Posted by BeARdEdLaDY on May 18, 2002, at 6:17:43
In reply to you don't like Gary Snyder! well I never.......... » BeARdEdLaDY, posted by kid_A on May 17, 2002, at 22:43:45
Someone posted an Olds poem here that I liked. I must confess to not having read her work. I am still trying to figure out why poets like Jorie Graham, who write such esoteric work that one can hardly find the music in it, win Pulitzer Prizes. But I'm still open to giving her a chance. I just think I picked the wrong book (Swarm).
As for Gary, I'm all for poems about streams and trees, but I like a little more passion. Besides, isn't he a Black Mountain School poet, rather than a beat? Of the beats, Ferlinghetti is perhaps the finest. You should read "Christ Climbed Down" (I think that's what it's called!) from "Coney Island of the Mind" (I think, again). That is a wonderful poem. And "I am Waiting" ranks to the sky.
Kenneth Koch had the lamest piece in May 5th's New Yorker. It was about a cloud in the shape of a clown, and it was about five lines of childlike poem, which is great for a child (I'd have said, "Wow! She was five when she wrote that?").
And regarding "Piss Christ," I wasn't offended either. I just thought it was "stupid" (that word again). And then we get to the question of "Is it Art?" If bad writing is writing, then I guess it can be art, but why does that word get such a broad brush? He didn't make the crucifix and the jar (maybe the urine, but I make that every day a bunch of times, right?). And assemblage is my favorite kind of art, really, but that's hardly been "assembled," so....
Haven't had my Joe. Let me get my decaf so I can think more clearly. Take care. Glad you're chipper. But remember, you can write me any time. I am a good cheerer upper, though I don't do so well with myself.
beardy : )>
poster:BeARdEdLaDY
thread:23508
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020517/msgs/24028.html