Good Advice
The new issue of Gulf Coast features a roundtable between Matthew Rohrer, Heather Christle, Matthew Zapruder, & Zachary Schomburg on what “surrealism” means today in American poetry.
Most interesting is what Matthew Rohrer says about surrealism and optimism.
I see a lot of student poems that are snide or bitter: poems that ridicule certain bourgeois or mass-cultural things. And on the one hand, I can usually sort of agree in a general sense that mass culture is bad, or malls are alienating, or the suburbs destroy human potential, blah blah blah. But I think back to a very important moment in my own writing: I had written a poem in a park, watching a family, and the poem basically critiqued them for I can’t even remember what now. It was supercilious, really; who was I to say anything about these people I didn’t know at all? And my poetry teacher read it and said something like, “You want to watch out that you’re not an asshole.” And he was very serious, and looked at me with these penetrating eyes, and I realized this was a big thing for him, and for me. And then almost immediately I found myself drawn into a long apprenticeship with the historical Surrealists. I think they are very optimistic—so much of their interests were in human potential—the potential of dreams, of our unconscious, of all of the overlooked and uncelebrated things that make us human. It seemed to me like they really wanted to celebrate being human rather than critique it or box it in. And yes, as several of you have said, they were revolutionary, and no one is more optimistic than a revolutionary.
This then reminded me of Rachel Zuckers’ “Poem” which begins with a quote from Rohrer that seems to echo the above sentiment
The other day Matt Rohrer said,
the next time you feel yourself going dark
in a poem, just don’t, and see what happens.
Great post, Blake. Thanks. The idea to “make sure you’re not an asshole” is, indeed, an important one for us all, I think, writers and just people in general.
To me, the most successful writing is the kind that brings out a kind of humanity that shimmers through and gives purpose and integrity to the operation.
Even writers who are, as all evidence suggests, probably assholes — I’m thinking of Celine in particular here — can be successful and great when their asshole-ness is rooted in furious disappointment, which is a kind of love, I think, which is also a kind of belief, which is in turn a kind of optimism. In Journey to the End of the Night, Celine’s so pissed at people because he’s so disgusted at them, at how far they are from good, at how much they’ve disappointed him with their hypocrisy, greed, exploitation, etc. The reason Journey to the End of the Night is so successful (and, yes, great) is that Celine’s bile-spewing disgust — “ebullient misanthropy” is how I once read it described — is because that hate is actually also a kind of paradoxical love.
Anyway, just some early thoughts, spurred on by the post.
Oops — great post, Brian! Misread the header.
Agreed. Thanks for pointing this out Brian.
Great post, Blake. Thanks. The idea to “make sure you’re not an asshole” is, indeed, an important one for us all, I think, writers and just people in general.
To me, the most successful writing is the kind that brings out a kind of humanity that shimmers through and gives purpose and integrity to the operation.
Even writers who are, as all evidence suggests, probably assholes — I’m thinking of Celine in particular here — can be successful and great when their asshole-ness is rooted in furious disappointment, which is a kind of love, I think, which is also a kind of belief, which is in turn a kind of optimism. In Journey to the End of the Night, Celine’s so pissed at people because he’s so disgusted at them, at how far they are from good, at how much they’ve disappointed him with their hypocrisy, greed, exploitation, etc. The reason Journey to the End of the Night is so successful (and, yes, great) is that Celine’s bile-spewing disgust — “ebullient misanthropy” is how I once read it described — is because that hate is actually also a kind of paradoxical love.
Anyway, just some early thoughts, spurred on by the post.
Oops — great post, Brian! Misread the header.
Agreed. Thanks for pointing this out Brian.
Matthew Rohrer is my favorite poet.
Matthew Rohrer is my favorite poet.
wish they had gotten tim earley. :(
wish they had gotten tim earley. :(