tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post4020456932662219366..comments2024-03-18T20:41:39.140-07:00Comments on C. E. Chaffin's Blog: Giving Up PoetryC. E. Chaffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02639448512282317750noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-6057401028090853252007-05-31T11:16:00.000-07:002007-05-31T11:16:00.000-07:00Like it or not, even while running around with you...Like it or not, even while running around with your pin, you are <I>part</I> of the elite, even if you consider yourself anti-elite.<BR/><BR/>That's your punishment for reading poetry in the 21st century. <BR/><BR/>Hee hee!C. E. Chaffinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02639448512282317750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-41474208517999062212007-05-31T09:27:00.000-07:002007-05-31T09:27:00.000-07:00Beau: "Poetry was always for the elite," Eliot sai...<I><B>Beau: "Poetry was always for the elite," Eliot said, and I agree.</B></I><BR/><BR/>I disagree. If it "was always" the case, then what was it Burns collected all those years ago? Yes, that was a long time ago. But still, he collected that stuff in bars didn't he? More louts there than lords, right?<BR/><BR/><I><B><BR/>But I don't know if he meant by that "the elite of the elite of the elite,"<BR/></B></I><BR/><BR/>also know as "Our MFA program' - please adopt the proper posture while addressing us and please be as dry and lifeless with your writings as we are .." <BR/><BR/><I><B>The common reader no longer visits poetry, I fear.</B></I><BR/><BR/>Well .. I visit. It's a fool's occupation, I know. And while it's discouraging to be confronted by so many hot air balloons so often, it is fun to run around the incestuous community with a sharp pin, you know. <BR/><BR/>The elite are their own punishment, and their myopia shouldn't discourage anyone from writing poetry, bad or good. Know what I mean?<BR/><BR/> -blueBeau Bluehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01570982615331590643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-63053536040799045232007-05-31T08:29:00.000-07:002007-05-31T08:29:00.000-07:00I've got to say I've found a lot of poems in on-li...I've got to say I've found a lot of poems in on-line poetry journals to be thoroughly uninspiring. Obviously I don't think my own (no where near publishable) poetry to be superior, perhaps I'm just 'missing the point' however many of the poems end up being indistinguishable from each other as if they've worked out a formula of publishable poetry and hence every one sounds the same. Of course that's not the case with all - there's always a gem to be found.Marion McCreadyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04657757253873577465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-51747951231494263912007-05-30T13:34:00.000-07:002007-05-30T13:34:00.000-07:00I'm surprised by the number of poetry aficianados ...I'm surprised by the number of poetry aficianados that do read my blog! Sometimes I look at the referrals to the blog but most of them are searches or what not, save for a few familiar addresses. So I really have no way of knowing who my small readership is.<BR/><BR/>******************<BR/><BR/>Sam, I think you speak of apples and oranges. In the process of writing one does not think of publication. Hopefully one does not even think of writing, but of feelings and objects/metaphors/thoughts ignited by those feelings--almost the pattern of an electron in a cloud chamber.<BR/><BR/>But afterwards, a poem has four fates: to be burned outright; to be ignored in a file; to be read out loud either to another person or a larger audience; to be read by others in a print venue.<BR/><BR/>Even Dickinson published a few poems in her lifetime at the behest of her literary reverend friend; I'm sure she would have been thrilled to publish more if someone had the temerity to promote her, something she lacked. Whitman, of course, was her direct opposite in this regard. No one in the history of American poetry, I think, has so blithely promoted himself as a prophet and icon as good ole Walt.<BR/><BR/>Eliot was very, very calculating about achieving fame. He tested the waters about TWL with Pound, had him help with it so the influential Pound was invested in its success, published it in the Criterion, his own journal, then in a single edition, then had Pound talk to Harriet Monroe, who published it for <I>the third time</I>! and gave Eliot a large monetary prize--a foregone conclusion in her "search" for contemporary poetry, as all had been arranged by Pound--Eliot needed the money anyway. The fight was fixed, just as some contemporary contests are pre-decided by their judges (see foetry.com for details). (To be fair, back then publishing in America was like a foreign translation, unlike today.)<BR/><BR/>In any case, Eliot put in as much work behind the scenes promoting that poem and his reputation as he did in writing it, perhaps more, since the poem was comprised of the disconnected ravings of a depressed literary man while in a mental hospital. <BR/><BR/>Later in life he wrote, "There is no competition."<BR/><BR/>In his early life that was simply bullshit. He wanted to "make it" very badly. It nearly cost him his health and did, in some respects.<BR/><BR/>Again, apples and oranges:<BR/><BR/>"William Stafford is a good model for the nature poet. He didn't write for publication, at all. Yet, he published hundreds and hundreds of poems, and forty or fifty collections and chapbooks. Actually, his chapbooks were his finest works. He was a machine of a writer as well, but the emotion is evident in every poem."<BR/><BR/>As I said above already, in writing no decent poet writes <I>for</I> publication, but he is damn happy to be published afterwards. Stafford's record speaks for itself. He must have been terribly ambitious at some level, else why pursue/consent to so many publications? At least Bukowski had to be persuaded by his friend to be published, and Black Sparrow Press was established specifically for Bukowski.<BR/><BR/>BTW, Stafford seems to be the Logopoetry poster boy these days; everyone seems to point to him when they want a counterbalance to something like "Cure."<BR/><BR/>So I think we are in agreement, Sam, the difference being that I separate the process from the later outcome. I have never written for publication except once for a radical Christian journal, trying to write in their style--and was rejected, naturally. I write out of need and for pleasure, more for pleasure at this stage of my life, and while writing I write for the hope of expressing the inexpressible, of coming close to imparting, through words, an experience in a way another might share it. My favorite compliment received over the years, is perhaps: I've felt (thought) just like that but you say it so much better than I ever could. You said it for me."<BR/><BR/>I only think of the reader, however, during the later editing process, when I look at the poem's relative intelligibility to a stranger and act accordingly. <BR/><BR/>After a long journeyman's career like mine, I think it's natural to wonder: How good was I? Did my work actually merit greater recognition? Or was I just too lazy about self-promotion? <BR/><BR/>Most "successful" or "name" poets today, nearly all in fact, have spent a great deal of energy in promoting themselves. Once in the inner circle, they continue to hobnob at seminars and festivals and large readings, and to enter that stratosphere one needs either major prizes (which are awarded subjectively by judges already members of the higher echelon), or one must be groomed by another well-known poet, sometimes even bedded at length. (Forgive the pun.) The casting couch is not confined to Hollywood. <BR/><BR/>I'm done. Too much or not enough? Btw, check out "My Struggle with Literary Narcissism" in the new issue of <I>Umbrella</I>, where I give greater range to these ideas.<BR/><BR/>I hope I don't sound jealous or cynical, but I think my words are fairly realistic. Collins and Angelou, our bestseller poets, both write one-trick ponies for the most part in my opinion. But that's what the larger audience wants--something not very difficult to understand. And Collins is much better than Angelou, obviously, whose poetry is more overrated than Phil Spector's hair. LOL!C. E. Chaffinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02639448512282317750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-7602071267915384792007-05-30T06:23:00.000-07:002007-05-30T06:23:00.000-07:00What I find most interesting about your comments a...What I find most interesting about your comments and responses to comments CE is the notion of writing <I>for</I> publication. Is that really your purpose, or any poet's purpose for that matter? Or should it be the purpose.<BR/><BR/>Eliot - let's use him - wrote <I>The Waste Land</I>, in part, for publication, in part to carve his name in European poetry, in part for readers, in part to approach a vision of his day, in part to communicate, to ease his pain, in part to clear his head of the voices, as in <I>He Do the Police in Different Voices</I>. I'm sure there are other reasons. I think of those reasons I mentioned, publication is last. Writing to be published is like a pitcher thinking about throwing a curve ball.<BR/><BR/>I like your comment about the redwoods. My own thoughts about the sight and feel - at least what I sense it would be - is not "derivative homage". Applying the same feel to the forests that surround me. I want to speak to the trees; I want to listen to their voices speaking to me. I do want to approach that.<BR/><BR/>Willaim Stafford is a good model for the nature poet. He didn't write for publication, at all. Yet, he published hundreds and hundreds of poems, and forty or fifty collections and chapbooks. Actually, his chapbooks were his finest works. He was a machine of a writer as well, but the emotion is evident in every poem.<BR/><BR/>As for the two contemporary poems that you mention - and you're correct to use them as examples / I like your comments as well - I don't like the first one or its approach and wouldn't use it at BFR. I don't believe or believe in the the voice of the poem. The second one, "Cure," however, I like and would accept it. I believe in that voice and the form. Especially these lines:<BR/><BR/>Now the family can’t<BR/>sleep: birds<BR/>are living<BR/>in her walls, unraveling<BR/>the hem of her name.<BR/><BR/>As for your poem, I really like these lines:<BR/><BR/>It’s not easy<BR/>to open the violin case<BR/>for the first fiddle,<BR/>to straighten the conductor’s<BR/>music sheets, to rehearse<BR/>lines with the lead.<BR/><BR/>and <BR/><BR/>you are the ultimate insurance,<BR/>you are the just in case<BR/>never shooting, always<BR/>falling star.<BR/><BR/>At least this is how I see it from my chair, this morning, the voice of the Northern Flicker still in my head.sam of the ten thousand thingshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04378206265831223396noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-70894168419800121932007-05-29T10:33:00.000-07:002007-05-29T10:33:00.000-07:00CE, you can submit to Envoi and Magma by email the...CE, you can submit to Envoi and Magma by email these days. Magma would be seen as a very good magazine these days - it's hard to get into, but possible. Envoi has a new editor, so we'll have to wait and see, but she comes with a strong reputation.Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-64183109964306948882007-05-29T09:50:00.000-07:002007-05-29T09:50:00.000-07:00When I get this many extended comments on a post, ...When I get this many extended comments on a post, I don't know in what detail to respond, as I know in visiting other blogs I often get inspired to bloviate at length and then forget to return for the author's response. <BR/><BR/>First, thanks for all your thoughts. And good to know there are many literary folks reading my blog; I sometimes feel as if others are waiting for me to write about mood disorders again, but the great thing about a blog is that the bloggist writes about what he damn pleases, unless he's trying to make a career out of it.<BR/><BR/>That said, I'll make a few responses in order:<BR/><BR/>Norm: Each age has its style. I think we are more the victims of our own anachronism than any prejudice. Today's style is inductively indirect, as you know. You should have been a Baptist preacher.<BR/><BR/>Beau: "Poetry was always for the elite," Eliot said, and I agree. But I don't know if he meant by that "the elite of the elite of the elite," an elitism so elite that, as I have also written in "Poetry is for Poets," an incestuous competition obtains for poets in the know, whose work, as in my selection "Cure," will never attract any "poetical tourists" or "casual readers" as you name them. Bloom called the same entity "the common reader." The common reader no longer visits poetry, I fear.<BR/><BR/>Rob: Curiously, I submitted to both Magma and Envoi once each in the past and was published by both. Envoi took two poems and Magma took one. As I recall, back then the submissions had to be by snail mail? I'm not sure. Still, 2/2 issn't bad, wha? I didn't know they were considered "good" journals. I figured since they published me they must have been middling journals at best. LOL! Perhaps my great mistake is in marketing. On to the U.K. for a submission swan song? Thanks, I'll check out Orbis, too.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Anon Darling: It's not affection for deconstruction, it's fascination. I am always amazed by technical mastery, even if it lacks soul, like Al DiMeola on the guitar, technically the best I've heard, though he fails to move me.<BR/><BR/>Tiel: Great suggestion! I don't know if I mentioned in my blog that I've sucked it up and sent out over forty submissions of late, in a sort of experimental swan song, all to paying journals. If I get near goose eggs I may take up your suggestion exactly. But mostly I want to learn how to write for money. I've been at this poetry thing so long, and though I have derived a great deal of personal satisfaction from it, I think it's time to be realistic about my future as a poet commercially, if one can even speak about poetry commercially. But you know what I mean: achieve a certain rep., get on the reading and seminar circuit, get teaching fellowships, all that. The path to glory. At 52 I think it's a little late. I don't know, even if acclaim were to bite me on the ass, if I would have the energy to promote myself anymore. I've done a poor job of it so far, certainly. Then my life is what it is. When I gaze upon the gorgeous redwood coast up here, it is a poem beyond any poem I could ever compose and leaves me speechless, and that is the most satisfying artistic experience of all. Everything we do after such experience is only a derivative homage, yes?C. E. Chaffinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02639448512282317750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-64248717943489210772007-05-29T08:22:00.000-07:002007-05-29T08:22:00.000-07:00A little over a year ago I went to Powell's and to...A little over a year ago I went to Powell's and to the downtown library and speed-read through all the poetry journals I could find. Came home and told my husband it was like drinking sewage through a firehose.<BR/><BR/>Incoherent, self-indulgent, pretentious crap. Random images, some of them very nicely turned, but adding up to nothing more or less-- interspersed with unexpurgated hysterical confessionals real or imagined (I sincerely hope some of them were imagined). That's not what I want to read.<BR/><BR/>CE, if you really feel like giving up poetry, I'll be sorry, but do what your heart says. If on the other hand, it's getting published that discourages you, try an experiment.<BR/><BR/>Swear off submissions for at least a year. Write <I>whatever you want</I> and <I>only</I> what you want. Keep revisions to a minimum, at least at first (and definitely don't revise under criteria of "publishability"). Post 'em on your blog, or keep 'em to yourself just as you prefer.<BR/><BR/>Then come back and look at the publishing thing with a fresh eye.<BR/><BR/>I'm pretty much resigned to being a niche poet, myself, as a formal poet with a strong inclination for narrative and spiritual themes. I'll never be in <I>Kenyon Review</I> either, but then again, I can't stand to read it, so why would I want to be in it? My aspirations are in places like <I>Measure</I> and <I>Sonnetto Poesia</I> and <I>The Lyric</I>. (Not to mention online formal-poetry venues.)<BR/><BR/>Oh, nice picture.Tiel Aisha Ansarihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03994169558252043919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-36340753389059136462007-05-28T21:39:00.000-07:002007-05-28T21:39:00.000-07:00"Susan Sontag wrote that irony had been exhausted ..."Susan Sontag wrote that irony had been exhausted in the late 20th century."<BR/><BR/>So THAT's where Alison Croggan got that line. I knew she didn't come up with it herself.<BR/><BR/>I'm ambivalent about the whole thing, as you know, and don't share your affection for deconstruction (I find Yeats's masticated grammar hard enough!).<BR/><BR/>But I'm a hunnerd percent behind you, as usual.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-86168404578375237152007-05-28T15:15:00.000-07:002007-05-28T15:15:00.000-07:00CEOf the two poems you quoted, I can see some meri...CE<BR/><BR/>Of the two poems you quoted, I can see some merit in the first one. There's some dramatic, arresting use of language. Even if I can't follow it all the way, I'm interested in it. I didn't like the second poem at all. I thought it was soulless stuff.<BR/><BR/>There is room for all kinds of poetry, for different audiences. Magazines who publish the kind of poems you quoted are never going to connect with anyone beyond other poets who write similar material.<BR/><BR/>And that stuff isn't even avant-garde any more. After all, we need experimenters and inventors to move things forward, and make things new. But that second poem certainly is an example of deadly dull (post-MFA?) theory masquerading as poetry. There's so much crap out there.<BR/><BR/>Why don't you submit to good UK print magazines like Magma, Orbis and Envoi (you can submit online)? I mention the UK because that's what I know, but I'm sure there must be other North American magazines that want well written poetry that says something. But if not, these three magazines are high quality - the urls are on my magazine listings at my blog.<BR/><BR/>I agree that you're being too hard on yourself.Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-64593709942958386632007-05-28T13:33:00.000-07:002007-05-28T13:33:00.000-07:00I’ve been reading some online and print journals l...I’ve been reading some online and print journals lately too. And I am seriously entertaining giving up reading poetry journals because of them. Painstakingly crafted? Maybe. Elegant? Maybe. Lifeless, may.. well, maybe that's too critical.<BR/><BR/>But what I can tell from my readings is that few of the online or print journals cares if the poetical tourist is part of their audience. Club members only, please, is the most prevalent message broadcast. It's sad. They've accepted the fact that their only audience is themselves and so don't even make an attempt at broadening their base. <BR/><BR/>I have such a hard time hearing when being talked down to from such a high platform. I have a hard time taking anything as seriously as the journals of our time want me to take their poetry, their poets. It's depressing. Well, my idea of depressing.<BR/><BR/>"not good enough for current poetic standards"<BR/><BR/> ... hehehehehehehehe ...<BR/><BR/>I don't imagine you are, what with the pucker that's required by current standards for the butts of the MFAs setting those standards. And yet, none of us can name one of them that's finished in the money at a slam, or a bookstore. <BR/><BR/>The journals may have elegant presentations. But they don't have an audience, they don't have any idea why the tourists think they're blue-nosed idiots, and they don't have anything to offer the casual reader but disdain. <BR/><BR/>I think it's be a better idea to give up the journals than give up writing poetry. But that's only the opinion of a poetical tourist not all that enamored with the accommodations at most of today's current destinations. <BR/><BR/>You're too easy on them and too hard on yourself, CE. That's the narcissism working, huh? Maybe not ..<BR/><BR/> -blueBeau Bluehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01570982615331590643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-62790201269706644802007-05-28T12:38:00.000-07:002007-05-28T12:38:00.000-07:00Yes, the death of irony and the death of intelligi...Yes, the death of irony and the death of intelligibility as well. <BR/><BR/>People today seem to lack the personal 'sense of authority' to assume the role of narrator for fear of appearing like a didact. No one dares to mediate even their own imagery, to appear chauvinistic or pushy.<BR/><BR/>It suggests a certain listlessness, irresponsibility, or human abdication that I find troubling.<BR/> normAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-11230819262085433802007-05-28T12:13:00.000-07:002007-05-28T12:13:00.000-07:00Interesting focus here, CE.Interesting focus here, CE.sam of the ten thousand thingshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04378206265831223396noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14879983.post-7482436420028041602007-05-28T12:06:00.000-07:002007-05-28T12:06:00.000-07:00You might want to take a look at this new poetry j...You might want to take a look at this new poetry journal that's just starting up:<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.poetryrevolt.com/" REL="nofollow">Poetry Revolt</A>Hedgiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03073063597585826524noreply@blogger.com