what poetry are you reading

i'm reading david antin's talking at the boundaries. what poetry are you reading?

― mustread guy (schlump), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 17:58 (five years ago) Permalink

it would maybe need a caveat before being uncontroversially included in a poetry thread; maybe it's better in a which erratically typeset books are you reading discussion. i love him talking around marriage, in a private occasion in a public place, & this loose solution he found to wanting to use poetry without reciting poetry, to be able to digress to make himself understood, this long memory of a girl he was involved with in new york & what it is to him now & then the interruption of trying to remember what it was to him then.

suppose you sign another agreement
that is you decide that you have a relationship with each other
which is of such an order that you have
appetite for each other
interest in each other fondness for each other
whatever the word means you love each other so to speak
but you dont have any control of each other
that is
as soon as anybody feels some other impulse he/she goes makes it with whoever he/she wants
you can try that
its difficult
and i know this kind of experience
its the kind of experience that takes away
a kind of evenness
a kind of funny unpressured life
that is
it puts life at the pressure of a romantic adventure
because anything can dissociate into its separate parts at any moment
you can always at the moment of an adventure disappear from somebody else

― mustread guy (schlump), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 17:59 (five years ago) Permalink

i'm reading sharon olds too. i can only read one or two a day, they're so intense. & for days on end i would go back & read robert creeley's please. i think i first read it on ilx? it felt powerful to pick it up everyday & need to read it for comfort.

for James Broughton

Oh god, let's go.
This is a poem for Kenneth Patchen.
Everywhere they are shooting people.
People people people people.
This is a poem for Allen Ginsberg.
I want to be elsewhere, elsewhere.
This is a poem about a horse that got tired.
Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.
I want to go home.
I want you to go home.
This is a poem that tells the story,
which is the story.
I don't know. I get lost.
If only they would stand still and let me.
Are you happy, sad, not happy, please come.
This is a poem for everyone.

― mustread guy (schlump), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 18:02 (five years ago) Permalink

i'm reading anthony hecht 'collected later,' which has in it the transparent man, flight among the tombs, and the darkness and the light

also p stoked to have a copy of thom gunn's fighting terms on the way.

― creating an ilHOOSion usic sight and sound (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 18:12 (five years ago) Permalink

Hypnos Waking - Rene Char Early surrealist who later was a major figure in the Resistance, contains complete translations of 'Leaves of Hypnos' his war journal and Le Poeme Pulverise
Figured Image - Anna-Marie Albiach Translated by Keith Waldrop Rough going with this gal who is concerned with language and the body in a very textural/french way. Post Apollo Press does an excellent job with their books, I'd like to find everything by them.
Mute Objects of Expression - Francis Ponge Translated by Lee Fahnestock One of my favorite french poets who writes about objects or nature.
Early Poems 1947-1959 - Yves Bonnefoy Translated by Galway Kinnell and Richard Pevear Contains a complete translation of 'On the Motion and Immobility of Douve' one of the most beautiful poems I have read. I never tired of him.
Breathturn - Paul Celan Translated by Pierre Joris I also really like Sun & Moon Press, I have a few more Celan books but I'm completely lost, Maybe I need to read German, I took a break from him and Think I'll take him up again this year.

― JacobSanders, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 18:25 (five years ago) Permalink

is the motion and immobility of douve a book length thing, jacob? i feel tentative with long poems, & reading what you both read it feels like you're maybe a lil more ambitious.

i just e-mailed my friend & included a jack gilbert poem & was so pleased to find it online, on a tumblr ("stillgreen"), because it's so specific, so gently transportive,

Trying to Have Something Left Over
Jack Gilbert

There was a great tenderness to the sadness
when I would go there. She knew how much
I loved my wife and that we had no future.
We were like casualties helping each other
as we waited for the end. Now I wonder
if we understood how happy those Danish
afternoons were. Most of the time we did not talk.
Often I took care of the baby while she did
housework. Changing him and making him laugh.
I would say Pittsburgh softly each time before
throwing him up. Whisper Pittsburgh with
my mouth against the tiny ear and throw
him higher. Pittsburgh and happiness high up.
The only way to leave even the smallest trace.
So that all his life her son would feel gladness
unaccountably when anyone spoke of the ruined
city of steel in America. Each time almost
remembering something maybe important that got lost.

― mustread guy (schlump), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 19:57 (five years ago) Permalink

re celan: i think if german is needed then it's a reaaal fluent german, in which case i'm screwed. i've found that it helps to be able to parse the german, at least, maybe because it helps to sort of justify some of the choices in the english (absent which they can sometimes have a tinge of, come off it, pal to them), some of the patterns of sound and syllabation are audible/visible, etc. —but for the most part i just had to reread repeatedly, and be in the right mood. trying to take in the whole sequence of one of the breathturn sequence books seems to be crucial too.

-

lately i've reread a little creeley. that's all.

― j., Tuesday, 31 December 2013 21:54 (five years ago) Permalink

strangely, I've just been reading Celan as well (selected poems, Hamburger trans.)—having previously been of the I'm completely lost, Maybe I need to read German mindset towards him, I now think I'm starting to "get it" a little more...

― confused subconscious U2 association (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 1 January 2014 00:40 (five years ago) Permalink

'On the Motion and Immobility of Douve' is a book length poem, but well worth reading. I've also been reading Edmond Jabes's Book Of Questions which are astonishing and sometimes heartbreaking.

― JacobSanders, Wednesday, 1 January 2014 18:54 (five years ago) Permalink

I am only familiar with Jabes via Derrida's essays, which made him seem both brilliant & tedious

― confused subconscious U2 association (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 1 January 2014 23:56 (five years ago) Permalink

I think I would like to read what Derrida wrote about Jabes, which book is the essay from?

― JacobSanders, Thursday, 2 January 2014 00:53 (five years ago) Permalink

Writing & Difference—I believe the title of the essay is "Edmund Jabes & the Question of the Book"—I read it c.college because I was into, like, Borges & 'postmodernism' & shit, so possibly I didn't totally get it... I remember the characterization of the jew as a fold in history(?)

― confused subconscious U2 association (bernard snowy), Thursday, 2 January 2014 02:20 (five years ago) Permalink

in that perloff essay (on gass on rilke) i linked on another thread she takes that celan as an epitome of the translatable

i think i'm going to read some celan this year

i've been failing to read 'dear world and everyone in it' for months. dear world and everyone in it, i don't care about your shitty poetry

― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Thursday, 2 January 2014 18:03 (five years ago) Permalink

John Berryman - The Dream Songs
Michael Robbins - Alien Vs Predator

Both discovered via ILB.

― o. nate, Thursday, 2 January 2014 18:28 (five years ago) Permalink

in that perloff essay (on gass on rilke) i linked on another thread she takes that celan as an epitome of the translatable

She talks about Trakl too, who is also mentioned by Michael Hofmann is given v high praise in this piece on Kraus/Vienna, so his name has been in my mind lately. Hope to track something down.

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 2 January 2014 19:33 (five years ago) Permalink

mr bones vs predator, that would be good

― j., Thursday, 2 January 2014 19:59 (five years ago) Permalink

Robbins, of course, was not the first to call Rilke a “jerk.” John Berryman did this scandalously in The Dream Songs[1] (first published in 1964). Robbins has absorbed Berryman’s haunting work, the vaguely formalistic structure (rhythmic lines of varying length/beat and ninja rhymes that ambush the reader), frequent references to movies, songs, art, black culture, multiple narrative identities, uninhibited sexual appetites and the brooding sense of loss that lies at the heart of it all, and nuked it till it has bloomed with an acid glow that (&c &c)

― confused subconscious U2 association (bernard snowy), Friday, 3 January 2014 05:02 (five years ago) Permalink

TAKING SIDES: Rilke vs. Berryman-Robbins (aka 'Team Snark')

― confused subconscious U2 association (bernard snowy), Friday, 3 January 2014 05:05 (five years ago) Permalink

not reading him right now, but closely following developments in this r s thomas on crisp packets story.

― woof, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 16:15 (five years ago) Permalink

Michael Robbins - Alien Vs Predator

― o. nate, Thursday, January 2, 2014 6:28 PM (4 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did you like this? i enjoyed it at first, but once i 'got it' i sort of didn't enjoy it anymore.

― i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Friday, 31 January 2014 17:48 (five years ago) Permalink

also

https://twitter.com/alienvsrobbins/status/410099232586997760

― i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Friday, 31 January 2014 17:49 (five years ago) Permalink

what adrienne rich should i start with, do people think?

― i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Friday, 31 January 2014 17:50 (five years ago) Permalink

xp haha

― flopson, Friday, 31 January 2014 17:50 (five years ago) Permalink

did you like this? i enjoyed it at first, but once i 'got it' i sort of didn't enjoy it anymore

I still like it, yeah. I take it down from the shelf and read one or two every once in a while. Some I like better than others. The best ones hold up well, I think.

― o. nate, Saturday, 1 February 2014 02:00 (five years ago) Permalink

I'm not as familiar with Rich's work as I'd like, so I hope others better informed can advise, but Diving into the Wreck is probably a good place to start; I'm also partial to the long poem "Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law" from the book of the same title.

xp

― one way street, Saturday, 1 February 2014 02:05 (five years ago) Permalink

In music I'm attracted to ambitious disasters; in literature I'm attracted to larval states, during which poets and novelists haven't found their voices. The Diamond Cutters and Snapshots of a Daughter in Law are my favorites of hers: I love the tension between the glacial severity of her images and barely suppressed anger (the enjambments are harsh and sharp too).

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 February 2014 02:19 (five years ago) Permalink

you can find a cheap Norton anthology of her selected works that also includes her (essential) essays

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 February 2014 02:20 (five years ago) Permalink

November 1968

Stripped you're beginning to float free up through the smoke of brushfires and incinerators the unleafed branches won't hold you nor the radar aerials

You're what the autumn knew would happen after the last collapse of primary color once the last absolutes were torn to pieces you could begin

How you broke open, what sheathed you until this moment I know nothing about it my ignorance of you amazes me now that I watch you starting to give yourself away to the wind

― mustread guy (schlump), Saturday, 1 February 2014 05:36 (five years ago) Permalink

wait go http://www.best-poems.net/adrienne_rich/poem-43.html for formatting

― mustread guy (schlump), Saturday, 1 February 2014 05:39 (five years ago) Permalink

I don't know, I always found Rich really dry, but it was a talk she gave on Emily Dickinson that made me curious about that author. Because before that I thought Dickinson wrote "little girl scout prayers" as Rich put it (possibly not verbatim), while discussing her image.

― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 1 February 2014 17:04 (five years ago) Permalink

(I've at least read one of those Norton selected or collected poems of Rich's.)

― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 1 February 2014 17:05 (five years ago) Permalink

Her Dickinson essay is fantastic!

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 February 2014 17:05 (five years ago) Permalink

I heard a recorded talk she gave, presumably close to the essay, or maybe a reading of it. (I don't think I ever went on to read in print form what she had to say about Dickinson.)

― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 1 February 2014 17:08 (five years ago) Permalink

'on lies, secrets, and silence' is a good essay collection

― j., Saturday, 1 February 2014 19:56 (five years ago) Permalink

i am going to post a short verse of a joseph ceravolo poem when i get home, get ready for it

― mustread guy (schlump), Saturday, 1 February 2014 21:40 (five years ago) Permalink

buckle up

― mustread guy (schlump), Saturday, 1 February 2014 21:40 (five years ago) Permalink

my *selected berryman* showed up last night and man

those fuckin sonnets

"Maybe our safeties…come for our risk’s sake."

― i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Thursday, 6 February 2014 16:26 (five years ago) Permalink

aw i'm just about to pick up dream songs, from the library, cause i never tended to berryman much
& then i read something last week on a blog that knocked me for six, like wow

& i didn't post the ceravolo poem because it was too simple, out of context
like you needed the mess of the whole thing
he is really interesting!, i think. maybe because sometimes i am cruising this sorta in-love-with-eileen-myles wave of tumblr poetry that takes this elemental small-scale form as a template but has this maybe predictable voice?, now, like there's not a solipsism but a fixed reach to it? a formula by which it roams. & the ceravolo is crazy, it's like frank o'hara free jazz, i can't believe he gets so far with so little, eschewing so much, relying on you so much
maybe i'll post it later

― mustread guy (schlump), Thursday, 6 February 2014 17:55 (five years ago) Permalink

ah yeah i just read that one last night too, damn near devoured the whole little selected in a few hours

so much to chew on

― i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Thursday, 6 February 2014 19:01 (five years ago) Permalink

those fuckin sonnets

I'm an admirer of Berryman's sonnets, too. He leaves enough of the trad structure intact that it frees his sense of language, imagery and ideas to climb forward, and his plays against the trad sonnet structure gain extra weight because they are so deliberate.

― Aimless, Thursday, 6 February 2014 19:02 (five years ago) Permalink

i got halfway through this great long thing on berryman on the bus home last night, stopped reading to start reading the selected, then picked it back up and realized the whole thing is sort of a long-form review of the selected itself. happy accident.

― i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Thursday, 6 February 2014 19:04 (five years ago) Permalink

man sharon olds' the dead and the living just came in and i tried to read a bit of it before bed

fuckin mistake.

just awful dark stuff, not meant for the pillow.

mary karr's viper rum is winning me over though. every third one or so is a gut punch, like a slightly unstiffened O'Connor. and i like my O'Connor just fine.

― i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Wednesday, 12 February 2014 21:10 (five years ago) Permalink

This has a lovely cover, but the prose poems it consists of did nothing for me.
http://ndbooks.com/images/made/images/covers/Fullblood_Arabian_300_450.jpg
I found them facile and pseudo-profound (the nod to Khalil Gibran in Lydia Davis's introduction should have tipped me off), but plenty of people disagree with me.

― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Thursday, 13 February 2014 01:08 (five years ago) Permalink

there is just so much in Olds; they're not even so panoramic, just so full and imaginable. three a day, max.

― mustread guy (schlump), Thursday, 13 February 2014 03:09 (five years ago) Permalink

& wait is TDATL the recent one?

― mustread guy (schlump), Thursday, 13 February 2014 03:09 (five years ago) Permalink

nah its one from the early 80s.

― i have the new brutal HOOS if you want it (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Thursday, 13 February 2014 03:41 (five years ago) Permalink

Petrarch b/w English Alliterative Revival stuff; then a reading of Villon's Testament to close the middle ages

― my collages, let me show you them (bernard snowy), Thursday, 13 February 2014 17:25 (five years ago) Permalink

newyear

― xyzzzz__, Friday, 28 February 2014 20:50 (five years ago) Permalink

Seaton's version of Cold Mountain Poems.

― Aimless, Friday, 28 February 2014 20:52 (five years ago) Permalink

read a.e. housman's 'a shropshire lad' on my kindle a few weeks ago. uneven but some great stuff.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 28 February 2014 21:15 (five years ago) Permalink

Think of D'Annuzio as something people at a certain time read. Like I dunno Henry Miller or Keroauc.

Have read The Inferno since I finished all the Russian poetry. In the end The Penguin Book... is very uneven but Shamolov is so good, and if it means more of his poetry is translated then I'm all for it. Another find was Arseny Tarkovsky.

The other Russian poets who got similarly sized selections were Ivanov and Slutsky. Only a couple of Ivanov poems had a substantial charm to them for me to have another look.

There were 2-3 poets from the OBEIRU avant-garde group (whom Pussy Riot gave a nod to) and it just doesn't quite fit in this collection, which is part of the point as they don't want to fit in, but do the editors get that in their worries to be as historically comprehensive as possible?

Too many poets at the end had one single poem to them. Felt tired. Little chance of impact, and when there is any -- like in Yevgeny Vinokurov's "Missing the Troop Train" -- then, well, I am not going to get to anything else anytime soon, and its unlikely to be available anyway!

After Inferno I've stayed medieval w/Villon. Now finishing some poems by Gunter Grass.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, 15 May 2015 21:35 (three years ago) Permalink

Good article. Unfortunately subscriber-only:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jun/04/john-berryman-tragedy-comedy-together/

― o. nate, Saturday, 16 May 2015 01:50 (three years ago) Permalink

I bought Kate Tempest's Brand New Ancients on a whim, and I love it. I know it was written to be read -- or really, performed -- but it works on the page, too. What she does seems kind of obvious but would be easy to do badly.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Sunday, 17 May 2015 13:47 (three years ago) Permalink

Yeah, I want to read her poetry and plays. Was immediately impressed by her use of language on Everybody Down, the delivery and writing: conversational and seemingly spontaneous, but lucid zoom-shot phrases in the midst of tumultous grey scenes, Went a bit convenient and otherwise soft toward the end, but that's about the plot choices, not the language(or music). (h'm-m-m, it's gonna be a novel too). She's got charisma.

― dow, Sunday, 17 May 2015 16:45 (three years ago) Permalink

Re-reading a Selected Roethke with a fresher sensitivity. So lovely.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, 17 May 2015 21:22 (three years ago) Permalink

From Twitter:

http://www.africanpoetryprize.org/winning-poems-2015

― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 3 June 2015 12:35 (three years ago) Permalink

that Safia Elhillo is some of the best poetry I've read in a while

― Heroic melancholy continues to have a forceful grip on (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 3 June 2015 17:05 (three years ago) Permalink

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/10/each-day-unexpected-salvation-john-cage

― tender is the late-night daypart (schlump), Monday, 3 August 2015 11:06 (three years ago) Permalink

http://www.asymptotejournal.com/article.php?cat=Poetry&id=78

― xyzzzz__, Monday, 17 August 2015 05:24 (three years ago) Permalink

I've read this a couple of times and could not resist quoting:

[...] It would be December.
A jade horse beneath the waters
A double transparency, a line in mid-air
All these things at your fingertips
All undone through the portal of time
Silent and blue. [...]

[And ... ]

[...] It little matters to me
Being nothing around you, a shadow, tattered stuff
In the judgement of your mother and sister. [...]

[Reckless ... save yourself ... give what you can ... when it comes to you]

― youn, Thursday, 20 August 2015 02:06 (three years ago) Permalink

I bought a copy of Lyrics of the Troubadours and Trouveres, tr. Frederick Goldin, and just finished the section on Guillaume IX before supper.

― Aimless, Thursday, 20 August 2015 03:24 (three years ago) Permalink

berryman's dream songs

― drash, Thursday, 20 August 2015 10:46 (three years ago) Permalink

dennis johnson - incognito lounge, at the moment.

― doing my Objectives, handling some intense stuff (LocalGarda), Thursday, 20 August 2015 10:47 (three years ago) Permalink

in more of a nonfic mood at the moment but oh man i love hilda hilst

― donna rouge, Thursday, 20 August 2015 15:03 (three years ago) Permalink

Bhanu Kapil's Ban En Banlieue

― one way street, Thursday, 20 August 2015 16:06 (three years ago) Permalink

reading through a selected adrienne rich right now, enamored

also picked up the out of print book of berryman critical essays "the freedom of the poet"

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 21 August 2015 01:09 (three years ago) Permalink

I can't read Rich after 1980 :(

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 21 August 2015 01:09 (three years ago) Permalink

Of the Rich I've browsed around in, I best liked The Dream of a Common Language, which also fits Alfred's criteria of pre-1980 poems.

― Aimless, Friday, 21 August 2015 01:30 (three years ago) Permalink

Her Dickinson essay is one of the most lucid things about her I've read.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 21 August 2015 01:34 (three years ago) Permalink

I can't read Rich after 1980 :(

Is this like a poetry after Auschwitz thing? What happened in 1980?

― as verbose and purple as a Peter Ustinov made of plums (James Morrison), Friday, 21 August 2015 02:04 (three years ago) Permalink

Her verse collapsed into well-meaning doggerel.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 21 August 2015 02:09 (three years ago) Permalink

its funny i met someone recently who's reading her from the present day backwards, and i'm sure we must have very different impressions

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 21 August 2015 02:31 (three years ago) Permalink

I got an affection for the first collections of poets like Rich, Berryman, Merrill.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 21 August 2015 03:07 (three years ago) Permalink

What do y'all think of John Hollander and Anthony Hecht?

― Eternal Return To Earth (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 21 August 2015 03:13 (three years ago) Permalink

I like Hecht's monologues and Holocaust poems. None of the postwar formalists compare with Merrill imo.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 21 August 2015 03:18 (three years ago) Permalink

Fair enough. A recent favorite of mine has been August Kleinzahler. I came across one of his poems entitled "A History of Western Music" and never looked back. His memoir is really good too.

― Eternal Return To Earth (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 21 August 2015 03:28 (three years ago) Permalink

Okay, please to inform where to start with Merrill.

― Eternal Return To Earth (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 21 August 2015 03:33 (three years ago) Permalink

james merrill: c/d, s/d

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 21 August 2015 15:42 (three years ago) Permalink

just found this thread!

poems i've been reading a lot over the past couple of weeks:

paz - certainty
rilke - archaic torso of apollo
jarell - 90 north
wc williams - a love song
verlaine - clair de lune

― have you ever even read The Drudge Report? Have you gone on Stormfron (k3vin k.), Friday, 2 September 2016 01:17 (two years ago) Permalink

elizabeth willis a bit, that nyrb poets volume
and wcw 'paterson' intermittently
and a touch of baudelaire

― j., Friday, 2 September 2016 02:06 (two years ago) Permalink

rilke - archaic torso of apollo
A favorite. I had a screen name based on it for a while that used when I started an ILB thread which is still on the ILB New Answers list.

― Planking Full Stop (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 2 September 2016 02:10 (two years ago) Permalink

it's quickly become a favorite of mine as well. i intend to make a post about it in a thread treeship started a month or so ago, after my exam tomorrow :o

― have you ever even read The Drudge Report? Have you gone on Stormfron (k3vin k.), Friday, 2 September 2016 02:17 (two years ago) Permalink

also -- recently learned that WCW was a physician!

― have you ever even read The Drudge Report? Have you gone on Stormfron (k3vin k.), Friday, 2 September 2016 02:17 (two years ago) Permalink

Wordsworth for the first time in two decades.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 2 September 2016 02:18 (two years ago) Permalink

also -- recently learned that WCW was a physician!

― Planking Full Stop (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 2 September 2016 02:31 (two years ago) Permalink

i'm just always impressed when a physician is able to be world-class at something else. who has the time!

― have you ever even read The Drudge Report? Have you gone on Stormfron (k3vin k.), Friday, 2 September 2016 02:34 (two years ago) Permalink

A good friend of mine had a theory that the kind of writing and thinking required by the legal profession made it very difficult to produce good prose

― Planking Full Stop (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 2 September 2016 03:52 (two years ago) Permalink

...whereas a medical career had no such side effect. Chekhov!

― Planking Full Stop (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 2 September 2016 03:53 (two years ago) Permalink

Although Voltaire was a lawyer. Haven't read anything long form by him though, just some quotable bon mots.

― Under the Zing of Stan (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 6 September 2016 00:48 (two years ago) Permalink

his prose is pretty... re-Volt-ing ;~P

― flopson, Tuesday, 6 September 2016 14:06 (two years ago) Permalink

He did write an epic poem intended to rival the Iliad and the Aeneid called La Henriade whilst imprisoned in the Bastille.

― Under the Zing of Stan (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 6 September 2016 14:25 (two years ago) Permalink

well what else are ya gonna do

― j., Wednesday, 7 September 2016 02:16 (two years ago) Permalink

charles wright's 'homage to paul cézanne' is wonderful. i liked how he described the process of writing it here:

I was doing a lot of looking at Cézanne’s paintings, and I’d been thinking about Cézanne a lot at that time. … I thought that certain painterly techniques – which is to say, using stanzas and lines the way painters sometimes use color and form – might be interesting. … So I worked on this poem not knowing how the poem was going to go. I thought it was going to be about ten sections. I knew it was going to be about Cézanne by the time I’d finished the first one. Not about Cézanne himself, but about the process of painting. I knew it was going to be nonlinear. I was going to write sections where each had to do with each other, but not consecutively or linearly. …

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/c_wright/homage.htm

― Karl Malone, Monday, 4 February 2019 06:46 (two months ago) Permalink

does anyone else have southern cross? i guess cézanne is the opening poem, with a page devoted to each of its 8 sections, 16 lines each. southern cross is the closing poem, and i think i actually came across it a long time ago, but have forgotten it

― Karl Malone, Monday, 4 February 2019 06:55 (two months ago) Permalink

Any recommendations for essential poetry/poets from like the Renaissance through the late 18th Century? Assuming I'm aware of the big names from the period in question (and I've been firmly entrenched in post-1770 lit for the last six months so I'm well sorted from there on).

― Gary Ornmigh, Heywood's son (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 15:53 (one month ago) Permalink

Taking big names as Spenser, Donne, Milton, Dryden, Pope… then Skelton, enjoying Fulke Greville a lot at the moment… actually that reminds me - here's a list from the time thomp asked me to list my top 25 c17th poets
Michael Robbins - Alien Vs. Predator (nb this book of poems is not about aliens, predators or their conflicts)
Before that… I'll repeat John Skelton, Wyatt, the Scottish Makars (Robert Henryson in particular), Campion, Southwell maybe.
Always say that the Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse is a great anthology.
After 1700 - Swift, Christopher Smart (stick to Jubilate Agno)… then I'm honestly a bit hesitant to recommend mid-late c18th stuff. It's a bit of an acquired or academic taste. I can read Collins, Gray etc, but they don't inspire me to proselytise. Things pick up with Cowper, but if you've been going in post-1770 you'll have run into him.

― woof, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:37 (one month ago) Permalink

Wow, that is a far more expansive and helpful response than I could've hoped for. Thank you!

― Gary Ornmigh, Heywood's son (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:43 (one month ago) Permalink

No prob!
And a postscript - that Michael Robbins thread reminded me he's just edited a selection of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle's poetry for NYRB books. I should look at it - if I ever knew her verse, I've forgotten it, but The Blazing World is one of the great strange sort-of-novels of the c17th and she is fascinating.

― woof, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:53 (one month ago) Permalink

John Hollander I'm reading now.

― Let's have sensible centrist armageddon (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:02 (one month ago) Permalink

I've just discovered this thread. I like Hollander's criticism but I've not read his poetry. Where to begin?

I've been reading a bit of Les Murray and trying to ignore his more, ah, buffoonish commentary. Last Hellos is quite a thing.

― Good cop, Babcock (Chinaski), Saturday, 16 March 2019 23:15 (one month ago) Permalink