I can’t even begin to put into words how I feel about what this man has said. He seems to take pleasure in lazily capitulating to the worst trends of contemporary letters.
How many others who live by (whether materially or spiritually) the words they write are also consciously indulging in actions that will harm the future of the world of literature?
Last night, a the Library of Congress, there was a reading from Push Open the Window: Contemporary Poetry from China, featuring two of the poets, Xi Chuan and Zhou Zan, as well Michael Wiegers of Copper Canyon Press, the anthology’s publisher. American poet Carolyn Forché, who read English translation Ms. Zan’s poetry on behalf of that poet.
It was a wonderful event, and apparently filmed for C-SPAN 2 and it’s BookTV programming on weekends.
I’d tell you more about the book itself, except that I have review of it coming out next month.
I haven’t read a new Canto in some time, I know. And I don’t have a good excuse.
But, my significant other is leaving town for a little while and I pledge to use that time to read and write about at least three more Cantos before Monday.
I have never read and know little about the latest Nobel recipient, but I liked what this person had to say about him. I like it because it seems close to what I am: the appreciations of an amateur who simply loves poetry.
This article touches on an issue I’ve been grappling with for some time.
We are used to our towering cultural figures being a–holes (does anyone seriously think that being Beethoven’s girlfriend was anything less than a living hell, for example?).
But we still struggle with when these figures support morally repellent political views.
And it is true that many figures of early twentieth modernism were seduced by fascism and anti-semitism.
Pound, of course, I have spoken about a great deal.
Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun is another.
At the article above focuses on Gertrude Stein.
And no, I still don’t have a pat answer to the dilemma.
Even if they don’t bother to review poetry anymore, at the New York Times occasionally deigns to write about it.
Using my Nook, so that no one will see what I am really reading, I just finished the second book in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar series, a Hollow Earth conceit featuring the usual tropes – dinosaurs, cave men, etc – and ‘Pellucidar’ being the name of that particularly world within our world.
I have no read At the Earth’s Core and it’s sequel, Pellucidar.
While reading the first volume, I came to realize that I had read it as a child. I devoured science fiction and fantasy from used bookstores and must have picked up At the Earth’s Core, perhaps recognizing the author’s name. I was aware of Burroughs – I remember a Tarzan book in the little room we used as a library at our home in Norfolk, Virginia, though I never read it.
In my defense, I will say that the Pellucidar novels are not infected by the racism which appears in most of Burrough’s work. Not that Burroughs wasn’t racist, just that since these stories did not take place in Africa, Asia, Central America nor among Native Americans, he had less opportunity to express those thoughts. But it’s not a very good defense, is it?
I’m late getting to this, but last Tuesday, former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky read at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
As Poet Laureate, he was tireless in his promotion of poetry to the American people and, to my mind, no one has performed the role better. Poet
Laureate, really, has little to with the recipient’s poetry and everything to do with how well they raise the profile of poetry and literature in this country. Pinsky passed that test, unlike so many others – [cough, cough] Merwin [cough, cough] – who did little to promote the art.
I like, but do not love his poetry, but you don’t need to love his poetry to enjoy his reading. Pinsky is also a public poet or public intellectual and his readings are also conversations about poetry, culture, and politics and how they should, could, and do relate.
He also wonderfully encapsulates a particular image of what a poet should be. A face like some character actor you know that you’ve seen and liked but just can’t remember his name or where you saw him. Slightly mismatched, but expensive looking cloths (pin striped pants from a suit; blue crew neck pull over; stylish houndstooth jacket; and burgundy shoes with blue socks).
For this reading, I bought and had autographed a copy of Gulf Music.
the coffee philosopher 