"Mr. Watson - come here - I want to see you."
(The first telephone call, March 10, 1876)
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Today, boys and girls, we’re going to look at ‘Song of the Chinchilla’ by Lisa Jarnot*. I liked the poem immediately – and I’ve given it to ...
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April Fool?
1 comment:
“Dear Carpenter, I want to tell you why I ran away, hiding everywhere when you came after me . . .”
Gosh, Mr Waffle. Must I reveal my “real” name? As Bartleby said, “I would prefer not to.”
I'd better get some questions in while I have the chance:
(1) I have a CD of Robert Duncan reading at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 15 April 1969 and he reads (to my mind) a truly brilliant poem. It’s called “The Letter” in the recording notes, although he actually introduces it as “A Letter”. It begins “Dear Carpenter, I want to tell you why I ran away, hiding everywhere when you came after me...” Thing is, I can’t find it in any collection I can lay my hands on. Do you know if this poem ever appeared in print – or was it a work in progress?
(2) You mention in a previous post (22 May 2006) how exciting it was to come across Berrigan’s work: “An exhilarating break from the narrow confines of what I had to teach for the GCSE & A level syllabuses (Hughes, Larkin, Plath …).” I felt the same coming across Olson, then Duncan. Just how was it that nobody had ever told me about this stuff? This, I think, is a problem with the way literature – but esp. poetry – is taught at British universities. There is a wall between “English” and “American” literature and unless you purposefully opt to study the latter, never the twain shall meet. It’s blinkered and frankly philistine when we share a common language and when US poets are so steeped in English literature (Blake and the Beats, for instance). It seems to me that postwar British poetry is cramped and cautious, unadventurous, when placed alongside American poetry from 1945 onwards, which is so much more expansive and interesting. Is British ignorance of modern US poetry the result of snobbery? I wonder. A theory I have is that Pound was cold-shouldered by British poets in favour of the more conservative and unthreatening Eliot, who dominated the British literary scene for so long. Is that where the split occurred? Any thoughts on the matter?
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