Friday, April 27, 2018

On poetry criticism


Perhaps modern discussions on criticism aren’t ever going to go anywhere.  The July 1994  issue of the The Times Literary Supplement was devoted to critical theory, but I read only the essay, Doing Things with Words, Criticism and the attack on the subject" by Denis Donoghue all the way through.  The other articles and essays dealt with the modern (and I guess it is still modern) critical argument that literature and art ought to be political.  A poet arguing for revolution in a Latin American country is good.  A poet like Wordsworth who wrote whimsical unpolitical poems for the most part is bad.  The TLS reviewers were uncomfortable with the need to politicize literature, but did not (as far as I could tell by skimming the articles) actually defend poets who didn’t have political goals in mind when then wrote. 

Arguing against the consensus of that TLS issue, as Denis Donoghue summarized, criticism has to be ancillary and subsequent to literature.  Years ago I read a lot of poetry that adhered to the Communist Party Line.  It was awful stuff.  I think Harold Bloom would argue that any poetry adhering to any party line must of necessity be awful stuff.  It can’t have been inspired by the poet.  It must have been inspired by the Party Line with the poet doing his or her best to do something good with it.

Of course there is always the poet who says, in effect, “I really do believe in the Party Line (of whatever) and so my poems are inspired by me (however a poet is inspired) and not the Party Line.   I’m not convinced by that argument, but one can’t really argue with the poet who is.

The critic I am most impressed with in these later modern times is Helen Vendler.  Unlike I. A. Richards she does close readings, and she is very good.  She has no grand system or philosophy of literature that I’ve read her arguing thus far, but she will argue that a particular poem of Wallace Stevens is excellent, and proceed with a close reading that will probably convince you that she is right.  I appreciate her sort of criticism.

I have read a number of critics in the past who take a different approach, who do promote systems and philosophies (i.e., party lines) of poetry, and while I can’t be sure that none of that sort of thing (especially the ideas of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound) isn’t stuck in my psyche some place, I can’t at this moment bring a single bit of it to mind.

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Running Still



    I’ve been running half
    The night,  never finding
    Her here.  I saw the
    Evidence of past hours
    And now she’s missing.
    They say this is normal
    For this stage of things.

    I don’t believe what
    They say.  I’ve heard and
    Seen too much.  They’ve
    Been wrong at every
    Turn.  I can’t accept
    This turning a page
    In our album, seeing her

    Thirty-one looking eighteen,
    Her skin shining as she dived
    Into a pool and when I took
    Her sailing that first time
    She smiled her delight.
    A flock of pigeons took
    To flight as I ran by.

In the Sea



    I was diving back then,
    Out beyond the surf
    Or in it, whatever the weather,
    Whether the water was murky
    Or clear.  I didn’t care.
    It was the search I
    Loved -- up the coast

    And down, my energy
    Upheld me.  Looking back
    Like old people do, I
    I think I valued the
    Process – what it
    Was like to be there
    Seeing fish of every hue,

    Of every purpose
    Look me in the eye
    And wait for what
    I next might do. Back
    In those days everything
    I said to the shore was lost
    In eddies of misunderstanding.

Mountain Music

  

    We liked the soft Mexican music
    Wafting our way from a garage
    Across the street.  We used to
    Stop at a restaurant in Banning
    After having one of her
    Medical examinations up
    Over the mountain in Loma Linda
   
    Where the best were said
    To work; so it was strange to
     See them fail again and again.
    The music though was nice. 
    We knew the nurses and
    Waitresses.  Susan would
    Forget but I’d remind her,

    Standing at the side porch
    Listening.  Looking up at
    How the sky had turned a
    Pale shade of blue.  She was
    My great passion.  I often
    Wondered as she paused to
    Listen, what I was to her.