Inviting a Poetry Storm

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 06:58 PST and is filed under My Website, People, Posts About Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or use this trackback URL:
http://www.gregrperry.com/blog/2006/01/16/inviting-a-poetry-storm/trackback/

5 Responses to “Inviting a Poetry Storm”

1. The Other Greg says:
   

   Hi Greg. I’ll admit to being mildly amused with a smidgeon of annoyance at what you rightly call a “callous” remark. I’m re-posting my comment from my blog in response to yours there:
   “Hi Greg. Thanks for the clarification. And maybe my readers shouldn’t care (thanks Sharon for caring) but I admit I do. Since my target audience happens to be philistines in general, I take such criticism to heart. Moreover, since I take Greg Perry to my very depths, well, you know. But I’ll make a deal with you. You tell me why, in your philistine perspective, you think it’s crap. And I’ll give you some names of poets I don’t think are.”

   January 16th, 2006 at 07:33
2. Greg says:
   

   I don’t mind engaging in a dialogue, if you don’t mind sporadic responses. The venue is a little difficult, as Blogger doesn’t accept trackbacks.

   I’ll need some time to read more of your work, and I again invite your readers to point me to their favorites. However, I should warn you that I’ve never been a big fan of free verse. What poetry I have read that I liked tends to be more structured – epics such as Virgil’s Aeneid, and Beowulf; Kipling, Frost, Coleridge, Blake and the Bard’s sonnets.

   I’ll admit to mixed feelings, including some appreciation, for Whitman, Sandburg, cummings, and especially Corso, but they’re not the sort of thing that I would pick up and read on my own initiative. And since I tend to romanticize the entire idea of poetry, it’s hard for me to accept modern technological references. It’s possible that I have an ingrained prejudice that you have to be dead to be a good poet, something I wouldn’t ask you to aspire to just to please me.

   So if my tastes illustrate what was wrong with public school secondary education in the arts back two decades ago, I’m afraid all I can claim is a victim status. If you really want a perspective from my myopic lens, you now have an idea of what you’re up against. I’ve seen many, many links to your sites in search engines, suggesting you have quite an established base of appreciative fans. They might counsel you that you can’t, and perhaps shouldn’t try, to please everyone.

   January 16th, 2006 at 10:12
3. The Other Greg says:
   

   Just added this comment in response:

   Ah. A formalist. I’ve been journeying away from that strict practice this past year, although I remain metrical. But still more blank verse than free. But you should check out poets such as Rhina Espaillat and many more at http://www.thehypertexts.com. Poets like Gwynn, Finch, Stallings. But also check these poets: Warren, Krisak, Crawford. There’s a lot there to taste. Some who aren’t but are worth a google or two: Timothy Murphy and Alfred Nicol. As for free versers: Gary Snyder and Robert Creeley (and many more) are worth googling too.

   January 16th, 2006 at 20:26
4. Greg says:
   

   What did you expect? I’m an engineer. So I must also make clarifications and question what I don’t understand so far. Remember, an engineer only sees a glass that is twice as big as it needs to be.

   First off, I really am a “Greg”, not a “Gregory.” Secondly, I’m not really the dotcom to your dotnet – our other namesake is a real estate agent in Washington state. And third – I don’t understand what you mean by “…since I take Greg Perry to my very depths, well, you know.” I thought you had repudiated the name, which was the cause for my very first comment on your blog, and the puerile reason I hold a bunch of sonrivers domain names – which really are yours, if you want them. Finally, I stand corrected – I believe I should have used the term “blank verse” when I said “free verse.”

   I don’t know if you have recognized an inability to give coherent literary criticism, whether you modestly await your readers’ submittals of their favorites for consideration, or if the invitation to educate a philistine is so exigent; but I see that you have already come up with my reading assignment. Perhaps with some contrasts and comparisons I would be better able to explain why I have found your work… less than compelling.

   What really confuses me is that you describe philistines (we really need to come up with some synomyms for that word, but it’s just so… juicy) as your target audience, but while going back through your archives, looking to get clubbed, I ran across several posts that indicate you have a keen interest in what you consider to be the travails of your Art – perspectives that would place you on the cutting edge, quite distant from the intended consumer. I particularly liked the one with the Frost inferences, even if I couldn’t follow the logic.

   January 17th, 2006 at 00:48
5. Greg says:
   

   Thanks for your consideration
   Here are riches to behold
   And as a reconciliation
   If I may be just as bold

   From the Aussie bush sing poets
   Some whose words have not reached far
   But we hold them dear to our hearts
   And now you may see who they are.

   A.B. “Banjo” Patterson

   • The Geebung Polo Club
   • The Man from Snowy River
   • Clancy of the Overflow

   Dorothea Mackellar

   • My Country

   et al.

   January 17th, 2006 at 01:49

Leave a Reply