ING (A Collection of Poetry)

Matthew L. Kroll LT 901 Secondary Literature Review -ING (A Collection of Poetry) By Matthew L. Kroll

My dissertation will include a collection of postmodernist poetry and the subsequent critical commentary. I will approach this dissertation as an attempt to articulate answers to the questions: What is the poetic moment? How is the act of writing poetry and the meaning of a poem affected by the conventions of language and the technology of writing? How can poetry best express a shared human condition or experience through an individualized ‘I’ as the voice of the poem? My hope is to demonstrate poetry as an ‘opening’- a non-spatial ‘field,’ in which the moment of the poem contains the experience or thought inspiring the poem, the thinking through of the poem before writing, and the act of writing the poem- all of which are “written into the poem” (see Riley, Peter, below).

Beach, Christopher. “Conclusion: Reappropriation and Resistance: Charles Bernstein, Language Poetry, and Poetic Tradition.” ABC of Influence: Ezra Pound and the Remaking of American Poetic Tradition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992. 237-251.

The concluding chapter of Beach’s text examines Language poetry as a response to Pound and the tradition that followed him in American poetry. This specific engagement with Pound and his influence, however, is an immediate drawback of the chapter as it pertains to my dissertation, as Pound, his poetry, and the Modernist movement, is not something I aim to address directly. This chapter benefits my dissertation in terms of its contextualizing Language poetry within the larger field of American poetry. As Language poetry is inherently experimental and antiformalist, it is difficult to draw the theoretical or philosophical stances of the movement from the poetry itself. Beach’s scholarly discussion of the movement will help give me a greater understanding of the tools and techniques involved in Language poetry. Beach asserts that Language poetry “enacts a conflict between the possibilities of language to evade meaning and reference, on the one hand, and the activity of the poet in combining them, on the other” (p. 247). It is this conflict I wish to explore with my poetry, in

1 Matthew L. Kroll LT 901 Secondary Literature Review terms of working outside of the confines of formalist language and traditional poetic structure while hoping to still convey meaning.

Duncan, Robert. “Towards an Open Universe.” Poets on Poetry. Ed. Howard Nemerov. New York, NY: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1966. 133-146.

Robert Duncan was an American poet associated with Black Mountain poetics, a prominent school of postmodern American poetry. This essay addresses both the act of writing poetry and individual identity within a poem as an expression of a more cosmic human identity. Duncan suggests here that “the poem, the creation of the poem, is itself our primary experience of it” (p. 136). I will use this in support of my argument that the poem contains and embodies the experience inspiring the poem, the act of writing the poem, and the poem itself. Taking his term ‘primary experience’ to have a dualistic meaning, I will argue that the primary experience that inspires the poem becomes poetic as it is expressed in the act of writing poetry. The writing of the poem, then, becomes our primary experience of the event inspiring the poem as poetic. Duncan also suggests here that “the poem as a supreme effort of consciousness,” the attempt of the poet to express his individual consciousness in an immediate manner, “comes in a dancing organization between personal and cosmic identity” (p. 135). My poetry will participate in this ‘dance’ through the utilization of the first person voice as a mechanism of expressing the universal human experience. As with many of the essays by poets I will be using as secondary sources, one drawback of this essay is that Duncan speaks only of his poetry and his poetics. This subjective approach lacks a broader critical perspective that would be beneficial to my argument.

Ginsberg, Allen. Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems. London: Penguin Classics, 2009.

This collection of Ginsberg’s poetry contains his seminal work, “Howl.” Ginsberg was a major figure of the Beat movement. Ginsberg and the Beats inform and inspire my poetry in terms of their non-traditional structures and antiformalist approach. The everyday and often vulgar language common to Beat poetry is something I use to express concrete, individual experience and to vocalize angst. Ginsberg and the Beats believed in the spontaneity of the poetic moment. I believe that the poetic moment reaches its culminating point in the reading of the poem by the poet. The 2 Matthew L. Kroll LT 901 Secondary Literature Review spontaneous nature of the reading and how poets can manipulate the technology of writing to assist with the reading are some of the aspects of poetry I am attempting to explore within this collection. Also, the open criticism of American culture present throughout Ginsberg’s poems, and the Beat movement as a whole, are important influences on my poetry. One weakness of this text is that it lacks any critical commentary or scholarly response to Ginsberg’s work. But, as this text will serve primarily as a stylistic influence and inspiration, its lack of critical commentary can be sought in other sources.

Hoover, Paul, ed. Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1994.

This anthology provides an overview of, and background knowledge to, the field of postmodern American poetry. The introductory chapter gives a concise, informative synopsis of American poetry since (roughly) 1950. Being a general introduction, it lacks some critical depth when dealing with specific poets, movements, or schools of postmodern American poetry. However, it does have a solid academic approach and is written by a professional poet and editor with an acute knowledge of the subject. The scope of the text is very broad, but it contains works by several poets that will greatly influence my poetry including poets from the New York School (Frank O’Hara), the Beat movement (Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac) and Language Poetry (Bruce Andrews, Bernadette Mayer). The New York School and the Beat Movement influence my work in terms of its expression of everyday, personal experience and also its usage of informal language. The Language Poets influence my experimentation with structure and form as well as experimentation with breaking the rules and confines of formal grammar and syntax whilst maintaining meaning. This resource also includes essays on Poetics written by some of the poets contained within the anthology. Some of the essays that will inform my work include Robert Duncan’s “Equilibrations” and Bruce Andrews’s “Method,” amongst others. In his essay “Equilibrations,” Robert Duncan writes, “The poem is not a stream of consciousness, but an area of composition in which I work with whatever comes into it” (p. 628). This postmodernist stance, along with other similar views from postmodern poets and commentators that claim poetry is more akin to painting than prose literature, will greatly influence my writing process. These ideas will also help shape my commentary.

3 Matthew L. Kroll LT 901 Secondary Literature Review O’Hara, Frank. The Selected Poems of Frank O’Hara. Ed. Donald Allen. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.

This collection of O’Hara’s poetry includes a number of selections from throughout his career. It also contains “Personism: A Manifesto,” an essay by O’Hara in which he credits himself for starting the movement ‘Personism.’ As a founder of the New York School, O’Hara’s poetry uses informal, everyday language that tends to describe everyday experience. His antiformalist tone and structure displays a sharp wit and bold directness. As I have recently lived in New York City, O’Hara’s focus on urbanity and his depiction of New York City is a major influence on my poetry. O’Hara’s school of poetry attempts a more immediate communication between the poet and the reader. His poetry addresses the reader in a way that reaches beyond the meaning or emotional quality of the words. With O’Hara as inspiration, I try to achieve this immediacy and closeness, as opposed to the distance of traditionally poetic abstractions. As according to O’Hara: “Abstraction (in poetry…), involves personal removal by the poet…Personism…being so totally opposed to this kind of abstract removal …is verging on a true abstraction for the first time, really, in the history of poetry” (p. xvi). I read O’Hara as an embodiment of ‘the universal expressed through the voice of the individual’ which my dissertation will concern itself with. It is also in this essay that O’Hara gives the following instruction for writing poetry: “You just go on your nerve” (p. xiii). This is one of the driving forces behind what I hope to achieve in my dissertation in terms of the ‘feel’ of the poetry. A major weakness of the essay “Personism” is the personal and conversational nature in which it is written. Though this fits the aesthetic of the essay, the inherent egoism makes a theory of O’Hara’s poetics difficult to extract. Also, as a collection, it lacks critical material on, and critical response to, O’Hara’s poetry and poetics. Nonetheless, O’Hara had a major impact on postmodern American poetry, and as such is a figure I wish to address and include in my commentary.

Riley, Peter. “The Creative Moment of the Poem.” Poets on Writing: Britain, 1970-1991. Ed. Denise Riley. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan Academic and Professional Ltd, 1992. 92-113.

In this essay, Riley states that “[poetry] does not create or condition a field of any action other than its own” (p. 95). This sentiment is common throughout much of the poetics I will be 4 Matthew L. Kroll LT 901 Secondary Literature Review referring to in my commentary. My commentary will argue that poetry, though often reduced to a commodity, text, or concretized piece of literature, is itself the act of writing the poem. This act sets its own criteria for critique, and thus the poem must be engaged ‘from within.’ This essay will contribute greatly to my exploration of the poem as an act of writing, a moment of creation. Riley refers to his use of the term ‘poet’ as referring to “a protagonist…in a discourse which is not so much an abstraction as a scenario” (p. 92). This idea of the scenario, and other anti-abstractionist views, will heavily influence the commentary portion of my dissertation, as well. Also, Riley’s writing style in this essay is integral to my commentary as he intersperses his prose on the creative process with poetic interludes. The influence of this work on my content will be less obvious, but it will have a major impact on the actual writing process. “The poet writes into the poem” is a recurring mantra throughout this essay (p. 100ff). This mantra addresses my exploration of how the poet can express a shared human condition or experience using a first person voice in the poem. Riley suggests that the poet will always make himself present in the writing, whether intentionally or not. This phrase has a dualistic meaning in this essay, however. It also addresses my view of the poem as an ‘opening’ into which the act of writing takes the poet. For Riley, the poem unfolds as the poet “writes into” it. That is, poetry is not necessarily a premeditated text with a specific intended meaning. The weakness of this essay is that it does not address specific poets, poems or movements and tends to be very subjective.

Stevens, Wallace. The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play by Wallace Stevens. Ed. Holly Stevens. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1990.

This collection contains many of the major works of Stevens’ oeuvre. As a collection, it lacks critical commentary which would aide a more informed understanding of his poetry, but it does provide a window to the vast and varied body of work he produced in his lifetime. Though chronologically Wallace Stevens precedes the postmodern movement in American poetry, his work is indispensible for my dissertation. Stevens work can be read as an attempted reduction between the printed product of the poem and the act of writing poetry which I aim to explore and demonstrate.

5 Matthew L. Kroll LT 901 Secondary Literature Review In his poem “Of Modern Poetry,” Stevens refers to “[t]he poem of the act of the mind” (p. 175). Poetry, says Stevens, “has to be living” (p. 174). I refer to Stevens for inspiration in terms of creating poetry that breathes itself as an expression of the world, as opposed to a ‘planned’ text with a specific intended meaning. As postmodern American poetry is often a response to Stevens’ work, his influence will be less apparent in the formatting and structure of the poems I submit, but will be regularly addressed in my commentary as well as inspiring the writing process.

Stevens, Wallace. “Two or Three Ideas.” Poets on Poetry. Ed. Charles Norman. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1962. 363-375.

This essay on poetry by Wallace Stevens will have a major impact on my creative process and the poetry to be included in my dissertation. Here, Stevens proposes “the style of the poem and the poem itself are one” (p. 363). This idea will be a guiding force behind my poetry. My collection will engage in different styles from poem to poem, with certain common or unifying themes throughout. Part of my choice to work in different styles (inspired by different schools, movements and poets) is to show that the style of the poem and the poem itself are inseparable; they cannot be divorced and compartmentalized as distinct aspects of one poetic moment. Approaching poetry as having a certain primacy in expressing the life of human beings, and indeed a primacy in expressing Being, Stevens’ tells us: “The unity of style and the poem itself is a unity of language and life that exposes both in a supreme case” (p. 375). The aim of my poetry is to demonstrate such a unity between the style of each poem, the poem itself, the language choice used for each poem, and the experience from which I draw to write the poem. One weakness of this essay is that it is based on Stevens’ own poetry and his poetics. Thus, it is subjective. Any references he makes to other poets or poems are subjective insofar as he is referring to poets and poems he prefers based on his own taste and that help to support his poetics.