<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear Comrades,<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Last Friday we met to discuss Jorie Graham's most recent collection of poems, Sea Change. As a reminder Graham will be joining us for our next session on Feb 18 from 3-5 PM in 116 of the Whitney Humanities Center. Below, I will paste the questions culled and extrapolated of that generative and engaging discussion. These should give a good sense of that shape of that discussion. We will touch on these questions when the poet is with us. I wanted to also add something else that will be helpful in advance of our next conversation. At Friday's session we talked at length about how Graham's poems might sound read aloud given that she juxtaposes long lines and clipped, short lines, all held together by extremely long sentences. I found sound files online of her reading poems from Sea Change.</div><div><br></div><div>"Embodies"</div><div><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20169">http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20169</a></div><div><br></div><div>"Just Before"</div><div><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20164">http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20164</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>"Nearing Dawn"</div><div><a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20165">http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20165</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Also I'm not sure I've actually provided the official bio:</div><div><br></div><div>
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<span class="TITLE">Jorie Graham</span><br><p>Jorie Graham was born in New York City in 1950, the daughter of a
journalist and a sculptor. She was raised in Rome, Italy and educated in
French schools. She studied philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris before
attending New York University as an undergraduate, where she studied
filmmaking. She received an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa.
</p><p>Graham is the author of numerous collections of poetry, most recently <i>Sea Change</i> (Ecco, 2008), <i>Never</i> (2002), <i>Swarm</i> (2000), and <i>The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994</i>, which won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
</p><p>About her work, James Longenbach wrote in the <i>New York Times</i>:
"For 30 years Jorie Graham has engaged the whole human contraption �
intellectual, global, domestic, apocalyptic � rather than the narrow
emotional slice of it most often reserved for poems. She thinks of the
poet not as a recorder but as a constructor of experience. Like Rilke or
Yeats, she imagines the hermetic poet as a public figure, someone who
addresses the most urgent philosophical and political issues of the time
simply by writing poems."</p><p>Graham has also edited two anthologies, <i>Earth Took of Earth: 100 Great Poems of the
English Language</i> (1996) and <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5676"><i>The Best American Poetry 1990</i></a>. </p><p>Her many honors include a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship and the Morton
Dauwen Zabel Award from The American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
</p><p>She has taught at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and is
currently the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard
University. She served as a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets
from 1997 to 2003. </p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div>========================</div><div><br></div><div>Anyway, before I provide those questions, I also wanted to draw to people's attention to events happening at the end of this week that should be of special interest to people on this list. But before that, just a reminder:</div><div><!--StartFragment--><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">The Working
Group in Contemporary Poetry and Poetics meets every other <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:2.5in"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">Friday at 3.00 PM in room 116 at the </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:2.5in"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">Whitney Humanities </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:2.5in"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">Center
at Yale University to discuss<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:2.5in;text-indent:-2.5in"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">problems and issues of contemporary
poetry within international alternative and /or avant-</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:2.5in;text-indent:-2.5in"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>garde traditions of
lyric poetry. All are welcome </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:2.5in;text-indent:-2.5in"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>to attend.</span></p>
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</div><div>Thus,</div><div>Richard Deming, Co-coordinator</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>+++++++++</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><p><strong>The Graduate Poets� Reading Series presents: Christian Hawkey</strong></p><p>7:00 pm, Thursday, February 10th<br>Linsly-Chittenden, Room 317<br>63 High St., New Haven, CT</p><p><strong><a href="http://www.wavepoetry.com/authors/28" target="_blank"><font color="#003399">Christian Hawkey</font></a> </strong>is the author of <em>Petitions for an Alien Relative</em> (a chapbook by hand held editions, 2010), <em>Ventrakl </em>(Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010), <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Christian-Hawkey/dp/1933517166/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282745125&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><em><font color="#003399">Citizen Of</font></em></a> (Wave Books, 2007), <em>Hour, Hour</em>, a chapbook which includes drawings by the artist Ryan Mrowzowski (Delirium Press, 2006), and <em>The Book of Funnels</em> (Verse Press, 2004), winner of the 2006 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. In 2006 he was given a Creative Capital Innovative Literature Award and he has also received awards from the Poetry Fund and the Academy of American Poets. He teaches at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.</p><p>Books will be sold at the reading, Cash or Check Only. For more information, please email Justin Sider (<a href="mailto:justin.sider@yale.edu">justin.sider@yale.edu</a>) or Sarah Stone (<a href="mailto:sarah.stone@yale.edu">sarah.stone@yale.edu</a>)</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>++++++++</p><p><div style="font-family: Arial; "><b>New Writing in German / Neue Literatur at Yale</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">You are invited to a one-day set of workshops and readings by 6 of the best up-and-coming German, Austrian, and Swiss novelists. </div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Please join the Yale Department of German on <b>Friday, February 11th from 1-7pm in Room 309, Wiliam H. Harkness Hall</b>, </div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">as they welcome: <h4 class="sites-embed-title"></h4><div class="sites-embed-content sites-sidebar-nav "><ul jotid="navList"><li class="nav-first"><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px; "><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/festivalneueliteratur/home/dorothee-elmiger" jotid="wuid:gx:3efa734753788a39" class="sites-navigation-link">Dorothee Elmiger</a></div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px; "><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/festivalneueliteratur/home/andrea-grill" jotid="wuid:gx:319cd86840c0bf7f" class="sites-navigation-link">Andrea Grill</a></div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px; "><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/festivalneueliteratur/home/julia-schoch" jotid="wuid:gx:57e290ebde561584" class="sites-navigation-link">Julia Schoch</a></div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px; "><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/festivalneueliteratur/home/antje-ravic-strubel" jotid="wuid:gx:3edd5417a20559c7" class="sites-navigation-link">Antje R�vic Strubel</a></div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px; "><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/festivalneueliteratur/home/peter-weber" jotid="wuid:gx:5c7bab80fbe56316" class="sites-navigation-link">Peter Weber</a></div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px; "><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/festivalneueliteratur/home/andrea-winkler" jotid="wuid:gx:397b2d96573d61b7" class="sites-navigation-link">Andrea Winkler</a></div></li></ul></div><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">who will discuss their recent work and the state of the novel written in German today. </div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">1:00pm-5:15pm <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>Workshops <u>in German</u></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">5:30-7:00pm<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>Readings/ Roundtable <u>in English</u></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">7:00<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>Reception/ Dinner</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">See attached pdf for details.</div></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">++++++</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Questions for Jorie Graham</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal">When the members of the group discussed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">Sea Change</i> at our last session, we discussed the distinctive form
of the poems. We wondered about how you arrived at the form�the juxtaposition
(or fusion of the long and short lines).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Could you say something about the process or evolution by which you
arrived at that form? We were also interested in the process of writing these
poems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Would you work on one poem
at a time?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Would you draft a whole
poem in one sitting? Which poems cam first and at what point did you have a
sense of the whole shape of the book?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">You have said that you see that form as a wedding together
of a Whitmanic expansive, vatic line and Williams�s short line that promotes a
kind of particularity in terms of one�s attention to words themselves (the line
as measure, in that sense). This acknowledgement of these two predecessors
within the very form of your work raises some engaging questions about how you
conceive your relationship to tradition, especially since both those poets
expressed the need to perpetually re-envision the present�s relationship to
what has come before. How do you think of tradition?<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </span>What role does it have in thinking about your work? And how
do you construct a genealogy that contextualizes your work (or frames the
values that you have in terms of poetry)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Expanding this issue, indeed, we noted the frequent use of
the ampersand in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Sea Change</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For many of us, this invokes the Black
Mountain Poets�and perhaps especially Olson, who also combined Whitmanic scope
and Williams�s particularity�and also history, place and the ocean�all elements
that exist within your book. Is he (or Black Mountain poetics) a conscious
influence on this form�or does he fall within the tradition of genealogy you
seem to inhabit? This is less a question about Olson per se, so much as a
question about what might be the experimental side of the American grain and
how you think of your relationship to it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Speaking of Olson, the lines raise questions about reading
the poems aloud because there can be a kind of breathlessness to the length of
the long lines, as well as the length of the sentences that are developed over
the course of your poems. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The form of the poems is consistent throughout <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Sea Change</i>, and yet thematically the
poems are often quite different. How do you think of the connection of form to
acts of perception?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In other
words, is one element of the consistency of form in Sea Change the suggestion
that no matter the situation or condition, certain kinds of movement are
fundamental to how we process experience?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>We might call this a question about the metaphysics of poetic form.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">One feels justified in asking about �the metaphysics of
form� in part because your work has consistently been characterized as
�philosophical� (for what it�s worth, googling �Jorie Graham� and
�philosophical� produces 26,300 hits).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>This term underscores the meditative element of your poems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At the same time, could you say
something about the ways that you see a poet�s role and a philosopher�s as
being in conversation, since there is a way that your poems do tend to think
about universal�or at least collective�human truths? How do these roles differ
in your mind?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Moreover, given that
so much of your book complicates faith in Art (especially, say in the poem
�Violinist at the Window�), how do you conceive of the function of the poet or
of poetry? Consider this a question dealing with the continuing challenge of
Adorno�s statement �To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.�</p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal">How would you characterize the way your own interests and
values have developed and changed over the course of your writing life?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What were the sorts of things that you
looked for in poems�your and others�when you were writing your first books and
what has changed and what has remained constant from the beginning?</p>
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