|
|
|
21 April 2005: Former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins has written an appreciation of E. E. Cummings you can read
here at some kind of Internet magazine called Slate. It's a pretty good piece at the level of NY Times writings. That is, it's informative, well- and entertainingly written but doesn't say anything of much value about Cummings's poetry below the level of what it's about, etc. But he does mention his typographical innovations and seems to agree with me that Cummings was easily the most innovative American poet we've had.
I was annoyed enough by his assertion that Cummings has had no influence on later poets to write a comment at the site. I and others also protested Collins's contention that Cummings is no longer read. One writer annoyed me further by raving over the poem by Cummings that starts, "since feeling is first/ who pays any attention/ to the syntax of things/ will never wholly kiss you," which is among the most moronic passages in all of Cummings, who probably wrote more moronic passages than any other major poet on record. To those who love the passage, I have to point out that he's saying that no one who uses the avisceral parts of his brain while engaged in any form of love can fully experience it. Of course, it's the other way around: whoever does not use all of his brain while engaged in any form of love cannot fully experience it. That's a fact.
Not that feeling is not first; it's simply not everything.
My comment wasn't much: "Nice appreciation of Cummings, especially by a knownstreamer like Collins. But he is absurdly wrong about Cummings's influence. If he'd get out and take a look at a few of the microzines and Internet sites where the poetry of technical excitement is, he'd know that many contemporary poets use the typographical devices of Cummings in highly effective poems without a second thought, and have been doing so for decades. For more information, attend the first panel on Cummings at the American Literature Association convention at the end of May where I, Bob Grumman, will be reading a paper on his influence." I mentioned my name because to comment at the site, you have to use a nickname. After using the nickname, "Toot" (You won't believe how long it took me to think of any nickname after I learned someone had beated me to "Xeno"), I saw that someone has used his real name as a single word, so "bobgrumman" probably would have worked.
About thirty people have commented on Collins's article in the two days that it's been up, all but one pro-Cummings. The one not wondered why Collins hadn't mention Cummings's deplorable anti-Semitism. I've decided not to get into that (by saying something like "because not everyone is a moronically hyper-sensitive Philistine who worries about mild political incorrectnesses that 99.7% of Cummings's work is uninfected by"). One writer was kind enough to ask me to post my piece on Cummings after giving it. Unfortunately, another of his posts suggested he won't be too interested in what the followers of Cummings are doing. Like, I would say, just about the people commenting, he likes only long-certified poets. No one said anything favorable about visual poetry, and just one mentioned any kind of burst-norm poets--a few of the lately-certified language poets.
|
|
|
|
|
|