May 18th, 2010 / 7:35 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Matthew Simmons—
Do poets spend more time at each other’s throats than fiction writers?
-
Archives
- January 2023
- February 2022
- September 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- August 2017
- July 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
-
Meta
anyone who calls himself a poet in earnest is a shit squish.
so yes.
Why?
Sometimes we fight. Then we wake up.
WHAT DO YOU DO?
“I’M A POET.”
?????
Yes.
I have no idea what just happened.
“hi, my name is obligatory human being 4, what do you do demi-puppet?
HI, MY NAME IS DEMI-PUPPET AND I AM A GIFT TO THE WORLD.”
you don’t think someone who makes such a statement is a shit squish?
well, value systems differ.
in mine, they are shit squish.
Are you referencing the current Franz Wright fiasco?
http://jjgallaher.blogspot.com/2010/05/franz-wright-critique-of-mfa.html
i agree with that.
Er, okay.
small stakes big knives
That, in fact, was the thing that got me thinking about it. I notice things like that happening so much more often in the poetry world. I was wondering if poets tend to be a more rancorous bunch.
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Books/Pix/pictures/2007/01/26/ginsberg460.jpg
This guy was a “shit squish”? Just wondering.
burbur, that comment thread on your link is fucking epic.
Thanks for it.
I love getting hickeys.
I agree with a very tiny percentage of it, but, in general, Franz Wright is a two-bit joke. He’s a merely above-average poet presuming to preach to the “unenlightened” masses of young poets. If you read through the comments, he continues to make an enormous paranoiac ass of himself. Yuck.
A compelling figure and (I suspect) a pretty good guy, but the dude’s poems are total floof. Every now and then I come back to Howl and try to figure out what other people see in it, but I can’t help but be bored by it. It seems totally wretched.
small steaks big knives
I respect your opinion. However, while Ginsberg was somewhat of a nut, I believe his poetry spoke for (and to) a generation. Yeah, he talked a great deal about sucking dick and included many a drug-induced vision, but one has to commend Ginsberg for freeing poetry from it’s prior constraints (I realize that others were, too, but I credit Ginsberg for his role as well) and paving them way for a greater openness with certain thematic elements (especially his overt portrayal of his homosexuality).
I think talking about sucking dicks and doing drugs is great, and while I don’t know much about him, the little of what I’ve heard he did on a political level seems pretty cool! I think I would have loved the guy, had I known him. I just haven’t been able to convince myself, yet, that his poems are any good. It’s exactly the kind of poetry I WANT to love, but all I see when I read them to myself is floof. It all seems very affected, with very little force to it, very little imagination.
I think that if you checked out his Collected Poems and perused through the many years of his poetry, I have faith that you would find some of his writing you enjoy. It has been a few years since I read him, but when I was in college, without many friends and a lot of time on my hands, I remember discovering Ginsberg in the college library and finding myself captivated with his frankness and the immense creativity in his writing. Looking back, I realize that he hid behind the guise of drugs and oftentimes his poetry became repetitive, some of his longer poems, Kaddish, Iron Horse,Wichita Vortex Sutra and Angkor Wat are all worth reading. Also, his journals and letters show his brilliance better than his poetry. If you have some extra space this summer with yr reading, pick up some Ginsberg and see if yr opinion changes!
my endorsement is not an endorsement of him.
I’ve had the big orange Collected for a few years now, and believe me, I keep trying to appreciate him. That wild, sprawling, let-it-all-hang-out style is something I want to believe in. But I’m beginning to lose faith. . .
dude, isn’t this guys middle name “squishy”?
I’ve been there, too. I have a Collected Writings of Whitman in my bookcase and I really want to like him because he did so much for poetry and all but, though I have given him a try on multiple occasions, I simply cannot make my way past #20 or so in Song of Myself. We each have our own poets we admire and if you are still having trouble with Ginsberg, sell it on Ebay and buy some Rimbaud or something :p
Obvious troll is obvious, bro.
I doubt many people answer “what do you do”
with “I’m a poet”
besides the fact that no one sustain themselves solely on being a poet
and therefore not giving only that single response
“being” is not “doing”
they might say, “I write poetry”
hahahahah you just said “anyone who calls himself a poet in earnest is a shit squish”
seriously. that’s pretty funny.
i like when he smashes watermelons with that big wooden mallet.
a lot of his poetry was “floof”, I think. His latter career especially. He just kept them coming out without paying much attention to what was coming out. but Howl was not one of those poems.
Agreed. During his later years, it felt like he sat and mediated and mechanically wrote out whatever was happening around him, just to satisfy the number of poems he needed to send to his publisher. If Ginsberg had erred on the side of quality with his poems, rather than, like you said, churning them out without paying much attention to content, he would have been a lot better off.
Ginsberg prime=late ’50s–early to mid ’60s.
blasphemy, brett!! ; ) Whitman is almost like a religion for me. I feel like nearly every word of SoM just radiates with pure fucking genius (though one section I do kind of cringe at, can’t remember which one—something about minding the trenches). I’ve been working on memorizing SoM so that I can carry it around with me and take refuge in it when the depression strikes. . . so far I’m on section two! : P
anyone who calls himself a poet in earnest is a shit squish.
so yes.
Why?
Sometimes we fight. Then we wake up.
WHAT DO YOU DO?
“I’M A POET.”
?????
Yes.
I have no idea what just happened.
Does this guy hang with Karl Wenclas? Franz Wright. Frank Walsh. Hmmm.
But seriously, LOL.
“hi, my name is obligatory human being 4, what do you do demi-puppet?
HI, MY NAME IS DEMI-PUPPET AND I AM A GIFT TO THE WORLD.”
you don’t think someone who makes such a statement is a shit squish?
well, value systems differ.
in mine, they are shit squish.
Are you referencing the current Franz Wright fiasco?
http://jjgallaher.blogspot.com/2010/05/franz-wright-critique-of-mfa.html
i agree with that.
Er, okay.
small stakes big knives
That, in fact, was the thing that got me thinking about it. I notice things like that happening so much more often in the poetry world. I was wondering if poets tend to be a more rancorous bunch.
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Books/Pix/pictures/2007/01/26/ginsberg460.jpg
This guy was a “shit squish”? Just wondering.
burbur, that comment thread on your link is fucking epic.
Thanks for it.
I love getting hickeys.
I agree with a very tiny percentage of it, but, in general, Franz Wright is a two-bit joke. He’s a merely above-average poet presuming to preach to the “unenlightened” masses of young poets. If you read through the comments, he continues to make an enormous paranoiac ass of himself. Yuck.
A compelling figure and (I suspect) a pretty good guy, but the dude’s poems are total floof. Every now and then I come back to Howl and try to figure out what other people see in it, but I can’t help but be bored by it. It seems totally wretched.
small steaks big knives
I respect your opinion. However, while Ginsberg was somewhat of a nut, I believe his poetry spoke for (and to) a generation. Yeah, he talked a great deal about sucking dick and included many a drug-induced vision, but one has to commend Ginsberg for freeing poetry from it’s prior constraints (I realize that others were, too, but I credit Ginsberg for his role as well) and paving them way for a greater openness with certain thematic elements (especially his overt portrayal of his homosexuality).
I think talking about sucking dicks and doing drugs is great, and while I don’t know much about him, the little of what I’ve heard he did on a political level seems pretty cool! I think I would have loved the guy, had I known him. I just haven’t been able to convince myself, yet, that his poems are any good. It’s exactly the kind of poetry I WANT to love, but all I see when I read them to myself is floof. It all seems very affected, with very little force to it, very little imagination.
I think that if you checked out his Collected Poems and perused through the many years of his poetry, I have faith that you would find some of his writing you enjoy. It has been a few years since I read him, but when I was in college, without many friends and a lot of time on my hands, I remember discovering Ginsberg in the college library and finding myself captivated with his frankness and the immense creativity in his writing. Looking back, I realize that he hid behind the guise of drugs and oftentimes his poetry became repetitive, some of his longer poems, Kaddish, Iron Horse,Wichita Vortex Sutra and Angkor Wat are all worth reading. Also, his journals and letters show his brilliance better than his poetry. If you have some extra space this summer with yr reading, pick up some Ginsberg and see if yr opinion changes!
my endorsement is not an endorsement of him.
I’ve had the big orange Collected for a few years now, and believe me, I keep trying to appreciate him. That wild, sprawling, let-it-all-hang-out style is something I want to believe in. But I’m beginning to lose faith. . .
dude, isn’t this guys middle name “squishy”?
I’ve been there, too. I have a Collected Writings of Whitman in my bookcase and I really want to like him because he did so much for poetry and all but, though I have given him a try on multiple occasions, I simply cannot make my way past #20 or so in Song of Myself. We each have our own poets we admire and if you are still having trouble with Ginsberg, sell it on Ebay and buy some Rimbaud or something :p
Obvious troll is obvious, bro.
I doubt many people answer “what do you do”
with “I’m a poet”
besides the fact that no one sustain themselves solely on being a poet
and therefore not giving only that single response
“being” is not “doing”
they might say, “I write poetry”
hahahahah you just said “anyone who calls himself a poet in earnest is a shit squish”
seriously. that’s pretty funny.
i like when he smashes watermelons with that big wooden mallet.
a lot of his poetry was “floof”, I think. His latter career especially. He just kept them coming out without paying much attention to what was coming out. but Howl was not one of those poems.
Agreed. During his later years, it felt like he sat and mediated and mechanically wrote out whatever was happening around him, just to satisfy the number of poems he needed to send to his publisher. If Ginsberg had erred on the side of quality with his poems, rather than, like you said, churning them out without paying much attention to content, he would have been a lot better off.
Ginsberg prime=late ’50s–early to mid ’60s.
blasphemy, brett!! ; ) Whitman is almost like a religion for me. I feel like nearly every word of SoM just radiates with pure fucking genius (though one section I do kind of cringe at, can’t remember which one—something about minding the trenches). I’ve been working on memorizing SoM so that I can carry it around with me and take refuge in it when the depression strikes. . . so far I’m on section two! : P
Does this guy hang with Karl Wenclas? Franz Wright. Frank Walsh. Hmmm.
But seriously, LOL.
Poets shouldn’t be at each others’ throats; there’s enough nothing for everybody.
This is a fierce and passionate statement. Do you have any other fierce and passionate statements of truth?
Poets shouldn’t be at each others’ throats; there’s enough nothing for everybody.
not really brett.
i just didn’t want to get into the same old argument about the moniker poet.
i am not going to change your mind. you obviously felt your identity was hurt when i made the comment.
it is okay. i really like the poem howl.
otherwise your hero is really fucking boring to me.
i made no comment about his writing previously.
you come at me saying this man is not a deplorable human being but you give me no evidence.
uh okay.
so if your precious hero ran around declaring himself a poet, then yes, i think he is a sopping wet shit squish.
This is a fierce and passionate statement. Do you have any other fierce and passionate statements of truth?
no
Bro, I never came at you saying anything. I was conversing with demi-puppet. Second, he is not my “precious hero”, I was only testing the strength of your “shit squish” definition that was certainly deserving of scrutiny. Third, my identity was not hurt in any way. Ginsberg was a poet I enjoyed reading, but I have moved on from his writing and the Beat movement in general and today, I feel no association with his works and who I am in this present moment. Fourth, I do not appreciate you making inferences regarding the current condition of my identity. We were discussing Ginsberg and his poetry. Let’s keep it that way.
bro, your indifference is magnificent.
i succumb to your intense wit.
i was never discussing poetry. i was discussing the use of the word poet and my value system judgment of the people who use such a term.
value systems differ.
still not sure ‘if’ everything i said is wrong, why you keep trying to defend a broken old man.
i am glad your identity was not hurt.
neither was his.
5th i am not in charge of your feelings. there is no need to feel appreciative or otherwise regarding what i said.
bro,
the real question is: do you call yourself a poet?
if so, defend it.
otherwise, uh yeah bro, i really like tao lin’s writing. so good bro.
lol @ the use of internet memes.
Okay.
Well, let’s all take a deep breath and enjoy the afternoon.
Here is a video I find particularly funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty62YzGryU4
Enjoy.
bro, so in actuality, you had nothing to say or defend and was just ‘trollling’.
i understand.
Are you sure?
honestly i have no desire to play tough guy games.
Jereme Dean
i see what u did there
Hey, Mather hath returned! Welcome dude!
not for long, you can be sure.
Yes.
not really brett.
i just didn’t want to get into the same old argument about the moniker poet.
i am not going to change your mind. you obviously felt your identity was hurt when i made the comment.
it is okay. i really like the poem howl.
otherwise your hero is really fucking boring to me.
i made no comment about his writing previously.
you come at me saying this man is not a deplorable human being but you give me no evidence.
uh okay.
so if your precious hero ran around declaring himself a poet, then yes, i think he is a sopping wet shit squish.
no
Yes, but only because we drink more, party harder, and sleep around.
Bro, I never came at you saying anything. I was conversing with demi-puppet. Second, he is not my “precious hero”, I was only testing the strength of your “shit squish” definition that was certainly deserving of scrutiny. Third, my identity was not hurt in any way. Ginsberg was a poet I enjoyed reading, but I have moved on from his writing and the Beat movement in general and today, I feel no association with his works and who I am in this present moment. Fourth, I do not appreciate you making inferences regarding the current condition of my identity. We were discussing Ginsberg and his poetry. Let’s keep it that way.
It’s kind of expected of you by society / the part of you that respects yourself and the concept of world peace that you never say “I am a poet”.
You have to sort of grimace slightly and tilt your head back and to the side and look at the ceiling and squint your left eye and, possibly, just for effect, squirm your shoulders and feet around a bit. Then, and only then, does it become permissible to avoid the questioner’s eye contact and mumble under your breath, “Well, I sort of… I guess… sometimes… I write poetry. And stuff like that… Erm.”
Any followup questions must be met with the same response until they become uncomfortable and move, grasping, onto a different subject, upon which cue you can immediately go back to punching dicks and making smoky eyes all up in people’s comfort zones.
bro, your indifference is magnificent.
i succumb to your intense wit.
i was never discussing poetry. i was discussing the use of the word poet and my value system judgment of the people who use such a term.
value systems differ.
still not sure ‘if’ everything i said is wrong, why you keep trying to defend a broken old man.
i am glad your identity was not hurt.
neither was his.
5th i am not in charge of your feelings. there is no need to feel appreciative or otherwise regarding what i said.
bro,
the real question is: do you call yourself a poet?
if so, defend it.
otherwise, uh yeah bro, i really like tao lin’s writing. so good bro.
never to say*
lol @ the use of internet memes.
Okay.
Well, let’s all take a deep breath and enjoy the afternoon.
Here is a video I find particularly funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty62YzGryU4
Enjoy.
bro, so in actuality, you had nothing to say or defend and was just ‘trollling’.
i understand.
Are you sure?
honestly i have no desire to play tough guy games.
Jereme Dean
i see what u did there
Hey, Mather hath returned! Welcome dude!
not for long, you can be sure.
Yes.
Yes, but only because we drink more, party harder, and sleep around.
It’s kind of expected of you by society / the part of you that respects yourself and the concept of world peace that you never say “I am a poet”.
You have to sort of grimace slightly and tilt your head back and to the side and look at the ceiling and squint your left eye and, possibly, just for effect, squirm your shoulders and feet around a bit. Then, and only then, does it become permissible to avoid the questioner’s eye contact and mumble under your breath, “Well, I sort of… I guess… sometimes… I write poetry. And stuff like that… Erm.”
Any followup questions must be met with the same response until they become uncomfortable and move, grasping, onto a different subject, upon which cue you can immediately go back to punching dicks and making smoky eyes all up in people’s comfort zones.
never to say*
i don’t feel that i’ve experienced (except for one or two instances) much “at-my-throatness” from other poets. nor do i feel that i’ve exhibited this kind of attitude or behavior.
based on my own experience in an mfa program (just finished year 1) the poets are the laid-back ones that are supportive of each other. while the fiction writers have more of a competitive, non-supportive of each other nature (not all of them).
so my answer is personal experience. maybe i don’t hang around with or associate with or read the blogs of the right poets to feel differently. also, i don’t like conflict so i usually avoid situations where conflict exists.
this is a way late response to this, but hey i don’t have a computer anymore.
i don’t feel that i’ve experienced (except for one or two instances) much “at-my-throatness” from other poets. nor do i feel that i’ve exhibited this kind of attitude or behavior.
based on my own experience in an mfa program (just finished year 1) the poets are the laid-back ones that are supportive of each other. while the fiction writers have more of a competitive, non-supportive of each other nature (not all of them).
so my answer is personal experience. maybe i don’t hang around with or associate with or read the blogs of the right poets to feel differently. also, i don’t like conflict so i usually avoid situations where conflict exists.
this is a way late response to this, but hey i don’t have a computer anymore.