It is hard, if not impossible, to describe things objectively. And objective description isn’t the task of poets. We aren’t surveyors, measuring the terrain and reporting numbers. We’re looking for the essence of the land.
– Ordinary Genius, 2009
Kim Addonizio
Poems aren’t products, anyway. Poems are what you make when you experience life in a certain way. Alive to yourself in the world, observant of inner and outer reality, and connected to language.
– Ordinary Genius, 2009
First Impressions of Sarah Lindsay’s Mount Clutter
It seems that Sarah Lindsay has a sure grip of poetry. Some first impressions: Continue reading “First Impressions of Sarah Lindsay’s Mount Clutter”
Where the Thesis is Going
I guess I haven’t yet described the particular direction of my thesis collection. I’m not entirely sure yet, in fact.
But I do have an inkling. I suppose one is never sure anyways about these things.
The inkling is this: Poetry and Science complement each other. There is a divide in U.S. society about the society’s cosmology, as Pattiann Rogers describes the term. The vastness of the universe – the incomprehensibility of it – begs for poetry. Poetry is how we humans explain to ourselves things we do not fully comprehend. Old myths have fallen by the wayside throughout human history. Progress always supersedes old myths, but only once society has made that choice. Old myths and world views – old cosmologies – fight hard to maintain their power, even to the point of violence. New cosmologies open doors to progress. New cosmologies beg poetry to further their cause. Poetry opens doors to new cosmologies. This is accomplished through wonder, beauty, and honesty. Poetry butts heads. Poetry breaks doors. Poetry does not know everything. Science does not know everything. Neither can describe things they don’t yet know about. Both are necessary for human progress and survival – to maintain a humanity in the face of the vast necessity of everything, in the face of the void, in the face of unknowing.
Discussion, of course, is welcome.
More on Wallace Stevens’ Concept of the Pressure of History
As I previously wrote here, I intend to follow up on the ideas I wrote about in the Introduction to Wallace Stevens Encounters. This is that post.
In that post, I mentioned that Pattiann Rogers expands Stevens’ ideas in her essay “Cosmology and the Soul’s Habitation”; however, although her ideas line up and extend Stevens’, she does not specifically mention his name. Perhaps Stevens’ theory has become so ingrained as to be an accepted part of the modern condition of humanity; in Rogers’ words, a piece of our contemporary cosmology. Continue reading “More on Wallace Stevens’ Concept of the Pressure of History”
Some Thoughts on Cosmology and Where We Are
My summer reading pile is about 18″ high, primarily poetry collections, so that’s about 25 books or so, I’d guess. I haven’t actually counted. And I know there are more that somehow wound up actually on my bookshelf. And I definitely know there are more sitting on my Amazon wishlist (don’t get mad, they make it easy).
– Sidenote here: One benefit, I’ve just realized, of physical books over, say, the Kindle or something, is that you get the sense of accomplishment by shrinking the aforementioned pile as books are read. Awesome sauce – Continue reading “Some Thoughts on Cosmology and Where We Are”
What are We Doing Here?
Why you’re here, at this blog, is up to you to decide… How you got here, why you’re reading, and everything else in relation to you sitting there reading this you have to answer for yourself.
Why I’m here is another story. I am using this space to keep track of my thoughts, ideas, inspirations, and everything else that I go through in the process of writing my MFA thesis in poetry. So that’s my motivation. Continue reading “What are We Doing Here?”
Poetic Idealism and the Search, pt. 1
Many of the readers who end up at this blog do so by searching Google with the phrase “idealism in poetry” or something similar. While I think the overall contents of the blog offer my thoughts on the topic, I am sure that many of these searchers are looking for research for their undergraduate or high school papers. This post will offer some reflection on the concept in general, but I would like to also point them toward the recently updated “plagiarism note” in the right column. Your teacher/professor will recognize a voice other than yours, and drop text into Google to figure out where it came from. Then you will fail the paper, if not the course. Be forewarned.
Reflection on Ching-In Chen’s The Heart’s Traffic
As other second–generation immigrant writers, Chin-In Chen addresses the American experience from a position of both belonging and not-belonging, which is clearly evident in her collection The Heart’s Traffic. The collection crosses embodies boundary-crossing beyond the typical use of plot (though that is present as well), and results in a comingled impression of life from the perspective of an immigrant and her family. As with many poetry collections, the evidence of the collection’s conceptual identity (in this case, border-crossing and existing in multiple realities concurrently) presents initially with the cover of the book. However, the reader will notice quickly that Chen’s collection follows through with these concepts in nearly every poem. Continue reading “Reflection on Ching-In Chen’s The Heart’s Traffic”
What Makes for a Successful Literary Submission?
So many submissions come in to the literary magazine I help staff – a relatively new literary magazine – that examining the framework of a “successful submission” becomes a lesson in self-reflection. From my experience working on various literary journals, the submissions that find a way through the editorial process have similar characteristics, even though the journal, the editors, and the submissions may be vastly different. For the most part, this framework can relate across different literary journals with different scopes as well. At the broadest level, I see the framework resting upon awareness. Continue reading “What Makes for a Successful Literary Submission?”