Fall Colors

Autumn poetry is a dime a dozen. It is prolific I suppose because there are such quick and sharp changes in the images right before our eyes. It's easy material, but that is what makes autumn so hard to do well.
KATHLEEN JOHNSON writes in The Kansas City Star about poetry in the fall season, Midwestern autumn makes poetry resonate.

Johnson selects a few poets who have done autumn well. Marge Piercy, Sylvia Plath, Philip Miller (formerly from Kansas City), Clement Hoyt, and Ted Kooser. [click here]

I will not complete any of those sentences

I was ecstatic at the news the Charles Simic was to become the new poet laureate because I had only recently discovered his poetry and found him to be an excellent read. This week however, I read a piece in the Boston Globe that only accentuated my excitement.

David Mehegan of the globe staff wrote a piece in Simic on August 18 that provided a little more insight into Simic the laureate. Mehegan reports that Simic doesn't yet have a plan for his term but says, "All those sentences that begin with, 'Poetry must...,' 'The purpose of poetry is to... , 'Readers of poetry should...' -- 'I will not complete any of those sentences." I can't say enough about what a delight it is to hear these words.

Even after Donald Hall's tenure as poet laureate, the handcuffs that Ted Kooser slipped around poetry still leave marks on its wrists. Simic is insightful enough to see the divisiveness trying to mold and shape what poetry is or should be has brought to the art. Enough!

The Immigrant Poet Laureate

Jilly presents an interesting take on the selection of poet laureates in the U.S. While this is not totally new information to me, she has presented some good reference material and demonstrates the tendencies toward NE geographies and the male gender. Much will be made of it because much was made of it the last time, a NE male then too.

In my own humble view, there are quite a few women I believe would be excellent candidates. I am perhaps more bothered by the gender issue than the geographical one. Why? I suppose being from the Midwest I should have been jumping for joy at the Kooser appointment. It turns out that his being from a neighboring state meant little of nothing to me.

I believe what may say a lot about the latest selection, and a very positive way to view it, would be that Simic is a first generation immigrant to the U.S. This at a time when our own American culture seems to be at such odds with our own American heritage. Simic was born under the dark shadows of very troubling times in his native land. I've seen in his work a more worldly view of life and I think this is a good time for Americans to experience a poet with such background.

On another note my copy of Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak arrived on Friday.

A New Poet Laureate

It was not long ago that another blogger poet Cindy turned me on to a poet that had somehow slipped under my radar in spite of his acclaim. I've previously mentioned this in earlier blog posts. The poet is Charles Simic. Imagine my surprise when reading my e-mail, I learned that Simic has been named to fill the Poet Laureate post this fall replacing Donald Hall who will only serve one term due to his health.

This is somewhat a bittersweet moment in my view as I have especially enjoyed the Hall period. Hall was such a refreshing voice to me following Ted Kooser. Kooser is enjoyable, but in my view lacking in the depth that Hall's work shows. Additionally, while Kooser was and remains a strong advocate for broadening the consumer base of poetry, I believe he has done so at the expense of dividing those in the literary arts themselves.

Simic is an immigrant. He was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in1938. Living as a child under the shadows of Hitler and Stalin. His family came to the U.S. in 1953.

Like Kooser, Simic is not a difficult read. Like Hall, there is clearly more depth to his work. He is no Bly or Ashbery, but he is a brilliant mind and I have enjoyed what work of his I have read. I believe he'll bring a positive voice to the position.

I offer this one up to Ted Kooser to think about for a while

“I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.” ~ Socrates