To: ALL Date: 12/11
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 9:52 AM
Re: Anne Sexton s SELECTED POEMS
To start this thread I want to say that Anne Sexton
is not my favorite poet. She is more interesting than my
favorite poets, and I have highly conflicting feelings
about her.
Her poems are absolutely unique in how intensely
personal they are. You get to know all about her fears,
her hatreds, her failures, her sins, her guilt, and,
occasionally, her loves. It s hard to imagine someone
like, say, Frost or Eliot dealing with these issues so
directly and intimately.
Something in a poem like "The Double Image" resonates
deeply, even though my life couldn't be more different
from hers. I admire her courage in being so open.
On the other hand, I often feel like a ghoul reading
an extended suicide note. This woman was obviously tearing
herself in two while she wrote these poems. Wouldn t she
have been better off playing bridge, reading P. G.
Wodehouse, or watching the Red Sox self-destruct? Instead
she locks herself up in a room, and with the backing of
enthusiastic readers such as myself , she proceeds to go
over every unpleasant thing that s ever happened to her.
A second reservation about her work relates to her
self pity. We all feel plenty sorry for ourselves most of
the time, but many of us place a certain value on stoicism
or, to be less generous, on denial. Sexton's shrink was no
doubt thrilled with her work, but is all this venting a
good thing?
What's the real answer?
--Jim in Oregon (and in denial)
=============== Reply 1 of Note 46 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 12/11
From: WSRF10B SHERRY KELLER Time: 3:44 PM
Dear James,
Consider this: maybe she would have done the deed years
earlier if she did not have the writing of poetry to help
exorcise her demons. Some of the issues she talks of, her
descriptions of her life, her fears, her loneliness,
resonate with me, and I'm sure resonate with many others as
well (especially, yes, women). I think her writing in such
a personal manner could have a validating and possibly a
therapeutic effect on some. I don't mind looking so closely
into someones' psyche. It helps me with my own. But it is
too bad that someone with so much talent felt so unable to
live. Sherry who hasn't read all the poems yet, but will.
=============== Reply 2 of Note 46 =================
To: WSRF10B SHERRY KELLER Date: 12/11
From: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Time: 11:29 PM
Dear Jim,
I am happy that you suggested this book of poetry because I
like her work very much so far. I have only read the
"Bedlam" section, but I think some of the poems are
beautiful. We probably all know someone whose mind is
locked inside depression or madness and cannot break free.
Her poetry is her attempt to find a few moments of peace, I
imagine. Jane who is reading this book ever so slowly.
=============== Reply 3 of Note 46 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 12/11
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 11:49 PM
Jim, Great opening note to the discussion on Anne Sexton's
poetry. I have much the same reaction (except for the notion
that her poetry is more confessional than others; I kinda
think she just hides it less; her confession is more naked
and more raw, but certainly not more intimate; others just
distill it more).
The thing that draws me to her poetry is how stilted and
brittle it seems, and at the same time how vulnerable. This
is a woman struggling to connect in some way -- and poetry
offered her her best chance -- but who was ultimately
unsuccessful perhaps... But what a record she left of her
ups and downs, her successes and failures. I'm intrigued too
by how much she studied the forms of poetry, how closely she
adhered to them and structured her poems. This from a woman
who was supposedly letting it all hang out! Yet clearly,
this structure was a comfort to her, she needed it (just as
she needed the structure provided by class and its strict
rules -- so that she knew what she was fighting against).
Anyway, there's a rueful quality to her poetry, and maybe
I like that most of all. The "I tried, and I know I've got
something, but in the end something always defeats me"
quality. I just love it. You can reach out and grab, but you
can't get hold. It speaks on its own, and what it speaks of
mostly is failure. Brilliant. In spite of itself. Lynn
=============== Reply 4 of Note 46 =================
To: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Date: 12/12
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 4:00 PM
I have conflicted feelings about Anne Sexton. On the one
hand I want to say, "Ah, come off it lady.
Quitcher beefing and get a life." On the other hand I
marvel at seeing into the depths of this woman's
soul and remind myself that she probably wasn't capable of
getting a life. That was the problem. And
we all have a bit of the abnormal in us, so wh'os to cast
stones?
She is a johnny-one-note, though. But that one note is
strong, and clear and amazing. Im particularly
taken by LULLABY:
It is a summer evening.
The yellow moths sag
against the locked screens
and the faded curtains
suck over the window sills
and from another building
a goat calls in his dreams.
This is the TV parlor
in the best ward at Bedlam.
The night nurse is passing
out the evening pills.
She walks on two erasers,
padding by us one by one.
My sleeping pill is white.
It is a splendid pearl;
it floats me out of myself,
my stung skin as alien
as a loose bolt of cloth.
I will ignore the bed.
I am linen on a shelf.
Let the others moan in secret;
let each lost butterfly
go home. Old woolen head,
take me like a yellow moth
while the goat calls hush-
a-bye.
Theres no over-the-top breast-beating here, no wringing of
emotional hands. Nothing but a clear,
evocative image. But what an image. For that brief moment
we are there. Not just in the room, but in
her skin. Were not just hearing about her and how she
feels. We ARE her. Wow.
Ruth, who's waiting with great anticipation to see what the
rest of you have to say
=============== Reply 5 of Note 46 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 12/12
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 10:28 PM
But Ruth, that's the thing. If she could've quit her beefing
and got a life, she'd've done so. I'm always a little bit
surprised when folks seem to think anyone would opt for such
a narrow, unhappy life. The notion of free will? Ah well,
that's just some guy talking. Lynn
=============== Reply 6 of Note 46 =================
To: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Date: 12/13
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 1:14 AM
Lynn, I said she probably wasn't capable of "getting a life"
and that was the problem. There are some people who just
seem genetically engineered so they can't cope with life and
I'm sure she was one.
Yet, as I read her, I can't help saying to myself, "Kvetch,
kvetch, kvetch. Enough, already."
Then I read a poem like the one I posted and she wins me
over every time. When she's hot, she's very, very hot.
What do you think of the poem I posted? Or what particular
poem grabs you?
Ruth, inland and cold and dreary
=============== Reply 7 of Note 46 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 12/13
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 1:35 AM
Ruth, The poem you posted was wonderful. And you're right:
when she's on, she's on.
The whole notion of "complaining" is interesting to me,
for a couple reasons. Many folks are deaf to the sound of
their own complaining, but have close to supernatural
hearing for the sound of somebody else's. (I'm not thinking
of you here, Ruth. Or at least no more than I'm thinking of
myself or anybody else! Seems a human thing.) And part of
the reason I think we react so strongly is that in spite of,
or perhaps along with, our deafness to our own complaints,
is the fact that we're often so conflicted over our own very
human urge to say: "That's not fair!" Maybe it's part of
our Puritan/Calvinist heritage or something. We're supposed
to be content with our lot in life -- but of course ever
willing to work hard to improve that lot! Go figure.
Anyway, yes, Lullaby is lovely. I love the way she
captures that moment of rest, when you're just on the verge
of throwing in the towel and, by one of those ironic quirks
that punctuate life, thereby find the strength to pull it
together once again. I get this feeling Sexton had many many
such moments, before that last one where there was no longer
enough strength left.
But lemme see if I can find another favorite. Hmm, that's
two things to post now! Lynn
=============== Reply 8 of Note 46 =================
To: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Date: 12/13
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 9:08 AM
RE:Kvetching
Whether she could help herself or not, Sexton seems
very self absorbed. The one thing that strikes me when I
read a lot of her poems in one sitting is how few of them
have any other topic than her personal happiness. Even the
love poems.
The pop psychologist in me wants to say that the
surest way to depress yourself is to think about whether
you're happy. The realist in me says that true depressives
are way beyond uplifting little bromides like that.
I do wonder if anyone besides Steve and me has
heard Ann Sexton read on tape (or in person). Reading the
poems, particularly the early ones, I had a feeling of a
beaten, frail thing. On tape I heard this deep, honeyed,
Lauren Bacall voice reeking of gin and cigarettes. A lot
of the poems started to sound less like cries for help than
weapons used to manipulate other people.
Life being complex, I suppose that they could have
been both.
--Jim in Oregon (What, Me Worry?)
=============== Reply 9 of Note 46 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 12/13
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 10:12 AM
Jim -- Yes, certainly one of the hallmarks of many kinds of
mental illness is almost complete self-absorption?
In her biography her readings were described exactly as
you describe them. She was apparently quite a flamboyant
performer -- could be terrified and in a dither on the way
to the reading, could collapse after, but when she was on
the lady was on. Lynn
=============== Reply 10 of Note 46 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 12/13
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 11:57 AM
Jim & All: I must say that I came to (actually, came *back*
to) Sexton's poetry with reservations (orchestra section,
two on the aisle...) because of some unfortunate
experiences when I was introduced to her work in the 1970s.
There was a small but vocal group of female lit students
(some of them still dear friends of mine) then in the first
fine flush of feminism who espoused her work with all the
subtlety and charm of a battering ram. Her work was a clear
indictment of everybody without a uterus (c'est moi), and
the only appropriate discussion format was awed silence.
(Remember the days when no conversation on any subject could
proceed for more than three sentences without the word
"uterus" being brought in? Sexton was clearly in the spirit
of the times in this regard, or vice versa. But I
digress...)
That said, I'm surprised by reading Sexton from this
vantage point in my life. Not so much for the raw power of
her work, which I never questioned (not that I had a chance
to ), but the audacity of her leaps of language and
images which I think place her in the company of writers to
be valued for *what they do with words*, rather than the
subject matter or literal content, which go in and out of
fashion with dismaying rapidity.
One of her most surprising and unlikely tools, to me, is
violating the "mixing metaphors" taboo to an absurd degree.
How these jangling, unlikely, ungainly over-the-top images
of a single idea can pile on one another to such moving
effect is a Sexton sleight-of-hand that I can't fathom as
yet.
Anybody have a favorite, 12-part, mixed metaphor from one
of her poems?
>>Dale in Ala., still in deadline purgatory but missing
you guys and guysettes to his very uterus if he but had one
=============== Reply 11 of Note 46 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 12/13
From: NDKB53A THERESA SIMPSON Time: 11:12 PM
Jim - who is your favorite poet? Or favorite two or three?
What do you think of Akhmatova? Or Tsvetaeva?
Theresa - who needs to get busy and read some Sexton, but
who did read Sexton's biography last year. I think she was
a very talented poet, but don't know that I'd have wanted to
spend any time at all in her actual presence
=============== Reply 12 of Note 46 =================
To: NDKB53A THERESA SIMPSON Date: 12/14
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 6:53 PM
Theresa,
I have lots of favorite poets and they change all the
time. The current list looks like this:
Jane Kenyon -- depressive woman who spent less
time complaining than A.S.
Richard Hugo: depressive man from Northwest who spent just
about as much time complaining as A.S. but didn't overtly
dedicate anything to his sexual organs
William Stafford -- underrated Oregon poet
Gary Snyder -- one of the original Beats, very Zen
Richard Wilbur -- very formal, witty, and elegant
James Dickey -- Southern good ole boy & author of
DELIVERANCE
Dave Smith -- Southern with a mystical streak. Doesn't
look like he eats well enough to be a good ole boy.
The usual suspects: Keats, Wordsworth, Frost, Eliot,
Whitman, Shakespeare, Whittier, Robert Lowell, Stevens,
Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, Ogden Nash
New possibilities: Shel Silverstein, Alfred Corn, Charles
Wright.
And, of course, my all time favorite: Ruth Bavetta
--Jim in Oregon
=============== Reply 13 of Note 46 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 12/14
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 7:45 PM
Jim, you're a gentleman and a scholar.
I've been reading William Stafford lately. Enjoying it very
much.
Ruth, who plans another post on AS
=============== Reply 14 of Note 46 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 12/14
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 8:26 PM
I do find that the Sexton poems that speak loudest to me are
not those when shes in full voice, tearing her hair and
braying at the moon for succor.
I gasp when I read this kind of poem, but I find it a bit
off-putting. A little too much. Like someone overexcited
and speaking rather too loudly and too close to my face.
I want to back off and look out for saliva bits.
But as Lynn said, when shes on, shes ON. What about this
one?
TO A FRIEND WHOSE WORK HAS COME TO TRIUMPH
Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wings on,
testing that strange little tug at his shoulder bland,
and think of that first flawless moment over the lawn
of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made!
There below are the trees, as awkward as camels;
and here are the shocked starlings pumping past
and think of innocent Icarus who is doing quite well:
larger than a sail, over the fog and the blast
of the plushy ocean, he goes. Admire his wings!
Feel the fire at his neck and see how casually
he glances up and is caught, wondrously tunneling
into that hot eye. Who cares that he fell back to the sea?
See him acclaiming the sun and come plunging down
while his sensible daddy goes straight into town.
Now, thats a winner, in my book. What do you think, Lynn &
Jim? All? Sherry, get in here, we need you .
Ruth
=============== Reply 15 of Note 46 =================
To: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Date: 12/14
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 8:46 PM
I discovered Anne Sexton when I was in my mid-20's. She
and Adrienne Rich were the first two poets that I
read, without an assignment, simply because I enjoyed them.
When I think back about that period of time, it seemed
like my friends and I were all walking about in a bit of a
mist with surface selves that were very different than
inner selves, which we didn't even acknowledge personally
much of the time. I've never been sure if that was a female
thing or just a function of being in my 20's, though I
suspect it was both. In any case, her poems generated
these huge clicks of recognition in my mind...it was sort
of a laserbeam. I'm not in the least a depressive
personality (I tend to be closer to that "cock-eyed
optimist" type) but Sexton (and Rich) were the first ones
who said such personal things in that beautiful language
that resonated for me. I sort of gulped them down.
Reading them now, with 30+ years perspective, I get that
same startled feeling of recognition, but I can back away a
bit. The positive side of that change is that I can savor
her language more. I've been reading the poems that Jim
highlighted and each one has at least one little gem that I
go back to read and re-read. In "Music Swims Back to Me",
it is:
It was the strangled cold of November;
even the stars were strapped in the sky
and that moon too bright
forking through the bars to stick me
with a singing in my head.
I find it interesting that, for me, her appeal still
endures. I wondered if I only liked it so much in my 20's
because she was the first I'd read who dared to say all
that...and that's there...but there's more. Confessional
style tends to be more the rule now and yet nothing quite
matches Sexton. Maybe it's that laser, unblinking quality
combined with the gift for language (gift sounds trite but
can't think of anything better just now.)
Have also been thinking a lot about her self-absorbed
quality. I tend to think that the majority of artists, in
all arts, are somewhat self-absorbed...it seems to be
required to get at what is required to produce what they
do. Admittedly, she's at the peak of the continuum.
I was raised in one of those families in which it is truly
a sin to "feel sorry for yourself." But, she seems to be
walking through such a maze mentally that it doesn't get
irritating to me. Also, I've been reading them a few at a
time, which may lessen the impact.
I've been wondering how she's viewed by other poets,
critics, academics, etc. today. In the intro to the book,
I got the feeling that she is still looked at with respect
but people who write intros to books are usually fans.
I would think that she could be quickly dismissed by those
who dislike the extremely personal quality of her poetry.
Can anyone enlighten me? Barb
=============== Reply 16 of Note 46 =================
To: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Date: 12/15
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 0:29 AM
Barbara, yes her language is unique and wonderful. Just
when you least expect she up and whops you with a real
zinger, like this from FOR MY LOVER, RETURNING TO HIS WIFE:
She is, in fact, exquisite.
Fireworks in the dull middle of February
and as real as a cast iron pot.
Migarsh, after the lyrical beauty of a phrase like
"fireworks in the dull middle of February" she grabs you
from where you were floating out there in a lovely somewhere
and slams to down to earth with "as real as a cast-iron
pot." Bang, there you are, rooted to the earth again and
you really FEEL that cast iron reality. Plunk.
Ruth, who, although she has many more important things to
do, has frittered away another Saturday with her new
computer and popping on and off CR
=============== Reply 17 of Note 46 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 12/15
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 10:28 AM
Oh Ruth, wonderful example.
Barb...whose to-do list is so
long that sometimes I just give
up on it and fritter....
=============== Reply 20 of Note 46 =================
To: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Date: 12/16
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 0:22 AM
Barb:
My impression is that Sexton is highly influential.
Molly Peacock, Linda McCarriston, Sharon Olds, and Marilyn
Hacker are several poets that come immediately to mind. I
also think about Mary Karr and all the other prose writers
who have written about their dysfunctional families in
recent years.
There were and are critics who think her poems are
too personal and that some of the taboos she violated were
just stunts to get attention. At this point I don't know
whether she still has the capacity to shock us.
One thing that interests me is the tendency to
associate Sexton with the Women's Movement. It seems to me
that most of her poems transcend gender. Even
"Menstruation at Forty" relates as much to the lost chances
that we all know as it does to the physiology of women.
I'd be interested to know which poems, if any, strike
you as gender specific.
--Jim in Oregon
=============== Reply 21 of Note 46 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 12/16
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 5:51 AM
Jim,
First of all, I should say that I don't think that
Sexton's poems only apply to, or were meant to only apply
to, women. However, they were the first poems I'd read
that I could relate to in such an intimate way. And, they
were the first ones that I thought were so obviously
*inclusive* of women...if that makes sense...and
particularly of the woman I was. I'm still only part-way
through the book, but there are a few poems that seem more
to be talking about women than others. "In Celebration of
my Uterus" comes to mind first (though I hesitate to point
to that one after Dale's note) when she says:
Sweet weight,
in celebration of the woman I am
and of the soul of the woman I am
and of the central creature and its delight....
And, later:
Many women are singing together of this:
one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine,
one is at the aquarium tending a seal....
And it goes on, of course, in that vein. Though this poem
strikes me, it's not one of my favorites. I'm not sure if
the perspective is more limiting, maybe it sounds a bit
more political. As I read on, I'll let you know if I find
others that are more gender-specific, but almost everything
I read, even this one, could be applied universally in some
manner.
My method of reading this has been to go through and read
the ones you highlighted and then go back to the
beginning and read them all. I'm finding that, so far, my
favorites are in ALL MY PRETTY ONES, but that my change.
And, one of my favorites in that book, in addition to the
Icarus one that Ruth posted here, is this one:
YOUNG
A thousand doors ago
when I was a lonely kid
in a big house with four
garages and it was summer
as long as I could remember,
I lay on the lawn at night,
clover wrinkling under me,
the wise stars bedding over me,
my mother's window a funnel
of yellow light running out,
my father's window, half shut,
an eye where sleepers pass,
and the boards of the house
were smooth and white as wax
and probably a million leaves
sailed on their strange stalks
as the crickets ticked together
and I, in my brand new body,
which was not a woman's yet,
told the stars my questions
and thought God could really see
the heat and the painted light,
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.
Those are images that resonate for me, both the sensory
and emotional ones. It is more mellow and dreamy than most
of her's and yet just as purely *there.* On a
visual basis, I wonder where she gets things like "my
mother's window a funnel of yellow heat running
out"...seems so perfect. A similar image for me is in
"What the Dead Know" (another favorite of mine) when she
says:
We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.
=============== Reply 22 of Note 46 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 12/16
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 5:51 AM
(cont. from last note)
Where does she get those visual images?!?
Thanks for recommending these, Jim. Hope your
nominations to the CR reading list continue to be poetry,
though I hate to restrict you. Maybe just keep making
suggestions from time to time. Barb
=============== Reply 23 of Note 46 =================
To: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Date: 12/16
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 3:26 PM
Barbara: Thanks for posting Sexton's poem "Young." It hit me
hard, as well. Lord knows there's no subject in fiction or
poetry that's been run into the ground like the travails of
growing up, but for me Sexton often takes the "expected" and
pulls wonderful, surprising images out of it like scarves
from the air...one parent's window like "a yellow funnel
running out," the other "an eye where sleepers pass."
Powerful stuff. Likewise the line that Ruth notes, linking
fireworks and a cast iron pot.
I haven't been able to find a tape of Sexton reading her
work, but I'll be on the lookout again when life settles
down a bit. >>Dale, in snow-flurries-by-Thursday Ala.
=============== Reply 24 of Note 46 =================
To: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Date: 12/16
From: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Time: 7:36 PM
Barb,
Thanks for posting YOUNG. I bought this book with every
intention to follow along with you guys, but life has
interrupted. I think I better get busy and at least read the
ones Jim was kind enough to point out.
Ann, who is pretty dense when it comes to poetry, but who
would like to learn
=============== Reply 25 of Note 46 =================
To: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Date: 12/16
From: NDKB53A THERESA SIMPSON Time: 11:58 PM
I've been lax on reading these poems too, Ann. Must remedy
that. I've really liked all the poems posted here so far -
and noted that not a one was a mad women howling type of
thing. It's funny that that's what she's known for, but the
poems that apparently speak to the people here are all quite
calm.
Jim - what do you think of reading poetry in translation?
Do you not bother? I can see that any translation worth
reading as a poem would have to be very nearly a new
creation. Invitation au Voyage, for example, sounds lovely
in French. I've read two English translations - one was
really trite, one was too dry. But the Tsvetaeva I read a
bit of was wonderful, I thought.
Theresa
=============== Reply 26 of Note 46 =================
To: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Date: 12/17
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 0:59 AM
I think that I like Sexton best when things are out of
control as in "Flee on Your Donkey"
"Turn, my hungers!
For once make a deliberate decision.
There are brains that rot here
like black bananas.
Hearts have grown as flat as dinner plates.
Anne, Anne,
flee on your donkey,
flee this sad hotel,
ride out on some hairy beast,
gallop backward pressing
your buttocks to his withers,
sit to his clumsy gait somehow.
Ride out
any old way you please!
In this place everyone talks to his own mouth.
That's what it means to be crazy.
Those I loved best died of it --
the fool's disease."
There is something oddly liberating about Sexton's
despair. What that is I'll have to leave to the analysts
among you. (Where is Sabrina now that we need her? Didn't
she say she was a psychologist?)
--Jim in Oregon
=============== Reply 27 of Note 46 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 12/17
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 5:51 AM
Dale,
Perfect description of what Sexton does sometimes with
the "expected". It's what gives me that startled feeling
reading her poems, this thing that you think you know as
well as anything suddenly has a new aspect to it or some
part of you is expressed so perfectly that you can see it
better than before. My description of it is inadequate, as
usual, but you obviously know what I mean.
If you find the tape, let me know. I'm going to scavenge
in my library's shelves over Christmas break and hope to
find something. Barb
=============== Reply 28 of Note 46 =================
To: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Date: 12/17
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 5:51 AM
Ann and Theresa,
Hope you'll jump in. Think you'll like Sexton a lot more
than you might imagine. It would be easy in a quick glance
to assign her to a stereotype, but there's so much more.
Ann, I'm the most uneducated person around about poetry.
Never finished rebelling against the approach taken to it
in high school and college. But, Sexton is the one of the
first to lead me out of that attitude. Barb
=============== Reply 29 of Note 46 =================
To: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Date: 12/17
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 9:25 PM
Ann,
And be sure to read the ones selected from ALL MY PRETTY
ONES. Barb
=============== Reply 30 of Note 46 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 12/18
From: BUYS59A BARBARA HILL Time: 7:59 PM
Flee on Your Donkey was my favorite out of your
recommendations because it communicated the long senseless
nightmare that was her life so well. Also liked Us for how
she used rythym.
B. Hill
=============== Reply 31 of Note 46 =================
To: BUYS59A BARBARA HILL Date: 12/20
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 7:05 PM
As I've said before, Sexton is most heart-catching for me
when she tones it down, when she performs one of her minor
miracles with words the swing me up and grab me by the
throat. Take this example from CLOTHES. Listing the
clothes she'll wear when she dies, Sexton includes
...my painting shirt
washed over and over of course
spotted with every yellow kitchen I've painted.
God, you don't mind if I bring all my kitchens?
They hold the family laughter and the soup.
Those last two lines bring tears to my eyes. They speak such
volumes about love and family.
Ruth, in California, blue, bright and beautiful
=============== Reply 32 of Note 46 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 12/21
From: FAVB99B JANE NIEMEIER Time: 10:48 PM
Dear CR friends,
Since today is first day of Christmas vacation and since I
finished THE SPORTSWRITER last night, I started to read Anne
Sexton again. I read the last two poems of the Bedlam
section today, and I see what you mean about the madness
coming through. The poems about her mother's cancer seem
really cold to me. Jane who renewed the book at the library
so she can keep reading.
=============== Reply 33 of Note 46 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 12/30
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 10:10 AM
MORE ANNE SEXTON (in case P starts a new thread)
Went back to read a little more Sexton yesterday and got
hooked until the end of the book. I was totally with her
all the way through LOVE POEMS, but got lost somewhat in
TRANSFORMATIONS. I certainly agree with your assessment on
that one, Jim, though the intro writers say that it was one
of her most popular ones. I liked some of THE BOOK OF
FOLLY though many of The Jesus Papers lost me. And, THE
DEATH NOTEBOOKS were not my favorites except for "Clothes"
from which Ruth posted. I did like many of the poems in
THE AWFUL ROWING TOWARD GOD, though. And the intro writers
imply that her powers were falling apart during some of
this...though if they included these particular ones, they
must've thought they were more up to her standards. The
posthumous stuff was not my favorite, except for "Whale"
which I liked a lot.
One of the points that hit me throughout was how well she
made me understand someone who struggles with the seduction
of suicide. Sometimes, she did this in a screamingly
lunatic way, but sometimes it was calmly rational...and I
think I understood. "Live" was one of the more calmly
rational ones and took me inside depression and the mind of
someone who sees how others are reacting and yet is
helpless sometimes to change it. At the end, the
depression lifts and her vision changes...it was pretty
striking:
***
Today life opened inside me like an egg
and there inside
after considerable digging
I found the answer.
What a bargain!
There was the sun,
her yolk moving feverishly,
tumbling her prize--
and you realize that she does this daily!
I'd known she was a purifier
but I hadn't thought she was solid
hadn't known she was an answer.
God! It's a dream,
lovers sprouting in the yard
like celery stalks
and better,
a husband straight as a redwood,
two daughters, two sea urchins,
picking roses off my hackles.
If I'm on fire they dance around it
and cook marshmallows.
And if I'm ice
they simply skate on me
in little ballet costumes.
***
All the images resound with me, but those last 7 lines do
particularly.
My copy of this book has gotten a bit dog-eared with
turned down corners and coffee spilled on it. I think it's
one that I will return to again. Barb
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 01/02
From: PGMQ87A ROBERTA BRANCA Time: 6:56 PM
I am someone who unexpectedly became a fan of the denial
camp when self pity proved to produce more problems than it
solved for me. As for what Anne Sexton could have done
instead, how about choosing better topics? After finding
real release by venting anger, sadness, etc., I found
writing about other things just as healing and empowering. I
don't buy the bullshit that "a writer must suffer" or that
writers who go crazy would never have been as good if they
had been sane. I say they probably would have been better.
Same with those addicted to drugs or alcohol. Stable people
are more productive in other fields; why wouldn't it be true
for writers? bmarie97
=============== Reply 2 of Note 1 =================
To: PGMQ87A ROBERTA BRANCA Date: 01/02
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 8:09 PM
Roberta -- I agree that writers don't have to suffer. But
what if they do? Should they skirt the subject? And of
course, there's just flat-out enough suffering in the world
that I think many folks find that writers who write of
suffering have something to say to them.
Maybe you don't like Sexton's style: that's fine. But
there'd be a whole lot less literature kicking around if
folks side-stepped the suffering and wrote only the upbeat
stuff. Lynn
=============== Reply 3 of Note 1 =================
To: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Date: 01/02
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 10:44 PM
Roberta, I think the question of what Sexton should have
done for her psychological health is a separate one from the
evaluation of her poetry. Maybe she should have tried
focussing on something else. Maybe it would have helped her
to live a happy life. But the point is, she didn't. She
wrote this poetry and I think we have to take it as it is.
It needs to be evaluated, read, criticized, explored, sunk
into, rejected, hated, loved, etc., for what it is, not for
what Sexton should or should not have down with her life.
Ruth
=============== Reply 4 of Note 1 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 01/02
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 10:57 PM
And Roberta, about that artists-must-suffer stuff, I think
you're absolutely right. I'm tired of that kind of press.
Ruth, who does think, however, that a modicum of suffering
probably help, that is, if you're going to write about
suffering
=============== Reply 9 of Note 1 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 01/03
From: QGEE61A JULIE GERHART Time: 11:41 PM
Jim:
Ann Sexton's work is like a peek into a depressed person's
journal, but there is one thing that hits with her poetry.
It's honest, and it's not the traditional Romanticized,
flowery image of poetry. It's someone pouring every aspect
of herself on paper--the bad (especially) as well as the
good.
Did you ever read the lobster? It was one of the first
sexton things I read. SHe could very well have said "Life
sucks."
I find her...intriguing. Not especially great, but her
poems do lead you to think
=============== Reply 10 of Note 1 =================
To: QGEE61A JULIE GERHART Date: 01/04
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 1:37 AM
Julie, have you posted here before? If not, welcome to
Constant Reader. Glad to hear your comments on Sexton. I
don't think I've ever read The Lobster. Is it short enough
to post here? What else are you reading?
Ruth
=============== Reply 11 of Note 1 =================
To: PGMQ87A ROBERTA BRANCA Date: 01/04
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 9:11 AM
As I said earlier, Sexton in agony is the Sexton that
I like best. Even those of us who are not suicidely
depressive can relate to being caught in impossible
situations with ridiculous demands for behavior.
The interesting question is when does explaining an
unpleasant situation become self-pitying or whining.
Certainly Macbeth's soliloquy on the death of Lady Macbeth
("Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts
his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more ...")
is not particularly upbeat, but for some reason nobody
thinks of it as whining.
What interests me about Sexton is the way she pushes
the borders of what is acceptable. I think she oversteps
them from time to time, particularly in the intimacy of
some of the sex poems, but that's price you pay for
undertaking the challenge.
I do have sympathy with those who feel as if every
abused woman in America has a book contract. What was
original in Sexton is fast becoming a cliche, though being
beaten probably hurts just as much whether or not it's done
in an original fashion. What it comes to is that it isn't
enough just to suffer. You have to have something
interesting to say about it.
Ruth, I think its time to cue up Auden's "Musee Des
Beaux Arts".
--Jim in Oregon
=============== Reply 12 of Note 1 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 01/04
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 1:17 PM
Jim, Musee des Beaux Arts is probably my all time favorite
poem. And not just because it ties into art, but for what
it says about life.
I did read it to my art history students, though, when we
came to Breughel's Fall of Icarus, the painting mentioned in
the poem. And also showed them his Crucifixion where the
actual cross is tiny, way up in the corner, of a field
teeeming with busy life.
All I need is a hint of a nod to post that poem, or perhaps
we ought to give it its own thread some day. It deserves it
Ruth, on a gray day
=============== Reply 14 of Note 1 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 01/04
From: QGEE61A JULIE GERHART Time: 1:30 PM
As requested, here's Lobster by Anne Sexton.
A shoe with legs,
a stone dropped from heaven,
he does his mournful work alone,
he is like the old prospector for gold,
with secret dreams of God-heads and fish heads.
Until suddenly a cradle fastens round him
and he is trapped as the U.S.A. sleeps.
Somewhere far off a woman lights a cigarette;
somewhere far off a car goes over a bridge;
somewhere far off a bank is held up.
This is the world the lobster knows not of.
He is the old hunting dog of the sea
who in the morning will rise from it
and be undrowned
and they will take his perfect green body
and paint it red.
=============== Reply 15 of Note 1 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 01/04
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 1:30 PM
Jim -- I suppose in part (whether one's downbeat writings
sound like "whining") it has to do with whether your regard
your sufferings as the sort that the world has never seen
before or whether you regard them as pretty much part of the
human condition -- or maybe which way you "come across" in
your writings.
But I think too people tend to be "tone deaf" to their own
brand of complaining and pick up much more readily on
everyone else's. Lynn
=============== Reply 16 of Note 1 =================
To: QGEE61A JULIE GERHART Date: 01/04
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 5:10 PM
Julie, thanks for posting "The Lobster", it's one I've never
seen before. I like it. Socko ending. BTW, my first
husband was a pharmacist, but I won't hold it against you.
Ruth
=============== Reply 17 of Note 1 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 01/04
From: QGEE61A JULIE GERHART Time: 7:31 PM
Gee, thanks.
Did you read the Kiss by sexton? THat one's even deeper.
Julie
=============== Reply 19 of Note 1 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 01/04
From: ZRAK98A ROBERT AVERY Time: 10:38 PM
Ruth,
I imagine others have already hinted and nodded, but in
case they haven't, I'd love to read your favorite poem.
And FALL OF ICARUS is one of my favorite paintings. Hm
can't remember where I saw it...British Museum maybe? Or
the Louvre?
BTW, I thought of you when I posted the poem by Jane
Cooper (hope you aren't insulted) elsewhere in CR. Hope you
like it.
Bob
=============== Reply 20 of Note 1 =================
To: ZRAK98A ROBERT AVERY Date: 01/05
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 0:11 AM
Bob, I had a suspicion I'd posted Musee des Beaux Arts
before, so I hied me off to the Archives, where I found I
had not only posted it before, but done it TWICE. On the
theory that three times is the charm, though, here it is
again.
MUSEE DES BEAUX ARTS - W. H. Auden
(Like I said, it wouldnt take much to get me to post this
poem. Trouble is, I have
a sneaking suspicion Ive posted it before.)
MUSEE DES BEAUX ARTS
About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters; how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window
or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not especially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the
torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns
away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
Ruth ============== Note 46
=============== Note 19 =================
To: ALL Date: 12/01
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 12:09 PM
Re: Anne Sexton's SELECTED POEMS.
Since Anne Sexton is due to come up shortly on the Slo-Mo
List, I thought I would pass along the following
recommendations for those who want to skip through Sexton
lightly.
Greatest Hits: "Her Kind", "Music Swims Back to Me", "The
Truth the Dead Know", "The Starry Night", "Wanting to
Die", "The Room of My Life."
Family and Madness: "Ringing the Bells", "The Double
Image", "The Division of Parts", "Flee on Your Donkey"
Sex and Gynecology: "The Abortion", "Menstruation at
Forty", "In Celebration of My Uterus", "The Ballad of the
Lonely Masturbator", "Song for a Lady", "Us"
God: "With Mercy for the Greedy", "Jesus Awake", "Rowing"
If you only read one poem: "The Double Image"
If you only skip one section: TRANSFORMATIONS
--Jim in Oregon
=============== Reply 1 of Note 19 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 12/01
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 12:58 PM
Jim -- You picked some of my favorites.
Here's an odd thing though. I was telling someone about
"Flee on Your Donkey," and hearing the words, instead of
just reading them, caused the image of a FLEA on one's
donkey to jangle suddenly in my head -- which I found very
disconcerting indeed. Now, alas, I can't seem to shake free
of that weird little twist! Lynn
=============== Reply 2 of Note 19 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 12/01
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 3:14 PM
Thanks, Jim. I've been wanting to start on this book, but
reading poems one after another, like a novel, didn't
seem like a good idea. Savoring a few poems at a time
sounded like a better choice and now you've given me the
guide to do just that. Barb
=============== Reply 3 of Note 19 =================
To: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Date: 12/01
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 6:00 PM
Jim, I'm looking forward to this. I've had Sexton's
Selected Poems on my shelf for some time, but it's been
several years since I've dipped into it.
Ruth, hoping you've weathered the recent Oregon storms okay
=============== Note 10 =================
To: ALL Date: 11/02
From: VMMN97A FELIX MILLER Time: 12:23 PM
***ANNE SEXTON LABELED UN-POET*****************
I have been following a thread on Usenet in rec.arts.books
discussing whether poetry is truly poetry without some
structure other than prose. The original poster in this
thread, Uche Ogbuji,(sp?) quoted a poem by Anne Sexton as an
example of writing which was *not* poetry by his standards.
His contention is that if any *real* poem is written
without line breaks, it still is recognizably a poem,
whereas if line breaks are omitted from Sexton's poem ( or
any of a large number of poems by modern writers), the work
is indistinguishable from prose.
As you might expect, this note resulted in a lot of
counter-arguments for various poets, complete with
prose-formatted versions of several poets, modern and not
so new, as well. Here is the *prosed* version of Sexton's
poem:
***
The Moss of His Skin
[snipped quote]
>It is only important to smile and hold still to lie down
beside him and>to rest awhile, to be folded up together as
if we were silk, to sink>from the eyes of mother and not to
talk. The black room took us like>a cave or a mouth or an
indoor belly. I held my breath and daddy was>there, his
thumbs, his fat skull his teeth, his hair growing like a
field>or a shawl. I lay by the moss of his skin until it
grew strange.>My sisters will never know that I fall out of
myself and pretend that>Allah will not see how I hold my
daddy like an old stone tree.
***
Does anyone have an opinion on this? I think that the
selection *is* a poem, but I am still trying to explain to
myself why.
In order to form an opinion, I suppose you would have to
have a firm set of characteristics of what defines poetry.
It has been a long time since I was in a poetry class. So
I am still thinking on this one.
from the november mountain, brilliantly clear, unlike my
mind, Felix
Malt does more than Milton can/to justify God's
ways to Man. 11/2/96 12:17PM ET
=============== Reply 1 of Note 10 =================
To: VMMN97A FELIX MILLER Date: 11/02
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 1:23 PM
Felix: Such a good question. To me poetry is music without
the orchestra; and I like Robert Frost's definition --
"Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat."
Dick in alabastah' Alaska
=============== Reply 2 of Note 10 =================
To: VMMN97A FELIX MILLER Date: 11/02
From: WSRF10B SHERRY KELLER Time: 5:45 PM
Felix,
That sure sounds like a poem to me. I think poetry is any
words strung together that are lyrical. Now what is the
definition of lyrical. Seems like I'm just going around in
circles. So what really is this man's point? I think poetry
is whatever the person who wrote it says it is (does that
make sense?) This sounds like that same old question "What
is Art".
Sherry
=============== Reply 3 of Note 10 =================
To: VMMN97A FELIX MILLER Date: 11/02
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 5:55 PM
From reading Anne Sexton's biography, I know that Sexton was
extremely interested in the tradition and history of poetry
and often "charted" her poems, their meter and rhyme scheme,
which intrigued me -- that this woman who was drawn to the
cut-loose rebellion of poetry was drawn also to its
traditions. Maybe it was part of her basically respectful
(even while rebellious) nature, I don't know.
Anyway, I am utterly unschooled when it comes to poetry,
but I like Anne Sexton, in spite of, or even because of, her
inability to really get to the heart of things. She always
seems to sneak up on things, is in the end turned back on
herself and her own limitations, and I find that so human
and compelling... and I think too she was well aware of this
aspect of her poetry, despaired of it, and in the end made
use of it. And good for her, for finding courage where she
could. Lynn
=============== Reply 4 of Note 10 =================
To: VMMN97A FELIX MILLER Date: 11/02
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 5:56 PM
Felix: I think the line break serves a crucial function in
poetry, possibly as much so as the period or the paragraph
break does in prose, though I don't have the expertise to
put my finger on just what that is. Jim Heath, help!
I've seen the device misused and over-used, sometimes to
the point of unintentional parody, but that certainly
shouldn't be held against "real" poets such as Sexton. As a
result, I think that for somebody to arbitrarily remove a
poem's line breaks and equate it with prose is either very
naive or disingenuous.
>>Dale in Ala., whose two cents are a bottomless well...
=============== Reply 5 of Note 10 =================
To: VMMN97A FELIX MILLER Date: 11/02
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 7:48 PM
The Usenet is a great source of bickering over what is
poetry. The last time I looked in, one fellow
announced that anything without uniform meter and rhyme was
worthless. A number of people tried to make the case for
free verse only to be told that they were fools and were
wasting his time. He was a graduate student at Harvard and
has doubtless moved on to saving the world. It's good to
know that someone has taken up the battle.
On the general question of what is poetry, I have a very
inelegant definition. Poetry is a condensed form of
expression that uses image, sound, and meter to make it's
impression. Good poetry may require much more, but
anything that makes the basic effort to these three
elements qualifies as poetry in my mind.
When you read the Sexton poem you quoted out loud, the
rhythms are obvious even if they aren't repeated regular
meter. As for sound, the repeated use of the s sound in
the first sentence was not an accident. The moss image is
also readily apparent. It looks like Anne lucked out this
time and won't have to give back her Pulitzer Prize.
I really don't see how anyone could confuse Sexton's work
with a business letter, a novel, or any other form of prose.
As for the notion of eliminating line breaks to determine
if poetry is really prose, why don't we try eliminating the
sun to see if day is really night?
--Jim in Oregon
=============== Reply 6 of Note 10 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 11/03
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 1:48 AM
If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire
can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel
physically as if the top of my head were taken off. I know
that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is
there any other way?
Emily Dickinson
Ruth, who thinks Jim's "why dont we try eliminating the sun
to see if day is really night?", is pretty good poetry
=============== Reply 7 of Note 10 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 11/03
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 9:29 AM
Jim: Well said. But wouldn't you agree [bicker, bicker ]
that there are countless passages from the novels of great
stylists like Cormac McCarthy and others that fit the poetry
definition as well? I'd certainly say McCarthy's description
of wolves in the wild--"a terrible beauty, like flowers that
feed on flesh"--qualifies.
I have no problem with calling that "prose with poetic
qualities," or some more efficient term. I think the
irresistible force/immovable object tussle arises when folks
such as those on Usenet insist on a clear-cut duality and
dig in their heels. As a student of mine used to say,
"Things don't be that simple." >>Dale in dual Ala.
=============== Reply 8 of Note 10 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 11/03
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 11:59 AM
Dale:
Of course I would agree that prose can merge into
poetry. I'm an agreeable guy.
However, my guess is that even a Cormac McCarthy
doesn't spend as much time working on rhythm and sound of
what he says as, say, Dylan Thomas did. Judging from the
size of McCarthy's books, he certainly doesn't work on
compression.
Thomas reportedly produced about one line of
poetry a day. You could blame his alcoholism, but I suspect
the real culprit is the devilish difficulty getting the
words just right.
This isn't to say novelists don't work, too. They just
have different concerns. Dylan Thomas didn't have to come
up with a plot and characters for "Fern Hill". Even famous
narrative poems like PARADISE LOST are more interesting as
poems than they are as stories.
--Jim in Oregon
=============== Reply 9 of Note 10 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 11/03
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 2:56 PM
Jim: Point taken, but in fairness I think that fiction...
especially "literary" fiction...is far more language-driven
than most folks realize. It's not so much a case of the
logical mind "coming up with plots and characters" as it is
beginning with one paradoxical image, or even one phrase,
and painstakingly putting one word in front of another,
acutely aware of word choice, rhythms, tone, etc., until
after a few hundred pages a story has taken shape which the
writer had absolutely no foreknowledge of.
This leads, after thousands of wrong turns and dead ends
and discarded sections, to a first draft--at which time the
writer goes back to the beginning and tries to shape it into
conventional enough dramatic situations to satisfy the
reader's natural urge for same. (Okay, so James Joyce
doesn't, but you get the idea.)
In fact, my own standard for what separates "popular" from
"literary" fiction is that with the former, plot and
character are in the driver's seat; with the latter,
language is, and in some mysterious way *creates* the story.
One critic has said something to the effect that in Cormac
McCarthy's novels, the central character is always the
English language, and I have to agree. True, it's hard or
impossible to sustain the intense lyricism of poetry for
even a very long poem, much less a 400-page novel, but I
think McCarthy comes as close as anybody now writing. As did
the late William Goyen, a lesser-known favorite of mine, and
a number of others. (Marty, how weigh ye in, here?)
Of the fiction writers I know personally, many tell me
that their manuscript will routinely go through 10, 15, even
20 complete, from-scratch revisions: each time tightening,
polishing, and refining the sounds of the language to the
best of their ability. (Next to some of them, the fact that
my novel only went through 7 complete revisions over 7 years
makes me feel like a sloth by comparison.)
When two double-spaced pages is counted as a pretty
fruitful full day's work, in which maybe one minute of time
passes within the narrative, it's clear that the whole day
isn't taken up by plotting and charactering but by almost
microscopically refining the sounds and cadences of the
words.
Maybe I'm overstating my case a bit, here, but hey...isn't
that the definition of a discussion?
>>Dale in Ala., wearing his "So Many Books..." T-shirt,
albeit over a sweatshirt as last night was our first hard
freeze of the year: 23 degrees, which I would imagine is
balmy to an Alaskan, eh, Dick?
=============== Reply 10 of Note 10 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 11/03
From: VMMN97A FELIX MILLER Time: 3:53 PM
Jim,
I was not citing the rab post to agree with it; I totally
disagree, just without any rigorous underpinnings to my gut
feelings. I have been reading some of Sexton's poetry in
preparation for discussion on the slo-mo group, and find
all of what I have read very good. I believe you nominated
Sexton for the group, so I would like to thank you for
leading me to fill in another of the great gaps in my
reading.
It occurred to me that you could turn around this line
break thing and render any number of prose selections into
what looks like poetry. Here is one passage I tried this
on. From LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL:
>
Naked and alone we came into exile.
In her dark womb we did not know our mother's face;
from the prison of her flesh have we come into
the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth.
>
I wonder how Ogbuti(sp?) would class that?
Felix Miller
Malt does more than Milton can/to justify God's ways to
Man. 11/3/96 3:38PM ET
=============== Reply 11 of Note 10 =================
To: VMMN97A FELIX MILLER Date: 11/03
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 6:42 PM
All this fuss over what is or is not poetry reminds me of
the "what is art"? question so beloved of graduate students
and others who enjoy debating how many angels can dance on
the head of a pin. If someone wrote it and says it's a
poem, it's a poem in my book, and we can go on from there
and debate the merits of the poem itself.
When Marcel Duchamp presented his "readymades" in a gallery
and called them art, one of his points was that when
something, be it urinal or snowshovel, is presented as art,
we look at it with different eyes than if we are merely
going to pee or clear the front walk. Just as when
something is presented as poetry we come to it with
different expectations than if it is presented as prose,
including the so-called "prose poems" which don't even have
line breaks.
If I want to make a bowl and call it a hat and sell it in a
hat store, that's my privilege. It then becomes a hat,
albeit a pretty poor one. I'm probably going out on a limb
here and someone is going to back me into a corner....
Ruth, in sunny Redlands, sticking in her two cents worth
=============== Reply 12 of Note 10 =================
To: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Date: 11/03
From: KWWP63A SARA SAUERS Time: 8:23 PM
Dear All,
This has been an interesting dicussion to me as I
recently finished wrestling with an assignment in my
Typography class that requested that we typeset a stanza
from a particular Emily Dickinson poem "in a design of our
own choice". A spiral arrangement was even suggested. Well,
this idea bothered me to no end. This is Ms Dickinson's
poem, not mine! When I voiced my concern about disregarding
the author's wishes in terms of format, the response was,
"That's why I chose a dead poet." (!)
Well, I did the assignment, giving the stanza a few more
line breaks than it had, but I filed it under protest. This
seems to have bothered no one else in the class which was
equally as disturbing as the actual assignment.
(And Jim, speaking of Ivy League academia saving the
world, did you see the student from Harvard on Letterman
the other night who stuck the handle of a spoon all the way
up his nose and then fed himself Rice Krispies with it?)
*Sara
=============== Reply 13 of Note 10 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 11/03
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 9:17 PM
Ruth: There is a story about Abraham Lincoln to the effect
that he was once asked how many legs a dog would have if you
called a tail a leg. After no thought at all the skinny
Republican lawyer replied, "Well, four, of course. Just
callin' a tail a leg doesn't make it into one." Now we know
that Abe was a country boy, and probably under the
impression that Art ran a feedstore in Moline. Nevertheless,
something about his reply sounds correct to me, Mssr.
Duchamps' efforts notwithstanding. All distinctions
regarding form, function and style aside, it seems to me
that a definition (i.e., of Art) that encompasses both the
Sistine Chapel and a chocolate coated
naked lady, playing 'Stars and Stripes Forever' on the
crotch kazoo, is so broad as to have extemely limited
communicative utility. Perhaps this is why the avant garde
artist or poet must tell us expressly what he or she is up
to -- Duchamp by placing his urinal in an art show and the
confectioned musician by specifying 'performance art' on her
grant applications. If the urinal had been left on the
sidewalk, I'd bet the house that it would now be in a dump
somewhere and not in the Philadephia Museum of Art.
Incidentally, the example you give of selling bowls as hats
is extremely instructive with respect to this discussion.
Under Alaska (and most modern) consumer law you would be
guilty of actionable fraud for attempting to pass off bowls
as hats (the law making no distinction between patently
absurd fraud and more devious varieties). Implicit in such
consumer protection laws are the notions that we can
identify hats and bowls and that we can tell the difference
between them on a reasonably reliable basis. This is
obviously not a true statement about Art. For example, it
would almost certainly be reasonable to cobble together a
collection of bowls, label it 'Haberdasher's Stock No. 9'
put it on display, and even charge a great deal of money for
it. Put it in a gallery and you're safe; put it in the
stream of commerce and it's jail city. Go figure as Kurt
Vonnegut would say.
So, I think there is something called 'poetry' and that it
exists irrespective of what name the creator gives it.
Query: what is poetry?
Dick in Alaska, a state of mind
=============== Reply 14 of Note 10 =================
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 11/04
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 1:46 AM
Dick, I was afraid the lawyers would pop out of the woodwork
on this one. As an artist, Lincoln made a fine politician.
And I'm afraid you've misunderstood me. A urinal is a
urinal is a urinal. The OBJECT itself doesn't change when
we call it art (or a poem), but our PERCEPTION of it
changes. Arthur Koestler used the concept of what he
called MATRICES to explain the manner in which we perceive
things. When we see a urinal labelled "art", it's jerked
out of its usual matrix into a completely different one.
(Hey look ma, there's a golf ball in with the eggs. That's
gonna make a lousy breakfast.) The labels we put on things,
"poetry", "art", etc., determine in part our perception of
them.
You are absolutely right in that if the urinal had been left
on the sidewalk, it would now be in a dump somewhere instead
of the Philadelphia Museum. But the point is, it WASN'T
left on the sidewalk. It was put into an art gallery. And
was thought about in a different matrix, using different
standards. And became a visual statement that raised all
kinds of philosophical questions about art. And THAT'S why
it's in the museum.
So if I read a particulary metrical, wonderfully phrased bit
of writing whilst reading Cormac McCarthy. It's prose
because he called it prose and he wrote the book. If the
same bit appeared as a separate short piece in a slim volume
labelled "Poetry", it would be poetry. (Especially if it
had line breaks.)
Ruth, who thinks a tail makes a pretty poor leg, even if you
insist on calling it one
=============== Reply 15 of Note 10 =================
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 11/04
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 9:42 AM
Dick -- A tail might make a poor leg, but consider the
breath-taking beauty and meaning it would accrue if it were
signed, framed, and hanging over your couch. Lynn
=============== Reply 16 of Note 10 =================
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 11/04
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 9:44 AM
But you might occasionally notice, whilst walking through
the room and observing it from an angle, that the matrix
needed straightening...
=============== Reply 17 of Note 10 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 11/04
From: DCTW04A MARTY PRIOLA Time: 1:26 PM
Dale,
The critic who said that the central character of
McCarthy's writing was language is none other than Shelby
Foote.
People who know him say that McCarthy is a painstaking
stylist, and Ruth--was it?--posted the first paragraph of
SUTTREE during our recent discussion of said book and
exclaimed as to its poetic quality.
My question about this whole subject is: assuming that
books didn't exist, and there was no written tradition,
would we still have poetry? My supposition is that we'd
still have Homer, who was "writing" in an oral tradition.
And some other poets too, like those Welsh poems that
Bobby Burns collected and wrote down. Or whatever they
were. Therefore, I'd argue that poetry is entirely a
function of LANGUAGE and has little to do with TYPOGRAPHY,
which is simply a function of BOOKS, and is completely
independent of its appearance on a page. Sexton is poetry.
So is McCarthy.
--The Irrepressible DJP 11/4/96 12:13PM CT
=============== Reply 18 of Note 10 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 11/04
From: DCTW04A MARTY PRIOLA Time: 1:26 PM
Ruth,
Your selling a bowl in a hat store makes it a hat bothers
me a little. I'd have to say that selling a bowl in a hat
store emphatically DOES NOT make it a hat. It might, as
you say, change the matrix, but the matrix is
irrelevant to the object's identity. That assertion on my
part of course implies a view of languageas something
concrete--in other words, there's some quality of "hatness"
that makes the object a hat. And that object contains
within its very existence the quality or qualities of
"hatness."
I just can't buy the assertion. True, a rose by
any other name would smell as sweet--but by any other name,
it wouldn't be a rose. It would be something else.
--The Irrepressible DJP 11/4/96 12:19PM CT
=============== Reply 19 of Note 10 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 11/04
From: EUCR61A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 3:00 PM
Ruth: I think our problem here is that unlike a urinal, a
poem has no non-artistic function. Hence, we can put the
urinal on the wall and say, "See, the perception of the
object is effected by this change in status/role/view, and
this change and its effect on the viewer has an artistic
component." I can agree with that analysis, even if I can't
buy some of the specific examples we run into in real life
from time to time. However, I'm not sure what an equivalent
transformative act would be with regard to a poem -- to me a
poem would be more akin to a formal oil painting, framed,
signed and hung. It may be good or bad art, but it is ONLY a
painting, and not a trivet, a hat or a frisbee, although
an imaginative person might press a painting into (probably
temporary) service for each of these three unrelated
functions.
We may be talking pears and pomegranites here. Thus, Art is
the general category, into which urinals, paintings and
chocolate covered ladies fit quite comfortably. Poetry, on
the other hand is a mere component of a larger category:
Literature. Now I would have no trouble at all agreeing with
the notion that poetry, in almost any imaginable state is a
type of Literature. Similarly, novels. However, it is within
the broad categories that we draw the distinctions between
poetry and novels that allow us to discuss these subjects
intelligently at all. If these weren't useful categories,
then I think we would have only a single word to describe
written product, probably of Babylonian or Sumerian roots,
that would translate loosely as 'bird scratch on papyrus'.
But then we'd need inflections differentiating classical
birdscratch from Danielle Steele, and omigod we're right
back where we started from, with a definition like: 'usually
but not always rhyming bird scratch on papyrus' or, poetry.
In closing, I am trying to imagine Frost's poem 'Fog' being
denominated as a novel and I find I can't do it. I just wish
I had more in common with Abe Lincoln than his lack of
imagination....
Dick in Alaska where it is snowing and cold and so on and so
on and so on, but finds he's staying comfortably warm with
this pleasant discussion.
=============== Reply 20 of Note 10 =================
To: EUCR61A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 11/04
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 3:08 PM
Dick: But what if I put my poems *into* a urinal?
Hey, it's been suggested...
>>Dale in Ala.
=============== Reply 21 of Note 10 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 11/04
From: EUCR61A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 5:15 PM
Dale: Major, major bucks at auction is what we are talking
here. Plus, add Lynn's dog tail (heck, how about the whole
hind quarter, leg lifted?) and we could afford our own art
and literature commune. All we need is one crazed Japanese
collector.
Dick in Alaska, always with the marketing angle
=============== Reply 22 of Note 10 =================
To: EUCR61A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 11/04
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 6:13 PM
Dick: "Just one crazed Japanese collector"? I like it.
I say the line might be the year-2000 equivalent of the
great phrasing in mid-20th-Century blues songs about that
most desired of human denouements, "Just give me three steps
toward the door..."
>>Dale in Ala., who's sketching a tentative floor plan of
the CR Commune for Literary and Visual Arts. What's the
architect's symbol for a urinal?
=============== Reply 23 of Note 10 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 11/04
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 11:27 PM
I've been thinking about this what differentiates poetry and
prose deal, with probably disastrous results. After reading
Felix's Sexton quote and trying to imagine it as prose, the
first thing I thought of was Beaumarchais's famous phrase
(No, I have not read Beaumarchais. This was quoted in
Shaw's MAN AND SUPERMAN.), "Anything too silly to be said
can be sung". If you construed Sexton's poem as something
someone is simply saying to somebody else - as in even a
personal letter - it sounds positively dippy. One purpose
of poetry seems to be to evoke ideas or emotions by sheer,
often lush, wordplay rather than say 'em straight out.
Sometimes that's the only way to get a point across. But
offhand I'd say that (with the possible exception of James
Joyce, of course) if it's too dippy to be prose it's poetry.
Cathy
=============== Reply 24 of Note 10 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 11/04
From: NDKB53A THERESA SIMPSON Time: 11:31 PM
When reading prose I
cruise along,
bouyed atop the
words, so to speak,
and gathering meaning
where I may - and sufficient.
Originality, complex ideas,
may slow my course.
I sometimes pause for
clever usage, and may, indeed,
retrace my steps
for beauty.
This method would be
madness for a poem.
Poetry will have none
of this
skimped attention.
Rushing towards the end.
Don't bother,
that poem has not been read.
Theresa - writing prose with strange line-breaks. But look
Ma, it still ain't poetry.
=============== Reply 25 of Note 10 =================
To: NDKB53A THERESA SIMPSON Date: 11/05
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 1:22 AM
Theresa, You need a rhyme scheme to clinch the
transformation. Something featuring moon and June would be
nice. Lynn
=============== Reply 26 of Note 10 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 11/05
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 11:09 AM
Dale: The architect's symbol for a urinal is a little man
bent over dabbing at his trousers with a paper-towel. That's
why even the most palatial men's rooms usually have only
three or four urinals -- not enough room on the plans to put
in more symbols.
Dick in Alaska, where we need a symbol for slush
=============== Reply 27 of Note 10 =================
To: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Date: 11/05
From: NDKB53A THERESA SIMPSON Time: 11:23 PM
When reading prose
by the light of the moon
in June
I cruise along.....
Naaah, Lynn, still doesn't do it.
Theresa
=============== Reply 28 of Note 10 =================
To: NDKB53A THERESA SIMPSON Date: 11/05
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 11:27 PM
Theresa: In my experience, any line involving 'moon' and
'June' needs a ukulele accompaniment to really make it rock.
Try it, with a kind of swishy back-beat. It'll work.
Probably how Homer got started.
Dick in Alaska, digging for those Don Ho records
=============== Reply 29 of Note 10 =================
To: NDKB53A THERESA SIMPSON Date: 11/06
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 0:20 AM
No? I award you the North North Torrance Honorary Poetry
Award for 1996. There. Now you're a poet.
P.S. Is it time for me to quote from Carolyn Forche's The
Angel of History again?
=============== Reply 30 of Note 10 =================
To: DCTW04A MARTY PRIOLA Date: 11/07
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 11:37 PM
Marty,
It doesn't change the BOWL to put it in a hat store. It
changes our thinking to see it there. A bowl is a bowl is a
bowl. My point was that if you evaluate or experience or
think about a bowl in terms of its being used as a hat, your
experience with it is different than it is when you're just
going to pour your Cheerios into it.
Anyway, I thought your point about oral poetry was
well-taken. In fact, when this same discussion cropped up
at poetry workshop the other night (what is the difference
between prose and poetry?) I dropped your question on our
teacher, poet/editor Jack Grapes. His answer was that most
oral poetry has rhyme and/or meter, at least in part so that
it could be remembered. Modern poetry has line-breaks,
which of course are only evident on the printed page.
Different ages and different peoples have defined poetry in
different ways. He also suggests that you can have POETRY
without its being a POEM. A poem being a self-contained
unit. Poetry being something that can crop up in any kind
of writing, including CM.
Ruth, who thinks a bowl makes a lousy hat
=============== Reply 31 of Note 10 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 11/08
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 0:42 AM
Ruth, Was it Freud who said sometimes a toilet bowl is just
a toilet bowl?
Your point is well taken, of course, and I doubt if anyone
here disagrees. But heck, when it's a toilet bowl we're
talking about, sometimes you just gotta leave the art
criticism behind for a sec, elbow the guy next to you, and
say: Hey, Mack! Wouldja look at that, fer cryin out loud?
It's a terlet bowl!
Or words to that effect. Lynn
=============== Reply 32 of Note 10 =================
To: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Date: 11/08
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 2:15 AM
That's what I keep trying to say, Lynn. A terlet bowl is a
terlet bowl is a terlet bowl. It's Dick & Marty who keep
thinking I'm trying to change it to something else.
Ruth
=============== Reply 33 of Note 10 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 11/08
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 9:58 AM
Boys, stop teasing Ruth.
(Or: wait'll your father gets home.) Lynn
=============== Reply 34 of Note 10 =================
To: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Date: 11/08
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 10:48 AM
Ah, we was only funnin'...
Dick in Alasky
=============== Reply 35 of Note 10 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 11/09
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 0:53 AM
Dale:
Urinal poetry is part of a grand tradition, at least in
these parts. "Here I sit all broken hearted, etc., etc."
So you're the guy who writes that stuff.
Actually I stay away for a few days and find that we are
talking about tail in the living room and poetry in the
urinals. Anne Sexton would be pleased.
-- Jim in Oregon
=============== Reply 36 of Note 10 =================
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 11/09
From: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Time: 1:04 AM
I think the kid who played Alfalfa was brilliant. An artiste
in diminutive, cow-licked, freckle-faced form (talk about
yer deceptive packaging), with a voice like an angel. What
do you think, Ruth?
=============== Reply 37 of Note 10 =================
To: VMMN97A FELIX MILLER Date: 11/09
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 1:47 AM
I suppose we poetry lovers should take some satisfaction in
the fact that while poets are being challenged to prove
that they really write poetry, nobody ever challenges a
writer of prose to prove that he or she is really writing
prose.
--Jim in Oregon
=============== Reply 38 of Note 10 =================
To: FNMN56E LYNN EVANS Date: 11/09
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 2:54 AM
Lynn, who the hell is Alfalfa?
Ruth, getting ready to hit the hay
=============== Reply 39 of Note 10 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 11/10
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 1:53 AM
Of course, there are more colorful expressions for toilet
bowl. My Irish friend, commenting on the recent stomach
virus he picked up from his children, talked about "calling
down the big white phone to Uncle Huey". No wonder we have
so many Irish poets.
Cathy
|
As I've said before, Sexton is most heart-catching for me
when she tones it down, when she performs one of her minor
miracles with words the swing me up and grab me by the
throat.
Ruth
One of the points that hit me throughout was how well she
made me understand someone who struggles with the seduction
of suicide. Sometimes, she did this in a screamingly
lunatic way, but sometimes it was calmly rational...and I
think I understood. "Live" was one of the more calmly
rational ones and took me inside depression and the mind of
someone who sees how others are reacting and yet is
helpless sometimes to change it.
Barb
Anyway, I am utterly unschooled when it comes to poetry,
but I like Anne Sexton, in spite of, or even because of, her
inability to really get to the heart of things. She always
seems to sneak up on things, is in the end turned back on
herself and her own limitations, and I find that so human
and compelling...
Lynn
|
