Sandra Beasley responded to my criticism of Mary Karr’s appearance. It made me wonder if I had been too harsh. Specifically, whether my own take down of  Karr was any different from her take down of Armantrout?

Perhaps it was. Part of my response was purely literary. I found her poetry to be quotidian and uninspiring (though isn’t saying that a repeat of the same behavior by her that angered me and the same behavior by me that has caused me to question my judgment?).

I think a lot of my frustration was caused by how much I enjoyed listening to Van Clief-Stefanon’s poetry and her remarks and how much a very little of Karr goes a long way – and there was a lot of Karr relative to Van Clief-Stefanon.

So, in short, my attempt to re-evaluate whether I was fair or not to Karr has resulted in me basically repeating all my complaints. Not really a successful effort after all.

In an effort to make up for that failure, let me end by suggesting that, at the very least, many (or most or all) of my criticisms of Mary Karr could quite fairly be directed at me.

Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon’s reading at the Folger Shakespeare Library was wonderfully done, but also read beautifully on the page. With the rise of performance poetry, slam poetry and the like, we have seen the rise of poetry that doesn’t hold up well on the written page (if you don’t believe me, take a song and write it out  on a page and see if it’s as good on paper as it is being performed; chances are, unless you decided to write out a Leonard Cohen song, it’s looks like a poor piece of poetry when written out, however beautiful it was when sung).

While at that reading, I purchased her most recent collection, ]Open Interval[.

One of the poems she read was called “Bop: The North Star.” Reading it on the page, it was far more complex and rich than the reading implied. Lots of formal play and grammatical games. For example, check out the last stanza:

At the prison at Auburn I cross the yard. Inmates whet tongues against
my body: cement–sculpted–: poised for hate–: pitch
compliments like coins:–(wade)–their silver slickening–(in the water)–:
uncollected change. A guard asks Think they’re beautiful? Just wait
til they’re out here stabbing each other. Oh, Harriet, the stars
throw down shanks–: teach the sonnet’s a cell–: now try to escape–

Read it out loud and you can hear how it might read gorgeously. But also compare that to the written word and notice what a purely oral transmission might miss.

I have loved these sorts of grammatical ever since I discovered Adrienne Rich in high school and noticed the way she would bring the reader to a startling halt by putting an extended break (ten spaces or so) within a line. The strategy would stop a reader even more than a simple line break.

Van Clief-Stefanon also recognizes the power of this sort of play to force the reader to stop and think, but never at the expense of a readable, enjoyable line or poem. Again, the comparison to her reading compatriot, the memoirist cum poet, Mary Karr, and her formally simple, narrative poems works strongly in Van Clief-Stefanon’s favor.

I was reading Scarriet (a poetry blog) the other day and read about them crashing Anne Carson out of their little March Madness for poets.

Naturally, I disagreed with the result.

I have loved Anne Carson since 2001. I was browsing through books in a Books-a-Million (which once upon a time was not just crap that other bookstores only put on their bargain shelf, but actually stocked good books) on DuPont Circle back in 2001 when I stumbled on Men in the Off Hours. Just a few moments of flipping through the pages convinced me that this was something I had to purchase right then and there.

She has been one of my favorites ever since. The mixture of the arch, the classical, and the quotidian – I love it. Men in the Off Hours or Glass, Irony and God would be good places to start if you haven’t read her yet and were looking for a good intro to her style.

Postscript: Check out this Paris Review interview with Carson.

Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 4-6pm are when you can trade in your old books for cash or store credit at Capitol Hill Books.

The proprietor is comfortingly curmudgeonly and doesn’t brook argument nor negotiation in the process. I brought in six books and was given seven dollars store credit, which was noted and filed on an index card.

I brought in four volumes of the late Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Seeing as how the Wheel is twelve volumes (and counting – the series is being completed by Brandon Sanderson, based on notes left behind by Jordan, who was not caught unaware by his death and made plans for someone else to be able to finish the series, more or less as he had intended) and not particularly good, I can’t imagine going back later and re-reading them. Don’t get me wrong – I’m going to finish the damn series. I’m on the sixth book and have invested  (wasted?) too much of my time to give up now. But to cling to volumes I’ve finished, when the writing can best be described as “cluttered” and “lacking in humor” seems to be a gross misuse of bookshelf space, which is at a premium right now.

Another book I brought in was one of the Harry Potter novels. This may sound like heresy, but it seems to have escaped many people’s notice that the Harry Potter novels are crap. I’d bought this one for some young relatives and found it still in my possession because it turned out they already had that volume. I did read the first one and the strongest sensation it generated what the strong desire to read something better. If you enjoyed Harry Potter, may I suggest you pick up a copy of Ursula K. LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea to find out how it’s really done.

Finally, I traded in a copy of Richard Wilbur’s Inner Voices. Normally, I would never get rid of a book of poetry, but Wilbur is an exception. I can’t stand him. I wish I could remember what misguided thoughts compelled me to purchase this book from the Hollywood Borders so that I would know to ignore them in the future.

This was the bounty for which I received seven dollars.

I browsed to crowded (with both books and patrons) aisles for something to spend my new riches on. Mostly, I was torn between a Modern Library edition of the selected writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas (a beautiful little volume, with a smooth, hard red cover and the smell of suitably aged tome) and something from Harvard’s Loeb Classical Library. In the end, I didn’t get anything. Partly because the Aquinas was $8.50 and the Loebs were $15 – which is to say, more than the value of my credit. Also, I wasn’t sure how my better half would respond if I brought home another book (she was working near the book store and would undoubtedly have seen me pass by, carrying my new used book. Maybe I’ll see if there is anything else I can stand to be rid of on my shelf to try and build up to either $8.50 (plus tax) or $15 (plus tax).