tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post7377321423440271159..comments2024-03-20T16:46:13.343-04:00Comments on Marly Youmans / The Palace at 2:00 a.m. / poems, stories, novels: You Asked no. 13: Reading, affinities and animadversionsMarly Youmanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-39291078571248365102016-02-24T15:42:45.752-05:002016-02-24T15:42:45.752-05:00Yes, think so--and I do think the Chinese versions...Yes, think so--and I do think the Chinese versions/variations will last. Maybe some others. And that's a lot, really. Hard to lodge anything where it will last.Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-86186560320359999482016-02-24T15:37:05.092-05:002016-02-24T15:37:05.092-05:00Yes, I think that's so. I was lucky enough to ...Yes, I think that's so. I was lucky enough to be in a rather old-fashioned graduate program--changed soon after I left, so I'm grateful.Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-17053557997170550782016-02-24T15:35:52.958-05:002016-02-24T15:35:52.958-05:00Yes, unfortunately. I do not judge his work by his...Yes, unfortunately. I do not judge his work by his mistakes--which he later regarded as such. <br /><br />Hemingway did not have the greater advantage that we have, seeing the work after much time has passed. But I think there are lasting elements in Pound's work, as I mentioned earlier.Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-33215656498019267312016-02-24T14:25:05.563-05:002016-02-24T14:25:05.563-05:00I was a grad student in English in the 1980's ...<br />I was a grad student in English in the 1980's and I assure you that only a few of the poets among the professors knew there "was a formalist revival going on" in contemporary poetry. Most were trying so hard to master literary theory and out-duel each other in that god-awful post-modern vocabulary that they couldn't write a clean sentence, or even appreciate one.How to contact Mary: marybullington53@gmail.comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08174581825078147922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-73299677788917917122016-02-24T14:17:33.724-05:002016-02-24T14:17:33.724-05:00And there is this from Wikipedia about Pound:
His ...And there is this from Wikipedia about Pound:<br />His political views ensure that his work remains as controversial now as it was during his lifetime; in 1933 Time magazine called him "a cat that walks by himself, tenaciously unhousebroken and very unsafe for children." Hemingway wrote: "The best of Pound's writing – and it is in the Cantos – will last as long as there is any RTDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17113953356514605424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-30817445539389440032016-02-24T14:14:19.948-05:002016-02-24T14:14:19.948-05:00Pound's poems have gone out of fashion and com...Pound's poems have gone out of fashion and come back in, and will repeat this pattern for another hundred years or two, I suspect. It's the way of things that are good--.How to contact Mary: marybullington53@gmail.comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08174581825078147922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-24044417538164086122016-02-24T10:25:36.386-05:002016-02-24T10:25:36.386-05:00Mary's interesting and quirky in her thinking!...Mary's interesting and quirky in her thinking! We've known each other forever (since college), and I often stop by her house in Roanoke.<br /><br />College is so far gone I can hardly remember, though I did have a class in Yeats (of course!) And I know that a Richard Wilbur book was one of my texts for another class. So it wasn't all free verse. And the late John Alexander Allen (aka Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-10062110371090143442016-02-24T01:29:56.748-05:002016-02-24T01:29:56.748-05:00" The trajectory of many ideas now trendy in ..." The trajectory of many ideas now trendy in the academic world is destructive to poets."<br /><br />How true, how true. I was a college student in the late '80s and early '90s, and none of my English profs told us that there was a formalist revival in poetry going on. I now assume that almost none of them even knew; I had to discover it myself twenty years later. I hardly Jeffhttp://www.quidplura.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-47239170300305410472016-02-23T19:26:42.866-05:002016-02-23T19:26:42.866-05:00Yes, versions or variations on a theme, I suppose....Yes, versions or variations on a theme, I suppose. Yes, I love that one. And I think there are others in the same vein that will last.Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-21037488766363376092016-02-23T18:17:37.078-05:002016-02-23T18:17:37.078-05:00I don't know what to call them, either. Versio...I don't know what to call them, either. Versions? "The River-Merchant's Wife" is beautiful, moving. Worth remembering.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-67792172492420087372016-02-23T08:40:08.443-05:002016-02-23T08:40:08.443-05:00Sad, I suppose, but he had a great, lively part in...Sad, I suppose, but he had a great, lively part in the times. (And a terrible part later on, but that's another tale.)<br /><br />I expect pieces like "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter" will bob on through time. I don't know what to call those sorts of poems--variations?Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-64847076256371088902016-02-23T01:30:57.533-05:002016-02-23T01:30:57.533-05:00Or maybe just his criticism. "Oh, you know Po...Or maybe just his criticism. "Oh, you know Pound was a poet, too," people will say.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-4400924435217164312016-02-23T00:59:12.759-05:002016-02-23T00:59:12.759-05:00Thank you, Marja-leena. Will be glueing this colla...Thank you, Marja-leena. Will be glueing this collage down tomorrow--so keep yr fingers crossed for me!How to contact Mary: marybullington53@gmail.comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08174581825078147922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-66041134709122108732016-02-22T20:28:15.545-05:002016-02-22T20:28:15.545-05:00I like that idea as well. Such a strange man--so q...I like that idea as well. Such a strange man--so quotable, too, when he talks about art and poetry. I am afraid that no one will read "The Cantos" in a few years. Maybe just his "translations." <br /><br />And thank you--always good to have a writer say such a thing.Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-3302578762915154352016-02-22T20:05:26.433-05:002016-02-22T20:05:26.433-05:00"The proper stance for any poet in relation t..."The proper stance for any poet in relation to the past ought to be one of humility in the presence of mastery. The dead should not be dead to us if their work is alive."<br /><br />Yes, to that, yes. Ezra Pound says that we must read past works as if they are contemporary, because we are not surpassing what has come before, but <i>joining</i> it. I paraphrase, but that's the gist.<scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-80407766033008713642016-02-22T19:54:53.085-05:002016-02-22T19:54:53.085-05:00I've reread it once more, and it is lovely--I ...I've reread it once more, and it is lovely--I like those lines, and the light thronging the grass, and the way Larkin somehow cannot help but let love have its immortal day despite "the stone finality."Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-31448906772195560902016-02-22T19:45:17.002-05:002016-02-22T19:45:17.002-05:00She will be pleased to see that comment!
I think ...She will be pleased to see that comment!<br /><br />I think we will be pausing for a while after the next question (in which Mary will talks about her various ways of going-about a collage.) I'm glad you have been interested.Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-83432419973867359312016-02-22T19:31:12.732-05:002016-02-22T19:31:12.732-05:00Fascinating conversations, not sure I can add anyt...Fascinating conversations, not sure I can add anything intelligent except to say I enjoyed reading it. <br /><br />I must add that Mary's new art work is very dramatic and exciting, quite different from her earlier works that you have featured, which of course are wonderful.marja-leenahttp://www.marja-leena-rathje.infonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-84463677021829822132016-02-22T13:47:10.950-05:002016-02-22T13:47:10.950-05:00Yeats does seem to come back to me more often than...Yeats does seem to come back to me more often than most. But luckily we don't have to choose.Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-81752723122395854912016-02-22T13:46:38.748-05:002016-02-22T13:46:38.748-05:00Oh, I shall have to reread that one--after I get o...Oh, I shall have to reread that one--after I get off the treadmill, that is!Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-68772943745386364342016-02-22T12:50:16.091-05:002016-02-22T12:50:16.091-05:00You get both (sacred and profane) in Donne of cour...You get both (sacred and profane) in Donne of course, but he's not so distant. But you've set a hare running and I've just been downstairs to check out An Arundel Tomb, wondering whether PL gsins any redemption there. Perhaps not but it does contain two of the most touching lines in modern poetry and one doesn't expect to be touched by PL:<br /><br /><i>One sees, with a sharp Roderick Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16828395545197001637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-72089939533646932922016-02-22T11:04:21.418-05:002016-02-22T11:04:21.418-05:00Hooray! I'm so glad you mentioned Blake, Dicki...Hooray! I'm so glad you mentioned Blake, Dickinson, Hopkins, and Yeats. If I had to choose only one poet to read for the rest of my life, I would be hard pressed to choose one from that quartet. What about you? If you had to choose just one . . . Yeats?RTDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17113953356514605424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-68154071163665404692016-02-22T08:27:56.507-05:002016-02-22T08:27:56.507-05:00I think he is appreciated--I certainly went throug...I think he is appreciated--I certainly went through a Larkin-reading time, though long ago. I haven't desired to go through another, but that doesn't mean I won't, eventually. Some people come round frequently (Yeats), and others take longer to cycle back. (I can't say that I am exactly fond of Larkin's persona, though, and perhaps that makes difference.)<br /><br />Among Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-47356074121889203652016-02-22T02:33:49.753-05:002016-02-22T02:33:49.753-05:00I note the etc after the list of names; note too t...I note the etc after the list of names; note too the absence of Larkin who could have been mixed up in the etceteras. He is of course notorious (among people who wouldn't normally read poetry) for a single line out of a biggish oeuvre but I wonder whether he's appreciated - or even known - much on t'other side of the Pond. Too profane if not?Roderick Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16828395545197001637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539948.post-90630041961701385932016-02-21T13:25:36.655-05:002016-02-21T13:25:36.655-05:00So you were done! I expect that's the best way...So you were done! I expect that's the best way to finish anything. <br /><br />I was wondering if that one was yours (especially since people have been leaving poems lately.) I like it.Marly Youmanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02377938366750387442noreply@blogger.com