Curley's Confab: Highfalutin' Or Curiosity's Looting?

Last Tuesday (817/10), I commented in passing about the danger inherent in the laissez-faire poetics of Curley’s—warm, feel-good feedback, always accepting poets’ offerings with universal tolerance and generous praise (a good thing?), seldom dragging over the critical coals the dross that needs to be burnt off (not such a good thing?).

(While) I was mainly talking about my own work that seems to have for some time crawled on relatively low ground... I spoke about our anti-intellectual culture, so dumbed down that dumbing down is not even recognized as such. So we manage to communicate less and less nuance, subtlety and complexity with fewer and fewer words in our active vocabulary... in a way, becoming trivial, increasingly gullible and easily taken in by the machinations of the media and our politicians.

Here’s a statement by Geoffrey Hill, the present Oxford Professor of Poetry, (a position second in status only to the Poet Laureateship in England) which seems to address and echo my anxiety:

“Accessible is a perfectly good word if applied to supermarket aisles, art galleries, polling stations and public lavatories, but it has no place in the discussion of poetry and poetics. Human beings are difficult. We’re difficult to ourselves; we’re difficult to each other and we’re mysteries to ourselves; we’re mysteries to each other. One encounters in any ordinary day far more real difficulty than one confronts in the most “intellectual” piece of work. Why is it believed that poetry, prose, painting, music should be less than we are? Why does music, why does poetry have to address us in simplified terms, when, if such simplifications were applied to our own inner selves, we would find it demeaning?”

Many of you have had an immediate reaction to my last e-mail re. Hill. Some of the responses have been so substantial that I feel it would be good to share them with the whole list in the interest of generating a more extended and meaningful conversation on a subject of relevance to us all. --Ralph Nazareth, PoemAlley Facilitator


Yeah, yeah, but I betcha he puts mustard on his hot dogs.

Last week's discussion on all this was bothersome to me on many levels. I've often felt the same way about Curley's Tuesday nights but have never been able to reconcile my feelings about the place. So many different thoughts and memories swirl through my head when I think of Curley's and what it is and isn't. What it has always been is a place where anyone, and I do mean ANYONE, can come and read their material no matter how meager or great. A place where they won't be feel threatened (well that's nearly always true) and can offer up without fear that their inferior material will be ridiculed. It has always been more about community than artistry. If it wasn't why would we continue week after week? But that isn't to say there aren't moments of artistry...moments of genius even. I'll never forget those nights when the guys from LibHouse came and read for us. Those moments of raw energy. The hate, the hurt, the love and the reaching out to be understood--or just heard--sometimes for the first time in their lives. There are also the nights when someone will bring in something that isn't quite right. A word here, a line break there. That's all that's needed and the end result? Is it art? Maybe. Is it poetry? I don't know. Is it worth our time? You bet. It's community. It's communication.

You carry much on your shoulders. The argument of whether or not our Tuesday evenings are too trivial or not complex enough is another 50 pound sack of doubt you've hoisted up there. Whatever you do--do NOT doubt the worth of Tuesday nights. It might not be art but it is of great value. For some it might be the rarest of chances to be heard for the first, and possibly only time, in their lives. That ain't art Brother...it's a gift.

You are too hard on yourself by half. This comes from someone who knows something about being hard on oneself. If I may be so bold, but give yourself a gift take a Tuesday night off every now and then. We won't sink. Go to a movie. Go seek out lovers making nasty in a park somewhere, better yet, go make nasty with someone. You know you are loved by many, many, many people--but it matters little if you don't take a little time to love yourself.

Love,
Bill Buschel


Bravissimo, Ralph,

George Orwell examines this decerebration of the English language in his 1948 novel which I've re-read every decade or so since 1974. And I find myself constantly at odds with the insidious mind-warping influence of our politically correct non-culture which sez that I may offer my opinions on, say, social issues only so long as they are couched in the most inoffensively generic, simplistic, non-specific, non-accusatory terms imaginable.

And my own best remedy for a limited vocabulary has been reading about a book a week for nigh unto 500 fortnights now.

RM


You are exactly correct about the trivialization of our lives...

And sorry to say, I doubt you will effect any change at Curleys...though if carefully discussed, you just might.

It is especially interesting to me because last night I deliberately read the Pisan Cantos in full, and as I was reading, ignoring the Chinese, enjoying the Spanish, not recalling any of the Greek and other ancient references, not the 1920s "our gang" references, except for Wyndham Lewis and Eliot... I nevertheless enjoyed the representation of insanity and mood and caginess and weather under my belly and all the hazards of Pound's life at the time he was recollecting in poetry, and I especially liked the way he used profanity with only first initials and dots and how he would suddenly burst in with some comment a prisoner or guard might have interrupted his thought with, though my curiosity was primarily concerned with "how"... How did even our best poets recognize poetry in Pound's rantings? How did they have the courage to demand he not be kept in Italy and later that he not be kept at St. Elizabeth's? How did they defend themselves, and could they in anyone have that kind of influence in today's liar society?…

Oh, also, since Pound was the first Bolingen Award person, we can check that off at the same time. Especially, since the Yale poets were accused of giving the award to a fascist traitor. Times really haven't changed that much.

Ann Yarmal, PoemAlley Co-Founder


No one's stopping anyone from grabbing a dictionary...

Some people read poetry with unfamiliar or specialized references to history, medicine or culture, but to be able to understand it right off the bat takes the fun out of figuring out what it is about (not to mention the sometimes serendipitous differences in interpretation two people can have in the process!). And what makes poetry so powerful has as much to do with what words are used as how they're arranged. As with figuring out crossword puzzles, a lot can be inferred by how unfamiliar words are applied. And if something is too obscure, why should that be a threat? Why should we feel the need to apologize for being intellectual (as opposed to elitist). I like coming to Curley's because, despite the occasionally heated debates, I enjoy seeing where people's contributions take the conversation.

Rolf Maurer