Modern and Contempory American Poetry

[ussusimiel]

I recently did a free online course called Modern and Contemporary American Poetry. It was very interesting and I got a lot out of it. I was introduced to a lot of new styles and forms of poetry and thought I might post a few of them in here to see whether other people had come across them and what they think of them.

The course started off with Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman and wended its way through Imagism, William Carlos Williams, Modernism, Gertrude Stein, Harlem Renaissance, Formalism, the Beats, the New York School, the Language Poets, John Cage, Conceptualism among other trends and people.

I'll post the more contemporary poetry initially and that may lead back to their lineage and their precursors. Here's a few from the New York School:

The Day Lady Died
By Frank O'Hara

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
.................................I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing


Some Trees
By John Ashbery

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Such comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Placed in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.


Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams
By Kenneth Koch

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.
2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.
4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

u.

[Avatar]

I like the Williams one. Not so sure about the other two...some nice lines in the second, but overall maybe not really.

The first I am more torn on.

No mention of Emerson there?

--A

[ussusimiel]

The O'Hara poem is from a book called Lunch Poems. He puts in a lot of what he does and sees while he is on his lunch break. Whitman did the same thing (one of the reasons his poems are so long ), attempting to include everything in his poems. This particular O'Hara poem is interesting (and moving, to me) because it marks the day Billie Holiday died.

The one about Williams is funny because it's a kind of a piss-take on this poem:

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

I really like the Ashbury poem, it's very lyrical, but its meaning is extremely slippery.

u.

[Avatar]

The one about Williams is funny because it's a kind of a piss-take...

Ah, that's why it sounded familiar.

--A

[Vraith]

The one about Williams is funny because it's a kind of a piss-take...

Ah, that's why it sounded familiar.

--A

I'd read the williams in a grad class, but the piss-take never came up...you'd think that would be well-known/important among the poet-geeks.

But that's one of the things I like about Whitman...fairly regularly he's poking fun at poetry and its "devices" while and by using them very well.

[ussusimiel]

No mention of Emerson there?

The course focused on quite specific trends and movements in modern US poetry. Some big names were missing from those dealt with: Emerson, Eliot, Moore, Bishop, Lowell, Sexton, Roethke, Plath, Berryman, Rich, Levertov etc. Anyone with a more traditional approach or a more meaning focused one was not included.

I'd read the williams in a grad class, but the piss-take never came up...you'd think that would be well-known/important among the poet-geeks.

Kock is notable for his piss-takes. The one I was familiar with was this one:

Mending Sump

“Hiram, I think the sump is backing up.
The bathroom floor boards for above two weeks
Have seemed soaked through. A little bird, I think
Has wandered into the pipes, and all’s gone wrong.”
“Something there is that doesn’t hump a sump,”
He said; and through his head she saw a cloud
That seemed to twinkle. “Hiram, well,” she said,
“Smith is come home! I saw his face just now
While looking through your head. He’s come to die
Or else to laugh, for hay is dried-up grass
When you’re alone.” He rose, and sniffed the air.
“We’d better leave him in the sump,” he said.

We did 'Mending Wall' on the course as an example of poets who weren't gone on Modernism in poetry.

u.

[Orlion]

Interesting topic. I like it. Sure, the Ashbury one is my favorite... I like to think the poet put effort into his/her work.

Essentially, if some random hipster could write it, it is garbage to me.

This will help diversify my experiences, since my connection with American poetry is mostly with Auden, Frost, and Stephen Crane... speaking of which:

War Is Kind

Stephen Crane (1899)


Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind,
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them.
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom--
A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbles in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind!

[ussusimiel]

Welcome aboard, Orlion! My! aren't we becoming the literary bunch, reading Joyce and discussing contemporary American poetry I'm afraid, however, there's a lot of what's going to seem like hipster garbage when I post some of the language and conceptualist poems I'll try and put that off as long as possible, and I'll do my best to convince you of their merits

I like the Stephen Crane poem. I'm not familiar with his writing at all. (I know some of Hart Crane's work alright.) It looks like he could easily have been part of the course, as he strikes me as quite modern.

Here is an Emily Dickenson poem and a few more modern people in a mode that could be called similar to hers:

I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –


Poet’s Work
by Lorine Niedecker

Grandfather
...advised me:
......Learn a trade

I learned
...to sit at desk
......and condense

No layoff
...from this
......condensery


"It isnt for want"
by Cid Corman

It isnt for want
of something to say--
something to tell you--

something you should know--
but to detain you--
keep you from going--

feeling myself here
as long as you are--
as long as you are.


The Way
By Rae Armantrout

Card in pew pocket
announces,
“I am here.”

I made only one statement
because of a bad winter.

Grease is the word; grease
is the way

I am feeling.
Real life emergencies or

flubbing behind the scenes.

As a child,
I was abandoned

in a story
made of trees.

Here’s the small
gasp

of this clearing
come “upon” “again”

u.

[Vraith]

Heh...Armantrout, another jokester...and with a strangely referential bent for a [theoretically] language poet standing right out in that one:

Grease is the word; grease
is the way

I am feeling.

Grease is the word, is the word that you heard // it's go mood it's got feeling // Grease is the time, is the place is the motion // Grease is the way you are feeling.

[aliantha]

I caught the "Grease" reference too, Vraith.

I'm reading along but not commenting. I like some poetry, but I haven't read enough to even pretend to know what I'm talking about.

[Orlion]

That's all I ask u, but good luck with Ginsberg... talentless, hipster bastard

It seems to me that a lot of the more contempory poetry tries for a more organic, stream-of-conscious feel than what you get with more traditional, structured poetry. And that is what most are trying to do: they are trying to get away from traditional structure and something more post-modern... of course, they have to compete with what appear to be the much more talented poets of yesteryear.

Stephen Crane is better known for his prose work, like The Red Badge of Courage or The Open Boat. I don't know the name for it, but most of his poetry is usually a concise statement of an argument followed by a more concise response. For example:

Supposing that I should have the courage
To let a red sword of virtue
Plunge into my heart,
Letting to the weeds of the ground
My sinful blood,
What can you offer me?
A gardened castle?
A flowery kingdom?

What? A hope?
Then hence with your red sword of virtue.

A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never — "

"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.

I'm reading along but not commenting. I like some poetry, but I haven't read enough to even pretend to know what I'm talking about.

Ah, come on, ali! That's exactly what the contempory poets want you to think! That way, they can keep you in the dark and awe you with their sub-par prose

[Vraith]

And that is what most are trying to do: they are trying to get away from traditional structure and something more post-modern... of course, they have to compete with what appear to be the much more talented poets of yesteryear.

Oh, then you must love Epithalamion...the very definition of structure. [and perhaps the most horrible famous poem ever...in close running anyway with a fair number of Shakespearean sonnets and most of Milton.

Really, though, there's plenty of structure and talent around.
I'd put ee cummings up against anyone of anytime...among other reasons because he didn't make the meaning or the poem fit a structure, the structure [or lack, or subtle/subliminal] was entirely in service to the poem. This, for instance ---> www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/11856

is purely brilliant: [excerpt of...the first 2 stanzas.]

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

_________________

[Orlion]

Whoops! Almost edited Vraith's post and lost it instead of responding to it I'll clean it up later, at least the content was not lost!

And that is what most are trying to do: they are trying to get away from traditional structure and something more post-modern... of course, they have to compete with what appear to be the much more talented poets of yesteryear.

Oh, then you must love Epithalamion...the very definition of structure. [and perhaps the most horrible famous poem ever...in close running anyway with a fair number of Shakespearean sonnets and most of Milton.[/quote] Never heard of it. Plus, I happen to like Milton

Really, though, there's plenty of structure and talent around.
I'd put ee cummings up against anyone of anytime...among other reasons because he didn't make the meaning or the poem fit a structure, the structure [or lack, or subtle/subliminal] was entirely in service to the poem.

Ultimately, I do not think you can have a poem without lyrical strictures (be they blank verse or much more stringent). That's what makes them poems, for Cthulhu's sake. Without structure, you have prose. That's all fine and artistic in its own way, but not in any poetic way. For example, if I write:

I slip on gravel.
Number 3 stone, from the quarry...
I slip and f
a
a
a
a
l
l
Scrape my knees.
You never returned my call.

That is to poetry as fan fiction is to a Tale of Two Cities. There's a difference between crafting and just being plain silly. I don't care how deep and brooding that last line makes me seem.

[Vraith]

I slip on gravel.
Number 3 stone, from the quarry...
I slip and f
a
a
a
a
l
l
Scrape my knees.
You never returned my call.

That is to poetry as fan fiction is to a Tale of Two Cities. There's a difference between crafting and just being plain silly. I don't care how deep and brooding that last line makes me seem.

Heh! ironically, that is remarkably [and perhaps horribly for both of us] similar to one of the very first poems I ever wrote [brooding early teen!].
Edited to add, cuz I just forgot...Milton? Really?
I'm completely convinced that the world would be a better place if, for example, "Paradise Lost" was...lost.

[Orlion]

I slip on gravel.
Number 3 stone, from the quarry...
I slip and f
a
a
a
a
l
l
Scrape my knees.
You never returned my call.

That is to poetry as fan fiction is to a Tale of Two Cities. There's a difference between crafting and just being plain silly. I don't care how deep and brooding that last line makes me seem.

Heh! ironically, that is remarkably [and perhaps horribly for both of us] similar to one of the very first poems I ever wrote [brooding early teen!].

Heh... my poetry consisted of terrible rhymes and mirrors. Lots of sanity-shattering mirrors

Edited to add, cuz I just forgot...Milton? Really?
I'm completely convinced that the world would be a better place if, for example, "Paradise Lost" was...lost.

While we are sharing bizarre, inexplicable, and unorthodox viewpoints, I oftentimes refer to Alan Ginsberg as the Adolf Hitler of American Poetry.

[Vraith]

I oftentimes refer to Alan Ginsberg as the Adolf Hitler of American Poetry.

Vee vill vash zee Amazon river mit V-2's und clean zee oily primitives from zee Carib & Gulf of Mexico
Rub that smog uf blubbery Eskimo cook fires off zee North Pole, wipe up all the pipelines in Alaska mit zee naked labor uf zee jews and omozexsuals.

[ussusimiel]

I'm not sure what to make of that

....Armantrout....and with a strangely referential bent for a [theoretically] language poet standing right out in that one:

Grease is the word; grease
is the way

I am feeling.

We did an interesting reading of this poem and the background to it. The first four parts are a collage of things she had picked up/overheard and noted down with lots of other stuff in a notebook. The second part (from 'As a child') follows from them and can be read as showing of how memory (randomly activated) can drop us back to the primal memories of childhood. The reference to 'grease' then becomes a clever invoking of the slide/slip/trip into memory that is enacted by in the poem. The 'gasp' is that surprise we experience when a vivid childhood memory surfaces, and here she equates it with the process of writing itself. The 'upon' is the storytelling 'Once upon a time', and 'again' is the surprise that writing brings to us each time we succeed in surrendering to the act.

That's all I ask u, but good luck with Ginsberg... talentless, hipster bastard

I'll at least be able to do some justice to 'Howl', which, before this course, I would have Orlionised (as in 'pulverised' rather than 'lionised' )

I'd put ee cummings up against anyone of anytime...among other reasons because he didn't make the meaning or the poem fit a structure, the structure [or lack, or subtle/subliminal] was entirely in service to the poem.

I like cummings and I was surprised that he didn't make it onto the course. However, on reflection, when I read him I am always surprised (once you get past the typographical idiosyncrasies) at how conventional his themes are. I like that about him, but it's probably the reason he wasn't dealt with; not radical enough

Ultimately, I do not think you can have a poem without lyrical strictures (be they blank verse or much more stringent).

This is one of the most interesting questions that arose for me out of the course, because by the end it seemed that some of the pieces we were looking at were more music or photography than poetry. I'm still engaged with that question and I've found that it's one worth asking.

Milton? Really?
I'm completely convinced that the world would be a better place if, for example, "Paradise Lost" was...lost.

Eliot was of a similar opinion. He thought that 'Paradise Lost' was brilliant, but that only Milton could write like that. Unfortunately, loads of people tried to emulate him and produced reams of dross. I'm still of two minds about 'Paradise Lost' myself. I've read the first couple of Books, but I haven't finished it yet. I'm not quite sure what the attraction is for people.

I'm reading along but not commenting. I like some poetry, but I haven't read enough to even pretend to know what I'm talking about.

Welcome ali! Please comment, because later on I'll be posting pieces by people like: Susan Howe, Ron Silliman and Lyn Hejinian, whose work is very close to prose and it'd be great to have a prose writer's perspective on it.

u.

[Vraith]

I'd put ee cummings up against anyone of anytime...among other reasons because he didn't make the meaning or the poem fit a structure, the structure [or lack, or subtle/subliminal] was entirely in service to the poem.

I like cummings and I was surprised that he didn't make it onto the course. However, on reflection, when I read him I am always surprised (once you get past the typographical idiosyncrasies) at how conventional his themes are. I like that about him, but it's probably the reason he wasn't dealt with; not radical enough

Well, really, there are/have been almost zero radical subjects in poetry [which, I think, is what you really meant...or should have, anyway, because....] all that matters is the themes [what you have to say about a subject] and the form [how you say it] which together with other things result in the art/importance...which you are either missing or dismissing when you say you are "getting PAST the "typographical idiosyncrasies."
"Typographical idiosyncrasies" is no different than "Too many notes." [an apocryphal tale in itself]. There can only BE "too many notes" IF some of the notes don't contribute. Which is surely possible...but not always applicable just because there are lots of notes.

I, obviously, have OPINIONS!! [snotty old lady voice sniffing at me and saying "opinions."] about poetry [heh...among other things].

This is one great thing about ee, to stay with a particular train...he could say a thing in such a way that anyone who could read could get it [I'm talking pieces/parts/lines/essentials points] yet intellectuals/lit/phil/poet geeks could still argue about it, delve, mine it.

And none of us should ever forget that the thing called "poetry" has existed for different purposes in every era. It isn't like a wheel, which no matter the exact placement/purported function is only meant to rotate.
P.S. You should take that as satire! What else to you call real poetry with fake german superpidity inserted?

[Avatar]

I've never much cared for most of ee cummings really. Don't even know if I can say why...just never worked for me.

--A

[sgt.null]

I've never much cared for most of ee cummings really. Don't even know if I can say why...just never worked for me.

--A

i like cummings.

but my favorite modern poet is Thomas Lux


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Lux