Archive for the ‘Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics’ Category
Entry 944 — Pronouncements & Blither, Part 5
Thursday, December 6th, 2012
I’m so blah today, I’m just going to post the review of the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics that I posted at Amazon yesterday:
A Short Counter-Blurb
Even I, an extreme enemy of the poetry establishment, was surprised by how poor this edition of the Princeton is. To find out how much it misses concerning what the best poets and poetry critics are doing now, read Richard Kostelanetz’s Dictionary of the Avant Gardes. For more particulars of my case against the thing, you’ll have to go to my blog. Oh, my recommendation to anyone already owning one of the very mediocre previous editions of the Princeton is not to bother with this one. It covers almost nothing new that is worth covering, is incompetent to an extreme on the few new things worth covering that it does cover, particularly my own area of expertise, visual poetry. (P.S., it doesn’t know what poetry is, its entry on that finding it undefinable.)
Quickly click the “no” button next to the question about whether or not this review was helpful to you now. The Princeton needs your help!
.
Entry 943 — Back to Pronouncements and Blither
Wednesday, December 5th, 2012
Here again is the John M. Bennett poem from yesterday’s entry:
eapt
flooded haphtic duu
stt’s yr nodte nude
)label streaming( to )ss
ed( cash an )slo
shshed( where the
moumouthless lungch
“lost’s tea cher” )fol
ded yellp(
sot ,dusty
My liking this poem started with its title. I hope to write more about it before too long, but right now I’m too far away from my appreciation zone to want to do anything here but quote from my diary entry for today, and from a continuation of that in an e.mail to Richard Kostelanetz, which I got going on after leaving John’s poem, and taking a caffeine tablet.
From my diary entry: “Each of mine days seems to be abandoning me more than the previous one did, and—lo—I feel almost nowhere in today (locution intended). I just took a caffeine tablet, after lying in bed very worn-out for a while, after spending three-and-a-half hours going to, at, or coming from, Dr. Galliano, whom I was seeing to find out if it was time for him to perform another colonoscopy on me. He spent five minutes with me after I’d waited over an hour to see him and decided I was indeed due for another one. My appointment for it is 27 December. My trip back took an extra half-hour or so because I got a flat rear tire halfway home. Amazingly, I found I had two tubes to replace the flat one with, but then found the tire itself was bald, remarkably so considering how short a time I’ve had it, and–naturally–I don’t have a replacement. The front tire seemed fine. The bald tire should get me to the bike shop for two new tires and back tomorrow.
“I’ve been getting a lot of little ideas about experimentation in poetry, punctuation, the flaws of the Princeton encyclopedia. I have a great yen to start a book called The Intelligent Person’s Guide to Poetry & Poetics that would provide superior entries on everything of value in it, except its entries on the poetry of various countries, assuming they are of value, which I doubt. My book would be devoted exclusively to poetry in English. I consider poems in other languages of no significant concern unless they do something of note that no poems in English do, and I have no reason to believe they do.
“I must be at least slightly energized to have written as much of this entry as I have, flowingly, except for more typos than even I usually make. But I don’t feel ready to try to compose an appreciation of the Bennett poem in my blog entry for yesterday that I said I would discuss today. Nor do I feel like starting the guide I just spoke of, I just feel like thinking about doing it. One thing that is holding me back is getting a better title. I want a confrontational one like An Anti-Academic’s Guide to Poetry and Poetics. I don’t like “Ánti-Academic,” though. I think because one can be stupidly anti-academic. Also, I would not be anti-academic but anti-acadumbotic; although I would also be mildly against those scholars, including many good ones, who just restate the received understanding of some field more clearly and/or completely and/or intelligently-organized. My book would hope to outdo the best of such scholars at what they do but, much more importantly, state the best understanding of the field as it currently is.”
* * *
(Interesting topic for an essay or book, a history of the four editions of the Princeton, showing how what seems important in poetry and poetics has changed over the years, among other things. I don’t have the first edition; may get it, just for the heck of it. There is probably a cheap one available, used. I suspect it’s the best of the four editions.)
If an entry on lesbian poets, why not one on baseball player poets? (not just major leaguers who write poetry, and there are some, but anybody who has played baseball, loves it, and write poems having to do with it–more, I bet than lesbian poets). Cowboy poets, for sure! Gosh, I’m retrograde. I guess I’d put up with an entry on Ethno-poetry, but barely. Actually, an entry that covered ethno-poetry, homosexual poetry, prison poetry, cowboy poetry, etc. would be okay with me, but in my book I think I’d cover all that in an entry on Poetic Content. With sub-categories? I’d have to see.
What I may do, is write something about the Princeton daily in my blog; that way, I would not be losing time from other pursuits because writing a blog entry daily is a duty I’ve assigned myself—until I can’t any longer write. (With a few time-outs for surgery or travel allowed—but discouraged since one can make entries in advance for the days one will be away from the blog.)
Note: I’ve just decided to put the Princeton Encyclopedia on my list of enemies of poetry (in the Categories section to the right).