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.
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
it's a ritual. yeah, i agree with you.
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.
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.