So what is it?
Earl Gray
"You can argue with me but, in the end, you'll have to face that fact that you're arguing with a squirrel." - Earl Gray
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Question
This isn't a trick question. "All successful poems" means precisely that: every noteworthy poem on every topic for every audience and use in every form or genre and in every language and culture throughout human history.
So what is it?
So what is it?
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Another 9-11 poem
It was forty years ago: the morning of September 11th, 1973. Chilean President Salvador Allende's land reforms and nationalization of copper mines had met with economic sanctions from the Nixon administration. Three generals were approached by American operatives and asked to stage a coup. The first two refused and were killed. The third, Augusto Pinochet, accepted.
The overthrow began in Allende's birthplace, the port town of Valparaiso. During its unfolding, the complicity of the police forces in manipulating events became more evident. As he vowed in a final radio speech to his people, Allende died performing his duties in the presidential palace in Santiago. Among his final words were these, on the death of democracy in his country:
"Keep in mind that, much sooner than later, the great avenues will again be opened through which will pass free men to construct a better society."
By the Pinochet regime's own estimates, 3,095 political prisoners were tortured and killed, including 1,200 "desaparecidos", many of whose bodies were dumped into the Mapocho River or directly into the ocean.
As we mourn the victims of the 2001 attack on the Twin Towers, let us not forget those of the original 9-11 tragedy.
Beans (D.P. Kristalo).
"Beans" by D. P. Kristalo
September came like winter's
ailing child but
left us
viewing Valparaiso's pride. Your face was
always saddest when you smiled. You smiled as every
doctored moment lied. You lie with
orphans' parents, long
reviled.
As close as coppers, yellow beans still
line Mapocho's banks. It
leads them to the sea;
entwined on rocks and saplings, each
new vine recalls that
dawn in 1973 when
every choking, bastard weed grew wild.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Competence?
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| Earl the Squirrel's Rule #71 |
Why, you go out and acquire them, of course!
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| Armin Shimerman plays "Quark" |
If poetry is about poems you seek out specific recommendations from consumers: critics, bird dogs and readers. This approach gives us eclectic sources like The Hypertexts. Editors might be surprised to hear how many interesting poems people have encountered in workshops, open mics or elsewhere. How can it hurt to ask your readership for tips? To paraphrase Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #111: "Treat subscribers like family. Exploit them."
I enjoyed Michael's article. However, it seems that Mr. Robbins and I have very different definitions of competence. For example, regarding "Apple Slices" he writes:
"Now, this is crushingly banal (and, at the end, questionably grammatical). It's not just that this scene of adolescent wholesomeness is textbook workshop pablum, but that it has been platitudinized. It's trite and conservative.
"But it's eminently competent."
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| Earl the Squirrel's Rule #11 |
Then there is this:
"The merely competent should study Mlinko's work with envy."
I appreciate the bold statement. In my time I may have made a few, myself. The problem is that this sample illustrates what Michael is bemoaning, not what he is championing:
You never hear of Ixion, tied to a revolving wheel,
but it's an axiom that, sooner or later, a hurricane'll hit here.
Before we pursue that, though, we must make the same detour Mr. Robbins did in considering Mark Edmundson's "Poetry Slam" article in Harper's Magazine:
Mark Edmundson: "Contemporary American poetry speaks its own confined language, not ours. It is, by and large, pure. It does not generally traffic in the icons of pop culture; it doesn't immerse itself in ad-speak, rock lyrics, or politicians' posturing: it gravitates to the obscure, the recondite, the precious, the ancient, trying to get outside the mash of culture that surrounds it."
Michael Robbins: "This is just not true..."
"Not true?" The Ange Mlinko excerpt was not obscure? Not recondite? Exactly how many anglophones do we think will know who Ixion was? Greek mythology isn't ancient and "outside the mash of culture" here in North America? What could be more precious than speaking of Ixion using quaint contractions, the last of which breaks voice and rhythm?
In an era when few MFAs grads know whether "Prufrock" is verse or free verse competence is a far greater and rarer accomplishment than some seem to think.
Footnotes:
¹ - "New Yorker" poems = throwaway poems by celebrated poets.
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Monday, August 26, 2013
Ten Vital Issues Poets Ignore
Studies will show that in large families the lower that children are in the birth order the more likely they are to appreciate verse. Why do you suppose that would be?
There are always certain subjects best avoided. In polite company, sex, politics and religion qualify. Bringing up Superbowl XL won't make you friends in Seattle. Canadians would rather forget the terrible summer beer strikes of 1982, despite the crucial role they played in their nation's sovereignty. Don't jinx things by mentioning power outages along the U.S. eastern seaboard.
Among poets there are many taboo subjects. These include, in ascending order of seriousness, the following, many of which overlap:
10. Multimedia
Long before web browsers had video support, one of my favorite human beings wrote a book in HTML and posted it online for free public consumption. When readers got to the part depicting a chanteuse singing in a nightclub users could click on the lyrics and hear someone play the song in the background. As crude as it was, Internet multimedia was born!
Since then, and despite amazing advances in technology and software, poetry's use of multimedia has been disappointing, amounting to little more than videtaped slams or, worse, readings.¹ Perhaps in another decade, with all of this science, poetry will finally be as visually stimulating and entertaining as it was in prehistoric caves.
9. Copyright
Copyright infringement, if not outright plagiarism and piracy, is the order of the day on the Internet as it was among people when poetry was at its height. How can we promote something we aren't even allowed to perform without tracking down the copyright holder and getting specific permission? We can't see a dance band without hearing covers of popular songs. Other than Poetry Out Loud, when was the last time you saw anyone perform¹ a contemporary poem they didn't write?
For now, poets would do well to concentrate on writing something worth reading. Once they accomplish that they might work on writing something worth stealing.
8. Performance
Speaking of "Poetry Out Loud", why is it for kids only? What message does this send?
Answer: That adults don't perform poetry. And, sure enough, they don't! Not even authors¹!
Now imagine how popular songs or plays would be if they were never performed.
Why would younger siblings appreciate verse more than their older brothers and sisters? Because Mommy and Daddy read Dr. Seuss to the elder children. They recited it to the youngest. Such is the difference performance can make.
7. Anti-aesthetics
Prosody may be humankind's oldest science, predating astronomy and medicine. Nevertheless, its collected wisdom is rejected by neophytes who then, in a best case scenario, spend years reinventing what they refuse to learn. Little, if anything, comes of this hubris but, if something did, it would be added to the knowledge base and ignored by the next generation.
Perhaps this is a charming aspect of youth.
It is far less endearing in their educated elders.
6. Overproduction
The proliferation of Creative Writing and MFA courses, often at the expense of English ones, is only one explanation for the explosion in production. There are thousands of vanity--sorry, "showcase"--sites online, including many Facebook groups. Slam continues to thrive. Those responsible for this overproduction actually boast about this emphasis on quantity rather than quality. "There is more poetry being written and published today...blah, blah, blah..."
That little of this is actually poetry by any coherent definition doesn't matter. The devolution from free verse to prose poetry to lineated prose feeds into this effort as poetry becomes a strictly participation sport. It's more like yoga than an art form competing for an audience. Try bringing up this topic in a room where 99% of the occupants are enablers or perpetrators. At the very least, we are reminded that, while we can't have demand without supply (barring prohibition or people demanding the impossible), we can certainly have supply without demand.
5. The Watermelon Problem
With one wave of my magic wand I just made you Editor-in-Chief of the largest poetry venue in the world. Your excitement wanes as you read through the brain droppings that people submit, knowing you'll have to select a few dozen of these for your next edition. This goes on for fifty years. You begin to wonder if you shouldn't have taken that job at your uncle's mortuary. More lulz.
Out of the blue, a once-in-a-lifetime brilliancy arrives!
What do you do? If you stop and think how this will make the rest of your offerings appear you might refuse to publish it. After all, do you really want to hear your subscribers whine about why all poetry can't be like this?² Do you treat it like every other poem you publish, none of which have ever been quoted or performed? That is, do you bury it in the dirt you've had to publish for half a century? Or do you highlight it? If so, how? Do you cancel all other poems and publish that verse, filling in the rest of the edition with discussions of the masterpiece?
If a top periodical cannot promote the best poem of its time what hope is there for lesser works? Or for poetry's revival?
4. Content Regency
Attend any class. Read any review or scholarly criticism written in the last few decades. Spend some time on the blogosphere. What is the focus of conversation? Style? Form? Rhythm? Sonics? Or is it subject matter? We giggle when non-poets reveal that they prefer verse about bunnies to poems about clouds, yet this is exactly what we find in most literary commentary. Only the language is different. Artless lineated prose is praised if it is about philosophy, psychology or literature itself. The world yawns. When it dares to demand [gasp!] poetry in its poetry the expressions "unsophisticated" and "anti-intellectual" loom. If 90+% of the poems written today were sonnets about cats would those who complain be accused of ailoraphobia?
Remember when people used to say that poety is not about what you say but how you say it? That is sacrilege now.
3. Education and The Inspiration Myth
In 2013 the average English or MFA graduate knows less about the elements of poetry than the average grade six graduate in 1913. We have Creative Writing professors who don't know whether "Prufrock" is free verse or metrical. We wonder what students are being taught, only to discover that the focus is on content (see above) and inspiration, inverting the truism about 99% perspiration versus 1% inspiration.
Isn't there something perverse about encouraging people to do something they don't know how to do? Wouldn't it make sense to show them the fundamentals first so that they have a skill to practice?
2. Convenient Poetics
Anything that refers to poetry's failure to find an audience is either ignored or denied, along with the audience itself. As recently as today, August 26th, 2013, in "The Bibliophilic Blogger", British poet Nicholas Murray asked "Do People Still Buy Poetry?" He made some good points (e.g. "we lack proper criticism") but, along the way, he used the failure of an obscure book in 1929--a few years after poetry received its fatal wound from music on the radio--to demonstrate that "there never has been a golden age". So, there was never a time when poets were rock stars, when poetry outsold prose, when poetry appeared in almost every newspaper and magazine, or when Robert Service made $500,000 from one poem? That's quite the history rewrite!
Without a hint of irony he concludes: "If poets themselves don't buy each other in numbers then we are in trouble." Substitute any other practitioners for "poets" (e.g. novelists, playwrights, magicians, car manufacturers, etc.) and you'll see the problem. A potential audience consisting of more than 99% of the population is ignored/denied.
1. Audience
Any one of the above could prevent a resurgence of interest in poetry. Nevertheless, they all disappear if poetry regains its audience. Multimedia explodes with productions featuring poetry, as it recently did for rap. The sheer number of these would make copyright issues moot. Open mics and slams would need larger venues, if not larger media. Prosody's case against anti-aesthetics and in favor of education would make itself. Content Regency shrivels in the face of a multiplicity of poems on the same subject--just pick the best one! Production and demand would come closer to balancing. The Watermelon problem disappears on Facebook. Convenient Poetics withers in the face of what its advocates fear most: a resurgence of interest in poetry. People learning iambs from trochees as early as elementary school wouldn't need anyone to tell them what is and what isn't poetry. Rather, they would tell us.
As it should be.
Footnotes:
¹ - It is rare enough to hear someone reading someone else's contempory poem, let alone performing one.
While they wait patiently and clap politely, attendees at most poetry readings look like they're filming an ExLax commercial. That's on a good day. On a bad day it looks like someone is re-running the Milner experiment.
² - This may explain why the greatest metrical poem of this century remains unpublished.
Your feedback is appreciated!
Please take a moment to comment or ask questions below or, failing that, mark the post as "funny", "interesting", "silly" or "dull". Also, feel free to expand this conversation by linking to it on Twitter or Facebook. Please let us know if you've included us on your blogroll so that we can reciprocate.
If you would like to contact us confidentially or blog here as "Gray for a Day" please use the box below, marking your post as "Private" and including your email address; the moderator will bring your post to our attention and prevent it from appearing publicly.
We look forward to hearing from you.
There are always certain subjects best avoided. In polite company, sex, politics and religion qualify. Bringing up Superbowl XL won't make you friends in Seattle. Canadians would rather forget the terrible summer beer strikes of 1982, despite the crucial role they played in their nation's sovereignty. Don't jinx things by mentioning power outages along the U.S. eastern seaboard.
Among poets there are many taboo subjects. These include, in ascending order of seriousness, the following, many of which overlap:
10. Multimedia
Long before web browsers had video support, one of my favorite human beings wrote a book in HTML and posted it online for free public consumption. When readers got to the part depicting a chanteuse singing in a nightclub users could click on the lyrics and hear someone play the song in the background. As crude as it was, Internet multimedia was born!
Since then, and despite amazing advances in technology and software, poetry's use of multimedia has been disappointing, amounting to little more than videtaped slams or, worse, readings.¹ Perhaps in another decade, with all of this science, poetry will finally be as visually stimulating and entertaining as it was in prehistoric caves.
9. Copyright
For now, poets would do well to concentrate on writing something worth reading. Once they accomplish that they might work on writing something worth stealing.
8. Performance
Answer: That adults don't perform poetry. And, sure enough, they don't! Not even authors¹!
Now imagine how popular songs or plays would be if they were never performed.
Why would younger siblings appreciate verse more than their older brothers and sisters? Because Mommy and Daddy read Dr. Seuss to the elder children. They recited it to the youngest. Such is the difference performance can make.
7. Anti-aesthetics
Perhaps this is a charming aspect of youth.
It is far less endearing in their educated elders.
6. Overproduction
That little of this is actually poetry by any coherent definition doesn't matter. The devolution from free verse to prose poetry to lineated prose feeds into this effort as poetry becomes a strictly participation sport. It's more like yoga than an art form competing for an audience. Try bringing up this topic in a room where 99% of the occupants are enablers or perpetrators. At the very least, we are reminded that, while we can't have demand without supply (barring prohibition or people demanding the impossible), we can certainly have supply without demand.
5. The Watermelon Problem
Out of the blue, a once-in-a-lifetime brilliancy arrives!
What do you do? If you stop and think how this will make the rest of your offerings appear you might refuse to publish it. After all, do you really want to hear your subscribers whine about why all poetry can't be like this?² Do you treat it like every other poem you publish, none of which have ever been quoted or performed? That is, do you bury it in the dirt you've had to publish for half a century? Or do you highlight it? If so, how? Do you cancel all other poems and publish that verse, filling in the rest of the edition with discussions of the masterpiece?
If a top periodical cannot promote the best poem of its time what hope is there for lesser works? Or for poetry's revival?
4. Content Regency
Remember when people used to say that poety is not about what you say but how you say it? That is sacrilege now.
3. Education and The Inspiration Myth
Isn't there something perverse about encouraging people to do something they don't know how to do? Wouldn't it make sense to show them the fundamentals first so that they have a skill to practice?
2. Convenient Poetics
Without a hint of irony he concludes: "If poets themselves don't buy each other in numbers then we are in trouble." Substitute any other practitioners for "poets" (e.g. novelists, playwrights, magicians, car manufacturers, etc.) and you'll see the problem. A potential audience consisting of more than 99% of the population is ignored/denied.
1. Audience
As it should be.
Footnotes:
¹ - It is rare enough to hear someone reading someone else's contempory poem, let alone performing one.
While they wait patiently and clap politely, attendees at most poetry readings look like they're filming an ExLax commercial. That's on a good day. On a bad day it looks like someone is re-running the Milner experiment.
² - This may explain why the greatest metrical poem of this century remains unpublished.
Your feedback is appreciated!
Please take a moment to comment or ask questions below or, failing that, mark the post as "funny", "interesting", "silly" or "dull". Also, feel free to expand this conversation by linking to it on Twitter or Facebook. Please let us know if you've included us on your blogroll so that we can reciprocate.
If you would like to contact us confidentially or blog here as "Gray for a Day" please use the box below, marking your post as "Private" and including your email address; the moderator will bring your post to our attention and prevent it from appearing publicly.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
The Ten Most Influential People in Poetry Reviewed
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| Earl's sister: Pearl the Squirrel |
Earl is neck deep in sports magazines, preparing for his 2013 NFL Fantasy Football drafts. This leaves me, his sister, Pearl, with the onerous task of analyzing the two most significant recent verse-related lists: Earl's "Ten Most Influential People in Poetry Today" and Seth Abramson's "The Top 200 Advocates for American Poetry (2013)", posted here and to the Huffington Post, respectively, on the same day. Quite a coincidence: Seth authored one article and was mentioned in the other!
There may never be two lists on the same topic (i.e. poetry, in this case) that have less in common, reflecting in sharp focus the contrast between the established Print and the emerging Pixel worlds. The key is the explicit stipulation in "The 10" presupposing that poetry would succeed in finding a public audience before 2030. Seth's article shows no interest in poetry's repopularization. Rather, "The Top 200" concentrates on practical, professional considerations, the realpolitik of indifference. As always, Mr. Abramson speaks eloquently for the academic/PoBiz (the "AcaPoBiz"?) group aesthetic.
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| Seth Abramson |
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| Earl the Squirrel's Rule #37 |
The Top 200 list could only be written by and for people untouched by the modern cyberzeitgeist. This was evident in the first phrase of the introduction:
"With more than 75,000 poets in the United States alone..."
Ahem. Let me put this in perspective, using one of my brother's favorite examples. Francis Ford Coppola--you know, the one who gave us "Patton" and "The Godfather"--launched Zoetrope on June 21, 2000. It began as a critical forum for screenwriters but soon branched out to embrace playwrights, novelists and poetry writers. Over time, poets--most of them American--have dominated the membership, traffic and contributions. Of the online poetry subforums that have survived for all or most of the last decade Zoetrope is, by far, the most obscure. Most onliners either don't know what it is or refer to it dismissively as "Zoetripe".¹
Zoetrope alone has more than 75,000 American poets as members.
How many American poets are there in total? It's hard to say but, extrapolating from online, slam and other contest participation, one million American poets would seem an extremely conservative estimate. Earl's best guess is that 2,000,000 Americans consider themselves poets, serious or not. Does that sound like a lot to you? Well, it's about .5% of the total U.S. demographic. That may be the all-time high those using raw numbers boast about but, as a percentage, it might also be a historic low in any human population.
 |
| Earl the Squirrel's Rule #43 |
If none of the ten favorite contemporary poets you wrote down earlier are from foreign shores your chances of being a Page rather than a Pixel poet skyrocket.
For the most part, the Top 200 was a list of underrated poets, many of them unfamiliar even to others in the Print World. This is a reflection of that milieu's segmentation; one doesn't produce iconic efforts by selling 200 copies of a book or by publishing in poetry magazines with, at the very most, 30,000 subscribers. By contrast, Earl restricted himself to people well known to everyone within the established Internet community.
All of this said, "The 200" is also remarkably expansive. In addition to poets and publishers, it includes, as one cynical Kris Kristoffson fan commented, "songwriters, politicians, activists, organizers, scholars, essayists, critics, one troll, two semiliterates, 'an electric eye, two big dogs and a minefield'".
No one is surprised by the aesthetic bias. By my count, only one Nemerov winner or judge was listed in the 200. Even multiple winners who have spent decades in open fora providing free expert critique to developing poets were overlooked. By contrast, the Top 10ers, including the late Steve Sabol, all understood basic verse technique and its value.
Speaking of Mr. Sabol, there is a parallel between the NFL and the poetry worlds. Playing the AcaPoBiz role is the players' union: The National Football League Players Association ("NFLPA"). Unlike a guild, it concentrates on its members' welfare without regard to performance. Criticism of other members is actively discouraged. Both the league and Players Association have a conduct code and rules encouraging uniformity--literally!--and respect when appearing in the public eye (i.e. playing onfield or being interviewed).
The more purist onliners are like the NFL Network, a television channel that grew out of Steve Sabol's NFL Films (which is similar to Stage poets, dealing with the more dramatic and amusing). The NFL Network unabashedly promotes football as its raison d'être, often featuring technical discussions (something never found in literary periodicals anymore), form[ation]s, crowd-pleasing² highlights, humor, news, drama, and, of all things, poetry!
Mr. Abramson has provided us a useful directory of those whose influence has brought U.S. poetry to where it is today. Whether this is to their credit or not is another question entirely. It is time again for me to quote Kristofferson:
"Who's to bless and who's to blame?"
Footnotes:
¹ - To be fair, Zoetrope poets have created no less than two of the top 10 poems of this century: "There are Sunflowers in Italy" by Didi Menendez and "Specimen #31, Adult Female" by Sharon Hurlbut.
² - As opposed to performances of interest only to other participants.
Your feedback is appreciated!
Please take a moment to comment or ask questions below or, failing that, mark the post as "funny", "interesting", "silly" or "dull". Also, feel free to expand this conversation by linking to it on Twitter or Facebook. Please let us know if you've included us on your blogroll so that we can reciprocate.
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Saturday, August 17, 2013
Great time to be a poet?
In a thread entitled "Great time to be a poet? " one of our favorite humans, Dr. James Wilk, answered at length:
"Well, in terms of the availability to disseminate one's work, there has never been a time with more venues for publication, thanks to the internet and the proliferation of on-line journals and so forth.
"In terms of the availability of low-residency MFA programs to matriculate into or the ability to communicate with and workshop with fellow poets, there have never been more opportunities.
"But with the rise of MFA programs and the increasing number of working poets in and out of academia, the competition for book contracts, grants & awards, placement in the top journals and bookings to read one's work has never been fiercer.
"It's just as tough as ever to get a full-length manuscript published or to win major prizes or to appear in the top journals."
Another replied more succinctly and provocatively:
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"Well, in terms of the availability to disseminate one's work, there has never been a time with more venues for publication, thanks to the internet and the proliferation of on-line journals and so forth.
"In terms of the availability of low-residency MFA programs to matriculate into or the ability to communicate with and workshop with fellow poets, there have never been more opportunities.
"But with the rise of MFA programs and the increasing number of working poets in and out of academia, the competition for book contracts, grants & awards, placement in the top journals and bookings to read one's work has never been fiercer.
"It's just as tough as ever to get a full-length manuscript published or to win major prizes or to appear in the top journals."
Another replied more succinctly and provocatively:
Your feedback is appreciated!
Please take a moment to comment or ask questions below or, failing that, mark the post as "funny", "interesting", "silly" or "dull". Also, feel free to expand this conversation by linking to it on Twitter or Facebook. Please let us know if you've included us on your blogroll so that we can reciprocate.
If you would like to contact us confidentially or blog here as "Gray for a Day" please use the box below, marking your post as "Private" and including your email address; the moderator will bring your post to our attention and prevent it from appearing publicly.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
The Ten Most Influential People in Poetry Today
The current fad is lists of the most influential people in poetry. My particular spin presumes a successful future for our art form. The question becomes:
"Who will be most responsible if poetry regains an audience before 2030?"
Most such lists will be dominated by authors, publishers or editors of poetry books. This begs the question about people reading poetry. They don't. That is the problem.
The role of teachers will figure prominently on other lists but, for our purpose, this would have to be confined to famous instructors who teach techniques, technologies, performance and forms that will appeal to non-poets. As far as I know, that list is empty.
Far more important are the administrators and critiquers who mold that verse, the organizers and performers who bring it to the public's attention in open mics and slams, the videographers who post it on venues like YouTube, the bloggers and reviewers who filter out the shite and, finally, the editors of successful [web and maga] 'zines--especially non-literary ones (where and once they exist)--that bring poetry to the public.
At the risk of stating the obvious, in this Internet Age the most influential people¹ will be those with a long and strong online presence. That some of these individuals may be unknown to you says more about the transitional state of the endeavor than its participants.
Peter John Ross
Almost everything you have learned online about poetry fundamentals or the workshop ethos in the last twenty years can be attributed directly or indirectly to PJR. He is the grandfather of successful 21st century poetry.
John Boddie
"Whether or not critique is constructive depends on how the author uses it, not on the manner in which it’s phrased."
If you don't know who John Boddie is then you have never encountered serious poetry critique.
Margaret Ann Griffiths
That Maz was the Critic's Choice as best poet of our time and that the first two editions of her posthumous collection were oversubscribed will not be what puts her on this list. As a mentor, commenter and, most importantly, as a role model she simply had no equal.
Marc Smith
Any list of influential contributors to poetry's future that does not include the inventor of the slam cannot be taken seriously.
Nic Sebastian
Nic's attention to presentation puts her decades ahead of anyone else in imagining the successful poetry [performances] of the future.
Christine Klocek-Lim
Chrissie twice rescued one of the world's largest poetry forums. In its day, her "Autumn Sky Poetry" was among the top three webzines; despite being on hiatus for more than a year people still deep link to its particulars. Recently, she has started a poem-a-day version, "Autumn Sky Poetry Daily". Ms. Klocek-Lim's gentle style doesn't create waves but, if influence can be measured by the loyalty an organizer inspires, Christine's name must be recognized. If the poetry world had a dozen more people as effective and level-headed as Chrissie we would not be having this discussion.
Seth Abramson
Famous blogger Seth Abramson's frequent and exhaustive analyses of PoBiz and academic practices make him the Noam Chomsky of the poetry world.
Michael Burch
Say what you will about his mixing poetry with politics or religion but Mr. Burch's "The HyperTexts" remains the single greatest source of contemporary poetry. If nothing else, this is a tremendous convenience for those wanting to cite a great contemporary poem.
Tim Green
If the Print world survives it will be because of the innovative approaches pioneered or perfected by Rattle magazine's editor, Tim Green.
Don Share
Whether we are talking about dinosaurs, armies or organizations, the larger an entity is the slower it moves. While "academic" efforts will continue to play a decreasing role in discussions of contemporary verse, Poetry magazine's resources ensure that it will continue to be the elephant in the room.
Honorable Mentions:
Gary Gamble
"Try to have your writing make sense²."
More than anyone else, Usenetter and Poetry Free-For-All moderator "GG" can be credited with putting an end to cryptocrap, to say nothing of unearned respect.
Kei Miller, Mary E. Hope, Stephen Bunch, Bob Schechter and Richard Epstein
These prolific online critiquers, along with many others, have contributed more to the revival of poetic competence than anyone else.
Steve Sabol
I knew I would forget someone! This oversight was so egregious that it required immediate correction with this post-edit. As of this writing, the single most successful contributor to poetry's repopularization (a subject that existing producers avoid) is the late, great NFL Films director, Steve Sabol, ably assisted by his predecessor and father, Ed. He did whole segments on poets and recitations from poems (e.g. "Hurt but not slain, lay down and bleed awhile, then we’ll rise and fight again.").
In 1974 Steve wrote the closest thing to an iconic poem in the last half century, "The Autumn Wind". Sports announcer John "The Voice of God" Facenda recited it, reminding us of the value of fine performance and production.
My apologies to the many whom I have omitted.
Footnotes:
¹ - We needn't broaden the discussion to include squirrels and the like.
² - Mr. Gamble's original phrasing was "Try to make your writing make sense." He arrived at the final wording with the help of a fellow Usenetter.
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"Who will be most responsible if poetry regains an audience before 2030?"
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| Earl the Squirrel's Rule #69 |
The role of teachers will figure prominently on other lists but, for our purpose, this would have to be confined to famous instructors who teach techniques, technologies, performance and forms that will appeal to non-poets. As far as I know, that list is empty.
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| Earl the Squirrel's Rule #52 |
At the risk of stating the obvious, in this Internet Age the most influential people¹ will be those with a long and strong online presence. That some of these individuals may be unknown to you says more about the transitional state of the endeavor than its participants.
Peter John Ross
Almost everything you have learned online about poetry fundamentals or the workshop ethos in the last twenty years can be attributed directly or indirectly to PJR. He is the grandfather of successful 21st century poetry.
John Boddie
"Whether or not critique is constructive depends on how the author uses it, not on the manner in which it’s phrased."
If you don't know who John Boddie is then you have never encountered serious poetry critique.
Margaret Ann Griffiths
That Maz was the Critic's Choice as best poet of our time and that the first two editions of her posthumous collection were oversubscribed will not be what puts her on this list. As a mentor, commenter and, most importantly, as a role model she simply had no equal.
Marc Smith
Any list of influential contributors to poetry's future that does not include the inventor of the slam cannot be taken seriously.
Nic Sebastian
Nic's attention to presentation puts her decades ahead of anyone else in imagining the successful poetry [performances] of the future.
Christine Klocek-Lim
Chrissie twice rescued one of the world's largest poetry forums. In its day, her "Autumn Sky Poetry" was among the top three webzines; despite being on hiatus for more than a year people still deep link to its particulars. Recently, she has started a poem-a-day version, "Autumn Sky Poetry Daily". Ms. Klocek-Lim's gentle style doesn't create waves but, if influence can be measured by the loyalty an organizer inspires, Christine's name must be recognized. If the poetry world had a dozen more people as effective and level-headed as Chrissie we would not be having this discussion.
Seth Abramson
Famous blogger Seth Abramson's frequent and exhaustive analyses of PoBiz and academic practices make him the Noam Chomsky of the poetry world.
Michael Burch
Say what you will about his mixing poetry with politics or religion but Mr. Burch's "The HyperTexts" remains the single greatest source of contemporary poetry. If nothing else, this is a tremendous convenience for those wanting to cite a great contemporary poem.
Tim Green
If the Print world survives it will be because of the innovative approaches pioneered or perfected by Rattle magazine's editor, Tim Green.
Don Share
Whether we are talking about dinosaurs, armies or organizations, the larger an entity is the slower it moves. While "academic" efforts will continue to play a decreasing role in discussions of contemporary verse, Poetry magazine's resources ensure that it will continue to be the elephant in the room.
Honorable Mentions:
Gary Gamble
"Try to have your writing make sense²."
More than anyone else, Usenetter and Poetry Free-For-All moderator "GG" can be credited with putting an end to cryptocrap, to say nothing of unearned respect.
Kei Miller, Mary E. Hope, Stephen Bunch, Bob Schechter and Richard Epstein
These prolific online critiquers, along with many others, have contributed more to the revival of poetic competence than anyone else.
Steve Sabol
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| Stephen Douglas Sabol (1942-2012) |
In 1974 Steve wrote the closest thing to an iconic poem in the last half century, "The Autumn Wind". Sports announcer John "The Voice of God" Facenda recited it, reminding us of the value of fine performance and production.
My apologies to the many whom I have omitted.
Footnotes:
¹ - We needn't broaden the discussion to include squirrels and the like.
² - Mr. Gamble's original phrasing was "Try to make your writing make sense." He arrived at the final wording with the help of a fellow Usenetter.
Your feedback is appreciated!
Please take a moment to comment or ask questions below or, failing that, mark the post as "funny", "interesting", "silly" or "dull". Also, feel free to expand this conversation by linking to it on Twitter or Facebook. Please let us know if you've included us on your blogroll so that we can reciprocate.
If you would like to contact us confidentially or blog here as "Gray for a Day" please use the box below, marking your post as "Private" and including your email address; the moderator will bring your post to our attention and prevent it from appearing publicly.
We look forward to hearing from you.
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