fragments of contemporary poetry

A Morris Dance


Across the Common, on a lovely May
day in New England, I see and hear
the Middle Ages drawing near,
bells tinkling, pennants bright and gay—
a parade of Morris dancers.

One plucks a lute. One twirls a cape.
Up close, a lifted pinafore
exposes cellulite, and more.
O why aren't they in better shape,
the middle-aged Morris dancers?

Already it's not hard to guess
their treasurer—her; their president—him;
the Wednesday-night meetings at the gym.
They ought to practice more, or less,
the middle-aged Morris dancers.

Short-winded troubadours and pages,
milkmaids with osteoporosis—
what really makes me so morose is
how they can't admit their ages,
the middle-aged Morris dancers. ...

{excerpt}

-------------------------------------------------------

Interviews July 16, 2008
Mary Jo Salter talks about her new collection,

Phone Call to the Future; editing The Norton

Anthology of Poetry; and her early days as an

assistant poetry editor at The Atlantic.

by Sarah Cohen

-------------------------------------------------------

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807u/mary-jo-salter



The Poet's Poet {interview with Mary Jo Salter}

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by firefangled

I
One Should Not Talk To a Skilled Hunter About What Is Forbidden By the Buddha
- Hsiang-yen

...
Peeling skin back (Kai
reminded us to chant the Shingyo first)
cold pelt. crinkle; and musky smell
mixed with dead-body odor starting.

Stomach content: a whole ground squirrel well chewed
plus one lizard foot
and somewhere from inside the ground squirrel
a bit of aluminum foil.

The secret.
and the secret hidden deep in that.

---

Thanks for this, I love it.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0825/p25s01-bogn.html



------------------------

Poet Kay Ryan: A profile
By Elizabeth Lund

"Kay Ryan may be the only American poet who

describes her writing process as "a self-imposed

emergency," the artistic equivalent of finding a

loved one pinned under a 3,000-pound car. These

"emergencies," she says, allow her to tap into

abilities she wouldn't normally have, much like a

father who single-handedly lifts a vehicle off his

child. In Ms. Ryan's case, however, what has

survived because of her efforts over the past three

decades is a singular voice and vision. Her poems -

with their compact size and technical precision,

their wit and sharp intelligence - have been praised

by critics for their ability to do and say things that

none of her contemporaries can match." ----------{excellent article about Kay Ryan and her methods, August 25, 2004}

Gulls
by Jorie Graham


Those neck-pointing out full bodylength and calling
outwards over the breaking waves.
Those standing in waves and letting them come and
go over them.
Those gathering head-down and over some one
thing.
Those still out there where motion is
primarily a pulsing from underneath
and the forward-motion so slight they lay
their stillness on its swelling and falling
and let themselves swell, fall ...
Sometimes the whole flock rising and running just
as the last film of darkness rises
leaving behind, also rising and falling in
tiny upliftings,
almost a mile of white underfeathers, up-turned, white spines
gliding over the wet
sand, in gusts, being blown down towards
the unified inrolling awayness
of white. All things turning white through
breaking. The long red pointing of lowering sun
going down on (but also streaking in towards) whoever
might be standing at the point-of-view place
from which this watching. This watching being risen
from: as glance: along the red
blurring and swaying water-path:
to the singular redness: the glance a
being-everywhere-risen-from: everywhere
cawing, mewing, cries where a
single bird lifts heavily
just at shoreline, rip where
its wing-tips (both) lap
backwash, feet still in
the wave-drag of it, to coast
on top of its own shadow and then down to not
landing. ... {first stanza}

Jazz Fan Looks Back



I crisscrossed with Monk
Wailed with Bud
Counted every star with Stitt
Sang "Don't Blame Me" with Sarah
Wore a flower like Billie
Screamed in the range of Dinah
& scatted "How High the Moon" with Ella Fitzgerald
as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium
Jazz at the Philharmonic

I cut my hair into a permanent tam
Made my feet rebellious metronomes
Embedded record needles in paint on paper
Talked bopology talk
Laughed in high-pitched saxophone phrases
Became keeper of every Bird riff
every Lester lick
as Hawk melodicized my ear of infatuated tongues
& Blakey drummed militant messages in
soul of my applauding teeth
& Ray hit bass notes to the last love seat in my bones.... {excerpt}

If you read it fast it's almost scat. Certainly jazz. This is cool, Quasi

PUSH BACK THE CATASTROPHES

I don't want a drought to feed on itself
through the tattooed holes in my belly
I don't want a spectacular desert of
charred stems & rabbit hairs
in my throat of accumulated matter
I don t want to burn and cut through the forest
like a greedy mercenary drilling into
sugar cane of the bones

Push back the advancing sands
the polluted sewage
the dust demonsthe dying timber
the upper atmosphere of nitrogen
push back the catastrophes


Enough of the missiles
the submarines
the aircraft carriers
the biological weapons
No more sickness sadness poverty
exploitation destabilization
illiteracy and bombing
Let's move toward peace ... {excerpt}

SOJOURNS IN THE PARALLEL WORLD
We live our lives of human passions,
cruelties, dreams, concepts,
crimes and the exercise of virtue
in and beside a world devoid
of our preoccupations, free
from apprehension--though affected,
certainly, by our actions. A world
parallel to our own though overlapping.
We call it "Nature"; only reluctantly
admitting ourselves to be "Nature" too.
Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,
our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,
an hour even, of pure (almost pure)
response to that insouciant life: ... {excerpt}

Archangel Cathedral


The coffins of great Russian princesses stand
in the basement of the Moscow Kremlin. They
were brought there in the 30s from the
destroyed Voznesensky Monastery.

There where the angels weave the sky,
where there is the triumph of the last dream,
where the cellar secrets conceal,
I asked myself: For whom

have I lived and suffered this life?
I didn’t fall prostrate in prayer,
I always sang my own words
in the dark storehouse of useless tsaritsas.

Here, under the gigantic splinter-bar of walls
there is disparagement of forgetfulness.
I stand over poisoned Glinskaya,
her pillaged tomb.

And over us now red flags,
now the alcoholic madness of the country.
Only timid bones can be seen
through the robbers’ hole in the sarcophagus.

In these cracks of the royal masonry,
in this mould of terrifying corners,
there are the denouements of chronic illness,
the revelation of prophetic words. ... {excerpt}

[translated by Richard McKane]

I Am Goya

I am Goya
of the bare field, by the enemy's beak gouged
til the craters of my eyes gape
I am grief.

I am tongue
of war, the embers of cities
on the snows of the year 1941
I am hunger.

I am the gullet
of a woman hanged whose body like a bell
tolled over a blank square
I am Goya...

from I Am Goya

tr. Stanley Kunitz


Elegy for My Mother

I canceled your funeral, mother;
you can't be resurrected in this day and age.

Mama, forgive these repeated gatherings.
I know you face has long since turned to snow;
I have taken you from the crematorium
and will place you now beside Father.

This spring we let earth fall
into your graves at the Novodevichi Monastery:
Voznesensky and Voznesenkaya rest there now
and the earth is given new life.

Whatever you touched has become holy:
the benches in the square, and Ordynka Street
behind them, are holy;
over Catherine's birch tree
shines your maternal light.

What did earth offer you, Antonina?
Mad for lilies of the valley,
you were an intellectual in a worker's kerchief
with the backbone of a tragedienne...

Unsung Russia you were,
guarding hearth and home;
a young wife, you combed our troubles, drew them,
with your hair, back into a bun tight as a fist...

Now you'll be a stranger when you waken me at night;
the little Akhmatova volume will fly open on its own:
What is it that torments you, Antonina?
Tonya?...

I have not spoken these words with condescension;
Whoever reads them, please do not wait.
Rush with lilies of the valley to your mother,
for mine I cannot- its too late.

from Elegy for My Mother
tr. William Jay Smith and F.D. Reve

sorry for question which is not reffered straightly to the thread... some weeks ago i remeber the thread about jim morrison and his poetry, now i can´t find it.. anybody can help me?

THE ANTIWORLDS



1961



.....The Anti-great-academician
has got a blotting paper vision.

Long live creative Antiworlds,
great fantasy amidst daft words!
There are wise men and stupid peasants,
there are no trees without deserts.

There’re Antimen and Antilorries,
Antimachines in woods and forests.
There’s salt of earth, and there’s a fake.
A falcon dies without a snake.

I like my dear critics best.
The greatest of them beats the rest
for on his shoulders there’s no head,
he’s got an Antihead instead.

At night I sleep with windows open
and hear the rings of falling stars,
From up above skyscrapers drop and,
like stalactites, look down on us.

High up above me upside down,
stuck like a fork into the ground,
my nice light-hearted butterfly,
my Antiworld, is getting by.

I wonder if it’s wrong or right
that Antiworlds should date at night.
Why should they sit there side by side
watching TV all through the night?
They do not understand a word.
It’s their last date in this world.
They sit and chat for hours, and
they will regret it in the end!
The two have burning ears and eyes,
resembling purple butterflies...

...A lecturer once said to me:
«An Antiworld? It’s loonacy!»

I’m half asleep, and I would sooner
believe than doubt the man’s word...
My green-eyed kitty, like a tuner,
receives the signals of the world. {excerpt}




Translated by Alec Vagapov

Life at War



The disasters numb within us
caught in the chest, rolling
in the brain like pebbles. The feeling
resembles lumps of raw dough


weighing down a child’s stomach on baking day.
Or Rilke said it, ‘My heart. . .
Could I say of it, it overflows
with bitterness . . . but no, as though


its contents were simply balled into
formless lumps, thus
do I carry it about.’
The same war


continues.
We have breathed the grits of it in, all our lives,
our lungs are pocked with it,
the mucous membrane of our dreams
coated with it, the imagination
filmed over with the gray filth of it:


the knowledge that humankind,


delicate Man, whose flesh
responds to a caress, whose eyes
are flowers that perceive the stars,


whose music excels the music of birds,
whose laughter matches the laughter of dogs,
whose understanding manifests designs
fairer than the spider’s most intricate web,


still turns without surprise, with mere regret
to the scheduled breaking open of breasts whose milk
runs out over the entrails of still-alive babies,
transformation of witnessing eyes to pulp-fragments,
implosion of skinned penises into carcass-gulleys.


We are the humans, men who can make;
whose language imagines mercy,
lovingkindness we have believed one another
mirrored forms of a God we felt as good—


who do these acts, who convince ourselves
it is necessary; these acts are done
to our own flesh; burned human flesh
is smelling in Vietnam as I write. ... {excerpt}

A Performance Of Henry V At Stratford-Upon-Avon
Nature teaches us our tongue again
And the swift sentences came pat. I came
Into cool night rescued from rainy dawn.
And I seethed with language - Henry at
Harfleur and Agincourt came apt for war
In Ireland and the Middle East. Here was
The riddling and right tongue, the feeling words
Solid and dutiful. Aspiring hope
Met purpose in "advantages" and "He
That fights with me today shall be my brother."
Say this is patriotic, out of date.
But you are wrong. It never is too late

For nights of stars and feet that move to an
Iambic measure; all who clapped were linked,
The theatre is our treasury and too,
Our study, school-room, house where mercy is

Dispensed with justice. ... {excerpt}

—from Loose Sugar

visitor fragment

Lately the visitor
looks the same as the enemy; why
should I agree to see her?

She withdraws to the various
outposts I invented earlier…

My visitor is on the other side,
I can’t see her from
the ring of fire I’ve been assigned…

{excerpt}

blue square

When I gave up hope of being complete
the sorrow deepened.
As that went too, a mystery replaced it.

Now it’s a faint blue square against which being
and nonbeing will always
wrestle, even in the afterlife…

{excerpt}

below below

In the corner of the heart
reserved for action, a pig is eating
the poppies of hell;

it doesn’t look up when I come in;
it doesn’t need
a confirming ideal. If there are flowers

there must be dirt below hell
where power has no meaning
but growth comes out of it.

{excerpt}

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/bo...a2&oref=slogin



--Juan Felipe Herrera Review entitled "Punk Half

Panther' by Stephen Burt 8/10/08 -- NYT book

review ----- "For Juan Felipe Herrera, poetry is all about breaking down barriers."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/bo...html?ref=books

Books of The Times
Truth and Beauty? Only in Afterlife, a review by

Charles McGrath




Published: August 7, 2008 ---

POSTHUMOUS KEATS

A Personal Biography

By Stanley Plumly

392 pages. W. W. Norton & Company. $27.95.

My word against theirs, my sickle humor
against their last glass of chianti. Simple,
Direct and compassionate—in a way, let us say,
it is in my nature to be generous: to remind
the passengers about the last stop in Anguish-
town, to spell integration with an X, to scrub
the word Prison with sneaky vastness inside.

It is my own penchant for skull symphonies
my embossed headdress, especially, that brings
me to your carpeted doom-time; this flowery intro
serves a purpose; every spirit strand is an exit,
a cash & carry star of exits and entrances. ---



La Muerte

(Death)

by Juan Felipe Herrera

Cows

Over the shrug of the motorway bridge
they go, their vintage design
stirring vague pangs of grief
in salesmen and long-distance lorry drivers.

As a child I would scramble under the hedge
to consult with cows. I found them enigmatic
with their slow conversation, lathery breath,
eyes like planets. It seemed they had few plans,
gave scant thought to the question of destiny.
But sometimes there might be a calf,
with soft hooves, and a stunned expression -
a dumb prophet, visited by this future:

no dry-straw jostle of the cowshed.....

(excerpt, Cows from the collection Tilt)

http://www.pw.org/content/poetry_bro..._new_york_city --- Article: THE POETRY BROTHEL: POSTCARD FROM NEW YORK CITY

http://www.pw.org/content/poetry_bro..._new_york_city THE POETRY BROTHEL: POSTCARD FROM NEW YORK CITY (proper spelling of author...Jean Hartig

Below is a poem by 2008 Jackson Poetry Prize recipient, Tony Hoagland.

IN THE PAINTING THE ALLEGORY OF THE TEMP AGENCY,

the employers are depicted as wolves
with bloodred mouths and yellow greedy eyes,
pursuing the small-business employees through the dark

forest of capitalism. It is night, and
by the light of the minimum-wage moon we can see
the long pink tongues of the bosses hanging out

and the dilated white eyeballs of the employees as they flee
through woods, lacking any sense of
solidarity or collective organizing power.

Upon closer inspection the leaves beneath their feet
are shredded dollar bills which bear
the distressed expressions of ex-presidents

and the wind in the trees is making a long
howl of no health insurance or job security
and No, it is not really a very good painting,

heavy-handed in concept, and unintentionally
comic in a way that
invites us to laugh at the desire for justice –

Rather, the painting shows that the artist was untalented,
and is an allegory of how difficult it is
to be both skillful and sincere ... {excerpt}

Writing in the Afterlife



I imagined the atmosphere would be clear,
shot with pristine light,
not this sulphurous haze,
the air ionized as before a thunderstorm.


Many have pictured a river here,
but no one mentioned all the boats,
their benches crowded with naked passengers,
each bent over a writing tablet.


I knew I would not always be a child
with a model train and a model tunnel,
and I knew I would not live forever,
jumping all day through the hoop of myself.


I had heard about the journey to the other side
and the clink of the final coin
in the leather purse of the man holding the oar,
but how could anyone have guessed


that as soon as we arrived
we would be asked to describe this place
and to include as much detail as possible—
not just the water, he insists,


rather the oily, fathomless, rat-happy water,
not simply the shackles, but the rusty,
iron, ankle-shredding shackles—
and that our next assignment would be


to jot down, off the tops of our heads,
our thoughts and feelings about being dead,
not really an assignment,
the man rotating the oar keeps telling us—

{excerpt}

cruel, cruel summer



either the postagestamp-bright inflorescence of wild mustard
or the drab tassel of prairie smoke, waving its dirty garments


either the low breeze through the cracked window
or houseflies and drawn blinds to spare us the calid sun


one day commands the next to lie down, to scatter: we're done
with allegiance, devotion, the malicious idea of what's eternal


picture the terrain sunk, return of the inland sea, your spectacle
your metaphor, the scope of this twiggy dominion pulled under


crest and crest, wave and cloud, the thunder blast and burst of swells
this is the sum of us: brief sneezeweed, brief yellow blaze put out


so little, your departure, one plunk upon the earth's surface,
one drop to bind the dust, a little mud, a field of mud


the swale gradually submerged, gradually forgotten
and that is all that is to be borne of your empirical trope: ... {excerpt}

oops... double post!

I will do anything to avoid boredom. It is the task of a lifetime. You can never know enough, never work enough, never use infinitives and participles oddly enough, never impede the movement harshly enough, never leave the mind quickly enough.

On Ovid

I see him there on a night like this but cool, the moon blowing through the black streets. He sups and walks back to his room. The radio is on the floor. Its luminous green dial blares softly. He sits down at the table; people in exile write so many letters. Now Ovid is weeping. Each night about this time he puts on sadness like a garment and goes on writing. In his spare time he is teaching himself the local language (Getic) in order to compose in it an epic poem no one will ever read.

On Parmenides

We pride ourselves on being civilized people. Yet what if the names for things were utterly different? Italy, for example. I have a friend named Andreas, an Italian. He has lived in Argentina as well as England, and also Costa Rica for some time. Everywhere he lives he invites people over for supper. It is a lot of work. Artichoke pasta, Peaches. His deep smile never fades. What if the proper name for Italy turns out to be Brzoy- will Andreas continue to travel the world like the wandering moon with her borrowed light? I fear we failed to understand what he was saying or his reasons. What if every time he said cities, he meant delusion, for example?

Sleep Stones

Camille Claudel lived the last thirty years of her life in an assylum, wondering why, writing letters to her brother the poet, who had signed the papers. Come visit me, she says. Remember, I am living here with madwomen, days are long. She did not smoke or stroll. She refused to sculpt. Although they gave her sleep stones- marble and granite and porphyry- she broke them, then collected the pieces and buried these outside the walls at night...

Canicula Di Anna

1.

What we have here
is the story of a painter.
It occurs in Perugia
(ancient Perusia)
where lived the painter Pietro Vannucci
(c. 1445-1523)
who was called Perugino,
a contemporary of Michelangelo
and teacher of Raphael...

some philosophers of the present day
meet in conclave
upon the ancient rock of Perugia.
They seem to have commissioned
for purposes of public relations,
a painter to record them
in pigments of the fifteenth century...

The painter, at any rate,
is not a happy man.
A woman, as usual, is the problem...

9.

It is perhaps not widely known
that a certain so-called Perugino
spent the years 1483-1486
covering with frescoes
that part of the Sistine Chapel
now immortalized by Michelangelo's Last Judgment,
which efforts were ruthlessly effaced
to make space for
his successor's more colossal genius...

13.

Group portrait: a special commission.
I paint the philosophers at table and
on the way to Being.
The bottle is difficult. I attempt
a color invented by Cimabue.
The phenomenologists engage in dialectic
about wine as vinegar.
To render the throat holes
(blackish red) I have acquired
sap of the tree draco dracaena (an expense
but the phenomenolgists requested it)
or dragon's blood, which, medieval legend
recounts, originally
soaked into the earth
during epic wars
of elephants and dragons...

14.

The phenomenologist from Paris hates mosquitoes
and carries a small electric devise
that lures the female mosquito to her death
by simulating the amorous cry of the male. Then
to block the whining sound, he has pink earplugs.
As he sits in conversation
with the phenomenologist from Sussex
a mosquito is observed to enter.
The Englishman leaps to his feet,
calling, "Let us use the mosquito machine!"
and smashes the insect to the wall
with the devise. It is the first sign
of wide ontological differences
that will open in the Anglo-French dialectic
here.

from Anne Carson- Plainwater

I have only read this single volume of Carson, but already I find myself entranced. Carson is Canadian (have you read any of her JBI?)... 58 years old... a professor of classics and comparative literature with a distinguished background in classical languages, comparative literature, anthropology, history, and commercial art. She writes poetry, prose, essay, criticism, and translation (her recent translations of Sappho are well regarded). Beyond this the writer is quite reluctant to reveal information of her personal life.

Carson's books of "poetry" are a fascinating merger of all of her experiences as a scholar and professional writer. Her works remind me in many ways of the writings of Borges, Italo Calvino, Augusto Monterroso, the shorter writings of Kafka, Donald Barthleme, and the "prose poems" of W.S. Merwin. Like these writers she blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction... often presenting marvelous fictive accounts of historic personages complete with scholarly details and notations. At times one is not certain if the work one is reading is prose, poetry, essay, history, critical analysis, meditation... or something completely different. There is also a marvelous crisp, crystalline prose not far removed from that of Borges, Calvino, or Merwin.

I have read shorter poems, and am currently awaiting a volume of Autobiography of Red from the library. She seems to be one of the supreme poets of our age, though she isn't very Canadian in terms of her poetics. She seems more English (mixed with American as most poets are) than Canadian. If you want real Canadian verse, look into John Newlove, the Prairie Poet.

Still though she has her talent, and I am looking forward to The Autobiography of Red, which is supposedly a rich verse novel, though highly neo-classical, as she seems to be.

Entrancing post luke. Hate to say this but she's post modern par excellence if she can sustain that tone through an entire collection; put her in my reading notes.

And too think... I was first led to her by a mention of her poetry in a critical essay by Harold Bloom. It seems old Harold is aware that there is literature of merit beyond that of the dead white European males.:D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stlukesguild

And too think... I was first led to her by a mention of her poetry in a critical essay by Harold Bloom. It seems old Harold is aware that there is literature of merit beyond that of the dead white European males.:D

---

If I can be pardoned for the aside, a lack of good critical reading has been of great frustration to me. Before I came online, I belonged to The Readers' Subscription, through which I purchased my few critical titles--although I will concede I don't like Wayne Booth and did not really understand Lodge's apologia in his collection of essays on Bakhtin--mainly because I am not familiar with Bakhtin himself.

I do have RS bookmarked, since I found it, at least I hope I did, now under Doubleday's control, but haven't renewed my membership, yet.

I find it difficult, despite wish lists and ease of ordering, to know where to go to find critics and scholars of interest.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stlukesguild

And too think... I was first led to her by a mention of her poetry in a critical essay by Harold Bloom. It seems old Harold is aware that there is literature of merit beyond that of the dead white European males.:D

---

Where did this essay appear? If possible could you provide a JStor link, or something?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jozanny

If I can be pardoned for the aside, a lack of good critical reading has been of great frustration to me. Before I came online, I belonged to The Readers' Subscription, through which I purchased my few critical titles--although I will concede I don't like Wayne Booth and did not really understand Lodge's apologia in his collection of essays on Bakhtin--mainly because I am not familiar with Bakhtin himself.

I do have RS bookmarked, since I found it, at least I hope I did, now under Doubleday's control, but haven't renewed my membership, yet.

I find it difficult, despite wish lists and ease of ordering, to know where to go to find critics and scholars of interest.

---

You need to look into major academic publications, and such. If you have no access to a university library, perhaps your local library has JStor access, which gives you an archive of the major periodicals in scholarly research. Really though, nothing beats a major university library, as it is virtually impossible to do any research (of any credibility) without one.

I have little use for most contemporary criticism which far too often seems more concerned with the critic's pet theory (political, social, or otherwise) than with the author's work. On the other hand, I have read a good many examples of literary criticism in the broader sense... not the academic analysis and deconstruction of a single text... some of which ranks as truly great literature in and of itself. Among these examples I would include Samuel Johnson, Walter Pater, William Hazlitt, Samuel Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, etc... I am also attracted to the critical writings of a good many who are poets/authors of some importance in their own right. Here I would include J.L. Borges, Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Eugenio Montale, Octavio Paz, W.S. Merwin, Edward Hirsch, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Dana Gioia, etc... Of modern/contemporary critics who are not also known for their efforts as poets/novelists/etc... I have already noted I have little use for theory or ideology. Critics I have found of the most use to me have included Northrop Frye, Harold Bloom, Roger Shattuck, and even the often outrageous Camille Paglia. You might ask JBI or even Petrarch'sLove (if she is back from her trip) who would in all likelihood be far more able to lead you in the right direction concerning contemporary scholarly criticism than I.

You'd be surprised what can be found in contemporary scholarship - Bloom too admits this, as often (though he tries to add as many "classical voices" as possible) his anthologies are loaded with contemporary critics. Either way though, the so called "school of resentment" is an American phenomenon for the most part - modern European, and even Canadian scholarship is far less political.

The reasons are, that America, which really is a pastiche of different cultures, has formed itself into a definite culture, like other nations. Canada has not done so, and has opted for the so called "cultural mosaic" approach, a mixing of traditions and customs from the wide immigrant communities. In truth, the 250,000 immigrants arriving each year (the government is trying to up it to 500,000, but are currently unable to process that many immigrants) add in addition to the old-immigrant community cultures, an additional contemporary culture, which creates even more culture backgrounds amongst Canadians.

For this reason, though we have areas of teaching in English departments (such as African Canadian literature, and Italian Canadian literature) we do not have the sort of racial or feminist focusing as programs in the U.S. have. Canadians, though we weren't perfect, as no one will claim, seemed to have treated, historically, immigrants and minorities far better than our American counterparts, and, as a result, do not have to make as big a deal, as most academics, students, and writers are minorities themselves, and the immigrant-native divide is rather invisible.

That being said, European countries for the most part seem to have defined traditional cultures and literatures, and as a result, do not have the same focuses as the American system. The problem though, is that their scholarship is focused on their linguistic backgrounds, and as a result, is untranslated, and restricted to their literature. Unless you are interested in, and able to read texts in the original, such scholarship will be of no interest.

In truth, though much of American scholarship is placed under the so called "school of resentment", the bulk of it actually seems to follow the sort of "aesthetic" preferred by Bloom. It isn't difficult to find scholarship of interest, if one has the resources available to look (assuming you aren't concerned with ideological or overly theoretical criticism, which, I would say, is not completely devoid of merit, and is often quite beautifully written).

Dammit! JBI! You're making me work here... and I just started back to teaching today! I had to skim through How to Read and Why, Where Shall Wisdom be Found, and a couple other volumes (at least I knew it wasn't in The Western Canon) until I found where I had highlighted it in Genius p. 11:

I have avoided all living geniuses in this book, partly so as to evade the distractions of mere provocation. I can identify for myself certain writers of palpable genius now among us: the Portuguese novelist Jose Saramago, the Canadian poet Anne Carson, the English poet Geoffrey Hill...

This... and another mention or praise for Autobiography of Red... which I cannot find off hand... as well as Edward Hirsch's mention of her in How to Read a Poem was enough to intrigue me. A brief perusal of Plainwater in the bookstore was enough to convince me to give her a try. I was very pleased with what I have read.

Dickinson relied on Higginson as a reporter from the world beyond her garden gate.

WHITE HEAT

The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

By Brenda Wineapple

Illustrated. 416 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $27.95 (review of this book called "Emily's Tryst" by Miranda Seymour, 8/22/08) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/bo...ew&oref=slogin

AN IMPROVISATION FOR ANGULAR MOMENTUM

Walking is like
imagination, a
single step
dissolves the circle
into motion; the eye here
and there rests
on a leaf,
gap, or ledge,
everything flowing
except where
sight touches seen:
stop, though, and
reality snaps back
in, locked hard,
forms sharply
themselves, bushbank,
dentree, phoneline,
definite, fixed,
the self, too, then
caught real, clouds
and wind melting
into their directions,
breaking around and
over, down and out,
motions profound,
alive, musical! .....

{excerpt}

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/200...ORIA_index.htm "A Poets Realm of Myth and Reality" article and slideshow about Machado's Spain.

From Somewhere In Advance Of Nowhere

BUMBLEBEE, YOU SAW BIG MAMA

You saw Big Mama Thorton
In her cocktail dresses
& cut off boots
& in her cowboy hat
& man's suit
As she drummed &
Hollered out
The happy hour of her negritude
Bumblebee

You saw Big Mama
Trance dancing her chant
Into cut body of
A running rooster
Scream shouting her talk
Into flaming path of
A solar eclipse
Cry laughing her eyes into
Circumcision red sunsets
at midnight
Bumblebee

You saw Big Mama
Bouncing straight up like a Masai
Then falling back spinning her
Salty bone drying kisser of music
Into a Texas hop for you to
Lap up her sweat
Bumblebee

You saw Big Mama
Moaning between ritual saxes
& carrying the black water of Alabama blood
Through burnt weeds & rainy ditches
To reach the waxy surface of your spectrum
Bumblebee

You didn't have to wonder
Why Big Mama sounded
So expressively free
So aggressively great
Once you climbed
Into valley roar
Of her vocal spleen
& tasted sweet grapes
In cool desert
Of her twilight
Bumblebee

You saw Big Mama
Glowing like
A full charcoal moon
Riding down
Chocolate Bayou road
& making her entrance
Into rock-city-bar lounge
& swallowing that
Show-me-no-love supermarket exit sign
In her club ebony gut
You saw her
Get tamped on by the hell hounds
& you knew when she was happy ...


{excerpt, Jayne Cortez}

Theory and Practice

By LANGDON HAMMER
Published: August 29, 2008
"Poets and critics have been around for a long time, and some writers have been both poets and critics, but the 'poet-critic' was invented in the 20th century. This hybrid role was created by T. S. Eliot and then adapted by a generation of poets who won positions in American colleges as literary critics, before the M.F.A. in creative writing gave poets jobs teaching writing workshops. The poet-critics of that era shared a point of view. They were against experimental literature. They valued rhyme and meter not only as expressive forms, but as safeguards against sentimentality, narcissism and even madness. They saw poetry as a way to preserve the individual’s spiritual and intellectual integrity in a society dominated by science and mass culture. They praised reason and proportion, but their mood was apocalyptic." {first paragraph of this review}

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/bo...ks&oref=slogin