Fooey! (II)

Double ugh. I was trying to reserve judgment on Alan Cordle's intentions, but I now see that the blast of embarrassing publicity the NYT article generated has encouraged him not to crawl into a hole (which I would probably do) but to bring Foetry roaring back--cringeworthy sign-offs notwithstanding.

It's all too obvious at this point that Foetry's methods, which claim to expose poetry's reduction to personal politics, have simply exacerbated that reduction. In both the real, evil poetry world and the mirror image Foetry creates, poets are nothing but conglomerations of connections, pedigrees and power. Foetry is the poetry world's loyal opposition: it reduces literary power to its crudest terms, and envies that power rather than seeking to offer an alternative. In that respect, at least, Thursday's foolish NYT article is correct: in the world as seen through Foetry, poets are a bunch of craven buffoons, madly scrambling for scraps that no one else cares about.

Ron is right: Foetry is just asking the wrong questions. Its "critique" has nothing to do with aesthetics, economics, or politics, but with the fantasy of any contest entrant anywhere: had things been "fair," I would have won.

"Objective" literary judgment? Come on. There's no such thing. I say that not because I think all judgments are just effects of power, but because I know that much of the contemporary poetry I value is precisely the kind that the "objective" judgment of the "best" critics says is bad.

Do the work you believe in. If you can win a Yale Younger Poets' prize by doing it, great. If not, either wait for future generations to discover your greatness or find other ways of getting things done: find other, better journals and presses, or start your own.

The crazy thing, as Ron and many others have pointed out, is that recognition in major contests is an utterly debased currency: given the invisibility of poetry in the major media and journals, you're likely gaining less of an audience (and certainly a less informed one) than by being published by a good small press.

Bottom line: Foetry changes nothing. Poets asked to be judges will pick poems in the orbit of their own aesthetic; that aesthetic is inevitably linked to the institutional contexts (universities, MFA programs, presses and journals) in which those poets exist; so even if you have a truly "blind" contest the same folks will keep winning. The rise of the MFA program just makes this process slightly more predictable. All Foetry does is give those who already possess power the ability to feel persecuted.

Which is to say: bring it on, Jimmy. Poetry needs you.

Fooey!

Ugh. The front page of the NYT arts section yesterday had me reaching for my airsick bag: there it was, an article on the collapse of Foetry. Congrats to Alan Cordle for doing the impossible: making people feel sorry for Jorie Graham.

Ron Silliman reflects a bit today on the whole thing. I already said my bit on it--almost exactly a year ago? Egads. What I couldn't have imagined with that original post was the extent to which Foetry's style of anonymous critique and "outing" would itself become the headline--quite literally.

Myopia

Updated: the link to the Myopic Poetry Series, at right. Next up: Dan Beachy-Quick and Stacy Szymaszek, this Sunday at 7.

This Isn't a War Story

but a layer of war around every hard-
boiled egg, running through what looks like
open ground
              and as if the newspaper
were striking on the hour
                            Who’s this girl’s-
best-friend, who is the next
term in the sequence
                       suffering
a term of art

                 Touch
is a sharp right
                 I know
I’m good
             a self-serve
wind brushing back the hair
of the head, the soft hair
of the face and arms
                       all tops and bottoms

I want to say: end
                   truck lane restrictions
                                           I
want to say: end
                 program
                         I want
to say: end
            to representation

WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE
                               where
each meat hangs from its own hook

Kinda Famous Asian American Writers Taking Over at Iowa

Okay, I'm just seeing how long I can keep this title thing going. But there's hasn't been much discussion about the fact that Lan Samantha Chang has been named the new director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. That's kind of cool. I guess it just goes to show that if you become a famous Asian American novelist, you will be rewarded by being forced to run an MFA program.

Freaked-Out Asian American Writers at Indiana

Strange experience of scrolling through Ron Silliman's blog and suddenly seeing a Chinese face starting out at me from the screen: the uncanniness of this must say something about how rare it is.

Anyway, it turns out it's a link to an account of a minor Li-Young Lee freakout during a reading in Indiana; the subsequent discussion expresses admiration for his cheekbones.

Experimental Asian American Writers at Northwestern

This weekend's Asian American Studies conference at Northwestern University (located, as the university's website likes to say, in "Evanston/Chicago, IL"), which marks the 10th anniversary of the hunger strike that established Northwestern's Asian American Studies program, will feature a pretty cool reading: poets Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Tan Lin, and Brian Kim Stefans, and novelist Max Yeh. It's Saturday, April 16, 3:45-5:15 p.m., in Harris Hall, Room 108, at 1881 Sheridan Road on Northwestern's Evanston campus.