Wesleyan University has announced a new, unexpurgated version of this book. Go here for more information.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Soleil cou coupé
Wesleyan University has announced a new, unexpurgated version of this book. Go here for more information.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Howl: A Review
I first heard they were making a movie about "Howl" sometime last year. I was sitting in a classroom at Naropa. Everyone kind of laughed at the idea and thought it wouldn't be any good. Then I saw the trailer. I wasn't sure what to make of it. James Franco seemed a good fit for Ginsberg, but the animation and the scene of Allen and Peter howling were a little off-putting. Still, I was interested.
My introduction to poetry was not Allen Ginsberg, but Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I had just discovered Beat literature and began devouring books as quickly as possible, but I remember being somewhat hesitant about exploring the world of poetry. My only experiences with it were in high school English class, which I (and pretty much everyone else) hated. It was something like a revelation to read A Coney Island of the Mind, to see the plain-spoken language, the lines that ran all over the page, and the humor.
Not long after, I read "Howl", learned about the Six Gallery reading, the obscenity trial and the question was: how would they handle all of this?
The movie cycles between five different kinds of scenes: the "interviews" with Ginsberg, where Franco talks to an interviewer that is never shown, giving us the sense he's talking directly to the audience; brief flashbacks to key moments in Ginsberg's life; the animation, which is based on Erik Drooker's work in Ginsberg's Illuminated poems; the Six Gallery reading; and the trial.
This sequencing is a nice way to handle so much varied material, but one of the most immediately striking things about this movie is how little interaction there is between the characters on the screen. Ferlinghetti never speaks. Neither does Kerouac or Orlovsky. This lets the audience know the focus is on the poem, not the characters and experiences who inspired it.
However, this does minimize the impact that the flashbacks have on the audience. Unless you already know the history behind the poem (I assume most people who attended this movie did), they are not likely to feel significant. Howl tries to make up for this through Franco's interviews, which certainly provide context to these scenes, but this does not make the characters or their relationship to Ginsberg feel real.
Then there's the animation. At best, it is adequate. I think the movie would certainly be missing something were it not to be included, but Drooker's style works better in a book than a movie. This, I think, is more of a problem with the transition between mediums than anything else. Were Blake's illuminated books to be turned into a film, I believe a lot of their charm would also be lost.
Of all the scenes, the most effective were the Six Gallery reading. Franco's delivery of the poem shows he has listened to Ginsberg's performances, that he has read and studied the poem. they show a great deal of the poem, allowing for every section, even the footnote, to be read aloud. One thing I was surprised about, though, was that explication of the line "listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox", was strangely absent from the film. Not only does it reflect the post-war era, it was also one of the key phrases that Ginsberg thought represented the compositional breakthrough in "Howl."
Leaving the theater I didn't feel like I had gained any new insights into the poem. It was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, but unless you're a devotee to Beat literature, or you don't know anything about it (but would like to), I'm not sure this movie will be worth your while. By far the most fascinating part about Howl, is the fact that it exists. This is not The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg, nor is it an adaptation of one of Kerouac's novels--it is a movie about a poem. In a world where poetry is practically invisible in mainstream culture, a movie like Howl could attract more readership and interest, which is always a good thing.
My introduction to poetry was not Allen Ginsberg, but Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I had just discovered Beat literature and began devouring books as quickly as possible, but I remember being somewhat hesitant about exploring the world of poetry. My only experiences with it were in high school English class, which I (and pretty much everyone else) hated. It was something like a revelation to read A Coney Island of the Mind, to see the plain-spoken language, the lines that ran all over the page, and the humor.
Not long after, I read "Howl", learned about the Six Gallery reading, the obscenity trial and the question was: how would they handle all of this?
The movie cycles between five different kinds of scenes: the "interviews" with Ginsberg, where Franco talks to an interviewer that is never shown, giving us the sense he's talking directly to the audience; brief flashbacks to key moments in Ginsberg's life; the animation, which is based on Erik Drooker's work in Ginsberg's Illuminated poems; the Six Gallery reading; and the trial.
This sequencing is a nice way to handle so much varied material, but one of the most immediately striking things about this movie is how little interaction there is between the characters on the screen. Ferlinghetti never speaks. Neither does Kerouac or Orlovsky. This lets the audience know the focus is on the poem, not the characters and experiences who inspired it.
However, this does minimize the impact that the flashbacks have on the audience. Unless you already know the history behind the poem (I assume most people who attended this movie did), they are not likely to feel significant. Howl tries to make up for this through Franco's interviews, which certainly provide context to these scenes, but this does not make the characters or their relationship to Ginsberg feel real.
Then there's the animation. At best, it is adequate. I think the movie would certainly be missing something were it not to be included, but Drooker's style works better in a book than a movie. This, I think, is more of a problem with the transition between mediums than anything else. Were Blake's illuminated books to be turned into a film, I believe a lot of their charm would also be lost.
Of all the scenes, the most effective were the Six Gallery reading. Franco's delivery of the poem shows he has listened to Ginsberg's performances, that he has read and studied the poem. they show a great deal of the poem, allowing for every section, even the footnote, to be read aloud. One thing I was surprised about, though, was that explication of the line "listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox", was strangely absent from the film. Not only does it reflect the post-war era, it was also one of the key phrases that Ginsberg thought represented the compositional breakthrough in "Howl."
Leaving the theater I didn't feel like I had gained any new insights into the poem. It was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, but unless you're a devotee to Beat literature, or you don't know anything about it (but would like to), I'm not sure this movie will be worth your while. By far the most fascinating part about Howl, is the fact that it exists. This is not The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg, nor is it an adaptation of one of Kerouac's novels--it is a movie about a poem. In a world where poetry is practically invisible in mainstream culture, a movie like Howl could attract more readership and interest, which is always a good thing.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Erasing the Divide
It's nearly impossible to read Silliman's blog for any length of time without finding mention of "The School of Quietude." Nobody seems to be sure exactly what it means (though plenty have tried to define it). It is often contrasted by what Silliman has deemed the "post-avant." My question has nothing to do with what these terms mean but rather why they exist. Is making such a binary opposition between two "schools" of poetry useful anymore? Isn't it a bit reductive? Doesn't it create a false sense of community on both sides?
This isn't the cliched "why can't we all just get along" populist plea for a meeting place in the center, but cutting the world of poetry in half doesn't serve any other purpose besides creating an arena for political debate and marketing. Yet nearly every artist in the last one hundred years has sworn allegiance to one side or the other (whatever they may have been). I'm just surprised that someone like Silliman, who is obviously capable of thinking beyond the either/or systems we grapple with everyday, would resort playing this game.
I think, if I may pull up my soapbox on this issue, that anything that reduces what is thought to be possible in poetry is not conducive to pushing at the boundaries of the art form. One of the tenants of postmodernism, if such a nebulously-defined word could be said to have any, is that everything has been done. Indeed, a lot of things have happened, but everything? Gertrude Stein said that the only thing that changes with each generation is composition. Composition, more than anything else, is affected by technology. Consider the leap from the 19th century to the 20th century. New technologies became available that did not exist previously and the writing from the early 20th century is marked by them. Most immediately, e.e. cummings' experiments come to mind. There is also the photomontage technique of the Surrealists. With all of the radical changes that the early 20th century saw, can one say that the writers living in the 21st century aren't being changed by new technologies?
Consider translation. No matter how crude they come out, one can now translate from one langauge to another just by clicking a button. As an experiment, take one of your poems and run it through a translator a few times. You'll likely find something has changed when it is returned to English. you may even find a whole new poem.
Of all the new technologies to change the world, the internet has had the most impact. It has made the world smaller by closing the gaps in communication that used to exist when we relied on face-to-face contact, letters, and telephones. Though we have acknowledged the existence of what has come to be known as the global village, I'm not sure we totally understand it. Someone, commenting on the barbarism of World War I, observed that it was being fought with modern weapons and medieval tactics. Similarly, I believe the allegiances we have to things like countries are based on an outdated perception of the world when a border couldn't be crossed from the comfort of your living room. If something so complex as identity can no longer be defined in a two-dimensional way, then why would poetry be any different?
This isn't the cliched "why can't we all just get along" populist plea for a meeting place in the center, but cutting the world of poetry in half doesn't serve any other purpose besides creating an arena for political debate and marketing. Yet nearly every artist in the last one hundred years has sworn allegiance to one side or the other (whatever they may have been). I'm just surprised that someone like Silliman, who is obviously capable of thinking beyond the either/or systems we grapple with everyday, would resort playing this game.
I think, if I may pull up my soapbox on this issue, that anything that reduces what is thought to be possible in poetry is not conducive to pushing at the boundaries of the art form. One of the tenants of postmodernism, if such a nebulously-defined word could be said to have any, is that everything has been done. Indeed, a lot of things have happened, but everything? Gertrude Stein said that the only thing that changes with each generation is composition. Composition, more than anything else, is affected by technology. Consider the leap from the 19th century to the 20th century. New technologies became available that did not exist previously and the writing from the early 20th century is marked by them. Most immediately, e.e. cummings' experiments come to mind. There is also the photomontage technique of the Surrealists. With all of the radical changes that the early 20th century saw, can one say that the writers living in the 21st century aren't being changed by new technologies?
Consider translation. No matter how crude they come out, one can now translate from one langauge to another just by clicking a button. As an experiment, take one of your poems and run it through a translator a few times. You'll likely find something has changed when it is returned to English. you may even find a whole new poem.
Of all the new technologies to change the world, the internet has had the most impact. It has made the world smaller by closing the gaps in communication that used to exist when we relied on face-to-face contact, letters, and telephones. Though we have acknowledged the existence of what has come to be known as the global village, I'm not sure we totally understand it. Someone, commenting on the barbarism of World War I, observed that it was being fought with modern weapons and medieval tactics. Similarly, I believe the allegiances we have to things like countries are based on an outdated perception of the world when a border couldn't be crossed from the comfort of your living room. If something so complex as identity can no longer be defined in a two-dimensional way, then why would poetry be any different?
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Peter Orlovsky Memorial Reading
Poetry readings have always been very hit or miss for me. They're great for getting your work out there, meeting other writers, and probably some other things I'm unable to think of at the present moment. But, I began reading poetry in books, I write all of my poetry in books, and this is likely to continue, despite my intention to begin reading more.
However, last night something was made clear at the Peter Orlovsky Memorial Reading at St. Mark's Church about the function of a poetry reading: to make you remember a poem. In this case, Ginsberg's "On Cremation of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche," read by Patti Smith with Piano accompaniment with Philip Glass. If I can track down the recording of it that my friend took (and it's of good quality), I'll upload it. However, a collaboration between the two exist on YouTube, so, enjoy:
However, last night something was made clear at the Peter Orlovsky Memorial Reading at St. Mark's Church about the function of a poetry reading: to make you remember a poem. In this case, Ginsberg's "On Cremation of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche," read by Patti Smith with Piano accompaniment with Philip Glass. If I can track down the recording of it that my friend took (and it's of good quality), I'll upload it. However, a collaboration between the two exist on YouTube, so, enjoy:
Monday, September 20, 2010
David Orr and Why Poets Quote
"When a contemporary poet [uses] quotes...It tells us less about whom a poet hopes to equal and more about where he’d like to hang out."
The above statement, edited slightly, is from David Orr's op-ed piece in yesterday's NY Times Book Review (which you can read in its entirety here) on why contemporary poets use epigrams and citations so much. This topic is of immense interest to me, as I spent an entire year writing poems from nothing but found language--overheard conversations, lines from poems, novels, comic books, fortune cookies--anything I found of interest, really, and, I never once cited my sources. I don't intend to use this piece as a launch pad to espouse my own theories on why contemporary poets quote, mostly because I'm still figuring out what's happening today in poetry and can really only speak for myself. What I do intend to highlight is what David Orr is really talking about: ownership and "originality".
The above quote from Orr, though it is clearly the main argument he is making, does not come at the beginning of the article. Rather, it begins as follows:
Imagine that this essay began not with the sentence you’re reading, but with the following observation, attributed to Wittgenstein: “A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.” A little oblique for an opening gambit, you might think, but presumably it will pay off shortly. Imagine further, however, that the Wittgenstein quotation was immediately followed by quotes from Simone Weil, the Upanishads and the Hungarian poet Gyorgy Petri. At this point, you might find yourself wondering, “O.K., when is the actual author going to actually give me something he actually wrote?”
Imagine that David Orr had written a poem and, rather than citing Wittgenstein, Simone Weil, the Upanishads, and Gyorgi Petri, he just strung the quotes together. Wouldn't that completely bypass the question he posed in the final sentence of this paragraph? It seems the act of citing your sources (a necessity in criticism, a nice gesture in anything creative) is what makes this an issue. Wouldn't it also solve the problem of "where the writer would like to hang out" if no point of reference was given?
Of course, to so would be stealing--but didn't T.S. Eliot, who Orr both praises a great poet and blames for the state of the citation in contemporary poetry, say, "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal"? (It should be noted that when The Waste Land was published, many critics dismissed it saying something to the effect of, "Eliot has quoted a lot and alluded a lot, but what he has actually written is far too insubstantial").
So then why is Eliot so highly regarded and these others written off as mere followers? Is it because he is the "original thief?" (I'd like to remind everyone that he later published his own notes to The Waste Land with annotations). Whatever Eliot truly meant, I believe his intention with the quotation was that someone already said it better and best to steal what is well said than regurgitate and water it down.
One author this article doesn't mention is Louis Zukofsky, whose Poem Beginning 'The' is far more radical in its approach to quotations. He prefaces his poem with the notes, arranged alphabetically, but lets the quotations sit within in the poem, undisturbed by the original author's name. Since each line is numbered, it serves the dual purpose of giving the illusion of a linear progression (though in actuality it reminds us of the stitched-together nature of the poem) as well as provides for easy reference to these notes. However, these notes do nothing to show respect to Zukofsky's predecessors. This is evident by the presence of citations to The Sun, Zukofsky himself, and to "anyone and anything [he] has unjustifiably forgotten."
So who owns this work then? I think this is a big part of what Zukofsky was trying to highlight by bringing so much disparate material together--not only the nature of a poem, but the nature of identity. One cannot draw a line and say, "This is what I have created and this is what I have taken from someone else," because at some point, it becomes impossible to tell the difference, or where one begins and one ends. Of course, nobody wants to be accused of plagiarism, so we're basically stuck where we were nearly one hundred years ago, when Eliot was written off as someone with an impressive ability to quote, but not a lot to say.
Ironically, in that same quote I began this post with, Orr asserts that most poets today quote to be like T.S. Eliot. Really? Though Eliot certainly popularized the use of numerous quotations, he didn't invent it. I'd be interested in asking the poets he mentions in his article if they are particularly influenced by Eliot or where they got the idea to use quotations from. It seems a little presumptuous to say that Eliot's shadow is still that big over the world of poetry. I mean, since I began this post with a quotation, does that mean I'd like to be Eliot? Since it was a quote by David Orr, does that mean I want to "hang out" with him? Or was it merely the starting point for this post?
The above statement, edited slightly, is from David Orr's op-ed piece in yesterday's NY Times Book Review (which you can read in its entirety here) on why contemporary poets use epigrams and citations so much. This topic is of immense interest to me, as I spent an entire year writing poems from nothing but found language--overheard conversations, lines from poems, novels, comic books, fortune cookies--anything I found of interest, really, and, I never once cited my sources. I don't intend to use this piece as a launch pad to espouse my own theories on why contemporary poets quote, mostly because I'm still figuring out what's happening today in poetry and can really only speak for myself. What I do intend to highlight is what David Orr is really talking about: ownership and "originality".
The above quote from Orr, though it is clearly the main argument he is making, does not come at the beginning of the article. Rather, it begins as follows:
Imagine that this essay began not with the sentence you’re reading, but with the following observation, attributed to Wittgenstein: “A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.” A little oblique for an opening gambit, you might think, but presumably it will pay off shortly. Imagine further, however, that the Wittgenstein quotation was immediately followed by quotes from Simone Weil, the Upanishads and the Hungarian poet Gyorgy Petri. At this point, you might find yourself wondering, “O.K., when is the actual author going to actually give me something he actually wrote?”
Imagine that David Orr had written a poem and, rather than citing Wittgenstein, Simone Weil, the Upanishads, and Gyorgi Petri, he just strung the quotes together. Wouldn't that completely bypass the question he posed in the final sentence of this paragraph? It seems the act of citing your sources (a necessity in criticism, a nice gesture in anything creative) is what makes this an issue. Wouldn't it also solve the problem of "where the writer would like to hang out" if no point of reference was given?
Of course, to so would be stealing--but didn't T.S. Eliot, who Orr both praises a great poet and blames for the state of the citation in contemporary poetry, say, "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal"? (It should be noted that when The Waste Land was published, many critics dismissed it saying something to the effect of, "Eliot has quoted a lot and alluded a lot, but what he has actually written is far too insubstantial").
So then why is Eliot so highly regarded and these others written off as mere followers? Is it because he is the "original thief?" (I'd like to remind everyone that he later published his own notes to The Waste Land with annotations). Whatever Eliot truly meant, I believe his intention with the quotation was that someone already said it better and best to steal what is well said than regurgitate and water it down.
One author this article doesn't mention is Louis Zukofsky, whose Poem Beginning 'The' is far more radical in its approach to quotations. He prefaces his poem with the notes, arranged alphabetically, but lets the quotations sit within in the poem, undisturbed by the original author's name. Since each line is numbered, it serves the dual purpose of giving the illusion of a linear progression (though in actuality it reminds us of the stitched-together nature of the poem) as well as provides for easy reference to these notes. However, these notes do nothing to show respect to Zukofsky's predecessors. This is evident by the presence of citations to The Sun, Zukofsky himself, and to "anyone and anything [he] has unjustifiably forgotten."
So who owns this work then? I think this is a big part of what Zukofsky was trying to highlight by bringing so much disparate material together--not only the nature of a poem, but the nature of identity. One cannot draw a line and say, "This is what I have created and this is what I have taken from someone else," because at some point, it becomes impossible to tell the difference, or where one begins and one ends. Of course, nobody wants to be accused of plagiarism, so we're basically stuck where we were nearly one hundred years ago, when Eliot was written off as someone with an impressive ability to quote, but not a lot to say.
Ironically, in that same quote I began this post with, Orr asserts that most poets today quote to be like T.S. Eliot. Really? Though Eliot certainly popularized the use of numerous quotations, he didn't invent it. I'd be interested in asking the poets he mentions in his article if they are particularly influenced by Eliot or where they got the idea to use quotations from. It seems a little presumptuous to say that Eliot's shadow is still that big over the world of poetry. I mean, since I began this post with a quotation, does that mean I'd like to be Eliot? Since it was a quote by David Orr, does that mean I want to "hang out" with him? Or was it merely the starting point for this post?
Friday, September 17, 2010
Ashbery at the Brooklyn Book Festival
Though it hasn't been publicly announced, apparently John Ashbery is translating Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations. I'm kind of a late-comer to this bit of information, since it looks like some mention of it has been on the web for about a year now, but, having just re-read Illuminations and enjoyed it immensely, this is quite exciting. No word on the publisher yet, though the Library of America has its bets on Ecco.
Unfortunately, I could not make the Brooklyn Book Festival last Sunday because I had to work. I became even more disappointed to learn that Ashbery was there, read poems, both original and translations of Rimbaud, as well as spoke about his early experiences in NYC. Part of my bucket list is to see him read before he passes, so here's to hoping. Anyway, a recording of the interview can be found here.
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