Chekhov’s Mistess

Break, Blow, Burn…Spicy, Bold, Fruity!

I like wine. Reds mostly, and all other things being equal (i.e. not influenced by food), I like something spicy, perhaps you could even say bold. That’s a pretty simple explanation and frankly I don’t know how to say it other than in the same vernacular of the wine store label; “spicy,” “bold,” “fruity.” Despite my relative ignorance (I have read books about how wine is made, but I can’t manage the concept of vintages, vineyards and all that), I hate those signs, I resent the condescension or dumbing-down of something that can be subtle and complex, even at my modest price-point. Now that’s just my ego talking, but it’s something analogous to the way I feel about explanations of poetry.

It seems that purveyors of poetry think that if they classify poetry and describe it in everyday ways that we the people won’t feel so abashed by it and therefore, I suppose, allow ourselves to enjoy it and hopefully consume more. It’s safe to call me a skeptic about any book that attempts to reign in love poems or everyday poems, or the greatest poems and all that – despite my ignorance, my ego has no room for them.

SCMZZZZZZZ.jpg” class=“floatimgleft”/>So I almost didn’t read Clive James’ review of Camille Paglia’s latest book, “Break, Blow, Burn.” James’ article (which is as much about Paglia as it is about her book) begins by classifying the book itself: “Clearly designed as a come-on for bright students who don’t yet know very much about poetry…The essays do quite a lot of elementary explaining.” Not only does the opening of James’ review tell me that this is yet another possibility for assaulting my sensibilities, it does so doubly by assuming that anyone who wants to learn or further our understanding of poetry must be a student, thus putting the writer on a pedestal above the humble pupil.

Still, I read on, and right into the second paragraph, James soothed my fragile ego with the comment that Paglia “flies as high as you can go, in fact, without getting into the airless space of literary theory and cultural studies” meaning to me that maybe we had here a thoughtful discussion of poetry rather than an academic telling us how smart they are. Then, in a paragraph that does the most for describing “Break, Blow, Burn,” James says…

“…Making a solid attempt to pin down the sliding meanings of Wallace Stevens’s little poem ‘‘Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock,’‘ she brings in exactly the right comparison: a piano piece by Erik Satie. She compares the poem’s ‘‘red weather’‘ with a Gauguin seascape: right again. These comparisons help to define the Post-Impressionist impulse from which all the verbal music of Stevens’s ‘‘Man With the Blue Guitar’‘ emerged, while incidentally reminding us that Paglia, before she made this bid on behalf of poetry, did the same for painting, and with the same treasury of knowledge to back up her endeavor. But above all, her range of allusion helps to show what was in Stevens’s head: the concentration of multiple sensitivities that propelled his seeming facility. ‘‘Under enchantment by imagination, space and time expand, melt and cease to exist.’‘ Nobody has a right to a creative mind like his. It’s a gift.”

In a way, what James is telling us, is that Ms. Paglia is doing the very same thing for poetry that wine critics do for their “pabulum;” they put it into some objective terms that we can hopefully relate to. The oenophiles use fruit and spices, the poetry critic, in this case, uses music and art. The difference of course is that everyone has some idea of what a cherry tastes like, but only the “brightest students” will know Satie’s piano works or Gauguin’s seascapes.

Both of these are appropriate, and I would not necessarily count Ms. Paglia’s book out, but surely there are other ways and other poems to look at more closely to enhance our appreciation of the poems specifically and poetry in general.

SCMZZZZZZZ.jpg” class=“floatimgleft” /> Interestingly, and say what you will about the man, when Harold Bloom (who was once Paglia’s advisor) talks about poetry in such poorly named books as “How to Read and Why” and “The Art of Reading Poetry,” he does so with an almost boyish and certainly infectious enthusiasm. The titles of his books are condescending, but his discussions are appreciative and straightforward. He talks about language and the relationship of one piece of literature to another, the conversation between authors, not cultural assumptions about the poet’s frame of mind. In the introduction to Mr. Bloom’s “How to Read and Why” he talks about Emily Dickinson’s poem “I stepped from Plank to Plank”

I stepped from Plank to Plank

A slow and cautious way

The Stars about my Head I felt

About my Feet the Sea.


I knew not but the next

Would be my final inch-

This gave me that precarious Gait

Some call Experience.

“Women and men can walk differently, but unless we are regimented we all tend to walk somewhat individually. Dickinson, master of the precarious Sublime, can hardly be apprehended if we are dead to her ironies. She is walking the only path available, ‘from Plank to Plank,’ but her slow caution ironically juxtaposes with a titanism in which she feels ‘The Stars about my Head,’ though her feet very nearly are in the sea. Not knowing whether the next step will be her ‘final inch’ gives her ‘that precarious Gait’ she will not name, except to tell us that ‘some’ call it Experience. She had read Emerson’s essay ‘Experience,’ a culmination much in the way ”Of Experience“ was for his master Montaigne, and her irony is an amiable response to Emerson’s opening: ‘Where do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none…’

And he goes on. Simple perhaps, but just enough (and this was not an exposition, but part of an introduction) to think about, enough to benefit from his knowledge without being overwhelmed by it or spoiling the mystery. We might not get anything outside the canon from Mr. Bloom, but in my opinion he serves it lovingly.

SCMZZZZZZZ.jpg” class=“floatimgleft” />I’ve recently read an anthology by Mark Strand and Eavon Boland: ”The Making of a Poem: an Anthology of Forms.“ While this book is an anthology and not strictly a discussion, there is much to be gained for the ”student“ to think about poetry in terms of its rules and how they are broken to good purpose. Strand and Boland, both accomplished poets, lay out brief explanations and histories of form, from the sonnet and sestina to the pantoum, blank verse and open forms. Strand’s introduction, ”On Becoming a Poet“ is a reprint of an essay in his excellent prose collection ”The Weather of Words: Poetic Invention“ and is in itself an interesting discussion of a poem by Archibald MacLeish.

If I had any complaint about this book is that it is just an anthology. When they do talk about individual poems, the editors only highlight one from the group and make glancing comments where even just a page or two of explanation at how the poem succeeds with its form would be welcome.

SCMZZZZZZZ.jpg” class=“floatimgleft” /> Norton’s anthology ”Postmodern American Poetry“ brings us into the recent present with (chronological by poet) selections from Charles Olson (b. 1910 d.1970) to Diane Ward (b. 1956) and many in between such as Ginsberg, Ashbery, Bukowski and Ron Silliman. With over 400 poems its a formidable collection of Beat, New York School and other movements. The brief essays by some of the included poets are worthwhile reading to give the collection context. These essays are not on the poems, but on poetry, written in a poet’s language, not necessarily technical, but with a rhythm and lack of self-consciousness that an essayist might have.

SCMZZZZZZZ.jpg” class=“floatimgleft” /> Into this limited taxonomy of poetry books for the ”student“, I might as well add Mary Kinzie’s ”A Poet’s Guide to Poetry,“ which far from the broad discussion or anthology books above, is a very nuts and bolts discussion that anyone looking for the depth of a classroom, would enjoy. I’ve not delved too far, daunted by some of the excersises, but from what I have read, the examples and explanations can be quite technical. This is not your ‘aunt Lucy who cries during soap operas’ book of poetry, but it is a very thorough approach to reading poetry through the act of writing poetry with a wide range of material and specific exercises, which only lack the instructor for critique.

While I may not be too enticed by book titles that announce that so and so reads ”43 of the World’s Best Poems“ as if it were a live event, I am ever searching for interesting discussions of poetry that are neither too academic or too made for easy consumption. A student indeed. I would love to hear any suggestions you readers might have for me to add to my library. There’s always room for one more poetry book.

comments

No Comments Next entry: 400 Windmills (Update)
Previous entry: My Review of Jonathan Safran Foer’s New Novel

« Back to main

About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: March 28, 2005
• Filed Under:
  Poetry

• Comments:0
• Links to this Post: Technorati

Recommended Links

- top -