I just returned from a very strange party/reception in honor of a visiting poet who happens to be pretty amazing and important in certain circles of the poetry world. Her reading was fantastic, and it was an honor to eat olives and cheese and brownies with her, however jet-lagged she may have been. What struck me, though, and what strikes me often in the company of older poets who know each other, is the heavy nostalgia for that time when they were the "next big thing," or when they were "the thing." Not one of the conversations tonight had much to do with what's going on the poetry world NOW, which is so strange to me--these are breathing people, living writers working and influencing each other and us young'uns in this current world and they just can't seem to move past their past.
Will this happen to us? This is not to say I don't love hearing stories of certain "famous" poets running into a certain other fame-poet in her underwear. In fact, it's a nice change from the barrage of talk about what's going on now in poetry, where we might be going, etc., etc. These are important things to figure out, of course, even though they deny any actual conclusions. And this is exciting--trying to figure something out that is actually happening before our eyes. In fact, I bet it's exciting like it was for those couple handfuls of writers in New York in the 60s who, without really knowing it, became part of a "school" of poetics...
I guess what I'm trying to get at here, ever so inarticulately (it was the cheese and brownies and wine at the party, I swear), is my interest in what binds together certain groups of writers, how we define ourselves by that, if we'll define ourselves by that in the future and always refer back to that aesthetic or generational bond at that future party where we wear aluminum suits and take off in our space-pod vehicles for the hotel. I mean, of course we'll have aesthetic penchants in common, as we're raised on the same images, the same news, the same kinds of milk. But what is it in each generation that compels writers to come together and write similarly (or just have the same intentions and interests in mind)? Oh, these are dumb questions, all been asked before... But do you see what is so strange about it all? I mean, is it mere coincidence that a small group of people on one coast were writing poems (and keeping them to themselves) similar to a group of writers on the other at the very same time? Is it something in the air that creates these strange and seemingly random aesthetic pops?
Hmmpf. This blog thing scares me. Trying to be smart for others is like trying to tie both shoes at once. Impossible!
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2 comments:
First, it's probably important to keep in mind that these "schools" and cliques and cadres are, to a certain degree, imposed by critics--that is: afterwards, and from the outside--that is: they are matters of relativity and observation, judgments by not the creators of the work, but the assessors. This is not to say that many of these writers did not share a community--papyric as well as real--and that a good number of them didn't read each other's work. Rather, might it not be the case that these schools arose, and were popularized, and contained members who were mutually successful because they all shared those traits that attracted them to one another, viz. those characteristics which their contemporary critics found admirable, desirous?
I guess I just can't ever get away from the part that critics play in creating a text and its legacy. I mean, Moby Dick wasn't considered canonical until well into the 20th century. As in, for its first century it was obscure, not a classic, not even really respected. And now it's considered a Great American Novel, the first Post-Modern novel, and probably a lot of other things that would surprise both Herman and his contemporaries. Most important of all, though, is that had not the Melville faction of the Academy won out a half century ago, still it would be in obscurity, still no one would read it, still would Melville be locked out of all these schools. Who's to say this might not have happened? or who's to say that, oh, Sister Carrie would not have taken its place? And on and on....
Partly, this is sour grapes and preemptive reasoning. Well if I don't get published, or if what I publish does not ever get press or the accolades/Nobels that it deserves [yes, Nobels plural] then it's because of the critics, blah blah blah. Yes, it's because of that, but it's also because I know for a fact there are so many good writers/musicians/artist out there of whom I never would have heard had I not been exposed to them by my interest in the literary world/my friend who works in a music store/my friend who's an artist. Surely we don't expect the academy and the critics to find all the good writers out there, or all the writers of a different school.
Secondly, trying to be smart for others is easy, precisely because it's not like tying two shoes at once, exactly because it's like tying just one. We don't, you see, have to do the job of apperceiving our brilliance; we just have to radiate it.
Just tie that one shoe beautifully, glass, your audiences will take care of the other one.
An interesting comment by John Ashberry, from the recent New Yorker piece, in response to a student's, earnest question regarding how he felt about being a part of the "colossol entity" that is the New York School:
"Well, we never thought that our work would be published, let alone thought of as a school...And it wasn't until I guess I was in my mid-thirties that the term was coined---it was actually invented by John Myers, the art dealer who published our first pamphlets, because he thought that the prestige of the New York School of painters would rub off on the poets that he'd published." (The New Yorker,, "Present Waking Life," p. 91)
Interesting. If only the prestige of one art form would rub off on another. For us, it will probably more likely be a term coined by the the giant publishing moguls who also own all the media outlets. You know, like the "WB School of Poets." Sigh.
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