How choose our state's laureate?

[Rob Neufeld]

Stay tuned! A new feature will be up soon--links to the poets of the state, depending on Kathryn Stripling Byer's "Laureate's Lasso."


This discussion started with shared e-mails about the N.C. Arts Council's announcement that it was seeking nominations for the Poet Laureate to succeed Kathryn Stripling Byer. The deadline for online nominations is Oct. 9, 2009 (on www.ncarts.org). A panel of people very familiar with poetry and the poetry world review the nominations and make a decision. They take into consideration the poet's outreach and communication skills as well as his or her work.

We have begun to care so much about poetry and its role in society, that it may be nice to observe the process. Is there, for instance, a significant body of experienced poets and poetry scholars who are not part of the network of discussers and deciders? If so, how might they get included?

Let's start a discussion of the process and of nominated poets here, right out in e-public.

One nominee put forward is: Carol Boston Weatherford.

[Laura Hope-Gill]

We’ve brought up the question of “Academics” ruling the selection roost. I’m eager to explore what this term means as it has been with me since I left college (academic) poetry and joined performance poetry movement in Australia then the performance poetry movement here in Asheville and then went in for my MFA at Warren Wilson College then spent ten years integrating that experience into life. My poetic life has been an inclusion of both worlds, and I find the distinction increasingly difficult to make. I recall one afternoon in Tasmania years ago, sitting with the then Poet Laureate of Australia, I mentioned I was working with prominent performance poet, TT.O. The Laureate said we were enemies then. I didn’t see it this way at all.

I still hear the term “academic” used in a bellicose manner. But what if it is an imaginary war, a construct left over from a time of swords and duels or more recently the Beats being mocked by university professors. What do we do when the enemy disappears?

What shifts below the surface defines the surface so intensely that often the surface dissolves. Is this happening currently in American letters? Is the surface still stalwart and definitive enough to still be fought against? Or is this phantom enemy, the Academy, yet a PTSD-like flashback to past rejections of new voices? What do we do when we’ve achieved what we’ve fought for—an Academy that actually mirrors a culture and challenges programming to do the same? Let's be honest. The Academy is not what it once was.

I think the term "academic" is no longer really effective. When I think "academic" I suppose it is meant to mean a poet who is affiliated with either the Academy or a University of high regard. Certainly, there was a time when poets affiliated with royal courts, academies and universities were rather of "one mind." The Neoclassical era had its Cavaliers holding down the creative fort of light and levity, against which the much more somber metaphysicals worked in their darkened chambers. John Milton himself was a rebel to them. I think of T.S. Eliot (though he was at Faber) holding sway over the school of thought and taste in regards to what poetry is.

Those days are over, though. Things are blown rather wide open. The Academy of American Poets, under the guidance of William Wadsworth in the 80's and 90's, during which time he created an enormous endowment and made poetry a more real presence in the country, is hardly comparable to what it was prior, a stronghold for the John Hollanders of the world who would still argue that nothing of merit comes from "other voices." But look at the Academy today. Go to poets.org, and you'll see that we can't use the term "academic" anymore as any sort of "gatekeeper" construct. It is diverse and rich, the poetries represented there ranging from Robert Frost to Quincy Troupe. I'm sorry, but once Quincy Troupe goes Academy (and Yusef Komunyakaa serves as Chancellor) the term "academic" is no longer the instrument of separation it once was. Yes, there is room for expansion and yes we've work to do, but let's turn our attentions away from division and see the expansion for what it is, so we may increase it.

Is "academic" a real term? Does it to more than invoke fears of days gone by. Li-Young Lee's "The City in which I Love You," the title poem of his Whitman Award winner in the late 80's is as far a thing from an "academic" work of writing as poems going down at the Nuyorican. It's just a beautiful poem. The game has completely changed and we require a new vocabulary for expressing our ideas about it. The dissolution of the term “academic” is a part of this. The Academy, through the hard work of many, has changed, is changing, therefore so has the content of the word denoting it. This brings me to consider if the presence of an MFA makes one an “academic.”

Does an MFA make one an academic? I'm sure we have all had experiences of coming up against someone whose thinking seemed "narrow" or "exclusive" in these settings, but my experience was much more defined by challenges put to me to expand. Let that be chalked up to Apollonian-Dionysian human dynamics more than the fault or favor of curriculum. Overall, MFA might equal "academic" if there were only two or three MFA programs touting a narrow definition of what poetry is. However, there are so many migratory poets from a variety of backgrounds, cultural and aesthetic, staffing these programs that the MFA's are becoming moveable feasts of influence, and while certainly they produce a share of Dean Young write-alikes as per Tony Hoagland's recent article , the programs avail an adequate variety of styles as could help any poet find an original voice, and at the very least enough to struggle against in the crucible, the more vital path.

It is this that makes poetry poetry--the original voice. Someone who has studied in a school has as potent a shot at developing orignal voice just as someone who has studied on the street has. It's not a matter of where the voice was nurtured. It is that the voice exists. And yes it can exist anywhere--Whitman is a prime example of how original energy can transform a voice in a single afternoon spent lying in a park. We won't hear that voice, however, if we continue to block out portions of the poetic population in any way at all. Not by saying "academic," not by saying "performance," not by saying divisive things at all. Once we have Patricia Smith, four-time National Slam Champion, take finalist for the National Book Award with the poems she wrote as her MFA thesis, we can’t argue "street" versus classroom anymore.

For centuries, poetry in the American and British traditions has been a pendulum swing between Classical and Romantic schools. However, there is a whole world to consider, beyond this American and British line. And once this world is reflected in “English” Letters, the whole of its history enters the discussion. Aesthetic as a surface consideration dissolves and defines the product of our work in terms of intimacy, inmost knowledge and sharing, the roots of poetry. Ultimately what we lose as we slough off a past vexed by gate-keepers, is a sense of knowing what to look for in poems. This is a fearsome loss for many, as it opens the doors to discovering who we really are as humans, as we travel through the many, many voices and decibel levels of those voices to find the inviolate level underlying all the tricks and labels, these tangled hierarchies that keep us bound to one another without knowing it.

Things are in such a state of flux that even the would-be gate-keepers of the Academy now slough the gate-keepers. At Asheville Wordfest 2009, I had the honor of sitting with Galway Kinnell, a former Chancellor of the Academy, during a recorded interview for Wordplay on WPVM in Asheville. Asked the question of whether “standards” in “Academic” poetry still exist, Kinnell answered that everything is joyfully blown open at the moment and more voices are defining American poetry than ever before. It was a declaration of the end of “the” Academy by one of its greatest shapers—a Pulitzer and National Book Award Winner, a Chancellor who’d attended Black Mountain College and carried forward into the world of poems, a determination not to write like anyone else. This is the path we should find ourselves on every day.

So, as we proceed, let’s not think in terms of Academic or Non-academic. Let’s seek the original voice. Nowadays, it can show up anywhere, even in an academic.

Sincerely,

Laura Hope-Gill
Director
Asheville Wordfest

[Rob Neufeld]

Wow, Laura, that was a generous, well-thought out, and informative essay on the changes in the poetry world today. As you say, the academy--as represented by societies, award-givers, and conference-planners as well as by schools--has had its doors blown wide open, partly because MFA programs engage "migratory poets." Very interesting.

You lay out the history of the street versus academy dynamic, and focus, I think, on the key barometer: Are poets developing original voices? Along with that question go two others, I know you would agree. Are the voices masterful? And who are the audiences?

When it comes to underground influences, one naturally thinks of performance poets. I think that performance poetry, now that is has gained prominence, has also developed into something inhabited in part by a school. So, that's the dynamic that has to be perpetually watched (and Laura, and you other watchers—thanks!). When I consider the poetry I consider most vital and original, it's coming from a number of different places--and I'm afraid I'm out of the loop on yet more.

I can be more specific, but I'll leave that for another post. /Rob

[Laura Hope-Gill]

Rob,

Thank you. You introduce the notion of mastery and also continue the introduction the more complicated question of mastery of what. This brings up, for me, the concept of polycentrism. In African dance, there is no prima ballerina. Rather at any moment the "audience" eye is caught by a different dancer from the one focused on before. At the same time, a number of dancers are each expressing a story. It is comparable to the totem poles of the Salish tribes, wherein "story" is conveyed not in linear hierarchical fashion but in the reiterative conversation of each "face" on the structure. There is no focus. Given polycentrism, the determination of mastery lies only upon the power of a single voice to reach deeply inward and at once affect others. The world of poetry has come to reflect more the world of African dance and totem carving than a Classical ballet.

Poetry in America is moving away, has moved away, from such a focus. This has profound impact on "taste" and challenges it as a comfort zone. Our rational minds intent on imposing order upon such things as art and culture, often strive to judge a poem based on a traditional aesthetic. This traditional aesthetic now includes a world history of poetry and now has no name. Any effort to impose one upon it will be met with furious resistance, not from poets but from poems themselves, I believe, since our body of influence has been so far expanded by a multicultural canon. If we are not working from a multicultural and multi-aesthetic canon, such as that which the work of performanc poetry brings to an already complex table, and only still stand by the old guard of deviated iambs, we are missing the whole stage, misinterpreting the totem pole and missing out on a truth of humanity.

I, too, could go on, but will also save for another post.

Laura Hope-Gill
Asheville Wordfest

[Theodore Pope]

how to choose the next poet laureate


a duel.

the poet should be willing to take up a sword

and defend their words.

or stand w/ a plowshare chanting, chanting infinite

quadrilles to the seventh dimension as several swords at once are plunged through their heart.

from above, behind and below and in front

of the buddha

they should be judged by their laughter... tone

quality... the nominees laughs must be recorded

played back

slowed down

speeded up

played backwards over and over again in search of

an Occult Hand...

they should raise their hand first.

they should call... shotgun!

they should be migratory coming only to molt

or lay eggs.

they should be willing to walk off 25 paces and face an opponent w/ a pistol with only a poem on their lips.

it should be the poet that can eat the most hotdogs

or artichokes over decades

the poet should be chosen by the reactions of various babies they dandle in front of a panel

a secret panel

in a wall

they should be chosen by blind feral albino twins raised in a cave.

chosen by feel...

by lottery...

all nominees are entered in a lottery

one becomes the Laureate

one is killed

the others go free

thus we pay tribute to the good, the bad and

the mediocre...

poetry like so much art is all a matter of knowing what you like... so how about a math test?

Punctuation?

i's dotted t's crossed over a lifetime?

a cage fight?

no audience... because no one in this state cares

or knows...


that's your real problem.

no one gives a shit.

...maybe they should select someone that wants to

do something about the reality that

Ten out of Ten North Carolinians could care less about any of this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T1lnZLl-aA

[Laura Hope-Gill]

Ted,

I love this.
But I do disagree with the last part--we do have more than a thousand people show up for Wordfest in Asheville. . . that's something.

By God, I have to believe that's something. I so love what you've written. I care.

Laura

[Allan Wolf]

Academic vs non-Academic. Performance vs literary. Children vs adult. Self-published vs established imprint. Slam vs contest. Black vs white. Old vs young. Experienced vs neophyte. Male vs female. Gay vs straight. Closed form vs free verse. Rhyme vs unrhymed.

The whole "us" vs "them" argument between opposing phantom poetic camps fades to nothing once we truly open our minds to the wide spectrum that is poetry. Poets (some very good, some very bad, many fair to middlin') are lurking everywhere.

A lot of poets are drawn to the University because Universities offer employment, a community of learners, and publishing opportunities. Universities also offer the opportunity to teach. Some poets are drawn to coffee shops, open mics, bookstore readings, and slams because they offer community and a chance to be heard. Some poets are drawn to public schools because they offer a chance to work with young people and get paid too. Some poets are drawn to their kitchen tables (late night or early morning) because they want to scratch that itch that's began while they repaired an engine, took a customer's order, or attended a funeral.

Point is we're all just barnacles clinging to the hull of whatever ship will get us where we're going.

[Rob Neufeld]

When among friends, as we all are, I think it's right to treat every individual as an individual. As a social critic, I find that making apt distinctions is essential. "Academic" is not an apt distinction because it connotes university or college affiliations. However, if we take it to mean attached to a "school of thought" or "institution," I think it is apt. I think we are made complacent by the nurturing and open liberalism of colleges and universities today. But the ship to which writers have been forced to attach themselves--or drift free of--has often been the State or the Corporation.

So, who are the poets and writers we consider original because of their integrity, experience, and virtuoso skill? How did they fare in their careers, and how did they get to where they got? Despite my wish to tell the truth in the most effective way, I find that I am affected by schools--living and dead--and don't mind admitting that communities and traditions have attracted and blindered me at times. (They've also grounded me, otherwise it would be easy to avoid them.)

Black Mountain College is a great example--a bold attempt to keep things open; but it was also a fragile construction. You can't write a constitution to preserve a counter-culture. So, I advocate doing what is necessary to recognize the counter-cultures and solo flyers and be wary of our own inclinations to dismiss the power of schools.