Harper’s Gripe with Contemporary American Poetry

Leave a comment

Mark Edmundson is not happy with the state of contemporary American poetry. His article “Poetry Slam,” published in the latest issue of Harper’s Magazine, takes Seamus Heaney, John Ashbery, W.S. Merwin, and other modern lionized poets to task for not writing enough about contemporary issues, including 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the growing class divide. In the article, which is only available in print, Edmundson states, “I often think that our poets now write as though history were over and they were living in a world outside collective time. They write as though the great public crises were over and the most pressing business we had were self-cultivation and the fending off of boredom.” He goes on to say, “Many of our poets are capable of work that matters. There’s a lot of talent in the room. But we need them to use it and to take some chances.”

Throughout the essay, Edmundson heaps praise upon the post-World War II-era poets, especially Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, who, according to Edmundson, did not shy away from confronting serious issue. I agree with him there, but I can think of several well-known contemporary American poets who also do not shy away from confronting issues. Our current Poet Laureate, Natasha Tretheway, for instance, often addresses the complexities of race, especially in her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Native Guard and her latest collection, Thrall. The previous Poet Laureate, Philip Levine, has never avoided addressing serious issues, considering he made a name for himself writing about class issues and the blue-collar Detroit factory workers. There are several younger poets, such as Terrance Hayes and Major Jackson, who have confronted a number of issues in their work. Even W.S. Merwin has frequently spoken about climate issues and the environment during interviews throughout the years.

Meanwhile, several journals frequently publish special issues dedicated to a particular topical issues. Red River Review, for instance, is currently seeking submissions about any topical issue. They just accepted one of my poems about climate change. FutureCycle Press is also seeking submissions about climate change for a special anthology as part of the press’ Good Works Project. Epiphany just published a wonderful war-themed issue, edited by Brian Turner, an Iraq vet who has won numerous poetry awards and whose first two books deal with the war in Iraq and the post-9/11 world.

I do agree with one main point in Edmundson’s essay, however. He lambasts the proliferation of MFA programs and states some MFA students just want a degree, then a volume of work, then a job as assistant professor. So focused on careers, they fail to take any risks, to really challenge language, or to really address any serious issue.

If you’re a poetry lover, the essay in Harper’s is well-worth the read. I’m eager to see the reaction from various poetry publications over the next few days and weeks.

The Letters

Leave a comment

In the age of social media, we’ve forgotten about the art of writing letters. As a way to honor that art form, I’ve added several collections of letters by poets to my summer reading list. Currently, I’m reading Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. The collection is an 800-words opus, but it is well worth the time for anyone interested in 20th Century American poetry. The letters begin early in Bishop and Lowell’s career, when Lowell was being mentored by William Carlos Williams. What I especially like about the collection is Bishop and Lowell’s comments on American poetry giants. Lowell refers to Williams’ third book of Patterson as “the best poetry written by an American.” He later refers to Theodore Roethke as large, but “elfinlike” man, a poet who began every day with “a shot of bourbon.”

The letters grow haunting in tone by the period of the 1960s, when Lowell remarks on the assassination of J.F.K. and describes staying inside all day, crying, watching the news. This is the same decade when many of Lowell and Bishop’s contemporaries died. After Randall Jarrell died from walking in front of a car, which Lowell and many others suspected was a suicide, he writes, “Oh, but he was an absolutely gifted, and noble man, poisoned and killed, though I can’t prove it, by our tasteless, superficial, brutal culture.”

They also have several letters back and forth about Sylvia Plath’s suicide and John Berryman’s suicide. Bishop refers to Plath’s death as “a tragic loss,” but then admits she can “scarcely bear to read her poems through, they are so agonized.” She also refers to Plath’s work as a bit formless, but “really a talent.” Bishop is less kind to Anne Sexton’s poetry.

The letters include a lot of funny moments too, especially Bishop’s complaints about teaching at Harvard and other schools. She gripes about the creative writing students refusing to read and wanting to tell her about their LSD trips. Then she complains that their poems are “competent and so DULL,” before joking that she’ll issue “dexedrine or pot.”

Words in Air is a great account of American poetry in the 20th Century, especially in the 1950s-1970s, the peak of Bishop and Lowell’s careers. The letters offer detail about their relationships with some of the most prominent poets of the last 100 years, and insights into their writing and revision process, their struggles with alcoholism and mental breakdowns, and the loss of their contemporaries. If you are interested in that period of American poetry, I also recommend the memoir Poets in Their Youth by Eileen Simpson, which recalls the tumultuous years she was married to Berryman. The book offers a fascinating perspective into the relationship among Lowell, Berryman, Jarrell, and Delmore Scwhartz, and like Words in Air, it is a reminder of a time when poetry occupied a larger space in the public sphere.

Next up, I plan to read the collection of letters from T.S. Eliot, published about a year ago.

Scranton Zine Fest!

Leave a comment

There is yet another wonderful literary/art event happening in northeast, PA this weekend. Stop by New Visions Studio and Gallery in Scranton for the third annual Scranton Zine Fest this Saturday. The event begins at noon and will feature dozens of zinesters from as far as MA to as close as Wilkes-Barre. The event will also include art for sale and a poetry reading beginning at 5:30. The featured readers include Rachael Goetzke, Steve Keating, Maggie Craig, Stanton Hancock, Jim Warner, and I.

At some point in the day, I’m  taking part in a panel discussion on publishing. Maggie Craig, a novelist, will discuss self-publishing, while I discuss the traditional route of publishing through literary magazines and small presses. It should make for an interesting discussion, especially for writers seeking to get their work out there.

For more about Zine Fest, including a full list of participants, visit the website and pick up The Weekender tomorrow for an in-depth article about the event.

Recent Publications

Leave a comment

A few of my poems have been published recently by a few online literary magazines, and I wanted to share the links here. Two of my poems, “First Day Student,” and “Listening to the Neighbors,” were published last week by Eunoia Review. The later poem will also appear in my book All That Remains, forthcoming in a few months through the press Unbound Content. Another poem, “So Many Years Later,” was published in May by Big River Poetry Review. This is a much older poem, which has been heavily revised, and I’m glad it found a home.

 

That’s all the news I have for now, but check back in a few days for information about Scranton Zine Fest!

Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I’ve sat in an audience and just listened to another poet or musician perform without worrying about also having to read my work. But tonight, I attended the Fourth Friday Open Mic series at the Dietrich Theater in Tunkhannock just to listen and enjoy the entertainment. I was especially impressed by the number of high schoolers that got up there and read their work. That takes a lot of guts and courage, and I doubt at that age I would have been able to do it. I didn’t read at my first open mic until college. Several of the students that read are part of the Breaking Ground Poets organization, led by Tunkhannock High School teacher Katie Wisnosky. The organization has held various poetry slams over the last year at different venues around northeastern, PA. I respect and admire Katie’s energy as a teacher and the way she has inspired her students to care about the art of writing poetry, or creating music. I wish more schools had similar support for the arts, or more teachers willing to create organizations similar to the Breaking Ground Poets.

If you want to see these students in action, then come by the Dietrich Theater this Sunday at 5 p.m. The students will compete in a poetry slam. The cost is $5 per ticket, and the money goes towards their trip to Chicago to compete in a national poetry slam. You should also check out the next open mic on June 28, which is free. It starts at 7, but get there earlier if you want to sign up to perform. I will be filling in for Laurel Radzieski as the emcee. and my friend Dave Hage will be the musical feature.

Some Useful Links Regarding Lit Mags

2 Comments

 

The process of submitting your writing to literary journals can be utterly daunting. One of the most popular databases, Duotrope, now charges a fee for its services, and unless you know what you’re looking for, it won’t yield much for a basic search. Another well-known resource, Poets & Writers magazine, has a classifieds section available online and in the back of the magazine. Some of my publishing credits came from resources I found in that classifieds section. However, that section can be hit or miss, and lately, it features more ads for conferences and grants than it does for literary magazines.

Recently, I started submitting new work to various magazines, and I’ve discovered two wonderful resources. One of the resources is called The Review Review, a website which publishes reviews of various magazines, thus providing information to writers about what the mags are looking for and the type of creative work they typically publish. Furthermore, the website includes a database of literary journals, and I’ve been mining the database every few days for new publishing opportunities. Check out the site and bookmark it. New reviews are published frequently, and new magazines are added to the database.

I also discovered a website created by Jeffrey Bahr, a poet whose work has been published in some of the most prestigious literary journals in the country, such as Iowa Review, Indiana Review, and Black Warrior Review. Basically, Bahr has a list of lit. mags on his website and provides short blurbs about their submission process. He rates them  in terms of difficulty, and Poetry magazine and The New Yorker top the list.  Keep in mind that just about every single publication on his list is fairly well-known, and even the journals at the bottom of the list, such as Main Street Rag, Tar River Poetry Review, and Spillway, have low acceptance rates. (Both Main Street Rag and Spillway rejected my work multiple times before I finally got an acceptance recently in each of those mags). But the list is worth checking out, especially for mid-level writers looking to break into some of the more well-known magazines.

Happy hunting!

.

An Opportunity for Short Fiction Writers

Leave a comment

I received a press release/call for submissions from Pixel Hall Press worth sharing. Later this year, the press plans to start a series entitled PHP Shorts, a “series of stand-alone short stories and novellas that will be published as eBooks. Some PHP Shorts may also be collected into print anthologies.” The press already publishes print and e-books, but wants to launch this new series because of the proliferation of Kindles, eReaders,  iPads, and tablets.

Here is more specific information on the submission process:

Before submitting a story to Pixel Hall Press, send a query email to Info@PixelHallPress.com. Wow the editors with a summary or synopsis, then tell them a bit about yourself. They will respond to all queries, but please be patient, since it may take a few weeks. Also, please understand that, as a small boutique publishing house, they cannot say “yes!” to every query, regardless of how good it is.

I know the editorial team behind this press, and they work hard to promote books they publish, so if you write short fiction, this is well worth checking out.

A Little Plug

Leave a comment

I’m entering the summer on a positive note, with a few poems forthcoming in solid literary magazines. First, I want to mention that my poem “R.F. Post” appears in the most recent issue of the UK-based art/literature magazine Popshot. This magazine is available at most Barnes ‘n Noble stores and online. What’s especially interesting about this journal is the way the editors combine art, fiction, and poetry. Each issue has a special theme, and the editors invite artists to illustrate some of the written work. Here is a picture of my poem and the accompanying illustration from the most recent issue, with the special theme of “imagination.”

 

537924_10100415776298078_928711230_n

The journal’s website has a PDF of some of the content from the new issue. You can check that out by clicking here. However, I encourage you to purchase a copy through the journal’s website or at your local Barnes ‘n Noble because it is a really cool magazine, one which blends different art forms.

Later this summer, my poem “Temp Worker” will be published in The Oklahoma Review, and I have poems forthcoming soon in Poetry Quarterly and Spillway. I’m also currently working on an essay for Poets’ Quarterly about T.S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams, specifically the influence of Ezra Pound and Imagism on their work. The essay comes out of a longer paper I did for one of my Ph.D. classes this semester. In other news, I’ll be doing a few weekend readings over the summer,  specifically in June and July. I will post more details about the readings here when the dates are finalized.

Happy May!

Why People Hate Poetry

Leave a comment

I came across this article (http://mobile.onmilwaukee.com/ent/articles/poetryhate.html) posted on the website OnMiluakee.com. It attempts to answer why people hate poetry. Some of the reasons given are simplistic, such as poetry is hard, but I do think the article comes up with some sound explanations, including that people have been exposed to a lot of bad poetry. Ed Makowski, the author of several poetry collections says, “There’s a lot of bad poetry. Much of it sounds like written down babble from a support group that somebody got on stage to talk at people. ‘I’ve got my five minutes here on this open mic and I want to make sure I confess every failed relationship or each time I was disappointed in my life, thanks for sitting there and taking it.'” I’ve been to too many open mics where this is true, where the poetry was written five minutes before sign-up time, or the reader goes way, way over the allowed time.

The article also provides some good advice for those unsure about poetry. Jennifer Benka, the former managing director of Poets & Writers, says, “It’s helpful to think about a poem as more like a painting. It is an art object that requires reflection, which requires a willingness to investigate and empathize and time.” Her quote is probably my favorite piece of advice given in the article. Yes, poetry does require a lot of reflection and time. Don’t expect meaning after one shallow glance.

There is one explanation left out of the article that I wish was explored, and that is the way poetry is taught. Too often, especially in high school and sometimes in college, poetry is taught like a math equation, where it is reduced to a mere series of beats and meter, pinned to the board and dissected. I have found this teaching method to be used by teachers or professors who have very little knowledge of poetry, but still have to fit it into the curriculum, so they teach nothing contemporary and reduce the craft to pure technique and equation. A few times I have taught an intro to literature course, and my students groaned when I told them we would be spending weeks on poetry. When I asked them to write about their experience with poetry, they wrote down horror stories of previous college classes or high schools classes in which all they did was dissect meters or circle metaphors in poems. No discussion of how they could or could not relate to the poem. No background given on the poet. Nothing taught to them other than the typical canonical poets. No opportunities given to write their own poems.

There are so many poetic schools out there that it’s likely something will click for the student and reader after more exploration. As poetry professor Susan Firer says, “There are many poetries. When someone tells me they don’t like or ‘get’ poetry, I just assure them they haven’t found their poetry yet.”