Monday, August 07, 2006
Oh yeah, I meant to cross-reference that last comment to Jessica's post a couple weeks ago, which went something like: Don't tell me who my work's like, don't tell me that it reminds you of this or that or the other, at least make the effort to describe the bits that you like or don't like about it on their own terms.
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3 comments:
On the other hand, no one "owns" the terms. And every poem erases previous poems. And the poetry of bratty, a-historical individualism is usually pretty shallow.
Mark, thanks for calling attention to Henry's review of Breeze, which does indeed sound splendid. And Henry, bravo, an excellent and very useful review, though I'm surprised you didn't invoke Ashbery as well as Stevens.
A few random responses to you both: Henry, in your comment above, sentences one and three are right on target. Such being the case, sentence two can only be wishful thinking. It's the very rare poem that erases previous poems, and even then, only temporarily.
Which is why, Mark, your theory makes a lot of sense, but I think it can't be a matter only of "firstness," as in the first time the reader encounters a poem doing such-and-such. It has to be that first time encountering a poem doing such-and-such really well. And the older one gets, the more infrequent those encounters become. "The flesh is sad, alas, and all the books are read..."
Late summer musings...
Thank you, Norman!
Actually I didn't find much Ashbery influence in Breeze. Latta seems to enjoy speculating rationally on the irrationality of things. They'll figure it out at the Sorbonne someday.
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