Commercial Poetry: Catherine Ann Rogers

Showing posts with label Catherine Ann Rogers. Show all posts

Thursday, February 19, 2015

10 Greatest 21st Century Poets - The Geeks

We'd like to thank those who responded to our previous post, "10 Greatest 21st Century Poets - The List". As our regular readers know, it was a break from our tradition of talking about poetry and poems rather than poets but, as one commenter with a brilliant sense of irony said, it worked as "clickbait". (We have never opted for advertisements here and won't guess what people must think of other publications, most of which concentrate exclusively on poets and author-centric writing.)

If you want to make a point about people treating poetry as a professional or social enterprise rather than as a craft, though, check out this spike in our readership when we discussed poets instead:

      Reaction was largely positive, with strangers thanking us for presenting an objective view of the great poets of the century. Most understood, at least instinctively, the authority's role in bird-dogging¹ great contemporary verse. There were a few who, not comprehending anything about geekdom, confused it with its antipodal opposite, the PoBiz, in suggesting that friendship played a role in the decisions. (Seriously? Geeks? Having friends?)

      To accommodate those who showed such interest in the judges, we thought we would take a moment to define those who participate here regularly or as "Gray for a Day" or judges. With a hat tip to Jeff Foxworthy...

     ...let us examine the unbearable lightness of being a geek.

1. If your friends and relatives know that only you will give them an informed and honest evaluation of their writing, you may be a geek. Or obsessive. Or both.

2. If you think "PoBiz" is slang for [enabling] "the Dunning-Kruger² effect" you may be a geek.

3. If you know whether "Prufrock" and "The Red Wheel Barrow" are free verse or metrical you may be a geek.

4. Hell, if you care whether "Prufrock" and "The Red Wheel Barrow" are free verse or metrical you may be a geek.

Paul Stevens "discovered" both top poets.

5. If you can evaluate work without giving a shart about the author's age, size, shape, nationality, bank account, history, sex, politics or religion you may be a geek.

6. If you view Earl's Laws of Poetry as a Ferenghi regards the Rules of Acquisition you may be a geek.

7. If you know that the difference between free verse and prose poetry has nothing to do with linebreaks you may be a geek.

8. If you have referred anyone to rulez 4 aspiring ~poets~ or turned from a pouting workshopper, saying "Dennis, the rules, please", you may be a geek.

9. If you have ever quoted Debi Zathan's famous anti-whinger rant in whole or in part you may be a geek.

   "But what really pisses me off when you get right down to it, is the unmitigated gall of so many who post here...who have the patronizing, self-absorbed opinion that the person who critiques their poetry has not a clue, has never loved, has never grieved, has never existed in all of the frames they write so badly about. THAT (at the moment) is what really pisses me off."

10. If you have ever quoted Gustave Flaubert's famous anti-corazoner rant in whole or in part you may be a geek.

    "I should rather be skinned alive than exploit my feelings in writing. I refuse to consider Art a drain-pipe for passion, a kind of chamberpot, a slightly more elegant substitute for gossip. No, no! Genuine poetry is not the scum of the heart."

11. If you have had to restrain yourself, lest you quote Rob Evans in whole or in part, you may be a geek.

    "Of all the branches of the arts, poetry continues to be treated with the most indifference by the general public. Why? Because practitioners like you continue to demand so little of yourself and others."

Usenetter Aidan Tynan

12. If you have had to restrain yourself, lest you quote Aidan Tynan in whole or in part, you may be a geek.

    "Please give me one reason why the aforesaid could be classified as anything other than badly written, unimaginative and cliché-festooned. This poem, for lack of a more appropriate term, seems to represent, to me, everything poetry is not about, that is: vague references to vaguely traumatic personal events renumerated listlessly as a piece of abstract journalistic schlock (with random line breaks to disguise it as poetry) superimposed on a bland moral-aesthetic grid. Superficial in every way, and lacking any sort [of] effect."

    "Sadly, bad poems are not invisible."

    "Yes, how selfish of someone to spend time giving an informed critique of another's work."

13. If you understand the difference between annotation and criticism you may be a geek.

Peter John Ross, father of modern critique.

14. If you can say crap like "Poetry is lateral thinking stacked sonically" without people knowing that you're joking you may be a geek.

15. If that line from "There are Sunflowers in Italy" stopped you in your tracks you may be a geek.

16. If you know or care who wrote "...the waiting moment, buckling into circumstance..." you may be a geek.

17. If you cannot read Ferlinghetti without quoting Manny Delsanto (i.e. "Please tell me there were no dice involved in choosing your words") you may be a geek.

18. If you cannot read Billy Collins without quoting Gerard Ian Lewis (i.e. "You use words like a magpie uses wedding rings") you may be a geek.

19. If you cannot read "The Paris Review" without thinking of Richard Epstein (i.e. "Many poems would benefit by having no text") you may be a geek.

20. If you cannot read Rumi without muttering "Shouldn't platitudes this trite rhyme or something?" you may be a geek.

21. If you know that Spondee Denial, Content Regency, and Convenient Poetics are bullshit you may be a geek.

San Francisco 49er coach Bill Walsh (1931-2007)

22. If you accept that the final word on individuality and creativity came from a football coach you may be a geek.

23. If you understand that those telling you poetry is alive are trying to sell you something (i.e. bad poetry) you may be a geek.

24. If George Bernard Shaw wrote your life motto, "The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those who don't have it", you may be a geek.

25. If you can keep your head when all about you are quoting Timothy Steele you may be a geek.

Footnotes:

¹ - A typical scenario is a depressed editor needing a jewel to caketop an otherwise mediocre publication. The conversation goes:

Editor: "Say, I'm in a bind. Do you have anything for me?"

Geek: "Utter contempt?"

Editor: "Very funny. Seriously, though, can you help me out?"

Geek pulls a frayed piece of paper from his or her back pocket (hence the expression "pulling [stuff] out of my ass"), shows it to the editor and another brilliant edition goes to print.

² - Indeed, antipathy toward the list and its progenitors rose and fell in lockstep with the level of the respondent's overconfidence. Who could have predicted that?

Index:

1. 10 Greatest 21st Century Poets - Preamble

2. 10 Greatest 21st Century Poets - Versers

3. 10 Greatest 21st Century Poets - The List

4. 10 Greatest 21st Century Poets - The Geeks

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Signed,

Earl Gray, Esquirrel

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

10 Greatest 21st Century Poets - The List

10. Jennifer Reeser     Eratosphere

     As a bayou metrist with a special interest in Russian literature, Jennifer is often compared with Georgian poet A.E. Stallings. This is like Derek Edwards being the second most famous person from Timmins. Without question, Ms. Reeser is the more accessible.

     Her lesser works may suffer from clanging rhymes and incongruous voices but pieces like "Compass Rose" transcend what most are able to do in verse.

     She has a bright future in front of her.

9. Marc Kelly Smith      Slam

     While "lightning stitching the sky" is remarkable, the text of Marc's poems will not win him any awards. Nevertheless, M.K. Smith (1949-Present) invented the slam and remains one of its ~~best~~ least awful performers. As such, one could argue that, so far, at least, he has had a far more visible impact on the world than all living print and pixel poets combined. True, given the choice between monotonous readings and 3-minute scream fests the public will still go with TV sitcoms, but at least Marc has given us that second option.

     This recital with hand gestures and without eye contact may be about as close to narrative or lyric poetry performance as we've seen lately:

8. Catherine Ann Rogers   Poets.org

Geeks aren't swayed much by awards, but do give credence to contests, especially if they are judged blindly by authorities. An English professor at Savannah State University, Catherine Rogers wrote the Interboard Poetry Community's "Poem of the Year" twice, in 2006, judged by Mark Doty, and 2005, from Judy Kronenfeld.

In "Refusals" we see three things demonstrated:

why Ms. Rogers is on this list (and why many fine non-versers aren't); and,

why "Autumn Sky Poetry" is considered one of the two most astounding sources of poetry on earth; and,

the difference between free verse and non-rhythmic writing. After a mixture of iambic and anapestic strings we see the first section end with these anapests:

Each night | I unrav|el your choice.
Each morn|ing I wake | to your death.

7. Julie Carter Usenet

"Sure [Fred Astaire] was great, but don't forget Ginger Rogers did everything he did backwards...and in high heels!" -- Bob Thaves (1982)

      Without question, Julie Carter is one of the best sonneteers to never win (or be entered to win?) a Nemerov. As you can see from the .pdf version of "pseudophakia" (2006), Julie's command of phrasing and imagery matches that of anyone short of Karen Solie and Dorianne Laux in the Print World...and Julie does it in verse. Her down-to-earth style stresses rhythm over sound.

      Our spies tell us Ms. Carter is preparing another collection. If past experience is any guide, it rates to be the most tragically overlooked book of 2015. You read it here first!

6. Rose Kelleher          Eratosphere

The fact that Rose Kelleher is a programmer and technical writer may have helped her cause among our resident geeks. The mix of humor and elegance in her work reminded many of the poet who tops this list--as does the pacing in "Neanderthal Bone Flute".

Seventh was the lowest vote that Ms. Kelleher received in the initial voting. Over time, though, a strange prejudice against consistency seeped in. Rose's ability to do everything well, and do it in almost every piece, made her a Ted Williams among those wanting a Babe Ruth. I suppose that home runs give judges something to cite, even if it means burying the fact that Ruth led the league in strikeouts, too.

5. Rhina Polonia Espaillat Eratosphere

    Born in the Dominican Republic in 1932, Rhina Espaillat is often mentioned as one of the top Spanish-language poets of our time. This raises an interesting question: "Is being, say, 15th in a culture where poetry is very much alive more impressive than being 5th where poetry is dead?"

    As the finale in "Changleling" demonstates, Rhina's mastery of sound is exceeded by only one other living poet.

This stranger
is you, is all the you there is, my mother,
whose gentler face is gone beyond recall,
and I must love you so, or not at all.

     It isn't hard to see how she won the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award twice. It's equally difficult to find fault with the author of these lines from "Find Work":

she spoke so little it was hard to bear
so much composure, such a truce with time

4. Derek Walcott          Print

That Derek Walcott (1930-01-23 to 2017-03-17) may be the most decorated poet on the planet meant nothing to the geeks. His medium made things difficult; some of this books were out of print, making them hard to find in stores or libraries. Once sufficient copies were located, Walcott's magnus opus, "Omerus", impressed everyone but that was 1990. "The Prodigal" (2004) and "White Egrets" (2010) drew considerable praise but what convinced skeptics was a technical article from a now-defunct online forum that someone had saved on their hard drive.

George Elliott Clarke didn't quite make the list. No other page poet came close.

3. Alicia Elsbeth Stallings Eratosphere

    While she lacks the common touch we see in the top two, Alicia remains the class of the crossovers. "Antiblurb" is a masterpiece but what is more stunning is that it is representive of her work is a whole. If you want to make the argument that knowledge of fundamentals adds charm and consistency to an artist's work Ms. Stallings is your model.

    At the beginning of her career Alicia had to use initials to resubmit poems that were rejected by editors who knew from her first name that she was female. As you can see, the online community in general and geeks in particular have no time for such discrimination.

2. D.P. Kristalo      Poets.org, Gazebo

The fact that DPK wrote the most remarkable metrical poem of the last half century wasn't enough. Granted, the contention that "Joie de Mourir" was in the same class met with guffaws. (N.B.: Our voters are not drug tested.) Nevertheless, her elegy for Maz ended any discussion of her as a fluke.

When one's worst poem begins with "Let us speak of rumors first; the pallid truth can wait till later" and ends with "...it will rain champagne before I tell you that I loved her" the judges' job becomes a nobrainer. One of the best reasons for studying the elements of the craft is to appreciate everything DPK has been able to do with them.

1. Margaret Ann Griffiths Gazebo, Eratosphere, PFFA

    Imagine if the most knowledgeable critics on earth voted T.S. Eliot the poet they'd most want to see in an anthology five months before he wrote his signature poem. Now suppose "Prufrock" was not a collaboration with the finest prosodist of the era but a solo, unedited first draft. Would anyone argue about who was the finest poet of the 20th century?

    The moment Margaret (aka "Maz" or "Grasshopper") Ann Griffiths (1947-05-23 to 2009-07-13) entered a contest--slogan, jingle or poetry--the fight for second place began. If you ask poetry fans who the greatest poet of all time is you will get a variety of answers until someone mentions Shakespeare, whereupon everyone squawks "We assume you meant other than him!" When you ask who the best poet of the 21st century is you must explicitly add "...including Maz."

     Needless to say, the vote for Grasshopper as this century's #1 poet was quick and unanimous.

Index:

1. 10 Greatest 21st Century Poets - Preamble

2. 10 Greatest 21st Century Poets - Versers

3. 10 Greatest 21st Century Poets - The List

4. 10 Greatest 21st Century Poets - The Geeks