<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">Dear Fellow Poeticians,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none">I am writing
for two reasons. The first is to remind everyone that we will meet this
coming Friday, Feb. 4 from 3-5 PM in room 116 of the Whitney Humanities Center
to discuss the work of Jorie Graham, specifically her recent book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Sea Change</i>. The poet herself will
then join us for a conversation on Feb. 18. I am also
writing in order to offer a report of our last session. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">On January 21, we
discussed Jack Spicer's _<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">After
Lorca</i>_, Spicer's reputation and influence has continued to flourish since
his death in 1965 (at the age of 40) and in recent years (thanks in large part
to the biographical, scholarly, and editorial efforts of Kevin Killian and
Peter Gizzi) he has secured a decidedly prominent place in the landscape of
post-war American poetry. We had settled on After Lorca for several
reasons. The book is a collection of Spicer's "translations" of
work by the important Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who was likely
assassinated in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. Spicer wove together very
faithful translations, looser translations, and poems of his own along with
letters to Lorca that articulate his poetics in prose. We noted that
there is a deep irony in the reception of this particular book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Although Spicer indicates some
frustration with the inclusion of the letters as being some form of obligatory conciliation
in order to teach people how to read the work in the sense of creating his
context for what Spicer himself seems to seek in poems (his own and, it would
seem, Lorca's) and refers to the prose as “temporary,” that the letters are the
most cited and most influential parts of the book.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">We asked the
question of why it is Lorca who serves as the book’s addressee and origin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It seems significant that Spicer, who
was himself gay, chose a very out, gay poet as a form of mentor—and indeed, one
of the speculations is that Lorca was murdered in part because of his
sexuality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Furthermore, one of Lorca’s
most important poems is a poetic engagement with Walt Whitman. Thus, Spicer is
able to create a kind of genealogy for his own poetry and his own sense of
references and context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Spicer
then broadens his points of citation and can allow for a certain distance
between himself and Whitman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Since
Spicer had strong suspicion of “the what he called the “big lie of the personal,”
it was important to not allow Whitman to be the main initiating figure, since
Whitman used the trope of the self as a way of focusing his poetics and the
lens of its sweepingly inclusive attention. Having Lorca at the center of the
book means that not only is Spicer able to translate important poems by a poet
who helps establish an alternative tradition of poetry, but also Spicer’s book
thinks through (and by way of) the trope of translation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The fractured and fracturing,
contingent bringing across of a poem from one language into another reflects
Spicer’s desire to have “real things” appear in (and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">as</i>) language and to make a poem as real as a lemon, though the
complexities of language disrupt the wholly successful achievement of that
desire. Lorca also becomes a kind of spirit haunting the work from whom Spicer takes
a kind of dictation, a way of letting larger forces speak through him (which is
a trope central to Spicer’s poetics).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>Yet Spicer’s interventions into Lorca’s poems by making adjustments
(sometimes very small, sometimes very large) indicate how his own consciousness
does assert itself, so translation is the site of negotiations of self and
other or ego and thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Recurring
tropes—say of dead girls--start to resonate with Spicer’s reference to Poe (who
believed that “the death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetic
topic in the world”) indicates how literary and cultural forbears haunt work at
even the deepest levels. These also show how the poems and the translations
reverberate across the collection as a whole, so although there is a built-in
hybridity in terms of form and voice (prose and poetry, translations and
“original” poems, one poet’s poems fused with another’s), the work holds
together in the way it enacts its poetic of translation and “impurity” and becomes an example of Spicer's belief in the serial poem. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none">But the structure and modality of the collection also becomes also then a question of influence. Indeed, we also noted how Spicer had
written an introduction in the voice of (and signed by) Lorca.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is a witty introduction in which
Lorca flutters between being annoyed, flattered, and nonplussed by Spicer and
his “translations.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On one hand
this attitude certainly reflects any poet’s since of his or her own work—that a
translation can never reflect the specific words and form of the poem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On the other hand, it also can be read
as an older poet’s suspicion of his progeny, and indeed the wittiness of
Spicer’s ventriloquism could be read as a way of demystifying an older poet and
thus an overcoming of that influence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Thus, Spicer within <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">After Lorca</i>
creates a genealogy in order to resist it and overcome it, thereby enacting an
Oedipal anxiety of influence.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">As is
evident, this is complex poetry that continues to challenge readers in engaging
and provocative ways in the questions it raises about authorship, voice,
identity, representation, and language itself.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </span>This was a terrific conversation about an important work and
it set the pace for the semester to come.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">++++++<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">In preparation
for next week, people might be interested in reading some secondary material
about Graham and Sea Change (in reviews and interviews).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Liz Gray has generously sent a file of
these that she has gathered together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>I’m including that packet as an attachment. For a reading by Graham,
people can look here for either video or an Mp3-- <a href="http://www.listeningtowords.com/lecture.php?id=1463">http://www.listeningtowords.com/lecture.php?id=1463</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:18.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
"Book Antiqua""><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:18.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
"Book Antiqua""><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:18.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
"Book Antiqua"">+++<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:18.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
"Book Antiqua";mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">And I also wanted to pass on some
news about recent work by group members.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:18.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
"Book Antiqua";mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:18.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
"Book Antiqua";mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Donald Brown, one of our stalwart
core members, recently published a very insightful review of fall WGCP visitor
C.D. Wright’s newest book </span><span style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica"><a href="http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/arts-literature-articles/c-d-wrights-new-book-length-poem-has-an-effect-achieved-by-magic-041412"><span style="color:#2350A9">http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/arts-literature-articles/c-d-wrights-new-book-length-poem-has-an-effect-achieved-by-magic-041412</span></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:18.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
"Book Antiqua";mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:18.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
"Book Antiqua";mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">And our very own Gray Jacobik has a
new book out--<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:18.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
"Book Antiqua"">LITTLE BOY BLUE </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:
18.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:"Book Antiqua"">by Gray Jacobik Publication Date:
January 2011Price: $16.00; ISBN: 978-1-933880-22-8</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">And finally, for any members who won’t be at next week’s
session because they’ll be at the AWP conference, in Washington,
DC—member-at-large Ravi Shankar offers the following event:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">“<span style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times">Friday,
February 4 · 8:00pm - 11:00pm <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times">Location:
The Biltmore, 1977 Biltmore St., DC (5 minutes from AWP)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Join the editors and authors of Drunken Boat, Defunct
Magazine, Born, and 32 Poems for an evening of readings and revelry.<br>
<br>
With performances by Ander Monson, Lia Purpura, Melanie Henderson, Patrick
Rosal, Garret Socol, Don Share, DeLana Dameron, Daniel Nester, Bernadette
Meyer, and others, including special guests. <br>
<br>
DRUNKEN BOAT is one of the oldest online arts journals, dedicated to exposure
of literary, visual, digital, and cross-media work from around the world. <a href="http://www.drunkenboat.com">www.drunkenboat.com</a>”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">However, those of you who will be in New Haven, remember:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:13.0pt">The Working Group
in Contemporary Poetry and Poetics meets every other Friday<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:13.0pt">at 3.00 PM in room
116 at the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University to<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:13.0pt">discuss problems
and issues of contemporary poetry within international<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:13.0pt">alternative and
/or avant-garde traditions of lyric poetry. All are welcome to<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:13.0pt">attend.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Onward,</p><p class="MsoNormal">Richard Deming, Co-coordinator</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br>
<br>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica"><o:p> </o:p></span></p></body></html>