who's your favorite poet? why?

[JBI]

This is poetry though -

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present

- you really cannot separate the past from the present in the way you can with prose - even the most abstract, most radical poets are still dependent on the past masters - the language of poetry is flexible in time - the spoken Italian language is in itself, the spoken Italian language because of the Catholic Florentine culture you dismissed - the past cannot be broken - the influences cannot be ignored. I have read my own share of radical poetry, Erin Moure comes to mind, as does Robert Kroetsch, to writers who really stretch language, but even they would laugh if you tried to disconnect them from the discussion. Every poem (I'm talking here about lyric poetry, narrative poetry has a different function, though often fits this later definition) is answering the same question, even poems from far distant cultures, Japanese, and Chinese included.

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still

Within poetry is the capturing of time, that is able to repeat itself. Every poem dies, but is reborn with every reading, and made to live again. Dante is as a part of the stillness of time as any poet. Quite simply though, I strain to come up with a figure who really mastered language and metaphor the way Dante did. As one of my professors kept telling me, you need to read Dante, and then you need to read him in Italian. There is nothing without Dante - there is no poetry. I strain to come up with a rival for him.

When all things are considered, there are very few poets who I could even begin to consider in that sense. Wilbur comes to mind, though he is no where near Dante, as do Walcott, and a few others (just to put forward some English names, as I dislike judging poetry at all, especially if it is in translation). Montale as a modernist poet to me seems within a similar league, though I doubt Montale would have given himself such praise. Eliot certainly, but I just end up going back more and more, and keep thinking, where is Dante really absent in any of these writers? Perhaps Walcott, of those mentioned, seems the freeist, but he hardly is free of Dante. Dante is Western poetry - the connection between the world of Virgil, and the world of Europe is best constructed out of the imagination of Dante. He seems the forerunner for the whole idea, the grounds by which the sense of West were formed (there had been a rough connectedness between Europe and the Far East spanning back far before Marco Polo or Matteo Ricci) but the main force, that would be the defining point of the Renaissance consciousness that led to our current sense of self, that I can only attribute to Dante, with his appropriation of the classical models as something belonging to a Western Tradition (when, with the exception of Virgil, most weren't even part of what we generally consider the West. Certainly the Alexandria-born Aristotle wouldn't be considered Western if born today).


That being said, I'm open to other poets as well, and other traditions, but quite simply, I can read English, and I can read Italian, and I can read Hebrew, and in those languages, if I was to pick a dominant poetic figure that towers over all of them in our Western consciousness, I would choose Dante first, then perhaps Milton. Even King David, or other scripture writers don't seem as prevalent. Does that make him the favorite? Well - I chose Leopardi, but I wouldn't call him a better poet than Dante.

[Jozanny]

But there is nothing wrong with a student being an apprentice to those among the living. Dante may have truly been orgasmic about Virgil. I don't know, as even by the time of the Comedia imitation was a literary technique with its conventions which lived on at least through Milton, but even Dante learned how to be a poet among contemporary poets in Florence. It is not always a good thing that the work becomes a hallowed orb walled off from living experience. My former neo-Beat contacts are mostly mediocre, true, but I know some very talented people who deserve better, who deserve to be discussed, and even bringing up Armitage in these dusty digital shelves leaves one flailing, and he is an enormously popular poet in England.

It may be true that more people read poetry than ever before, but they don't seem to care about poetry as a vibrant, living art, which it is. The comfort of the canon is about as far as some are willing to venture.

[JBI]

Some, and that is a flaw - that people are often considered well read without knowing anything about languages or contemporary trends - but I think St. Lukes, for instance, is quite well versed in contemporary poetry. I see myself as being a contemporary poetry reader over a classicist - MortalTerror, for instance, I would consider a classicist in aesthetic sensibilities, but I'm sure he reads outside of the canon.

If I were to pick a quarrel though, I would say that readers are too afraid to really branch out. These selected poems classical volumes are too convenient - they take the best of what has been written in a period, take the best from that, narrow it down, and make it simple to understand. That is the problem really, that poetry has sought to make itself easy, and neat, whereas contemporary poetry is often dismissed by such readers as "broken up prose", or lacking. Time will fix everything though - there are vibrant poetry communities, and great artists at work at the current moment from virtually everywhere.

[stlukesguild]

Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot
be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great
labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense...
the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with
his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the
whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the
whole of the literature of his own country has simultaneous
existence and composes a simultaneous order...

No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning
alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation
of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value
him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among
the dead... what happens when a new work of art is created is
something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art
which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal monument
among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the
new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order
is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist
after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order
must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations,
proportions,values of each work of art toward the whole are
readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new.

Whoever has approved this idea of order...will not find it
preposterous that the past should be altered by the present
as much as the present is directed by the past.
-T.S. Eliot

Yes poetry is a living art... but that does not mean that the art of the past is "dead". Such is a concept only believed by anarchists such as Marinetti (of Futurist fame) and the reality is that even those who most shake up the Canon... the accepted traditions... are those who are also most aware of and "respectful" of the same. Dante virtually invents the Italian language, reinvents Catholicism, invents his own universe. Today he is still unnerving... shocking... in a way that some late modernist playing with words or their layout on the page cannot come near to.

Having admitted that Dante remains my favorite does not mean that I cannot appreciate Modern and even contemporary poets. I have more than expressed a fondness for Geoffrey Hill, Anthony Hecht, Anne Carson, Charles Wright, Czeslaw Milosz, among others. Of course here one is greatly limited. One commonly has access only to that deemed worthy of publication. One is further limited by the restrictions of language. Few contemporary poets writing in French, Italian, and Spanish (let alone Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese) have benefited from solid translation. of course the reality is that in any time or place there are but a choice few artists of real brilliance. The question confronting the reader must be how much time do I wish to invest in obscure, experimental, contemporary poets when there is still so much of the canons (East and West) to be devoured? 100s of books call to me from my shelves. Am I to give precedence to only those who are writing here and now? Again, such may be the prejudice of the artist. If I were to compose a list of the essential artists since World War II the list would be but a few dozen in length. Yet as an artist working in this time I am aware and somewhat knowledgeable of literally thousands. Yet not in my wildest dreams would I imagine that Alan Feltus, David Bates, John Currin, Walton Ford, John Kirby, Robert Kushner, Pat Lipski, Paul Feiler or any number of other quite talented artists will end up sharing a place within the ranks alongside Titian, Rembrandt, Picasso, and Matisse. Those that will be remembered will only be studied by those who specialize in the art of this time.

[stlukesguild]

If I were to pick a quarrel though, I would say that readers are too afraid to really branch out.

That is true in my field as well. There are those Modernists/Post-Modernists who shun the "old masters" in many cases I would suggest because they fear comparison with the unquestionable mastery on a technical level. By the same token, there are those who fear Modernism and Contemporary art... who imagine that there exists some ideal of perfection that was attained at some time during the 1600s... or perhaps during the late 19th century... and that every deviation from this is a sign of failure.

[Jozanny]

Not sure what it says about me that Google still has the ability to freak me out. I am debating whether or not I should email him and say hello, but I failed everything I aspired to be through this man, and I avoided trying to dig him up exactly for this reason until I acted on a whim because of this thread. What could I possibly convey to this man that would be of any use to me or fix things for me or restore something to me I once believed was a possibility? He is in his 60's and he manages to hang on as an assistant professor because he was a more snide version of Gregory House before they invented this character for television--at least when I knew him.

Peeling away scars for the wounds of one's past is sometimes not very useful, but then again, one of his collections should be on my bookshelf. He may have trace Beat resonances, but he is a fantastic poet JBI, much more versatile than Avison, I am sorry to say. I don't know what to do. I know saying hello to an instructor should not normally invite terror, but Jerry was my Virgil, even more than that.

***
After I breathe for a few days, I suppose I could buy his collection and then just say "Jerry it's Joanne, would you sign this for me if I mail it to your campus?" And leave it at that, and never go near it again. Luke, you do need to reprimand me when I give in to my very unwise impulses, dear fellow. Unplug my battery wire or something.

[JuniperWoolf]

I really love Rimbaud. The first time that I ever felt that there was something to existance was when I was reading his poetry. It makes me want to do something.

[stlukesguild]

Yes... Rimbaud was one of my passions during my freshman year in college. He wasn't an author required in our World Lit Survey and so he was my own discovery... part of an entire unknown continent to me including Baudelaire, Verlaine, Valery, Lamartine, Huysmans, Gautier, Mallarme, Nerval, even Paul Eluard. Initially I was seduced by A Season in Hell... but with time I came to prefer the Drunken Boat and Illuminations.

[stlukesguild]

After I breathe for a few days, I suppose I could buy his collection and then just say "Jerry it's Joanne, would you sign this for me if I mail it to your campus?" And leave it at that, and never go near it again. Luke, you do need to reprimand me when I give in to my very unwise impulses, dear fellow. Unplug my battery wire or something.

Jozie... I can't say I was ever so fully seduced by a mentor... although I did have a few. The first had a marvelously absurd sense of humor and painted Expressionist paintings with blaring colors, shimmering brush-work, and emotion-laden imagery (read: sex!) while all the other faculty were abstract formalists. In literary terms he was Blake or Rimbaud... or at least Ginsberg... while they were all Richard Wilbur. I eventually outgrew his influence... and yet I now see certain formal elements that echo (albeit it in a very different manner) some of his. My other mentors included a feisty Scotsman (who may have been the most marvelous painter of the lot) who had a penchant for a single adjective beginning with F and spoken with the most marvelous Scottish brogue, and a Pole who had survived the Nazis and Stalin (although not without consequences). He had the most magnificent bio and in spite of the complete loss of his one arm (thanks to Stalinist guards at a gulag) and the fact that he stood no more than 5' 4"... he could absolutely dominate any discussion ( in spite of the fact that I stood 6 foot, 200 pounds). He also had an uncanny talent for observation and listening and was a master of the Socratic method. He never told you what to do. He merely asked questions... questions that I still think about today. In spite of this I broke free of all of them. My own work has little in common with them (although I may find some links if I stretch the imagination) and is clearly my own... for better or worse.

[mortalterror]

Ovid. The man can do no wrong where I'm concerned. His writing is so fluid, so sensual, so vibrant, and at the same time so droll and sophisticated, so structured. He's what would happen if T.S. Eliot or Leopardi ever had a moment of true happiness and joie de vivre. He's kind of like a mix of them and Petrarch, a real scholar poet.

He's not as good as Dante, but he has more range. His juvenilia, the Amores, are so much more enjoyable than Dante's New Life. His secondary works like the Heroides, are head and shoulders above Dante's lesser offerings like Monarchia. Give him that at least. Both poets are rivals for Love's favor, but the lady has two hands. Dante is a prince of sacred platonic love, whereas Ovid is a master of secular physical love making. They need not compete.

Yes... Rimbaud was one of my passions during my freshman year in college. He wasn't an author required in our World Lit Survey and so he was my own discovery... part of an entire unknown continent to me including Baudelaire, Verlaine, Valery, Lamartine, Huysmans, Gautier, Mallarme, Nerval, even Paul Eluard. Initially I was seduced by A Season in Hell... but with time I came to prefer the Drunken Boat and Illuminations.

I've always considered Rimbaud as something of an enfant terrible. I can never picture him having a lasting sustainable career. If he was still writing like a vulgar petulant child, lashing out, and giving the finger to society when he was fifty, I don't think his poetry would play the same. He's sort of wrapped up in a romantic mythos, a cult of personality akin to that surrounding Lord Byron.

[stlukesguild]

Ovid. The man can do no wrong where I'm concerned. His writing is so fluid, so sensual, so vibrant, and at the same time so droll and sophisticated, so structured. He's what would happen if T.S. Eliot or Leopardi ever had a moment of true happiness and joie de vivre.

Of course... the Romans again. Always the Romans.

Seriously, I would not underestimate Ovid. I've long preferred him to Virgil (although I would have to admit that the latter is probably the better poet) for the very reasons you point out: his absolute fluidity... his sophisticated lightness of touch... as if he need not try in the least... where Virgil is clearly making concerted efforts to impress. This quality... this joie de vivre... is something that few poets have. It is an embrace of life and sensuality without intimations of danger and looming death (Baudelaire) and certainly without guilt. Another poet who immediately strikes me as also having this quality is Robert Herrick. It is something one imagines in Mozart and in a great deal of French painting... especially culminating in Matisse.

[mortalterror]

Of course... the Romans again. Always the Romans.

There's so much there to love. Not just the literature, but the philosophy, the history, the art, and the architecture too. As an artist, surely you must appreciate this. If the Greeks were the brains of Western civilization then the Romans are it's fiery beating heart.



If I had the means, I'd build a house of columns, arches, murals, statues, mosaic floors, and gardens. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd wear a toga. I wouldn't dine without bloodshed and my music would be the chains of my enemies dragging through the streets.

[Mr Endon]

mortalterror, that was interesting and entertaining, and I can see (and feel) the appeal of such vision. The slave culture and the gratutious violence, however, kind of put me off. That's probably the en vogue humanitarian sensitivity affecting my judgement though. I'm sure my dark, primal self (whom Lawrence says we must obey) would find it heaven.

[I'm sorry, I know this isn't the right place for it, but I can see some serious Dante lovers. Can you suggest me a decent translation (if there is such thing) of The Divine Comedy, if possible a good bilingual edition? Many thanks.]

Well, let me add my twopence: Fernando Pessoa's Alberto Caeiro and Álvaro de Campos are my favourite poets, are among the greatest of the first half of the 20th century, and are surely the best heteronyms ever created.

[bacchante]

Charles Bukowski

Writing

often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman's love,
no wealth
can
match it.
nothing can save
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.
the hordes from
closing in.
it blasts the
darkness.
writing is the
ultimate
psychiatrist,
the kindliest
god of all the
gods.
writing stalks
death.
it knows no
quit.
and writing
laughs
at itself,
at pain.
it is the last
expectation,
the last
explanation.
that's
what it
is.

one of the many reasons - why...

[crystalmoonshin]

Gustavo Adolfo Becquer!!! I love his "Rimas". So powerfully moving, passionate, touching and melancholic.

One of my fave poems by Becquer is the Rima XXIV.