomit" without ever actually discussing anything, and I'll always take discussion over just random people expressing their opinions. But, hey, these threads CAN turn into discussions themselves.


This is to say that one must LEARN to love Shakespeare, with concordance and lexicon in hand... I suppose I am saying that love of Shakespeare results most often from a formal education in Shakespeare or a desire to pretend that one has had such an education. I have no formal education in Shakespeare and never even encountered him in school. My love for Shakespeare came with my love for literature and language, period. Reading Shakespeare in footnotes is pretty easy and hardly requires learning another language like reading Chaucer in ME does. Either way, I will pretend to no such education except my autodidactic one that was done entirely out of my passion for literature and poetry. I never saw the point of paying people to teach me what I could learn myself.


I suspect people with no real interest in poetry are acquainted only with the stuff in the Norton anthologies. Surely, persons who have an extra-academic interest in poetry would discuss, I don't know, the last poem they saw in this or that journal, the last edition of Best American, a reading given by Billy Collins--something that demonstrates a genuine interest, rather than simply hopping on a bandwagon of sophistication.The people I know with no real interest in poetry have never even read the Norton anthology, and even the few literature students I know that studied poetry in college sold theirs because they were mainly interested in prose writing. Anyway, I'll take you up on your offer: What poem from the last few issues of Poetry Magazine, APR, Ploughshares, Tin House, etc. would you like to discuss? In fact, name any poem from any other magazine and I'll get online and buy the darned thing (I have a subscription to the others).


What, do you take some sort of petty pleasure in pointing out a simple mistake even after their person admitted he was wrong?That, and completely misreading people's posts by ignoring context are Stunt's specialties.

[stuntpickle]

1. Modern poets were mentioned; you (and perhaps others) just glossed over them.

2. One reason I mention canonical authors more so than contemporary ones is simply because I'm less likely to be met with blank stares. I'd just as soon talk about Hill and Ashbery, but so few people have read them compared to Shakespeare or Keats or whomever, so my mentioning them is more likely to generate a conversation. It does no good to use analogies if the other side is unaware of the referent.

3. That other thread wasn't about "modern poetic technique" or poetic technique at all.

1. The conversation largely concerned dead poets.

2. This is perhaps one of the first reasonable things I have seen you say.

3. The other thread concerned whether one was born or became a poet; you quickly made the point that poets required close study of poetry in order to become technically proficient. The conversation then became a sort of semantic investigation of how one might become so.


This is a literature forum, I don't think one is going to stand-out in sophistication by having read Shakespeare.

It's not that I think persons are trying to "stand-out" as you say, but rather "fit-in." I think persons are trying to adhere to some preconceived notion of a connoisseur and are really just sort of dilettante admirers.


I have no formal education in Shakespeare and never even encountered him in school. My love for Shakespeare came with my love for literature and language, period. Reading Shakespeare in footnotes is pretty easy and hardly requires learning another language like reading Chaucer in ME does. Either way, I will pretend to no such education except my autodidactic one that was done entirely out of my passion for literature and poetry. I never saw the point of paying people to teach me what I could learn myself.

Although a "formal education" isn't strictly necessary to appreciate Shakespeare, a specialized lexicon generally is--if one is to actually comprehend the text. Often, persons THINK they've understood the text while having actually misunderstood it. For example, readers generally think the line "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thought Romeo?" means something like "O Romeo, Romeo, where are you Romeo? when it really means something like "O Romeo, Romeo, why did you have to be Romeo?" This is closer to the meaning of other such lines as "Thou art thyself." There's no modern reader that understands what a "fardel", an "eater of broken meats," or a "worsted-stocking knave" is without looking it up. These sorts of complications occur SEVERAL times on every page of every Shakespearean text.

My point isn't that persons MUST learn Shakespeare in a formal setting, but rather that they often do. Thus Shakespeare isn't something persons examine naturally from encountering it in the culture, such as one might do with some episode of a modern television show or a recent novel. Most persons examine Shakespeare either because they have to for school or because they think that's how one becomes cultured. Thus does one acquire an artificial taste.


That, and completely misreading people's posts by ignoring context are Stunt's specialties.

If you'd occasionally retract some of your more bizarre statements, then I wouldn't have to harp on your mistakes. I'll let the whole ironic statement about my reading slide for now.

The above statement is precisely the sort of "sour grapes" attitude that is likely to lead to a conversation of your past mistakes. Can you not see the irony of pretending to ridicule me for harping on the mistakes of others while simultaneously pointing out my supposed mistakes?

Let me just explain why I have harped on your mistakes. We had a discussion concerning whether a PhD philosopher's argument, which has been the focus of a number of scholarly examinations, had "serious flaws." You issued some insulting rhetorical challenge to me about explaining something to a physicist, and I redirected the rhetorical challenge to you about explaining the "flaws" to a philosopher. Then, strangely, you addressed the challenge as though it had been a literal one.

I think you misunderstood the nature of our discussion in that you seemed to prosecute it as though I were actually defending the conclusion of the argument rather than the absence of serious flaws in it. It quickly became obvious to me that you lacked the requisite background to assess whether an argument had flaws of any sort and when I tried to point this out to you in what I thought was a relatively polite manner, you began to try and confuse the issue so that you could, presumably, pretend to be right. The only way I could see to impress the point upon you was to repeatedly point out the deficits you had unequivocally demonstrated. Of course, when I did this you became even more combative, even more obfuscatory in your statements, and so I resorted to rudely calling attention to all the mistakes of logic in your posts, simply to try and demonstrate that you were not capable of assessing logical soundness. You seemed rather impervious to this, and so I continued doing it.

I think any reasonable person would have realized that he had perhaps overstated his case, and that would have been the end of it. But it seems to me that you are more concerned with appearing to be right than actually being so.

Of course, you might choose to again debate the above issues, and the only thing I could think to do would be to remind you of those deficits in particular, which I have, out of courtesy, thus far mentioned only in the abstract.

You see, I don't care whether you agree with the Kalam, nor do I care whether you think poets are born or made. What I do, in fact, care about is whether you mischaracterize the debate surrounding the Kalam or whether you misappropriate language to defend your belief that poets are made. I am perfectly willing to let you have your opinion. I am not at all willing to let you bully the terms of the conversation on the basis of a rudimentary misapprehension. If calling attention to all your mistakes is what that requires, then so be it. But such a thing would generally not be necessary, unless you, yourself, required it.

[MorpheusSandman]

1. The conversation largely concerned dead poets.

2. The other thread concerned whether one was born or became a poet; you quickly made the point that poets required close study of poetry in order to become technically proficient. The conversation then became a sort of semantic investigation of how one might become so.1. Yes, for the exact reason I mentioned in number 2. I merely wanted to point out that contemporary poets were mentioned, and more than once.

2. Right, so I'm not sure why you said the thread was about "modern poetic technique"...


It's not that I think persons are trying to "stand-out" as you say, but rather "fit-in." I think persons are trying to adhere to some preconceived notion of a connoisseur and are really just sort of dilettante admirers.Well, I would think "fitting in" on a literature forum would require having read some of, if not a lot of, the canon. Anyway, "connoisseur" VS "dilettante admirers" isn't really another distinction I want to get into, but give it a shot if you want.


Although a "formal education" isn't strictly necessary to appreciate Shakespeare, a specialized lexicon generally is--if one is to actually comprehend the text. Often, persons THINK they've understood the text while having actually misunderstood it. For example, readers generally think the line "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thought Romeo?" means...It's absolutely necessary for modern readers to have a well-glossed, well-footnoted version of Shakespeare, absolutely, but once they have that I'm not sure where the difficulty is. In my Oxford Edition I know it has "wherefore" glossed as "why/for what reason." So, really, the most work it requires is glancing from the texts to the glosses or footnotes and perhaps occasionally at a glossary if a word/passage isn't covered.


Most persons examine Shakespeare either because they have to for school or because they think that's how one becomes cultured. Thus does one acquire an artificial taste.Wait... so these are the only two options? Either one encounters Shakespeare in school or they encounter him because they want to acquire an "artificial taste" by becoming cultured?


Can you not see the irony of pretending to ridicule me for harping on the mistakes of others while simultaneously pointing out my supposed mistakes? I would stop harping on your "supposed mistakes" if you'd quit harping on others even after they admit they were wrong on a certain point. It's like you get stuck on that level and utterly refuse to move forward, even after the point has been clarified.


you began to try and confuse the issue so that you could, presumably, pretend to be right. Did you ever once stop to consider that it was not I that was confusing the issue but rather you who were simply confused? Given your repeated proclivity for ignoring the context around what things are said in, and the numerous mistakes that this has lead you into, it shouldn't be surprising that you'd find yourself confused, and mistake that confusion as being the fault of the other person rather than your own.


you misappropriate languageYes, by using a word in one of the ways by which it is defined in several dictionaries. Oh, misappropriate me.

[stuntpickle]

2. Right, so I'm not sure why you said the thread was about "modern poetic technique"...

Surely, you understand that being "technically proficient" involves technique, right? If you are making the point that the discussion wasn't about "modern" poets, then I will concede that was not a necessary component of the discussion, but rather an important one that was put into relief, I thought, by modern persons largely discussing former poets.



It's absolutely necessary for modern readers to have a well-glossed, well-footnoted version of Shakespeare, absolutely, but once they have that I'm not sure where the difficulty is.

Look, you've missed the point. My point was that great effort must be expended to appreciate Shakespeare, and not so much effort is required with, say, Bukowski. So if we have an instance where persons have approached authors that include cultural impediments to understanding them, yet these same persons do not demonstrate an awareness of more culturally immediate authors, I have difficulty understanding how this could result from something other than education or snobbery. It sort of like someone who claims to be a fan of film but doesn't talk about anything other than Fellini films. Of course, it is not a logically necessary fact that they have never seen modern films, but it is, I think, a sort of conspicuous problem since the real film buffs I have known have wildly varied tastes that stretch from Fellini to Kung Fu movies from the 1970s. It's only the film SNOBS I have known who restrict their viewing to these sorts of art films. Because that has been my experience, I think I am justified in making the inference although I am certainly willing to be persuaded otherwise.



Wait... so these are the only two options?

No, which is why I used the word "most". I do, in fact, think there are persons with a genuine interest. But I have to wonder why MOST persons are more familiar with, say, Keats who is not at all present in the current culture, as opposed to Billy Collins, who is somewhat present. The only conclusion I can come to is that this results from education or snobbery.


I would stop harping on your "supposed mistakes" if you'd quit harping on others even after they admit they were wrong on a certain point. It's like you get stuck on that level and utterly refuse to move forward, even after the point has been clarified.

This is a mischaracterization. Did you ever admit you were wrong about the Kalam having serious flaws? I mean, I had to demonstrate your obvious deficits in understanding logic and philosophy and accomplished this absolutely. Yet all you did was move the goalposts and try to change the subject. The conversation would have been over if ever you had said "Okay, perhaps the argument doesn't have flaws, but there are some things I disagree with." If ever you had said, "Okay, perhaps I shouldn't have called people anti-intellectual, but what I meant to say was....."


Did you ever once stop to consider that it was not I that was confusing the issue but rather you who were simply confused?

It's not about ME confusing the issue when I can demonstrate your errors with certainty. If we can, for instance, show that your objection is a particular type of fallacy, then we can reasonably conclude that I am not confused about it being a fallacy.


Given your repeated proclivity for ignoring the context around what things are said in, and the numerous mistakes that this has lead you into, it shouldn't be surprising that you'd find yourself confused, and mistake that confusion as being the fault of the other person rather than your own.

Okay, idiot, I'm completely done playing around with you. Here's some things we have established with certainty.

1. You don't understand what makes an argument valid.
2. You don't understand that everyone makes metaphysical statements.
3. Even when specifically trying make a reasonable argument, you fail by using fallacies and invalid logical structures.
4. You make absurd pronouncements about logic that would require someone fairly familiar with the subject, and considering we have established that you're not at all familiar, then you're statements are generally unimpressive.
5. You don't understand what most persons mean by "intellectual".


Yes, by using a word in one of the ways by which it is defined in several dictionaries. Oh, misappropriate me.

No, stupid you, for not even understanding the definitions you, yourself, cited.

Your narcissistic delusions are tiresome. I guess I'll just go back to pointing out all the errors.

[MorpheusSandman]

Surely, you understand that being "technically proficient" involves technique, right? If you are making the point that the discussion wasn't about "modern" poets, then I will concede that was not a necessary component of the discussionFair enough. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed that the discussion never moved more into the direction of discussing how important technique was in terms of separating the "born" from the "made." Technique seemed to get passed over in favor of a more critical/academic approach, which I don't think anyone ever had in mind when discussing "made" poets.


My point was that great effort must be expended to appreciate Shakespeare, and not so much effort is required with, say, Bukowski. So if we have an instance where persons have approached authors that include cultural impediments to understanding them, yet these same persons do not demonstrate an awareness of more culturally immediate authors, I have difficulty understanding how this could result from something other than education or snobbery.A few things here:

1. I think you oversell how difficult it is to appreciate Shakespeare. For me it took a well-glossed version of his plays, some ear-plugs, a comfy chair, and several hours of quiet reading. I wouldn't call that "great effort."

2. I think if you really wanted to juxtapose "writers that require great effort" with "writers that require no effort" then it isn't really an issue of old/canonical VS contemporary at all, because a poet like Ashbery is contemporary, but I consider him more difficult than Shakespeare. Likewise, Blake is extremely difficult, moreso than Shakespeare, but not because he's old, rather because he writes in elaborately developed allegories with a lot of complex and obscure allusions that nobody in his own time understood. So, essentially, the issue of "difficult writers VS accessible writers" is different than the issue of "canonical writers VS contemporary writers." Some canonical writers like, say, Edgar Allan Poe, aren't that difficult at all.

3. Likewise, I'm not sure how mentioning, say, Shakespeare, would make one look more educated or snobbish than mentioning, say, Ashbery, who's more obscure. Wouldn't snobs get their sense of superiority by having read authors most others haven't read as opposed to reading one, like Shakespeare, that most (at least, most on a literary forum) would've read?

Besides, stlukes answered a lot of these questions. A lot of people who love poetry simply don't like modern poetry, the same way many classical music fans don't like modern classical music, or classic rock fans don't like modern rock. I don't think the reason is one of snobbishness so much as it is familiarity. Most who are introduced to poetry is more likely to read the classics rather than what's contemporary. If from reading those classics they begin to like poetry, then what they like is best represented in those classics, and modern poetry may not represent what made them like poetry to begin with. Much the same with classical. I discovered classical through Mozart, particularly the film Amadeus. Now, I've branched out since then, but most modern classical just turns me off. Not all modern poetry turns me off, but a lot of it does. Even subscribing to several lit magazines there are usually only a handful of poems in each issue that stand out at all and inspire me to reread them.


It sort of like someone who claims to be a fan of film but doesn't talk about anything other than Fellini films.... It's only the film SNOBS I have known who restrict their viewing to these sorts of art films. Because that has been my experience, I think I am justified in making the inference although I am certainly willing to be persuaded otherwise.Well, I'd consider myself a cinephile as well, but most of the film fans I know are of the type you described, those that watch everything from Fellini to kung-fu films (King Hu and Tsui Hark are awesome!)... I don't know of many film snobs personally that only talk about art-house films (though Fellini is as close the mainstream as art-house gets, really). I won't discredit your experience, but I'd merely say I don't think they're the norm.



But I have to wonder why MOST persons are more familiar with, say, Keats who is not at all present in the current culture, as opposed to Billy Collins, who is somewhat present.Think of it as a numbers game. The canon are those artists that multiple generations have deemed worthy of attention and interest. When people are first introduced to serious literature it's usually going to be through that canon simply because more people have experienced it and have passed it on for future generations to discover. There's simply more ways to encounter/read Keats than there is to encounter/read Collins. That may change one day, and maybe Collins (or, at least, some of his poems) will be featured in enough anthologies that just as many will read him as will read Keats.

Personally, whenever I first started getting into literature (and film, and music) years ago, my method was to seek out decent representations of the canons first and work from there. Like, I would start out watching Hitchcock and then find that Hitch was inspired by the German Expressionists and Soviet Montage, that he inspired The French New Wave and Neo-Noir, and my experience would branch out from there. Likewise, I read Keats, discovered Keats was influenced by Milton, that he influenced Wilfred Owen, and my experience would branch out from there. By doing that, one gets a more complete picture of the network of associations in which poetry is created in, rather than just certain writers in isolation, but everyone has to start somewhere, and starting with the canon isn't the worst idea.


Did you ever admit you were wrong about the Kalam having serious flaws? I admitted several times that it was valid, I merely didn't feel it was reasonable to accept its propositions as true.


Here's some things I have established with certainty within the confines of my very confused noggin.Fixed that for ya. ;)

Oh, and, by the way, I understood perfectly well what J meant by "intellectual" as he stated it quite clearly the minute the confusion arose, the same way I stated quite clearly that's not what I meant by it. We understand each other. No harm, no foul; unlike you who wants to make a mountain out of a molehill.

[stuntpickle]

I admitted several times that it was valid, I merely didn't feel it was reasonable to accept its propositions as true.

This is precisely what I'm talking about. You're trying to obscure the disagreement by conceding a point that I'm not making. I wasn't simply making the point that the Kalam was valid. I was making the point that someone ignorant of logical validity, most logical fallacies, how to construct a proper statement, etc. is, in no way, qualified to make pronouncements on ANY argument.

You see, the real concession you need to make is that you cannot rightly say the Kalam has serious flaws because we have demonstrated that you do not possess the requisite capacities to render such a judgment. For Chrissake, you thought metaphysical statements were absurd, which means you're completely unaware that the major development in philosophy in the last hundred years was the realization that metaphysics was absolutely necessary. You tried to cover this up by saying I was using some old or antique definition, but I was using the modern definition! You don't even know what metaphysics is, and yet you pretend to be qualified to make pronouncements on a metaphysical argument that is currently being examined in scholarly journals.

You haven't the first clue about how to construct an argument, and when you actually try, you commit the most elementary blunder of impeaching the reasonable standards that allow you to make ANY argument, which is the sort of stereotypical blunder committed by people who haven't a clue about logic. Yet you propose to know what constitutes a good argument. Hilarious!

If you would just concede the point, the argument would be over.



Oh, and, by the way, I understood perfectly well what J meant by "intellectual" as he stated it quite clearly the minute the confusion arose, the same way I stated quite clearly that's not what I meant by it. We understand each other. No harm, no foul; unlike you who wants to make a mountain out of a molehill.

LOL! Except when you accused J of bringing up intellectual in the first place, and he had to point out that was a lie. I don't think J is being as agreeable are you pretend. I think J understands that you're wrong but doesn't want to pursue it.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

And they've hijacked another thread with their petty bickering! Bravo.

Maybe it's time you guys take this to PMs. I doubt anyone reads, nor cares, about the same points and insults you've been rehashing for a couple weeks now.

[stuntpickle]

And they've hijacked another thread with their petty bickering! Bravo.

Maybe it's time you guys take this to PMs. I doubt anyone reads, nor cares, about the same points and insults you've been rehashing for a couple weeks now.

Look, M, I understand your frustration; I really do. I also understand that I am a large part of that frustration. It is, of course, inappropriate for me to get into a fight in a public space. I get it.

I just get frustrated that there can't be any resolution to any disagreement between me and Morph. Perhaps we are equally to blame. I am just really frustrated with Morpheus in general, which of course, does not rescue me from the error. I feel like the only way to end the discussion is to say "You're right Morpheus," and the problem is that I think he is demonstrably wrong. Perhaps that doesn't matter.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Look, M, I understand your frustration; I really do. I also understand that I am a large part of that frustration. It is, of course, inappropriate for me to get into a fight in a public space. I get it.

I just get frustrated that there can't be any resolution to any disagreement between me and Morph. Perhaps we are equally to blame. I am just really frustrated with Morpheus in general, which of course, does not rescue me from the error. I feel like the only way to end the discussion is to say "You're right Morpheus," and the problem is that I think he is demonstrably wrong. Perhaps that doesn't matter.

Oh, I get it. Trust me. I've been in such arguments . . . probably with you, even. Though I don't think I've ever been in one as verbose as this, or the other, you're in with Morpheus. Frankly, I don't know how you two keep going. It's exhausting just reading it, which is why I've stopped.

[MorpheusSandman]

I'll make this easier, Stunt: I'm not going to reply to your last post since none of it has to do with the subject of this thread. In my last post I made several points directly related to the topic concerning canons, modern poets, snobbery, and all of the issues you raised in regard to this thread. If you want to continue, you can address those relevant points, rather than those that referred to other topics on other threads.

I do find it humorous, though, that in my post of around 1000 words you pick the 80 that just happen to have nothing to do with this thread to respond to!

[stuntpickle]

I'll make this easier, Stunt: I'm not going to reply to your last post since none of it has to do with the subject of this thread. In my last post I made several points directly related to the topic concerning canons, modern poets, snobbery, and all of the issues you raised in regard to this thread. If you want to continue, you can address those relevant points, rather than those that referred to other topics on other threads.

I do find it humorous, though, that in my post of around 1000 words you pick the 80 that just happen to have nothing to do with this thread to respond to!

You have missed the point of the post. I did not mean simply to respond about one little thing. I was pointing out what seemed to be a problem in discussing anything with you. If I plainly demonstrate the error of one of your statements, you simply ignore it, deny it, move the goalposts or change the subject. I wasn't strictly addressing the validity of the Kalam, but rather your fundamental incapacity to admit an error. This relates not only to one discussion we've had, but to all of them.

And, of course, you reply in typical Morpheus fashion. It seems to me that you care not a bit about the actual subject, but simply about being right about something. This discussion doesn't seem to me to be about the Kalam or modern poets, but whether Morpheus is right.

[MorpheusSandman]

Well, I admitted an error in the other thread. The reason I ignore so much of your posts, Stunt, is that so often you go off on these completely unrelated tangents. My ignoring the tangents is my attempts to try and keep the discussions focused and on topic. Since this thread is about modern poets, I'm trying to limit the discussion to that--not the Kalam, not my supposed logical errors, not mine and J's debate, not me being right. If I responded to every point made in just your last post this thread would spiral out of control. I'm trying to prevent that.

So, modern poets... GO!

[stuntpickle]

Well, I admitted an error in the other thread. The reason I ignore so much of your posts, Stunt, is that so often you go off on these completely unrelated tangents. My ignoring the tangents is my attempts to try and keep the discussions focused and on topic. Since this thread is about modern poets, I'm trying to limit the discussion to that--not the Kalam, not my supposed logical errors, not mine and J's debate, not me being right. If I responded to every point made in just your last post this thread would spiral out of control. I'm trying to prevent that.

So, modern poets... GO!

I really have little interest in having another discussion with you for the above described reasons. A debate with you over topic X is simply a debate with you over you.

[Silas Thorne]

And they've hijacked another thread with their petty bickering! Bravo.

Maybe it's time you guys take this to PMs. I doubt anyone reads, nor cares, about the same points and insults you've been rehashing for a couple weeks now.

I agree completely.

1. Your favorite 20th century poet

A hard one for me. Maybe Dylan Thomas or Robert Frost

2. Your favorite 20th century poem

Too difficult. At the moment, I'm caught between Edna St. Vincent Millay's Sonnet 42 'What lips my lips have kissed', Henry Reed's 'Naming of Parts' and 'Prayer Before Birth' by Louis Macneice for a choice of favorite.

3. Your favorite living poet

Don't really have one. I like New Zealand's Michael Harlow and David Eggleton. I also like Mark Strand, Wendy Cope and Simon Armitage, and many others too.

4. Your favorite poem by a living poet

Maybe 'Gooseberry Season' by Simon Armitage.. or 'Not for Human Consumption' by David Eggleton.

5. Your favorite non-Anglo poet

Probably Li Bai.

6. Your favorite non-Anglo poem

I like Li Bai's poem on drinking alone with the moon and his shadow: http://clatterymachinery.wordpress.com/2007/01/26/li-bai-drinking-alone-with-the-moon-his-shadow-32-translators/

[MorpheusSandman]

A debate with you over topic X is simply a debate with you over you.Says you. ;)

[Jeos]

Ariano Suassuna or Manoel de Barros

Brazilian? Portuguese? Unfortunately, contemporary poetry outside the languages which we can read, is quite limited in terms of accessibility. Only a few major poets from contemporary France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, etc... find their way into descent translations.

Unfortunately there are still plenty of renowned poets not yet translated into English ... as the magnificent Syrian poet Adonis 2nd place after the last Nobel Prize poetry winner T.Transtrommer.
He (Adonis) is an expert in turning water into wine that is doing wonders despite the simplicity of his vocabulary...so if you know some french...

As for portuguese ( or portuguese-Brazilian - there is no such thing as "Brazilian") there are 250 million people speaking it.

[stlukesguild]

Adonis (sometimes spelled Adunis) and Transtrommer are both accessible in English translations. I have come across both poets on any number of occasions.

By the term "Brazilian" I was referring to the nationality ("brasileiros" according to Wiki) and not the language. Portuguese (Brazilian or otherwise) seems to be one of the least translated languages into English... although one would suspect this will change over time with the growing importance of Latin-America in the US.

[Jeos]

StLukesguild:"“although one would suspect this will change over time with the growing importance of Latin-America in the US.”


God hears you- as we say in my country. And why not start right away with my almost painful* translation of “I CANNOT POSTPONE LOVE” from Antonio Ramos Rosa, one of the icons of contemporary Portuguese poetry (recently deceased):
(*So many pirouettes between Portuguese, English & French!)

I can not postpone love for another century
I cannot
even if the cry dies in my throat
even if hate burns explodes crackles
under gray mountains
and gray mountains
I can not postpone this embrace
This double-edged blade of love and hate
I can not postpone anything
even if the night weighs centuries on my shoulders
even if the dawn is late and undecided
I cannot postpone my life to another century
nor my love
nor my cry for release

no I can not postpone my heart

[MorpheusSandman]

I've recently come across Transtromer in English translation in APR and Poetry and I agree that he seems to be a very good poet. What I read was very much a throwback to the Romantics without the formal verse.

[Jeos]

I came across Transtrommer and Adunis pratically at the same moment and after some deliberation I decided to deepen Adonis instead of T.T. ...perhaps because of the presence of the Arabs (10th - 11th century) in my country?

And can I ask you what's your opinion about Antonio Ramos Rosa poem ?

All the best

[quasimodo1]

St. Lukes, I's sure you know many of my choices. Great question, one that has tough choices instead of answers. The poets you selected, especially, Rilke, come close to my own. Lately been re-evaluating Plath in "The Collected Poems, Sylvia Plath" edited by a least favorite writer: Ted Hughes, who I imagine has all the rights to her poetry. The current thread about Plath is ill-informed, in my not so humble opinion. Also been attracted to Tomas Transtromer but this opinion is still in the making. ("The Great Enigma, new collected poems" translated by Robin Fulton.) Arrivederci, q1

[Prairie]

I agree with Silas.

It's Frost. Not only a good poet, but a good teacher (in his prose) of poets.