-So we've talked about some, some, roughly speaking, some Whitmanians and some Dickensonians. It's a false binarism; both poets are important--they're foundational--but we've, we've sort of roughly divided at least temporarily some of these poets into two, and I'm really curious to know what your responses are to these two different kinds of strategies. You can, you're, you're certainly welcome to state your preferences, in the crudest way that you want to. Max, where are you at this point? -Well, whereas I was initially on the Dickensonians side. I think, with these poets, I'm more of the Whitmanians. -Because? -Persuasion... Because, I mean, frankly "In a Supermarket in California" was my favorite of the bunch that we read this week, And, I think it's, it's more, if anything, it's toeing the line a little bit better between... or balancing better the sort of meta-poetics, the sort of "ars poetica" moments, and, and sort of gestures to the outside world, ... to society... -The social content .-Yeah. -I prefer, I prefer that little bit of... Not a little bit... I mean, there's a lot, obviously, here in Ginsberg... -Are you implying though, that, that Niedecker and Armantrout don't have social content? -No. -I certainly, I certainly think that they do, ... -But you like it to be more overt. -Yes. I think there is a little bit more, criticism and, well... Well, now you're making me question this! -That's okay. That's what I'm supposed to do. -There is, there is definitely in, at at least in, in Niedecker... there is plenty of mischief and, and, and implicit critique as well, but I do find it more resonating... better for me in Ginsberg. -Molly, do you think that our responses to these two styles or approaches is gendered? -Ooh...! -You didn't know I was going there... -I didn't. I had something else prepared. That's a question for Ann Maris. -I... I don't... -That is to say, what, you know, the topic we were just talking about with Max, which is their social content. -Maybe not in Corman, but in... -Sure. -But in all the others. There's social content, but it's worked a different way from Niedecker. There is really a climate of lovely radical economic refusal, and a real remaking of the way we think of life and work, there. It's very radical. -Sure. -But it's an inward turned poem. And Max prefers the... -You know, Allen and Walt wandering around criticizing the suburbs. Sorry I didn't mean to... -It's true. -But, but so do I. -I, I don't think ... -Okay. -So it's not gendered, in this sense. -Yeah. I think it's almost an introverted and extroverted type of issue. -Yes I think that "extensive" is a great word for Whitman, and "intensive" is a great word for Dickinson. Ally, your thought on the gendering? -Yeah. Just [inaudible]. I think it's interesting, kind of taking that frame and applying it to the Dickinsonian versus Whitmanian traditions. Because one of the things that struck me, is that, with, Ginsburg and William Carlos Williams, you feel more. You feel more almost the pastiche [?] Or the, y-, you know, really, you see obviously with Ginsburg, explicitly. Like, "I see you there", Whitman, but also very much in smell. Whereas, with meeting Niedecker and a bunch of these other ones, you can trace it back to a Dickensonian, kind of precedent. But at the same time, it feels very much more...you know...it feels more inherent to that specific poetry... -I think you're saying, in part, that the Whitmanian tradition is very locked into the tradition. And that the so-called Dickensonian tradition really feels fresh, and makes itself along the way. -Yeah, so, like, you know, in a gendered sense, then, it's maybe a female role of kind of rejecting tradition. Where as, you know the two, and Cid Corman doesn't fit neatly into this, but, Williams and Ginsburg are both... kind of, you know, toasting, this male tradition. -Interesting. Anna where do you want to go with this? -I'm so really in for what Ally just said. That was so interesting, ... -I mean for me I, I, I'm kind of more with Max in that I responded more to Williams and... ...Ginsburg. -Ginsburg. Just because, in terms what I like to read and what I respond to, is language and love... I like the celebration, the exhuberance of language, in both Williams and Ginsburg. What I appreciate so much about Niedecker, and, and Armantrout, and, and Cid Corman, is their way, is their ability to, to condense, I guess. Where Ginsburg prefers to be a little, more, extensive and expansive. I, I do appreciate the way that they've been able, to... -Well it's good thing you like condensation, because that's where we're going... -It is... -...in this course, as we move into chapter 2. Kristin, what do you want to do with any of this? -I guess I'll come back to Armantrout, since she was the last one we just did. But I, I really, really enjoy the way that she, uses. ...these images. And it's kind of, like, you know? In "Supermarket in California", Allen Ginsburg says he's shopping for images. Well, Armantrout is too. But I really like the way that she puts them together. And that they're, they're. It's like parataxis. Like, they're together, but they shouldn't be. -And we have to kind of figure out what, what the purpose of that is. -Interesting, because there's parataxis in the Whitmanian list. -Mm-hm. -You know, of all the items that Ginsburg finds in the supermarket. -It's [inaudible] -But it's not... -Yeah... -A crucial compositional process the way it is in Armantrout. So in a way, you're saying, yeah there's parataxis on both sides of this binarism. But it's on the Dickinsonian side that it really gets worked out as a matter of form. -How's that, does that sound right? -Yes. -That's pretty good. That's a really good point. Dave? -Briefly, about the gender issue, I think it's interesting that in the poems that are written by men, there's seems to be an underlying theme of alienation. And in the poems by women, there's a sense of control, to form. In that sense, the sort of flip-flopping that gender role stereotypes. But. -The poet controls what she can control, right? And does it with power, Dickensonian classic. One of the most powerful poets we have, who controlled the environment of her brain and the immediate environment where as when you go out into the social space you get all the frustrations of Ginsburg, Ginsburg feels because as the extensive... and "Type A-ish" that he is, he can't actually make much of a dent in a world that causes alienation. -I also don't think there's any problem in not taking sides. I think both of these different modes of approaching poetry are fine. I feel like I would sometimes prefer a beer with the Whitmanians, and sometimes a fine wine with the Dickinsonians. -[Laugh]. -Nothing wrong with that. -Hey, wasn't that little trope at the end gendered in itself? The beer, the beer with the Whitmanians -[Laugh]. -Which way does your point, your beer point tonight Dave Poppler? Down to the tavern [Laugh]. -Who's playing? -Ann Maris, do you want to crack the gendered question? -I mean, I think that all the poets show confrontation with various culturally manufactured modes of being. And so, Whitman and Ginsberg come from that with more of... their overt expressions of sexuality as queer poets. Whitman was interrogating his suburban role as a father. But I think that what's admirable in Niedecker and Dickinson was that (well, I have to disagree a little with Max)... I think they were, there is an implied and very powerful social critique in place in their poems in that they're carving a new space for women. And this... what we'd maybe even triivialized before, poem-making from a female perspective, is here given the legitimacy and the power, and the influence of a "trade" in the Niedeckerian sense, and an "ocuppation" in the Dickinsonian sense, bring it back to Armantrout. That little girl grew up into a woman, who was able to bring all these voices together. Make an identity for herself. -To bring together, and allow them to stand... ...differently. -Yes. -Yeah, that's terrific. Emily, our resident genius. -[Laugh] Thanks... I, I guess I'm still a little bit hung up on the way, and, how all these poems seem to be poking and prodding, and putting pressure on the "I". And that happened earlier, I suppose, in the last poems we read, in Dickinson and Whitman. And I'm finding myself, like Max, becoming more of a Whitmanian, I guess. I think because, ultimately, I don't like the way that "I" was sort of questioned and dissected and eventually destroyed. I, it seems so to me, that, that, that, that destruction occurred, in the way, and Cid, Cid Corman was the most moving for me, because it, posited an "I"... ...a complicated "I", but one nonetheless. And sort of rejoiced in the... sort of copresence and coexistence of author, and reader, rathar than trying to preference one or the other. And I guess that means I'm more comfortable with William Carlos William, and Whitmanian poets, because they celebrate the I, the way it should be celebrated, rather than just constantly redefine it and reconfigure it. -Terrific. I, I don't really have much to add to those wonderful statements. I just. I just want to remind all of us that the poetry that we're studying in this course is really all about here, the presence. It's about how, how the absence of the human being who created... whose hand created these things... does not prevent the ongoing present. But the ongoing present of these poems requires us to be there as well, to be here in the Armantroutian sense of "inside the imagination", "inside the legacy... that our human mothers gave us", you know, the ability to imagine something that's not real. Something that's not here. To be lost in it. To lose the self, and find a new one. Or in the Cprmanian sense of feeling myself here in the poem. Continuously again, and again, and again. To go back to the Armatrout work. I mean, that "here" is the... ...the definition of the imagination. If you can, if you can point to an object and say the word "this", then you're, you're fulfilling our referential need. Or if you can say, "There is a bus, don't cross the street you'll be run over otherwise. Then if you take the referent away and you just say "this", then what's left is creativity, I guess for lack of a better word, and presence. And that's what all these poets are trying to discover.
