I was a bit surprised to receive an email from Henry Gould of The Plumbline School, inviting me (at the suggestion of Plumbline fellow Joseph Duemer) to join their circle. My response was essentially a reaction to the School's self-definition, to wit:
"Plumbline poetry" is provisionally defined here as poetry which exhibits a stylistic "mean between extremes": understated, transparent, inclusive, objective. It avoids extremes of both the ponderous and the superficial; it shuns mannerism and facile ornamentation, on behalf of clarity and simplicity of presentation. It strives for mimesis rather than pantomime. On the other hand, the plumbline poet (Bard o'th' Plumbline, BP, BeeP) is not merely sober, dull, strenuously industrious. Poetry is recognized as paradoxical—as a conjunction of opposites—as old and new, experimental and traditional, funny and sad, simple and complex, personal and public, unique and common.
Here's a copy of my reply to Mr. Gould—although I've added a number of links and made a few small emendations:
Hello, Mr. Gould—
I have to say I'm flattered to be invited but will have to say no.
First of all, I'm simply not a joiner. Woody Allen said he wouldn't join a club that would have him as a member, and I feel pretty much the same.
Second, I simply don't agree with your desire to produce "poetry which exhibits a stylistic 'mean between extremes'"—poetry that is "normative, middling, equable, objective, comprehensive, inclusive, disinterested." By way of explanation let me address these qualities individually.
"Normative," deriving from the Latin norma, "a carpenter's square," I find too confining. What about round poems? Or designedly rough poems?
"Middling" I understand as "average," poetry that is "neither very good nor very bad," and that is certainly not the kind of poetry I want to write or read.
Nor do I want to write or read "equable" poems that are "calm and even-tempered" (at least not most of the time).
I simply don't believe in "objective" poetry, since all poems worth the name are maker's distillations and bear the distinctive mark of their maker, which is why the poetry I care for is also not "disinterested."
That leaves "inclusive," by which I assume you mean "deliberately nonsexist"; I think that's all right, but it smacks too much of the censor, and since I oppose censorship of any kind I'm even leery of "inclusion"!
You can see that I have a contrarian nature. It's probably this that leads me to smile when you speak, in your "Inaugural Message," about "the plumbline poet (Bard o'th' Plumbline, BP, BeeP)"; I smile because when I consider "BP" or "Beep," I think of the great Karl Shapiro, who used "BP" and "Beep" as tags for his "Bourgeois Poet." I'm sorry to say that the "Plumbline School" feels bourgeois in the sense of "conventional." And I have to wonder: What about Rimbaud? What about Parra? What about Enzensberger? What about Whitman? I can't imagine any of them in the Plumbline School....
Anyway, I hope I haven't come across as contentious. And I do thank you for the invitation.
I have to add that I was invited to join The Plumbline School on the basis of this earlier post, which makes me wonder just how often I'm failing to myself clear. Or maybe it's just the fragmentary nature of blogs. Surely if Mr. Duemer had read more of The Perpetual Bird, he would have understood how poor a fit I'd be for his school. Wouldn't he?
what if this plumbline is a convoluted call for 'clarity?'
ReplyDeletemiddling is, of course, an irony, as is the sense that any school actually has good poets AND adherence to any of its tenets (how good of an objectivist was WCW (he was a good one at his worst, i guess)).
the best irony is woody allen's, though, because of course there is a lot more between the lines than simple contentiousness--if he's suggesting that he'd rather be in a club that excludes 'his kind.' it reminds of karl rove's remarks about obama during the election: that he thought obama was like some country-club elitist, in the clubhouse looking down his nose on the hoi polloi (i'm paraphrasing, to rove's benefit, i think). rove is doubly mean and stupid, and allen is doubly the wiser. no matter how ironic allen is, however, i have to say that i've avoided all his movies, since sometimes there are are higher moral prerogatives than art or wit.
Joseph,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Karl Shapiro reference! That's very interesting. Being "bourgeois" is so very radical these days.
But let me ask you - what do you think Whitman was referring to, when he wrote (in "Starting from Paumanok"):
"O such themes--equalities! O divine average!"
- because this is what we're talking about with "middling".
By the way, it's "Joseph Duemer". You should read more carefully, before you ask others to read you more carefully.
sorry, joe, i'm gonna get off your back.
ReplyDeleteif pressed, i guess i'd take your position. and...i am.
Joseph,
ReplyDeleteI want respond a little more.. & I do appreciate your careful elaboration of differences over the vocabulary. For taking it seriously.
"Normative" : by this I mean a poetry that has some appreciable relation - pro or con - with generally-understood, basic human ethics. Much poetry of the last century seems more interested in forming its own autonomous self-centered cosmos.
"Middling", yes, means average : but here not in regard to aesthetic quality, but again, with reference to the "golden mean" of humane ethics (see Plumbline post on this topic).
"Equable" : similar to above, but also, in the case as an aesthetic quality. Poetry which evidences an awareness of the possibility of equilibrium or balance between opposing elements. There is always another side to the story.
"Objective" - here we clearly diverge. While I agree with you that every work of art is suffused with its distinctive maker's mark (see comment to J. Duemer post at the blog), I think the old quarrel between romanticism & classicism as a basis in something integral to art in general : I think there is an instinctive, natural objectivity involved in the making of beautiful things, which must be brought into some kind of relationship with the individual personality of the artist.
By "inclusive" I was not thinking about sociological issues, or POLITICAL inclusiveness (though I'm all for democracy). I was thinking more in the sense of Shakespeare's or Whitman's universality - their capacity for empathy & breadth of vision. Poetry not so much about its own processes as about the wider world.
As stated in the inaugural post, the principles of the "Plumbline" are incipient, under development, subject to change. But this is how we started out.
Joseph,
ReplyDeleteI want respond a little more.. & I do appreciate your careful elaboration of differences over the vocabulary. For taking it seriously.
"Normative" : by this I mean a poetry that has some appreciable relation - pro or con - with generally-understood, basic human ethics. Much poetry of the last century seems more interested in forming its own autonomous self-centered cosmos.
"Middling", yes, means average : but here not in regard to aesthetic quality, but again, with reference to the "golden mean" of humane ethics (see Plumbline post on this topic).
"Equable" : similar to above, but also, in the case as an aesthetic quality. Poetry which evidences an awareness of the possibility of equilibrium or balance between opposing elements. There is always another side to the story.
"Objective" - here we clearly diverge. While I agree with you that every work of art is suffused with its distinctive maker's mark (see comment to J. Duemer post at the blog), I think the old quarrel between romanticism & classicism as a basis in something integral to art in general : I think there is an instinctive, natural objectivity involved in the making of beautiful things, which must be brought into some kind of relationship with the individual personality of the artist.
By "inclusive" I was not thinking about sociological issues, or POLITICAL inclusiveness (though I'm all for democracy). I was thinking more in the sense of Shakespeare's or Whitman's universality - their capacity for empathy & breadth of vision. Poetry not so much about its own processes as about the wider world.
As stated in the inaugural post, the principles of the "Plumbline" are incipient, under development, subject to change. But this is how we started out.
Henry, I swear it was unintentional, my misspelling of "Duemer," but in fairness, he misspelled my name too (there's no "n" in the middle). Gad! No offense intended....
ReplyDeleteI also appreciate your clarifications (especially of "inclusive") and won't quibble about them. I do think there's a lot of free-floating polemics going on, and maybe it would help if you named names. A "normative" vs. a "non-normative" ("deviant"?) poet, etc. It would certainly help.
I believe I've gotten "Duemer" corrected wherever I used it. Again, my apologies....
ReplyDeleteHello, J. H.—regarding your statement that "i've avoided all [Woody Allen's] movies, since sometimes there are are higher moral prerogatives than art or wit" ... are you objecting to his private (or all-too-public) behavior and therefore avoiding his movies? If so, so you also refuse to look at paintings by Caravaggio or read poems by Ezra Pound? Just curious....
ReplyDeleteJoseph, thanks. Yes... this matter of name-spelling... I guess it's better than name-calling... the spelling of YOUR name has also been corrected!
ReplyDeleteWe're trying NOT to be so polemical... but perhaps "normative" is a scary word. It probably helps to know that the "Plumbline" was triggered in part as a reaction against the FLARF phenomenon, which seems determinedly & vociferously NON-normative.
But the important things are not the "reactions". The exploratory posts themselves, & the interactions, are the main thing, I hope. It's just a beginning. Maybe you're right, though, & the "header" needs to be refined.
joe,
ReplyDeleteabout whose work i wouldn't consider out of distaste for the crimes of their personal lives--pound was politically perverse, which is a little different than sexual abuse. i've always thought that, as soon as woody allen dies my interest might peak. same goes for polanski. or jerry lee lewis. etc.
the idea that they're commercial artists, that so many of their peers are willing to work with them, support them, help keep them rich and popular, at the expense of equivocating themselves--that isn't to say they aren't great artists.
disgust is what holds me back.
the idea that moral character is requisite for art is passe, only i'm a poet second.
what is it i'd like on my gravestone?--that as a poet i did right by the english language, and that as a man i did right by those i loved.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI see your point, J.H., and appreciate your gravestone goal. Personally, I can't bring myself to toss out the distinction between the art and the artist, although certain artists make it very tempting. A poet friend of mine who happens to be Jewish refuses to read Pound or Eliot or Darwish. When James Dickey supported the war in Vietnam I was sorely tempted to boycott his books, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.
ReplyDeleteAnd Henry, I told Mr. Duemer in an email that I would be following The Plumbline School in the hope of finding more investigation than advocacy of "poetry = a happy medium." My intention is always to cultivate openness—by which I don't mean an uncritical erasure of differences, but a critical process of clarifying and understanding differences, without pretending to make ultimate judgments of value (always a fool's errand)....
For the record:
ReplyDelete"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."
Groucho Marx
Thanks for the correction, Gary. I've been misattributing that for years!
ReplyDelete