Pound, Manashe, and others

[bluosean]

I am still trying to gradually introduce myself to some new poets and I was wondering if y'all could help. I was looking through some Library of America titles when I came across a few poets that looked interesting (after reading their wikipedia entries). I am reluctant to pool all of these together but I don't know that they are that much read, save perhaps Pound, so it seems a necessity. Have any of you read, and even liked, the following:

Ezra Pound, Samuel Manashe, Theodore Roethke, Muriel Rukeyser

What do y'all think? Should I give some of these few a try?

[MorpheusSandman]

Of those, the only one I've read extensively is Pound. The others I've encountered in anthologies. Given his enormous influence, I think Pound is worth the time and effort, but like Wordsworth he wrote a ton of crap. Unfortunately, unlike Wordsworth, his best is scattered throughout his career (with Wordsworth most all his best is from his first two collections and The Prelude). You also haven't really read Pound without reading The Cantos, which is one of those Modernist touchstones that's extremely dense and challenging and, I'll be honest, not really worth the effort it demands (though it has its moments), unlike with Joyce and Eliot.

Of the others, I've read quite a bit of Roethke, and I really, really like what I've read. He's definitely one of those poets whose oeuvre I plan on delving into sooner rather than later. It's also worth noting that he had some very vocal, almost evangelical admirers; Bloom, Kunitz, Dickey (who outright stated he thought Roethke was the greatest of all American poets), and Paglia amongst them. That's a tough and diverse company for any poet to impress so much. I've read much less of Menashe and Rukeyser, though from what I've read I'd suggest there are probably other poets old and new more worthy of your time. Rukeyser seems to me to be more of an activist than a poet, not terribly unlike much of Adrienne Rich, where poetry becomes more of a platform than an art form.

FWIW, I don't know if you've read them, but my five favorite poets of the century are James Merrill, WH Auden, Wallace Stevens, John Ashbery, and Geoffrey Hill. I'd probably recommend them first over the poets you're inquiring about. Some other recs would be Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Philip Larkin, and Seamus Heaney. These are all poets whom I've read quite a bit from and really enjoyed.

[bluosean]

Thank you so much. I think I will try Roethke since you liked him so much. I also like his face. Why didn't you put Frost and Dylan Thomas with your others? I'm curious.

[MorpheusSandman]

Why didn't you put Frost and Dylan Thomas with your others? I'm curious.Neither are amongst my favorites, for very different reasons. With Frost, while I can admire the pristine craftsmanship, his thematic and formal range was so limited that I simply think he lacked the vision to be genuinely considered amongst the best (and, yes, I know a great many would disagree with me on that). Frost poems are often little more than charming, quaint little puzzles that once you know what's going on, they don't yield much more; but they also contain a lot of memorable lines, which is what makes him a perennial figure in anthologies. With Thomas I tend to feel the opposite, that his vision and linguistic capriciousness overwhelmed his craftsmanship, and that he often lacked the means to really shape what he felt into a great work, though there are exceptions.

When you look at those I did list, especially my favorites like Merrill, Auden, and Stevens, what you see is, IMO, poets that had both a tremendous vision, but also impeccable craftsmanship. I think both Thomas and Frost had too much of one element and not enough of the other.

[bluosean]

Thanks for comparing Pound with Wordsworth. I quite like Wordsworth, but then I have only read 100 or so of his best poems, and I know his reputation for writing bad poetry. And, at any rate, I greatly prefer Coleridge. The author of Wordsworth's entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica wrote that he is as good as Shakespeare. I laugh when I think of that now. If Pound is inconsistent, I don't fell like sifting through him now (even given the works you recommended). That's why maybe I will go with Roethke.

On St. Luke's recommendation, I bought a book of Hill's first five, The Orchards of Scyon, and Clavices, but they haven't come yet. I like Frost, but haven't read him in some time, and Thomas is one of my favorites (though I have heard his reputation is in decline). Your assessment of Frost reminds me of something my History teacher told me: a few academics had the opportunity to interview Frost and asked him what he was getting at in his poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". "Is it about death?" they asked. He replied he was looking out of his window one evening at the road and trees, and he wrote the poem. She even assumed a dumb voice when giving Frost's response, and gave us the distinct sense that he was just writing, but did not mean anything. I really want to read "The Witch of Coos" again though.

[MorpheusSandman]

In defense of that Encyclopedia Britannica author, a great many in Wordsworth's day explicitly spoke of him as being the successor to Shakespeare and Milton, and of all the romantics he undoubtedly had the greatest impact. Lyrical Ballads was like an atom bomb dropped on the literary establishment of the time. If you spend some significant time immersing yourself in 18th Century classicism, especially that of Pope and Dryden, where intellectual and formal refinement was praised above all else, Wordsworth came in like a breath of fresh air and blew it all away. He almost single-handedly gave us the image of the poet as an instinctual, imaginative, sympathetic, natural creator, one which could speak of and for common people without sacrificing philosophical depth. So Wordsworth is deserving of his canonical status, and however much one may appreciate Coleridge, Keats, Byron, or Shelley more, none of them had the impact on the future of poetry that Wordsworth did. Whenever you read modern poets who emphasize imagery, nature, or idiomatic language, you can largely trace that back to Wordsworth. Wordsworth's problem, though, was whatever godlike, indeed Shakespearean, creative imagination that possessed him on those first two poetry volumes (Lyrical Ballads, and Poetry in Two Volumes) and The Prelude seemed to abandon him after that, and by the end he was a bad parody of his former self.

You probably should've waited on Hill as he has a Collected Works (http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Hierarchies-1952-2012-Geoffrey-Hill/dp/0199605890/) coming out early next year. I can't wait for it as I loved his Selected Poems (http://www.amazon.com/Selected-Poems-Geoffrey-Hill/dp/0300121563/). Whatever my criticisms, I do like Frost and Thomas as well, but, as I said, I just think they were/are somewhat overrated (overrated doesn't necessarily mean bad). I do think Frost had a good ability to always provoke a feeling that there was something more going on his poems when frequently there wasn't. However, I keep in mind Eliot's response to a critic as well when he said that he had accused him of being more ingenious than he actually was. So much of poetry is about intuitive/instinctual creation rather than crafting elaborate, philosophical allegories ala Blake or even Stevens. There was that classic poem about AC Bradley and his criticism of Shakespeare that goes:

I dreamt last night that Shakespeare’s Ghost
Sat for a civil service post.
The English paper for that year
Had several questions on King Lear
Which Shakespeare answered very badly
Because he hadn’t read his Bradley.

There’s also the classic story about Hitchcock’s granddaughter who took a class on Hitchcock. When it came time to write a paper she chose Shadow of a Doubt, and she asked Hitchcock about the film, wrote the paper, and got a C. She went home to tell Hitchcock and Hitch replied with: “Sorry dear, that’s the best I can do.”

Here's a few links to modern collections I'd highly recommend:

James Merrill's Collected Poems (http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Poems-James-Merrill/dp/037570941X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1386436917&sr=8-2&keywords=james+merrill)
James Merrill's The Changing Light at Sandover (http://www.amazon.com/The-Changing-Light-at-Sandover/dp/0375711740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386436917&sr=8-1&keywords=james+merrill) (greatest epic of the century)
WH Auden Collected Poems (http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Poems-Auden-W-H/dp/0679731970/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386437058&sr=8-1&keywords=auden+collected)
Wallace Stevens Collected Poetry (http://www.amazon.com/Wallace-Stevens-Collected-Library-America/dp/1883011450/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386437086&sr=8-1&keywords=wallace+stevens+library)
John Ashbery Collected Poems '56-'87 (http://www.amazon.com/John-Ashbery-Collected-1956-1987-Library/dp/1598530283/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386437106&sr=8-1&keywords=john+ashbery)
Robert Lowell Collected Poems (http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Poems-Robert-Lowell/dp/0374530327/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386437139&sr=8-1&keywords=robert+lowell+collected)
Elizabeth Bishop Poems, Prose, & Letters (http://www.amazon.com/Elizabeth-Bishop-Letters-Library-America/dp/1598530178/ref=pd_sim_b_1)
Philip Larkin Complete Poems (http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Poems-Philip-Larkin/dp/0374533660/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386437187&sr=1-1&keywords=philip+larkin)
Seamus Heaney Selected Poems '66-'96 (http://www.amazon.com/Opened-Ground-Selected-Poems-1966-1996/dp/0374526788/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386437231&sr=1-1&keywords=seamus+heaney)
Louise Gluck Poems 1962-2012 (http://www.amazon.com/Poems-1962-2012-Louise-Gl%C3%BCck/dp/0374534098/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386437265&sr=1-1&keywords=louise+gluck)

[bluosean]

ok. ok. ok. You got me. Thanks for insisting. I'll get The Lowell and Stevens books listed and look into buying a volume of Roethke some time later. Your comparison of Wordsworth and Shakespeare is unconvincing, no matter what Wordsworth's influence. Those slender first volumes cannot compare with Shakespeare's plays and poems. I read on here sometimes and I'll write back your reason for not returning to "The Faerie Queene": I get that Wordsworth is great, and I even like him, but there are too many authors I like more to return to him any time soon. It is the same with Frost, aside from "The Witch of Coos" (that I want to return to for nostalgic reasons); I like him, but he is not one of my favorite authors. I was just curious about what you thought about him since quite a few of my grade and high school teachers liked him so much. You are much better read than I am, so I wanted to ask.

I know about the Hill book, but I almost prefer to have the thin volumes more. And, he has published so recently that, with The Orchrds of Scyon and Clavices, these are the the first published volumes. That is pretty cool. But collections are better. I'll go straight to your suggestions for Lowell and Stevens. Your put too many poets for me to try right now, Reading their wikipedia entries, these two I think will appeal to me most. Thanks so much for sharing! I've read none of these; Iv'e only really read the Old British Poets. And, even there, I haven't read any of Milton yet, but your praise elsewhere wants to make me get to him sometime too.

[MorpheusSandman]

Let me know what you think of Lowell and Stevens. They're both wonderful but very different poets. You may have difficulty with Stevens as he's a very dense, opaque poet, but there's nobody else like him. I'm really enamored with his long poems like Comedian of the Letter C, Owl's Clover, The Man With the Blue Guitar, Notes Towards a Supreme Fiction, Credences of Summer, and The Auroras of Autumn. Lowell is more accessible, more intimate and personal (as opposed to Stevens' distanced, philosophical abstraction), and more versatile. If you like Lowell you may check out Plath afterwards as the two together did more than any poets to popularize confessional poetry. Another of my recommendations, Louise Gluck, is probably the best modern confessional poet.

As for Wordsworth, I don't see the point of directly comparing him with Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote plays and sonnets; Wordsworth wrote lyric poetry almost exclusively. It's the same problem of comparing Milton with Shakespeare in that they simply worked in different modes/genres. I was simply noting that Wordsworth's impact/influence is not dissimilar to that of Shakespeare and, in fact, one could argue that he was even more original and immediately impactful if one notes how much and radically poetry changed after him. While it's true that Wordsworth's oeuvre cannot hold up to Shakespeare's or Milton's, one could say something similar about, say, Stravinsky to Bach and Mozart, yet, in both cases (Wordsworth/Shakespeare, VS Stravinsky/Bach-Mozart), the former was more original and revolutionary in their works, while the latter were working at extremely high levels in an established tradition. Sometimes it just takes one groundbreaking work like The Rite of Spring, or Lyrical Ballads, to completely alter the state-of-the-art. That doesn't mean you have to love Wordsworth or proclaim him as being as good as Shakespeare, but I do think it's a good argument why he's not unworthy of the comparison.

I do, however, sympathize with what you say about there being some authors you do and don't want to return to. Often, though, my desire to return to an author isn't necessarily about how much I enjoyed them, but about how much I feel I didn't fully "get" them. That's probably why I find myself returning to authors like Blake, Merrill, Stevens, Shakespeare, and Milton because there always seems to be more to discovery that I missed the first time around.

I'm glad to help with the suggestions. I know that's way too much to read all at once, but I just thought I'd provide you with some solid choices for now and into the future. You should definitely make Milton a priority. When I tried to put together a 100 Greatest Poets of the English language list (I started a thread on it here: http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?74912-The-100-Greatest-English-Language-Poets) I put Milton #1, and I don't think that's an exaggeration. Paradise Lost is just one of those inexhaustible masterpieces, and, however great it is, his lyric poetry is every bit as good.

[bluosean]

For sure. Thanks again for all the choices, the two I picked I think I'll really like (and the variety enabled me to do this). I have a good feeling they wont disappoint. I also liked your list, and I agree that some of these poets will be remembered 100 years from now. Even not having read much 20th century poetry, I would make the bet. It goes against common sense to say that all English language poets within a 100 year span will be forgotten, or even that some of them wont be greatly appreciated and admired. I agree with Mortal though on your exclusion of Kipling. I, at least, would make sure he got there. The same goes for Melville. I really don't think his poetry has had that much influence. At least, not like his prose works, but it is damn good. (I would, by the way, put Melville at #1 on a list of greatest American writers, with Faulkner at #2, though I haven't read any of his poetry). Melville is like Cooper in that everything he writes is great, even if only in places. My last qualm, Bob Dylan, really? He doesn't deserve to be with the rest. Very nice list, but I would just get lost if I tried to look into some of the names. Right now I am really trying to introduce myself to poetry, as I have really only read novels to this point.

I've wanted to read Milton and Chaucer for a long time now, but then I have only started reading the majority of Shakespeare's plays, and it has not been that long since I read Spenser's "The Faerie Queene", "The Shepherd's Calender", "Amoretti", and "Epithalamium".

[MorpheusSandman]

Thanks for the kudos; it was a tough list to put together. I would admit that I doubt all the 20th century poets I included will be remembered, but I'm equally certain that some will be remembered. I think I said it in that thread, but Kipling is definitely one of about 30 poets that I was going back and forth between for that 90-100 spot. However, I'd be more inclined to include a poet like Richard Wilbur before him. Same goes for Melville, though less so (he's probably top 150 material). I think Bob Dylan is deserving on several fronts: One, there was no better ballad writer in the 20th century and he usually has a work or two included in anthologies and even textbooks; Two, one of the top two or three poetry critics in the world thought enough of Dylan to write a book on him; (http://www.amazon.com/Dylans-Visions-Sin-Christopher-Ricks/dp/0060599243/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386597776&sr=8-1&keywords=ricks+dylan) Three, Dylan probably had a greater influence on the 20th century than all other poets combined, and not just in the world of popular music either. I actually think a lot of modern poets could learn a lot from his masterful control of tone and ambiguity in verse forms like the ballad that are usually more known for their simplicity and directness.

If you're trying to introduce yourself to poetry, another good suggestion would be to invest in some good anthologies. I have the Norton and Wadsworth. I think anthologies are really helpful in helping you familiarize yourself with the history and context of the art, as well as giving you an idea of your preferences. So many poets I got into because I encountered works of theirs I loved in anthologies. Anthologies are also a nice break when you just aren't in the mood for whatever poet you're reading at the time. My method, because I get bored really easily, is usually to have two or three poets at a time that I'm reading consistently, usually some every day, and then have an anthology for those days that I'm not in the mood for reading any specific poet. It's a good way to mix things up and not get burnt out. Every now and then, though, you'll find a poet you adore and just want to immerse yourself in; I've done that with Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, Blake, Yeats, Byron, Stevens, and, most recently, Merrill. I should also say that there are some poets that are better when you read just a bit of them now and then, rather than sitting down and reading them straight through. Dickinson is a good example of a poet whom is better when read in pieces, rather than gulped down, probably because the majority of her work is very short lyrics that are best read like you might hear a song on the radio. If you read too many at once you tend to forget them. Poets that worked in longer forms like Stevens, Merrill, Eliot, etc. can be read for several hours at a time as you aren't reading as many works in the same time span.

[bluosean]

I don't care so much where Melville would go on the list, but he is certainly a much better poet than Henry David Thoreau. Iv'e read all of Thoreau's poems and he is just not as good as Melville. I picked out Thoreau because, with the others, it is again the same story. I simply haven't read them. But I will stop.

I bought your two books. They shouldn't be here for maybe three weeks, but I had Hill's volume of his first five waiting, and Clavices came today, so I'll start there. I have one anthology of poetry. It is One Hundred Years of Verse or something like that. It has Blake, Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, etc. etc. and that is where I liked Spenser and Coleridge so much that I decided to buy their volumes. (But Coleridge's prose is perhaps even better than his poetry; Biographia Literaria is damn good). It also has the Irish, and Scottish poets, including border ballads, and, now I think of it, has big sections on Pound and Eliot (These were the only Americans included, and the Editor's defense for doing this was that they lived also in Europe). I wrote this thread without even trying to read Pound when I had maybe 50 pages of his poems. I feel bad I didn't think of this, but upon taking your good advice I don't regret.

That's pretty much what I know of Poetry. I have read selections from that book and maybe 10 other books of sundry others (some were poetry books; some only had sections of the author's poetry). I don't want to buy a new anthology now, and your books should keep me busy for a long while. Besides, the much more modern, much more American poets you gave me will round out those old English poets nicely.

I think it's past time that I develop a very basic understanding of form though. I somehow missed all of this in high school. Indeed, I don't know what is meant by iambic foot, or foot simply, and I don't even know what "verse" means. I could look these up severally, but I have felt overwhelmed in the past while reading on here by all of the different jargon and names or forms thrown down, so I just skipped over it. Some kind of dummies, light introduction would be nice, but I would also like any suggestions on books of poetical form (is that what it is called?), or theory, that are perhaps less easy, but also better. I looked it up, and they do indeed have "Poetry for Dummies" on amazon, but I don't know that I want to buy such a book. I would rather try to find such a one at my library.

[MorpheusSandman]

When you are in the mood for an anthology, the Norton (http://www.amazon.com/Norton-Anthology-Poetry-Margaret-Ferguson/dp/0393979202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386702235&sr=8-1&keywords=norton+poetry) is the standard, and it is a very solid option. My favorite, however, is the Wadsworth (http://www.amazon.com/The-Wadsworth-Anthology-Poetry-CD-ROM/dp/1413004733/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386702262&sr=8-1&keywords=wadsworth+poetry+anthology) because it groups its poems by genres, forms, modes, subjects, etc. and then chronologically, so you get to follow the progression of the ode, sonnet, elegy, sonnet, love poem, nature poem, etc. There are also several devoted solely to modern poetry, like the Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195122712/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=R94PX7QY2XJD&coliid=I2V86UG707786B), the Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry (http://www.amazon.com/dp/039332429X/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=R94PX7QY2XJD&coliid=I3R1ULPEZOKBI1), and the Wadsworth Contemporary American Poetry. (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0618527850/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=R94PX7QY2XJD&coliid=I33977QP6TVXM9) (Of those, I've only read most of the Wadsworth, and it is very good; though with any modern/contemporary anthology there will be disputes/debates/disagreements over who should/shouldn't be included).

As for form, I wrote a post where I briefly reviewed/recommended various introductory textbooks here. (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?68979-Tips-on-analysing-poetry) As for meter, I've written a lot about it on these forums, but I don't think I've ever tried to write a genuine introduction; my posts are usually responding to specific questions. Probably the longest post I wrote on it was here. (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?72711-Iambs-and-lexical-stress-%28ignorant-questions%29) A good, solid, cheap introduction is Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Traveled, which covers all the major forms and a lot of minor ones as well with an unmatched accessibility, humor, and even entertainment (without dumbing it down at all). If you're really looking to get into poetry and learn about it long-term, I'd highly recommend a few quintessential reference books, like Lewis Turco's Book of Forms (http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Forms-Handbook-Including/dp/1611680352/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386703925&sr=8-1&keywords=book+of+forms) and the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (http://www.amazon.com/The-Princeton-Encyclopedia-Poetry-Poetics/dp/0691021236/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1386703951&sr=8-2&keywords=princeton+encyclopedia+of+poetry+and+poet ics) (I recommend this version over the new one).

To answer some basic questions (without going into depth or getting into controversies; keep in mind that all the following is the most general, common, agreed-upon meanings/definitions):

Verse = Poetry in meter and/or rhyme
Free Verse = Poetry without meter and rhyme (just line-breaks)
Blank Verse = Unrhymed poetry in iambic pentameter
Meter = Regularized rhythmic organization of lines
Foot = The smallest unit of metrical verse
Iamb = A metrical unit of two syllables with the pattern unstressed/stressed
Iambic pentameter = A metrical line of five (hence the "penta") iambs

The line I always use to demonstrate Iambic Pentameter is: "i LOOKED inSIDE the HOUSE and SAW a DOG." In that line, all of the capitalized syllables are stressed. In language, stress means the emphasis or lack of emphasis a person puts on words and syllables. Meter is all about arranging stresses so that they come at regular intervals. If you say the above sentence, you'll notice how you emphasize a word like "house" or "saw" more so than "the" or "and." In that sentence, each pair of unstressed/stressed syllables (i/LOOKED, in/SIDE, the/HOUSE, and/SAW, a/DOG) is an iambic foot (ba-BUM), while the line is an iambic pentameter because there are five such feet in the line.

Iambs are the most common foot you'll encounter in English metrical poetry, and Pentameter the most common line, though there are certainly others. You can find lists of such feet and meters all over the internet, as well as in those books I linked to. Form and meter is like anything else in that the more you read about/study it, the more you become acclimated to it, and the more it becomes like second nature. I definitely think it's a crucial part of reading poetry, because one could say that form, whether it's meter, line-breaks, stanza organization, rhyme, etc., is THE crucial art of poetry, since every other aspect (subject matter, imagery, metaphor, sound, etc.) can be utilized in prose just as much so. So understanding how poets use form to emphasize, compliment, or even work against what's being said is, essentially, understanding the art of poetry itself.

I don't know if you've read Shakespeare's sonnets, but Helen Vendler's The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (http://www.amazon.com/The-Shakespeares-Sonnets-Helen-Vendler/dp/0674637127/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386705307&sr=8-1&keywords=vendler+sonnets) is a critical master class on showing how important understanding/analyzing form is in understanding poetry. If you just read Shakespeare's sonnets for content, they can seem very monotonous, even boring; but once you understand how many ways he ingeniously manipulated the sonnet form, you understand that they become kinda like a literary equivalent of Bach's Goldberg Variations, where you have the same theme and "outer form" varied in countless, inventive ways.

[bluosean]

Completely overwhelming, but thank you so, so much. I am so grateful for your help. I want to buy some of those introductions to poetry that you wrote about in the thread you linked, but I don't want to spend that kind of money now. I won't even buy one. But I will eventually look to slowly get some of them. For now. I'll read Stevens' and Lowell's books, but it will be awhile still until they come and a longer while until I finish reading them.

Iv'e neglected poetry until now, but feel comfortable with prose and even criticism, so this was the void that was bothering me. Prose criticism is rather easy to understand without specialized knowledge, but it seems poetry has a jargon of its own.

I have read Shakespeare's poetry, but no criticism on him. I know though, that before I buy any specific texts on criticism, it is high time that I pick up one of those introductions, and familiarize myself with all that. I really appreciate. Thank you!

[bluosean]

Ah! by the way, I read Clavics today. Clocking in at ~40 pages, I finished it is less than an hour. I'm not sure what to think of it though.

[MorpheusSandman]

You're very welcome. I understand about the money-sink that intros, anthologies, and reference books are. Many of those I was lucky enough to find at my local library (you might check your own). Poetry does have a certain amount of "jargon," but most of it is quite uncomplicated if you start from the beginning.

I haven't read Clavics myself as it was released after the Selected Poems volume I have. I'll definitely be reading it whenever his Collected Poems is released early next year. If it's like most Hill, I'm guessing it's pretty dense and requires multiple re-reads. One good thing about most individual poetry collections being short is that they more easily invite such return readings.

[bluosean]

Maybe I just can get some of these (I'll still wait though, I think). The Introduction to Poetry by Kenneth and Gioia is $4.76 including shipping (12th not the newer 13th edition). Should I get it? Is it that indispensable? What, say, four books from that rather long list you wrote would you consider must haves, or at least the best to start with? I certainly can't buy them all! I seem to remember you writing the shorter list somewhere, but can't seem to find it again.

[MorpheusSandman]

What, say, four books from that rather long list you wrote would you consider must haves, or at least the best to start with?Here's what I'd recommend:

1. The Ode Less Traveled by Stephen Fry - Probably the most accessible intro book on poetry and poetics, and it's accessible without being condescending or light on content (Fry also makes a great case for WHY someone interested in poetry should learn "the basics"). Reading through this will prepare you to take on the more academic textbooks.

2. Introduction to Poetry by Kennedy & Gioia - This is my favorite of the "traditional" textbooks. Get this, spend some time reading/working through each chapter every day, and by the end you'll have basically taken an auto-didactic "intro to poetry" college course.

3. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetics - This is a must-have reference book. Anytime you're curious about anything from a certain form or a term you can look it up in here and get an excellent, thorough entry and advice on further reading if you're interested. Get the 3rd Edition over the 4th.

4. Either Poems, Poets, Poetry by Helen Vendler or Reading Poetry by Furniss/Bath - Both of these books are good supplements to the Kennedy and Gioia. While both cover some of the same ground, they also both introduce/focus on others that Kennedy/Gioia ignore or only briefly cover. Vendler takes a more formal approach, discussing things like "speech acts," "climax," "agency," "space & time," etc. that you won't find in any other textbook; Furniss/Bath take a more critical approach, showing how poetry has been read in different times by different theoretical schools, like feminism, post-colonialism, post-structuralism, etc. and it also uses some atypical (but very lucid) means for teaching other elements like form, tone, and ambiguity.

After you've read these, my advice would be to consider what aspects of poetry interest you the most, and buy books that can cover that topic for its entire length. EG, I've always been fascinated by form, meter and poetic rhythm, so I have a whole shelf full of books on the affects and theories about meter and form, one of the best being Paul Fussell's. Of course, it's not even imperative that you read much beyond the basic introductions and then just use the Princeton Encyclopedia for all your further study/reference. The thing is that, in academia, the more deeply you delve into any subject, the more you encounter the Law of Diminishing Returns, because you'll inevitably see the same basic ideas repeated, and you mostly suffer through those repetitions to get to the few golden nuggets of new, worthwhile ideas. One reason I love Vendler as a critic is that she continually, with each book I read, unearths new insights into the poems/poets she writes about, and that kind of constant original insight is very rare.

[bluosean]

Like you, I have a wide variety of interests. I don't know that I have really went deeply enough into anything to really experience this law though; when I do see the same thing twice, it is usually a welcomed repetition because, while not bad, I do not have a brilliant memory. Indeed, I have never herd of this law before.

I just read Hill's first five. I liked these books much more than Clavics. In form they are much more traditional. Ends of lines rhyme, and lines are much longer. In Clavics, lines are much shorter (often one word), and while I like the imagery, poems are even harder to understand than his earlier ones.

Again, thank you for the recommendations. I will slowly try to go after these books.

[MorpheusSandman]

Your attitude toward repetition has always been mine as well. In fact, it's one reason why I read so many intros because I knew the repetitions would allow me to understand these things intuitively much faster so I could simply enjoy them without having to consciously think about what devices a poet is using. I should add that nobody has an innately good memory, some people just learn (either intuitively or consciously) how to use theirs better than others; there are lots of books out there on improving your memory. I've read a few and they are quite helpful. FWIW, the "Law of Diminishing Returns" is really a term used in economics, but it can apply to most any situation where you increase your usage/time with something.

Glad to hear you like Hill's early works. A lot of people who enjoy classic English poetry (everything before the 19th Century) find post Modern (everything after the 19th Century) difficult to adjust to because of the prevalent use of free verse with no meter or rhyme. In extracting those elements, free verse tends to put more emphasis on stanzaic and syntactic forms (especially in terms of symmetry and asymmetry) and, especially, line breaks. Auden once said that free verse was the hardest thing in the world to write because the poet had to have a perfect ear to know when to break the line and stanza, and I tend to feel that even its best practitioners rarely have a consistently perfect ear. Even the worst verse poetry can please the ear with its rhythm and rhyme when it displeases everything else, but free verse has to struggle to please at all and very frequently its austere challenges aren't even rewarding. Hill, however, is a poet of immense intelligence and subtlety and I suspect that he does not engage in free verse lightly with no aesthetic strategy behind his line lengths/breaks and arrangements.

Still, pleasure is a whole other can of worms, and however much I appreciate free verse done well, I still find myself more drawn to classic verse, which is probably why Auden, Merrill, and Yeats are my favorite post modern poets (I realize I neglected to mention Yeats earlier, but that's probably because I think of him more of a late romantic, rather than a modern poet).

[bluosean]

Hill's earlier works were much more logically, much more classically, developed in terms of sentence structure. Hill plays so much with the language in Clavics that it is hard to find a method, even, behind the madness. But I really, really did enjoy his first five books.

I heard a story of a man (damn! I don't remember his name) who had a brilliant memory. He was often given long lists at exhibitions and asked to recall the items. These could be lists of numbers, but once he was given a long list of things. He forgot one of the things (and this was highly unusual). When questioned, he explained that his method was to imagine his neighborhood where he grew up. It was a walk he had taken innumerable times and he had a perfect vision of how every detail of the landscape unfolded. When the list had begun to be dictated to him, he began to walk in his mind, and he placed each item somewhere along the walk. When asked to recall the items he took the walk again. He looked over the well-worn path and named the items out loud as he re-passed where he had put them .
"And the white egg?"
"Well," he said "I placed that white egg against a white fence post, and, when I walked past it, I didn't see it."

I've always been fascinated by learning and memory as well, but I have never looked into it. Are you sure that no one has and innately good memory? It seems that that must be tied in with IQ, and it seems that the descriptors "sharp" and "dull" certainly carry weight, as some people simply seem brilliant. If someone can easily learn a language, for instance, while others struggle, it seems that that strong intuitive feel for what is the best way is hard to find for others (even if they work hard to cultivate it). One learns with great difficulty while another absorbs like a sponge with perfect ease.

I'll admit that I don't know, but this is how it seems. And, strangely enough, this leads to something that has been bothering me for some time: my reading speed is painfully slow. It's really probably fine I guess, but when I read posts by some of the big shots around her on words per minute or sheer number of volumes read, I start to feel uneasy. If reading is something that I love to do (and it is probably #1 for my free time), then wouldn't I want to read like other serious readers on this site? It seems to come down to a waste of time. If y'all can read 3 or 4 Dickens' novels in the time that I read one (probably comprehension is at least as high, since y'all are knowledgeable about what you do read), then I really, really am wasting a lot of my time. I get savoring the language, relaxing, and enjoying the story, and, indeed, this is what I have always done. Iv'e taken my time. But then I think I should at least try to increase my reading speed. Maybe I will enjoy reading just as much? And then, there are so many authors that are untried by me; I would get to some of them quicker. It can't hurt. I can always go back.

How many words do you read a minute? I think if I time myself and try to reach a certain goal, I can start to read considerably faster. Until now I have read quite, quite leisurely.

[MorpheusSandman]

Yeah, that story is very typical from people who heavily practice mnemonics, which is what most memory is and what most memory books will go into. His technique is probably the one I use most myself (picturing my street and then "placing" items at every spot along the street). As far as IQ and memory, what I'd say is that high IQ people may be more likely to uncover these mnemonic techniques intuitively. A lot of the devices I read about in memory books were devices I'd used intuitively for years, especially when I was in school (though there were many I'd never thought of). However, I do think that an average or slightly below average IQ person's memory could eclipse that of a much higher IQ person's memory if the former worked at learning those mnemonic techniques. It may take longer for them to learn how to use them. One consistency I've found in life is that a high IQ is not a substitute for effort and learning on any subject; it may make it EASIER to learn, but that's it.

There have been many threads on this forum about speed reading and I always highly recommend that people look into it. One common misconception is that if you learn speed reading you can read anything at a rapid pace, but the truth is that speed reading would more accurately be called "variable speed reading." By that I mean that, depending on what you're reading and why you're reading it, you can speed up or slow down. EG, when I'm reading non-fiction on topics I'm really familiar with, I can comfortably read at 1000+ words per minute because I'm not going to encounter much that I struggle to understand. On the other hand, if I'm learning a new subject, reading dense fiction like Joyce, or most poetry, then I slow down, but for different reasons. When it comes to Joyce it's just impossible to speed read as there are new/uncommon words almost every line, while with poetry so much of the pleasure is in the aesthetic experience of saying/feeling the words themselves. I mean, I might spend 2-4 hours on an 80-page poetry book, while if I'm reading a book of literary criticism I might read 80 pages in 30 minutes. If you start practicing you should easily be able to double your reading speed, and probably triple it without too much trouble. I'd recommend this book. (www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Rapid-Reading-Peter-Kump/dp/073520019X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359298012&sr=8-1&keywords=rapid+reading) The most important thing, though, is to find the right speed to read at where you're still comfortable and enjoying what you're reading while comprehending it. I think most are under the false assumption that if they speed read their comprehension and retention and enjoyment will plummet, but it's had the opposite effect on me.

[bluosean]

I did not know that that story was so well known. I had heard it from my math teacher and thought quite highly of that strategy. But it makes sense. When many of the methods are viewed bare bones, what seems magical becomes understandable.

Do you know any tips on learning a new language? Whatever I have been doing to increase vocabulary, learn conjugations, etc. has been very hit and miss. There must be methods that are much better than my trial and error approach.

As for speed reading. I think I will clock the number of words I do read in a minute at my normal leisurely pace. Then I will try to read as fast as I can without skimming. I'm curious as to how many words I actually can read. Because, actually, if I push myself to read at a less leisurely pace, I can probably double my words per minute, and, consequently my overall reading speed, just like that. That will make me pretty happy for now.

[MorpheusSandman]

Yeah, it's funny how many people lose interest in such things the minute they find out that there are such simple techniques behind them. What once seemed magical suddenly becomes ordinary. Though I'm one who tries to joy in the merely real. (http://lesswrong.com/lw/or/joy_in_the_merely_real/)

I don't know any tips on learning another language as I only know English. I've always wanted to learn another language, but there are so many choices and it takes so much time that it's hard to commit, especially when there's so much I haven't read in English!

Definitely look into the speed reading thing. However, you should know that, just like memory, there are techniques to speed reading. One is to always use your finger (or a pencil... or online I use the mouse pointer) to skim over words. Why? Because your eye will follow whatever is going over the words and your eyes can take in words-as-information faster than you can say them. One of the tricks of speed reading is in making reading as much of a "visual" exercise as possible, as your vision (and your brain's recognition of what it sees) is faster than sound. Another useful technique is reading in "thought chunks," ie, trying to take in an entire sentence, or part of a sentence up to, say, a comma.

[bluosean]

Morpheus, I dislike that to my soul. We are very different in that regard. I like my 'deep blue' to be impenetrably thick, and I like the worldviews religions present (with stories explained or no). And yet, I break down most of what I do into the knowable, but when the whole is analyzed, and found to be calculable in its entirety, then there is no reason to analyze in pieces anymore. That volume, game, religion becomes so much less interesting, because if there is nothing fresh to find, there is no use to keep returning to it. For me, at least, magic (though I don't like that word, but will use it in the sense of "magic realism"; that is, things that are real and can't be explained) I hope always remains. There is a quote I love that I must paraphrase (I remember neither the wording or the author): "To celebrate is to revisit, or to go in great numbers; to celebrate is to return again, and again." certainly, were everything explainable, the magic of celebrating holy places would not make sense to me.

But then, people celebrate classic cars and sushi, where the ways to make both are both known and knowable. I can even appreciate this and quite like both despite a lack of magic. But then, there are things I can't explain.

I'm with you on foreign language. English has perhaps the greatest literary tradition anyway, and there is more great stuff than I will ever read. There are many exceptions, I liked Pushkin a lot, even in translation. I keep rereading the Bible and want to turn to some of the old works in Greek and Latin because out literary tradition is so steeped in these books. I like history as well and don't mind reading historians in translation. For everything else, I turn away from it and pick up an English author instead of turning towards it. I don't care that I will probably never read War and Peace or a book of Japanese Haiku. With Spanish though, it is different; reading right now is a pain, but I can see a day when I am reading the original easily and with pleasure. I would love to learn Russian, Japanese, or anything else as well, but will probably never get there.

For now, I haven't read some of Shakespeare (and very imperfectly understand what I have read), any of Milton and Chaucer, and a great many others. Of course I would keep turning to these rather than a foreign text. Maybe I should look into speed reading. You know Jethro Tull? "There's no time for every thing" is a great song.

[MorpheusSandman]

I can empathize with much of what you're saying because I used to think like that myself. One of the great "losses" I felt during my religious apostasy was that sense of magic at the eternal mystery of life and nature. However, the more I embraced rationality and science, and the more I got into the arts, the more I realized that making things knowable does not have to ruin the power they have. You mentioned some good examples yourself: classic cars, sushi, etc. I could even list something like sex. Does knowing how sex works from a physical, scientific perspective somehow make it less enjoyable, even glorious when it's with the right person? I don't think so. I also think Yudkowsky makes a salient and profound point that it's important not to glorify our ignorance, ie, not to say that because we don't know how something work that that not knowing is a positive statement about reality rather than a negative one about our minds.

William Blake also helped me reconcile the empathy I had with, as you called it, "religious worldviews," with how bad I learned they were at actually explaining how reality worked. Blake mostly saw religious stories as being allegorical expressions of man's psychology that were only perverted into being "worldviews" by organized religions in an attempt to control people. For Blake, the ultimate religious figure was Jesus, or the "God in man" and "God as artist/storyteller," while the God of the Old Testament was the real Satan/adversary, and the Satan of The Bible was really the human will and emotion that the OT God (ie, organized religion) attempted to suppress in people so they'd be controllable. Through Blake I did realize the power that art and religion has to allegorize our subjective experience of life and reality, but through rationality and science I equally came to realize how bad those things are for explaining how reality works. I think once you realize the "place" each has it makes things much less muddled.

I also understand what you mean about freshness and a desire to revisit... but I've found over time that how much I know about something doesn't really affect how much I do/don't want to return to it. Sure, I can get burnt out because of over-saturation, but if merely learning about something makes it less valuable to you, then it probably wasn't all that good in the first place. I've read tons of critical studies on Shakespeare, Milton, Merrill, and Yeats, yet I still return to their work frequently. My greater understanding just makes the experience richer from an intellectual perspective, not necessarily weaker from an emotional one. Hell, I understand perfectly how the ending of Tristan & Isolde works... the entire opera is built on a dissonant chord/progression that climbs towards resolution several times in the opera, but only reaches it at the very ending, the famous Liebestod (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dfbZ6S6DU4)... Yet I'm still in tears EVERY time that resolution comes. Someone like Stephen Fry has been listening to the music for decades, and you can see how he's reduced to an orgasmic fangirl by it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWLp7lBomW8

English certainly has one of the great traditions, undoubtedly, and there is, indeed, enough masterpieces in the language to keep anyone busy for a lifetime. I do, still, want to discover some/most of the masterpieces of world literature. You mention War & Peace, and I'd highly recommend you endeavor to read it eventually. It's one of those works (along with many of Tolstoy's) that has enriched my life considerably. I said of it that it's more a book you LIVE as opposed to a book you READ, and by the end of it I actually slowed my reading down considerably because I didn't want it to end. It deserves every ounce of its reputation. I mean, definitely endeavor to read all of Shakespeare, Milton, and Chaucer; but, believe me when I say, you'll get through them faster than you think. I read all of Shakespeare in less than a year, and this was reading on-and-off for periods at a time and reading other things in between. Same with Chauer (Milton only took a few months).

I do know Jethro Tull somewhat (I'm a fan, in general, of old prog rock), but I don't think I've heard that song (I'll check it out). I love their Locomotive Breath.

[bluosean]

Without trying to find examples, I keep hitting more. Since your books have not yet come I have turned to others. I started reading Mardi, and two books on the French and Indian War. With the war, the more I read about it, the more interesting it becomes. From Mardi:

"Now, sailors love marvels, and love to repeat them. And from many an old shipmate I have heard various sage opinings, concerning the phenomenon in question. ... [one sailor holds] that the phosphorescence of the sea is caused by a commotion among the mermaids, whose golden locks, all torn and disheveled, do irradiate the waters at such times; I proceed to record more reliable theories."

Melville is talking about a night on the Pacific Ocean. He sees glowing specks. Melville's favorite explanation was that these lights were caused by decaying matter (the remains of fish). I happened to see a picture recently of a beach of Fiji. The water was glowing with specks like the stars in the sky. The caption under the picture said the glow was caused by bacteria.

Locks of mermaids, decaying fish tissue, or bacteria, don't really matter to me. The picture was just a beautiful. I guess I even like to know what it is for some reason. I certainly would not have sided with the mermaid hair, and the dead Anglo-English mariner culture. But there are other cultures that are much more important. In the Marquesas, there is the belief that to dislodge a bone that is caught in the throat, one should place another of the bones of the fish on one's head. In Latin America, hair is though to grow much slower when it is cut incorrectly. To go beyond the small and superstitious and to religion and worldviews, what would be the Jews without Judaism? Jewish was brought back from the dead as a language to reestablish cultural identity. Certainly, much of their culture is tied into the language because it is impossible to separate many of their words from the context of their theology. The foundation for all of this the Tanakh (or Jewish Bible). But I am writing unnecessarily (you know this already), and explaining badly. And I don't want to conjecture that knowledge, or the way things work, and religion can blend. My point is that most cultures would cease to be if they gave up their religious world views (these being connected to both their languages and their ancestral lands as well). I don't count this a good thing.

For my part, I had always doubted, but I finally decided to believe when I saw some of my friends doing the same. I reasoned that, no matter where I went, or what happened, I would always be tied to my Christian identity. It seemed an easy and practical way to bring up strength. In the same vein, I am happy to pray not because I think my prayers will be answered, but because I have read somewhere that praying relieves stress (I don't remember why, but it makes sense, as one is tapping into a deep belief system, and drawing strength as water from the ground). I am still a doubter then, or perhaps worse. At any rate, breaking things down to the knowable may work for some, you and me included, but it will not work for most because religion cannot be discarded without disastrous results. I cannot see how the world will benefit by destroying that great variety.

But there are other things too; is not checkers the poorer for having been solved? Why study it? Why study old games? There is no longer the thrill of the contest within the game. If two of the best player is the world play each other, that is, two computers that are good enough, the result will always be a draw. This particular orange, already being squeezed, and consumed, the rest can be thrown out. I guess that was the idea, ambitious players went out to study and master the game. This must have been exciting. But this is certainly and example of something that was made worse when that mastery did come.

So, while I will only continue to increase my enjoyment when I read more and more gritty details of the French and Indian War, improved knowledge of checkers has appreciably diminished the appeal for me of a game that I still like so much. With other things I am rather indifferent, and that usually when I am not particularly interested in the subject. Be it magic or logic, I don't really care. And, even for me, there are things that I decidedly want obscured (religion being the one I can think of now), and I hope that I have convinced you that your way of thinking will not work for much of the world.

It's not that I don't want to read War and Peace, but there are too many other things. I am still waiting for your books, and am quite excited for them to come, but I cannot buy the (learning) poetry books now. I've made my resolution not to buy books in 2014, having about 50 that I have not yet read.