Craft Notes
“When you realize how little these people like being themselves, you begin to understand why they want to escape consciousness”
Today at the tree-tucked magic barn of Grey Matter Books in Hadley, MA, I bought for $8 the very first issue of Genesis West, the magazine Gordon Lish edited pre-Quarterly, so we’re talking on the fun bus with Neal Cassady and not out to lunch with Raymond Carver. Grey Matter Books had the entire set of Genesis West, all seven volumes, except now they don’t, because Nat Otting owns six and I own one.
In this 1962 issue is an interview between Lish and Jack Gilbert, whose book Views of Jeporody had at the time just won the Yale Younger Poets Series award. After the break are two cool excerpts from the conversation, one about that old hobbyhorse of poetry’s relevance, and one in which Gilbert takes to task the aesthetics of the Beat movement. The whole interview is terrific, and I post these excerpts not to signal unequivocal agreement with Gilbert’s grouching, but to air for the consideration of contemporary relevance some pretty solid gnashing from the early mouth of a major poet.
I) Jack Gilbert in 1962 on “exactly why poetry is crucial now.”
Poetry seems almost the only device we have for persisting at problems without their being mysteriously transformed into an abstract game. It seems almost our only escape from the blind alley of sophistication where comparative anthropology and psychiatry have led us, seeing that there are so many sides to any question that it is impossible to have convictions. Poetry is almost the only way we can escape from the viscous constipation of moral relativism. Because poetry is the art of prejudice. If prejudice is the inability to discuss a conviction calmly, then poetry is prejudice. Prose is rational and fair. It works out an idea and gives all the evidence. Poetry doesn’t. It doesn’t argue, it demonstrates.
II) Jack Gilbert and Gordon Lish in 1962 on poets of the Beat movement.
GILBERT: They evade the complexity life really has; and they can escape awareness of themselves into sensation. When you realize how little these people like being themselves, you begin to understand why they want to escape consciousness.
LISH: But I thought the idea was to arrive at a greater awareness of the self. And to be more open to love.
GILBERT: They talk a lot about love, but they experience almost none. Neither for people nor for the world. Their natural condition is unhappiness. And because they have so little genuine appetite for the world, they go in constant fear of boredom. That’s why they are quiet so little. After all, there is something radically wrong when you have to go to always more violent and stranger devices to get a response. A man who delights in the world isn’t so dependent on drugs and alcohol and novelty. And the sad thing is that even so they manage to squeeze out always less response. If you’ve been to any of their parties, you must have noticed how much it was like an hysterical woman straining for an orgasm synthetically. And the poetry is the same. Almost none of it stands up under rereading. In the first place, it all ends up sounding curiously anonymous. And in the second place, despite the cult of energy, all that violence of language and image seems curiously slack after six months. The poems just don’t wear well.
LISH: None of it?
GILBERT: Certainly some remains. Parts of Howl and Kaddish, for example. And besides, it depends on who you mean when you refer to the Beat Movement. It’s as Procrustean a word as academic. I certainly am not talking about Creeley or Duncan or Olson. And I think Whalen and Snyder will produce important poetry. But for the rest, if you travel around America, you find the reputation of five years ago washed up like great dying whales. And beginning to stink.
Tags: genesis west, gordon lish, grey matter books, jack gilbert
Good post. Thanks.
Good post. Thanks.
Good post. Thanks.
Made me think (and will more). Thanks for this one.
Made me think (and will more). Thanks for this one.
Made me think (and will more). Thanks for this one.
I like some of Gilbert’s poetry, but every time I read an interview with him I come away thinking he’s an asshole. And it’s not that I necessarily disagree with what he’s saying (in fact I don’t care for the Beat movement, and certainly he experienced it unfolding moreso than me), it’s just that he always comes off as if he is the supreme master of poetry and his word is law or something. I guess it’s my own problem, since it’s implied in an interview that what the person says will be their opinion. Whatever.
I like some of Gilbert’s poetry, but every time I read an interview with him I come away thinking he’s an asshole. And it’s not that I necessarily disagree with what he’s saying (in fact I don’t care for the Beat movement, and certainly he experienced it unfolding moreso than me), it’s just that he always comes off as if he is the supreme master of poetry and his word is law or something. I guess it’s my own problem, since it’s implied in an interview that what the person says will be their opinion. Whatever.
I like some of Gilbert’s poetry, but every time I read an interview with him I come away thinking he’s an asshole. And it’s not that I necessarily disagree with what he’s saying (in fact I don’t care for the Beat movement, and certainly he experienced it unfolding moreso than me), it’s just that he always comes off as if he is the supreme master of poetry and his word is law or something. I guess it’s my own problem, since it’s implied in an interview that what the person says will be their opinion. Whatever.
Most of the greatest poets it seems really are assholes. I believe poets to be highly opinionated egotists bent of displaying to the audience the poet’s mind and naked view, almost a forced voyeurism, of not only the world the poet occupies but the audience that reads them as well. As a poet you must be ballsy and arrogant to even consider participating in the art as an adult as a serious pursuit I mean to say.
hand some women a banana and they eat it. Hand it others and they masturbate on the spot.
so says an unbelievable asshole, according to many it seems.
Most of the greatest poets it seems really are assholes. I believe poets to be highly opinionated egotists bent of displaying to the audience the poet’s mind and naked view, almost a forced voyeurism, of not only the world the poet occupies but the audience that reads them as well. As a poet you must be ballsy and arrogant to even consider participating in the art as an adult as a serious pursuit I mean to say.
hand some women a banana and they eat it. Hand it others and they masturbate on the spot.
so says an unbelievable asshole, according to many it seems.
Most of the greatest poets it seems really are assholes. I believe poets to be highly opinionated egotists bent of displaying to the audience the poet’s mind and naked view, almost a forced voyeurism, of not only the world the poet occupies but the audience that reads them as well. As a poet you must be ballsy and arrogant to even consider participating in the art as an adult as a serious pursuit I mean to say.
hand some women a banana and they eat it. Hand it others and they masturbate on the spot.
so says an unbelievable asshole, according to many it seems.
The Early Mouth!
The Early Mouth!
The Early Mouth!
A++
A++
A++
gilbert’s critique o/beat poetics chillingly resonant, thanks mike
gilbert’s critique o/beat poetics chillingly resonant, thanks mike
gilbert’s critique o/beat poetics chillingly resonant, thanks mike
i didn’t know you were into lit blogs, Vin
i didn’t know you were into lit blogs, Vin
i didn’t know you were into lit blogs, Vin
Loved you in The Iron Giant.
Loved you in The Iron Giant.
Loved you in The Iron Giant.
Pretty apt & lucid.
Too much so to come from the POV of the brownhole.
Pretty apt & lucid.
Too much so to come from the POV of the brownhole.
Pretty apt & lucid.
Too much so to come from the POV of the brownhole.
On a shelf upstairs, given to me years ago by a dear friend, I have #5 which majors on Ken Kesey. I’ve always loved it as a real and true fragment of the cross. Leafing through it is a bit like touching the hem of god, or do I exaggerate slightly? What I mean is, items like that connect me to the origin of my world.
On a shelf upstairs, given to me years ago by a dear friend, I have #5 which majors on Ken Kesey. I’ve always loved it as a real and true fragment of the cross. Leafing through it is a bit like touching the hem of god, or do I exaggerate slightly? What I mean is, items like that connect me to the origin of my world.
On a shelf upstairs, given to me years ago by a dear friend, I have #5 which majors on Ken Kesey. I’ve always loved it as a real and true fragment of the cross. Leafing through it is a bit like touching the hem of god, or do I exaggerate slightly? What I mean is, items like that connect me to the origin of my world.
‘If you’ve been to any of their parties, you must have noticed how much it was like an hysterical woman straining for an orgasm synthetically. And the poetry is the same.’
Wow. That kills.
‘If you’ve been to any of their parties, you must have noticed how much it was like an hysterical woman straining for an orgasm synthetically. And the poetry is the same.’
Wow. That kills.
‘If you’ve been to any of their parties, you must have noticed how much it was like an hysterical woman straining for an orgasm synthetically. And the poetry is the same.’
Wow. That kills.
This is fairly inane:
“They evade the complexity life really has; and they can escape awareness of themselves into sensation. When you realize how little these people like being themselves, you begin to understand why they want to escape consciousness.”
Based on the assumption that liking being oneself is a prerequisite to sophistication about consciousness, literature, and the rest. Self-congratulate much?
Also points to the wide stripe of self-help in Jack Gilbert’s poetry.
This is fairly inane:
“They evade the complexity life really has; and they can escape awareness of themselves into sensation. When you realize how little these people like being themselves, you begin to understand why they want to escape consciousness.”
Based on the assumption that liking being oneself is a prerequisite to sophistication about consciousness, literature, and the rest. Self-congratulate much?
Also points to the wide stripe of self-help in Jack Gilbert’s poetry.
This is fairly inane:
“They evade the complexity life really has; and they can escape awareness of themselves into sensation. When you realize how little these people like being themselves, you begin to understand why they want to escape consciousness.”
Based on the assumption that liking being oneself is a prerequisite to sophistication about consciousness, literature, and the rest. Self-congratulate much?
Also points to the wide stripe of self-help in Jack Gilbert’s poetry.
“When you realize how little these people like being themselves, you begin to understand why they want to escape consciousness” I read this somewhere else recently and can’t think of where. It wasn’t cited, I don’t think. Was it around here or something? Anyhow, great stuff, Mike, thanks for this. Gilbert is a grouch but smart grouchy. Backs his mean with the goods.
“When you realize how little these people like being themselves, you begin to understand why they want to escape consciousness” I read this somewhere else recently and can’t think of where. It wasn’t cited, I don’t think. Was it around here or something? Anyhow, great stuff, Mike, thanks for this. Gilbert is a grouch but smart grouchy. Backs his mean with the goods.
“When you realize how little these people like being themselves, you begin to understand why they want to escape consciousness” I read this somewhere else recently and can’t think of where. It wasn’t cited, I don’t think. Was it around here or something? Anyhow, great stuff, Mike, thanks for this. Gilbert is a grouch but smart grouchy. Backs his mean with the goods.
I have a couple Genesis West and also the Cyrsalis Review that Lish and someone else co-edited before that.
For early-mid-60s, Genesis West was high quality when most indie lit journals were mimeo-graphd or stapled — here we have a professionally type-set, perfect bound book shape magazine that must have been expensive to produce, and why many big names vied to be in it — John Lennon is one issue (the last issue has Lish interviewing Lish) and why Jack Gilbert pissed name “big name” North Beach poets by rejecting them (“writing literary suicide rejection notes” as Lish states in his letters at Indiana Univ). Gilbert did not care for that scene or beatnik poets.
Does anyone know that Jack Gilbert wrote for Olympia Press as “Tor Kung” and produced two of their best erotic books?
I have a couple Genesis West and also the Cyrsalis Review that Lish and someone else co-edited before that.
For early-mid-60s, Genesis West was high quality when most indie lit journals were mimeo-graphd or stapled — here we have a professionally type-set, perfect bound book shape magazine that must have been expensive to produce, and why many big names vied to be in it — John Lennon is one issue (the last issue has Lish interviewing Lish) and why Jack Gilbert pissed name “big name” North Beach poets by rejecting them (“writing literary suicide rejection notes” as Lish states in his letters at Indiana Univ). Gilbert did not care for that scene or beatnik poets.
Does anyone know that Jack Gilbert wrote for Olympia Press as “Tor Kung” and produced two of their best erotic books?
I have a couple Genesis West and also the Cyrsalis Review that Lish and someone else co-edited before that.
For early-mid-60s, Genesis West was high quality when most indie lit journals were mimeo-graphd or stapled — here we have a professionally type-set, perfect bound book shape magazine that must have been expensive to produce, and why many big names vied to be in it — John Lennon is one issue (the last issue has Lish interviewing Lish) and why Jack Gilbert pissed name “big name” North Beach poets by rejecting them (“writing literary suicide rejection notes” as Lish states in his letters at Indiana Univ). Gilbert did not care for that scene or beatnik poets.
Does anyone know that Jack Gilbert wrote for Olympia Press as “Tor Kung” and produced two of their best erotic books?
not surprised that gilbert would be a good erotic writer!
michael, we’ll have to coax you into doing some kind of post/essay for us based on the awesome work you’re doing with the lish archives! maybe near when your carver bio comes out?
not surprised that gilbert would be a good erotic writer!
michael, we’ll have to coax you into doing some kind of post/essay for us based on the awesome work you’re doing with the lish archives! maybe near when your carver bio comes out?
not surprised that gilbert would be a good erotic writer!
michael, we’ll have to coax you into doing some kind of post/essay for us based on the awesome work you’re doing with the lish archives! maybe near when your carver bio comes out?
Mike — I am setting the carver bio aside for a year, talked with publisher, there needs to be some breathing room between mine and the recent one. Mine is much different — shorter and to the point, but takes a “sociological biography” format.
And the Lish book is behind…expect Carver in 2011 and hopefully Lish in Fall this year.
Mike — I am setting the carver bio aside for a year, talked with publisher, there needs to be some breathing room between mine and the recent one. Mine is much different — shorter and to the point, but takes a “sociological biography” format.
And the Lish book is behind…expect Carver in 2011 and hopefully Lish in Fall this year.
Mike — I am setting the carver bio aside for a year, talked with publisher, there needs to be some breathing room between mine and the recent one. Mine is much different — shorter and to the point, but takes a “sociological biography” format.
And the Lish book is behind…expect Carver in 2011 and hopefully Lish in Fall this year.