| Poetry, take one |
| Friday, September 09, 2005 |
I'm more of a fan of Ted Kooser than I am of Jorie Graham. Poets like Kooser, such as James Wright, Robert Bly and William Stafford excite me with their direct and open poetry. Graham, and others like her, bores the crap out of me. All the allusions, all the ideas and all the words jam-packed into one poem sinks any chance of connection with it. Sure, let Graham sit in her ivory chair at the poetry table; however, please don't let me sit next to her, unless you want to watch me fall asleep face-down in my green beans.
"The silence between the notes are as important as the notes themselves," Mozart said. I believe this can be applied to poetry, as well. What excites me about Kooser is his directness. He presents the subject and lets the reader come to his or her own conclusion. This creates a leap of the imagination that is important in literature. Today, society is pretty much handed everything to them without any participation on the recipients' part. This is just pure laziness.
I enjoy reading Kooser's American Life in Poety at www.americanlifeinpoetry.com. He presents poets that are new to me and ones that follow his own style of writing. This, in turn, excites me and cause me to have hope for the future of poetry. |
posted by pimplomat @ 5:03 PM  |
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| 3 Comments: |
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Are you into Charles Simic? Holy shit, man, this guy is good. Pick up The World Doesn't End, if you haven't already. Come and visit me when he gives his guest lecture.
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I'm on the fence with Simic. I read The World Doesn't End and thought it was okay, but not mindblowing. Even though I enjoy the briefness of his poems, there's something about them that doesn't make my head explode in a good way.
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Hey, not everything can be as exciting as women having sex with machines.
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Are you into Charles Simic? Holy shit, man, this guy is good. Pick up The World Doesn't End, if you haven't already. Come and visit me when he gives his guest lecture.