Working like a maniac to edit & re-format Stubborn Grew for a new Lulu edition. Had to scan it from scratch.

Good for me to see it again, in pre-book form. Struck by how monumentally silly this poem is. Especially as it warms up, in the beginning : those thumpingly obvious rhymes... the scramble for a shtick...

No wonder nobody has seen fit to review it. It's very much out of every loop I, at least, can think of. Like a James Merrill play-acting at populism, so it starts out... I mean the whole tone of the thing, the goofiness. But the tone changes in the different chapters - gets better, relaxes, settles in... then spirals out of control...

Surprised again at the internal logic - I mean the way it forecasts the future (the future of the poem, mostly).

I first met John Ashbery in 1965, in a laundry room in Louisville, KY. He was short, dark, with a pronounced limp in both legs, & he spoke with a pronounced Canadian accent, probably due to his years in Saskatchewan as a member of the Canadian Mounties. It was only five years later, after I had already published my first seven books of poetry, that I learned that the John Ashbery I had known all those years was not the John Ashbery, the famous poet. My John Ashbery used to vilify the School of Quietude into the wee hours of the morning, while drinking glass after glass of strong Turkish coffee laced with creme de cacao (the only liqueur left in the storage room of the bunkhouse, located down a slope of jack pines, behind the warehouse, just before you reach the storage room). Why my JA had taken such a visceral, vivisectory attitude toward a group of poets who, in all innocence, had never become conscious of their debt to English-Continental traditional versification and social attitudes (though you wonder why the implications of the jodhpurs & smoking jackets & Sherlock Holmes-style smoking caps and longjohns & periwinkles & hobnobberies & gaiters & socks & fleabag hotels in seedy Birmingham never occurred to them) is a question I have for long striven & stroven to answer to my own satisfaction, without success. The recent developments & improvements in poetry education in America, due to the deluge of New American methods of reading (outlined in a recent New Yorker article on the other John Ashbery, and further amplified here) have fortunately put to rest a certain amiable, droll, amateurish, sacre-bleu, bon-vivant, recherche, de rigueur, dibbly-dabbly, tadpole methodology which has saturated the literary atmosphere of the world for nigh on 4 decades now, ever since Firkham Punctilious published the inaugural issue of his Littler Magazine, wherein the Old American school of poetry attempted one last stand, dressing up as Gordon Lord George at Khartoum, swords drawn, facing the rabid mob of trolls. How this brand of syncopated antiquity ever came to dominate the poetry scene of our world is a puzzle for future literary historians to unravel, I will leave it to them, but I will say : we are truly fortunate to obtain habitation in a time period of such lush growth of New American poetry, because now, as we know, reading is a very special and the toast is ready, as they say, in the School of Jumping Gophers, of which we are proudly each a member.

I'll be out of town til Tuesday the 16th - & probably away from computer.

Here are some wonderful, sophisticated, clever jokes I made up myself, to keep you company while I'm away:

What did the dog say when he saw the tree? Bark.

What did the horse say when they called her a cow? Neigh.

I forget the others.

Here be Ron Silliman's extended encomiae (have I got that right, Gabe?) to Charles Bernstein's new book The Sophist.

Wagrant thoughts: a sophist is a professional rhetor, one who makes the daily bread by means of a persuasive appeal to Wisdom presented appealingly. Criticized, I believe, by Plato, whose notion of the transcendent Truth precluded a simple 2-step verbalization (ie. 1. Truth is; 2. I'm telling it to you). Maybe Aristotle too, who wanted a more disinterested Logic.

Bernstein works out an interesting confluence of Langpo & NY School attitudes; he imitates Ashbery, who perfected the wry self-negating/self-persuasive zennish non sequitur ("Beautifully the words reveal there is nothing to say." - HG imitating JA).

So to title a book The Sophist is classic self-deprecatory/self-affirming - disarming the critic beforehand.

Ashbery (& Bernstein) take the self-reflexive, narcissistic quality of poetry - inescapable, since poetry is the word, unlike any other language use except maybe the joke, which embodies a celebration of itself, among other things - and turn it into a comic system.

The limits of this kind of poetry are the limits of the comic: it appeals to the mind through a stringent disciplining (or mockery) of the feelings. There is something gnostic about comedy: those who are in the know get the better of the dolts who don't get it.

I suppose the opposite of the comic is pathos. Tragedy is based on pathos, the empathy with suffering. A lot of art, not just the tragic, appeals to pathos (think of Portuguese fado, for one thing. or Chet Baker). Emotion, feeling, music, duende. Language poetry built itself on a politically-motivated (moral?) mockery of the bathos of sentimental, self-centered 70s free verse.

this was originally written in a comment box over at Kasey's, but I repost it here in honor of AWP :

The learned felines settled in their cribs,
and sniffed the weighty tomes, all catnip-scented,
and flipped the pages with their five-clawed nibs,
and purred in praise, or growlingly dissented,
but mostly yawned and stretched their flexive limbs
or curled into tight balls, and snoozed away:
so went the Conference on Cat Prose & Poems
for several nights (they slept right through the day).

 
And all was well, until cats A and B
(I shan't reveal their names) began to yowl
in heat of anger (not the other kind);
they spilled right out of the C.C.P.P.
and took their catfight, cheek by jowl,
into the alley... oh... never mind.

"Aha!" I said, thinking I could write
a sonnet in no time.  How wrong
can you get!  I knew it wasn't right
to start this way!  Time's passing,
too - I have to finish this before night-
fall, I guess - that's the hard part - thing
is, it's getting worse by the minute!
This is terrible!  Wait - phone's ring-

 
ing - "Hello?  Mike?  Jonathan?  Who is -"
hung up.  Somebody trying to interrupt
my sonnet, here - hup - now the cat's
whining - sorry, got to go and let
her in - let the warm cat (overheated)
in!  And now my lovely song's completed.

(6 utterly wasted min.)

My lecture today concerns the life & times & work & life of the poet Gilroy Deathstar. Deathstar, born in 1984, lived in Oceania for a number of unnumbered years, years remarkable only for the trace of reminiscences of the trace of his presence in the margins of archival correspondence of fellow poets; this trace, repeatedly, refers to a particular odor, which emanated from Deathstar, apparently unbeknownst to him. It was an odor defined by its unmistakeable undefinability, both attractive and repellent (witness the number of reading invitations he received from prestigious and not-so-smelly outfits, based solely on the rumored impact of the odor).

Upon moving to Rhode Island, Deathstar immediately engrossed himself in the study of P.K. Bleffling, a local fictado of dubious reputation (Bleffing "sightings" are a seasonal pastime in that locale). According to Isabella Quintado, a close friend, Deathstar was obsessed with locating and tabulating the occurrence of his own name (Deathstar) in the works of Bleffling, to the detriment of his own creative labors. Quintado cites this obsessional pastime as the principal cause of Deathstar's general status as "ignota" in literary circles; but it is my purpose in the lecture at hand (which I will soon transmit from hand to voice to brains of Comp Lit 101 at John-John Univy Versity) to propose an alternative hypothesis, to wit: Deathstar's contemporary reception - between the years 1984 and 1984 - was determined solely by the indescribable, unmentionable (except in the marginal literary record) odor, which I have previously described (or mentioned, previously).

Solely, you say? Solely? And yet, how can anything solely be determined? When a literary personage enters a crowded reception room, with mirandas tinkling and martinis twinkling, and suddenly all heads turn in perplexed quizzicality (or should I say, quizzical perspicuity), and noses lift imperceptibly into the aether, and sniffs are erupting silently throughout the reception space - what have we here? Old socks? Could anything so banal serve as motive for metaphor? Or is the odor merely a sign of a social reprehension, an instinctual repulsion/attraction, which in ancient times led to "the crown that lies uneasy on the head bears"?

But I digress. Shakespeare & Deathstar, Deathstar & Shakespeare, we could spend the whole semestre incarcerated with these twins of doublet dubiety. And - hmmm. . . what's that. . . that. . . that. . . smell. . .does anyone else. . . c-c-class d-d-dism-m-missed! It's - DEATHSTAR!!! Arrrghghgh!!

Shooter & Chutes & Sons is coming out with a gigantic anthology titled Generic Poems. This ambitious project aims to include 99% of poems published previously in the United States. The book is expected to cover an area the size of Texas (though most of the New England States - Rhode Island excepted - are bidding to have it "dumped" somewhere along their shared coastline, maintained afloat on the ocean surface by a string of wind turbines). Poems will be grouped randomly, as the editors have concluded that, according to Beckham Biggs, Generalissimo Editorissimo, "actually, most of these poems sound a lot like other poems. The echo effect is excruciatingly painful." (New England's strong suit is their argument that shoreline white noise will dramatically reduce the expected damage to acoustical membranes by close proximity to this echo. However, the fact that the book will be larger, perhaps much larger than the state of Texas, has forced Texas to file a plea for restraining order with the Soup Court of Texas.)

Despite these and other issues, the project is moving forward, according to unnameable sources. 7 million "pre-read" blurbs have been collected on CD-Rom from all the known poets of Boston, New York and Cleveland, Michigan. President Bush has weighed in, suggesting that "collecting all the. . . poems, or whatever. . . in one place will allow our forces to keep them penned up & out of harm's way." Howard Dean, in a rare moment of geometric congruence, agreed. "We're looking for votes from confederate flags and poets!" he said (to me, really, I'm not kidding).

Generic Poems is expected to change history. Whales will be used to imitate each poem, and whale-song cd's based on these recitals will be published in their tens of thousands. No one will want to listen to these, so it is widely expected they will be thrown to the sharks, in order to make them sharks violently ill.

George W. Bush is using language to topple the Tower of Babel in your backyard. This from a recent study by Elwood Latitude of the Latitude Leeway Foundation. Because he is President he thinks he can fool us with bomber jackets he bought at Job Lot, thinks he's cool. We know better, nyah nyah Georgie-Porgie! I will vote for Delbert Deal because he is a good deal better than his brother Fred Deal, who was an all-around Bad Deal. George uses language as if it were sticks and stones, but names will never hurt me, I am going home now for my mother calls me home from the flock with the flock, here little flock come with me for I am the good little Shepherd Boy.

THEY FLEE FROM ME THAT ONCE DIDST SCAN MY BLOG. . .

so, I'll have a BLOG POLL QUIZ CONTEST TOO.

Answer the following to the best of your ability, then call your pet in from outside and fill his/her pet bowl with it HAUTE CLAMANS:

1. George W. Bush is a:
a) President
b) form of raft
c) a type of fishing fly

2. My Favorite Blogger is:
a) me
b) you
c) the other one

3. If I had a Choice, I Would Order:
a) caviar
b) hot dog
c) none of the above (vegetarian)

4. To Me, Sex Is:
a) a dialogue of the deaf
b) better than cheese
c) both of the above (vegetarian)

5. Poetry Is:
a) better than cheese
b) the same as cheese
c) deeply intertwined with cheese at all levels
d) different from cheese
e) like cheese, sorta
f) a mode of cheese "language"
g) dissonant, yet, somewhat cheesy
h) political in the same way as cheese
i) more/less important than cheese
j) cheese, the last time I checked. shine, shine, shine!!

When you have completed this quiz, place your pencil on your desk at 90 degree angle from this quiz, and lay your head on the desk, and sleep, sleep. You have done well, good and faithful servant.

In my mental geography (responding to Ron today), the town of Providence lies nestled between the Crevasse of Quietude (somewhere beyond Dante St., on Federal Hill) and Mount Atlantis (to the left of the Doyle Observatory). I have always felt that the official poets situated in the Crevasse have overslept due to lack of sunlight (the Mount inhibits morning rays, even during Daylight Savings months), though perhaps it's a question of allegiance to King George (who Slept Here too, a few years before Washington Slept Here & composed his "Ode on The Second-Best Bed in the Republic" while snoring through his wooden teeth) and his stylistic anglossia tics & other bedbugs. But I digress, citizens. The Crevasse Assembly Poets have always been startling dreamers (HP Lovecraft actually dreamt his nightmares in perfect iamboid pentchompeter), yet this has not won them the universal acclaim & plaudits & laurels & ecstatic receptivity which is their unnatural due, and Sylvia (Bath-Towel) knows this, along with Helen (Book) Vendor, and I don't think that the energetic freewheeling American love-happy poets of Mount Atlantis will ever grant them the hospitality which their shadowy pathos, in other words, is their Otherness. They are dominant and hegemonic but not demonic, as some influential maggots & zines would have it. I love their work and read it constantly until my eyes begin to bleed. There is hope for the Crevasse now, since several scenesters from Boston have abandoned beloved Beantown for dear olde Providence, but I don't want to give away their names yet (for free, anyway - backchannel me about this). I live not far from there but try to walk uphill every day, into the sunlight, which I deserve more than Jasper Fledgling the current Poet Laureate will ever in a million years admit or even countenance, with such a countenance as his (it is some countenance!). Oh my freedom-lovin' people & freewheelin' bards of America! Thank You!

But back to the main question. Remember the Maine. Poetry in english & Amurrcan vs. Expat. How oddly these issues are reflected in the dilemma of the burning Bushdom & the world Household. That is I mean the Amurrcan concept of kick-the-can vs. the global sopholeum of gettalifedom.

Hey, talk!!

But back to purrtry. The crux of the future (of purrtry in catfish, I mean), as I see it, lies in the difference between how Melville re-wrote Shakespeare, the Bible, and the Classics, generating a new American Bible (Moby), on the one hand, and, on the other, the impact of Dante on Eliot & Pound. The difference in their stances toward the literary past, I mean. The difference = Dante, oddly enough; the diff between Latin & vernacular.

Jive mutha.

Battle of the Books, part 2:

HENRY'S OFFICIAL HISTORY OF TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY

There was Official Verse Culture.
There was Oppositional-Negativity Verse Culture.

And there was me, going through my long long poems like a freight train in the distance.

A few people waved to me as I went by (Kent, Lissa . .).

The End

(p.s. there were a few other poets, too, I guess)