I'm a bit bothered, when in a review, the reviewer calls on the ancestry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson to describe a poet's writing practice (another example would be tracing someone's roots to Charles Olson and Elizabeth Bishop, although I am not sure it means anything or not to the layman).

I'm not going to argue about the avant-garde heritage from Whitman, which, quite frankly, does not interest me. In Galway Kinnell's case, sure, why not link him, however cliché that may be. Mark Doty talks constantly about Whitman, as do (in smaller measures) Tony Hoagland, Ron Silliman and I think Charles Bernstein. I don't need to say that Whitman and Dickinson are anyone's territory (except, perhaps, of American poetry, whatever that is supposed to mean).

But to link John Ashbery to Emily Dickinson is more problematic. I mean, sure, he can write in "gnomic lines," but his lines can be sprawling too. But that's not what bothers me. What does is the assertion of a necessary connection of every American poets to Whitman and Dickinson. You know, the long shadow they cast over American letters. Who's to say that Ashbery owes that much to Dickinson? What about Roussel, Réverdy and the other French Surrealists, the Russian Futurists and that whole tradition worldwide that has nothing to do with Dickinson and Whitman? Are some American poets that insecure about what they do that they need to remind us at every turn that they too have their own homegrown poets and their own "tradition"?

In his preface to André Breton: Selections (UC Press), Mark Polizzoti wrote that without Breton, the New York School and other American poets would be quite different. I think I'm a bit more comfortable with this position.

Comments

CLAY BANES said…
i'm going to keep name-dropping walt whitman and emily dickinson and gertrude stein and charles olson until they hose me down.

it's a ritual. yeah, i agree with you.
Johannes said…
Well it's definitely part of an attempt to keep American poetry American. The attempt to minimize the influence of the French on NY School, or the Futurist influence on Pound is a way of creating a nation (and a national culture).
Amish Trivedi said…
I'd take Johannes' point a step further and say it's an attempt to keep it relatively white. In terms of the canon I remember reading, if it wasn't WASP-y, it was "Multicultural" rather than being called "American" even. It's like people saying they are "American" and ignoring other cultures and backgrounds. It's how America absorbs everything, I think.
Ian Keenan said…
The question is whether Ashbery and the NY School owes more to Breton or Dickinson is so obvious (in favor of François’ reading of MP) as to be silly. The agenda of the NYTimes includes the ‘nationalism’ of poetry, which is legislated into the curriculum, and the selecting out of poets like Ashbery, Ginsberg, and Snyder to enhance the short list of establishment poets based on a lineage that cannot bear the slightest scrutiny. Histories like that of the NY School are downplayed.
François Luong said…
Hey all,

I'm not sure that this attempt to keep "American poetry American" is a conscious effort or part of an agenda from the New York Times. I mean, I've seen David Kirby (and other poet-critics) name-drop Whitman quite frequently and I've seen other not doing it. I think it's more sheer laziness than anything.
François Luong said…
Oh, and also an unconscious passing down of a tradition that dates back to Emerson. You know, when Americans were a bit insecure and wanted to demarcate themselves from the Brits ...
CLAY BANES said…
it's a persistent tradition—and not just for bogeymen like the new york times.

then there's the festishistic historicizing of a particular american "school" of poetry from about a generation ago, one i'm not supposed to be ambivalent about but grateful for, that makes its own red-white-and-blue claims, creeping rootstalks.

maybe it's the emphatic lust for a narrative. i'll have to think about that.

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